Rates & Barrels - Running Bananas & Show-Me Pitches

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

Rundown2:45 A Reading of MLB Rule 5.09a (11)6:39 Steve Buscemi in Mr. Deeds & Aaron Judge's Ribs10:13 A Quick Look Back at Frank Thomas14:06 Our Memories of Ryne Sandberg Rookie Cards are Foggy18:47 Several Injury Updates25:45 Quick Glance: May ADPs29:57 Buying Clevinger as a Top-10 SP Again?33:51 Getting Rowdy39:58 'Show-Me' Pitches51:35 Eno Quits Jorge Lopez56:23 Impact of Shortened 2020 on 2021 Workloads62:49 Keeper Q & Prospect Development Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How's working from home been going for you? Remarkably Remote from GoToMeeting will help you succeed in today's new normal. In just three minutes or less, we'll share simple but helpful tips to keep you on track. From managing your motivation, workload, and relationships, to hosting and attending virtual events that keep you connected with your colleagues and clients. So check out Remarkably Remote on your favorite podcasting platform, or head to gotomeeting.com slash tips. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 96. It is May 19th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris.

On this episode, we are going to discuss several injury updates. Lots of players, of course, were expected to miss time if the season had started back in late March, but many of those players have been making progress in this downtime and could be ready to go for the start of the season. We're going to talk a lot about show me pitches. Had a great mailbag question about those. So pitches that are not used often but are putting some extra thoughts in the heads of opposing hitters. And perhaps we'll find some pitches that should be used more than they have been to this point as well.

And that might lead us to some possible sleeper pitchers along the way as well. Eno, how's it going for you on this Tuesday? Good, good. I'm trying to learn more about contracts. I'm looking at the Uniform Employee Contract, which is a 360-page document about the contract between Major League teams and their employees that is relevant to this process of starting up.

And I'm trying to decide if I'm going to read this whole damn thing or if I'm going to go find someone who knows all about it. Yeah, that second option sounds pretty enticing. Yeah, do not love reading legalese. No, not a passion of mine either, which is kind of a major roadblock if you have aspirations as a young person of becoming a lawyer and you start reading contracts and cases and the way things are written. And if you don't really get into that, if you don't like that, you're not going to enjoy being a lawyer or you're just not going to make it into law school or at least through law school.

It's hurt me a little bit as a baseball writer. Like I could be a better baseball writer if I liked reading the CBA more or if I liked reading the rule book more, I think. But it's it's just such the language is so dense you have to re-read things like I remember when that thing happened where

who was it Trey Turner got called out at first base for obstruction even though he didn't obstruct or something it was like in the world series yeah for obstruction, even though he didn't obstruct or something. It was in the World Series, yeah. Do you remember that play? Vaguely, yeah.

He didn't run in the batter's line, and he didn't obstruct on purpose, but because he didn't run in the batter's line, he wasn't afforded the protection that he would have if he had run in the batter's line, he wasn't afforded the protection that he would have if he had run in the batter's line. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. It was game six. That was the play.

And it didn't really matter much in the game, which is probably part of the reason why it sort of faded from memory. But I reread like four sections of the rule book repeatedly and came to different conclusions every time i read it and the fourth time was like i think i understand it now and uh and then on top of that i just found it kind of absurd that you know a right-hander would have to run across over to this batter's line that was in foul ground and then have to jump back into fairground

to touch the bag. It's just a weird banana you've got to run. And I guess, yeah, I guess everybody, you have to run bananas all over the field in order to hit bags and run at optimal angles and stuff. I understand that. And I understand that lefties always have the advantage of getting to first base because they're closer.

But I also do not think that was a good rule. And it, it was like, I only read like 200 words, but I had to read the 200 words like four times just to understand what they were saying. Yeah, I think the rule you're referring to in the rule book is baseball rule 5.09. It's already – it's a strange way to count things, by the way. And then like A through C.

Yeah. So this is part A clause 11, and I'm probably already botching like where exactly to find that in the rules book but that's how i'm gonna read so i'll read it real quick a batter is out when in running the last half of the distance from home base to first base while the ball is being fielded to first base he runs outside parentheses to the right of the three foot line or inside parentheses to the left of the foul line and in the umpire's judgment in doing so interferes with the fielder taking the throw at first base in which case the ball is dead except that he may run outside to the right of the three foot line or inside to the left of the foul line

to avoid a fielder attempting to field a batted ball. Yeah, yeah. And there were a couple other rules that, there were a couple other places where that interaction is covered, so that's not the only place in the rule book. But yeah, i had to read that one a few times to understand what was going on yeah always always great to have to read something several times to even really get a clear idea of what it's supposed to tell you

but hey that's how the rule book is written it's amazing people don't just read it cover to cover for joy. Let's talk about some injury updates, though, because the faucet for news has been kind of slowly turning back on the last couple of weeks. We're getting sporadic updates on players who are checking in here and there. And it's kind of funny. I thought back to the new version of Mr. Deeds, the 2002 Adam Sandler one, i don't know what's going on there it's one of the most bizarre injuries uh in the time i've spent playing and there was like a punctured lung involved like he's just walking around the punctured lung or his lungs so big that they can handle being at like half capacity yeah like one one puncture wound isn't enough to make it it's unbelievable and and the last update i was looking through the rotowire news feed just kind of compiling different things that would make sense on the rundown today the aaron judge headline

said next ct scan won't be last which is uh not great it's like oh so he's having regular ct scans now and this this originally happened late last season when he was diving for a ball like that's apparently when this injury started up and i don't know if he aggravated it or didn't let it heal by working out during the off season but he's one of the few players who has like a bone related injury that doesn't seem to be a whole lot better even if it has improved you just jog something in my head uh two things yandy diaz uh had that bone injury in his heel that took forever um and in fact um i believe that no no bone actually i think in some cases bone is bone injuries are thought to be preferable to ligament injuries because of how blood flows

to the region i believe i'm speaking a little bit beyond my expertise here, so I'm going to move on. The other thing that comes to mind is the Rick Smits thing from basketball. And Rick Smits was a good player. He was very large, very tall, and he consistently had knee and foot problems over the latter half of his career that cut his career short. And, you know, then comes Yao Ming and then comes some research that, you know, players over seven foot six or something, you know, Sean Bradley types ended up having a lot of injuries. And that correlates with some just regular research about people and weight and how long you can live at certain weights. And it follows to me that Judge and maybe Stanton, just by sheer size, are less likely to have full healthy seasons.

And it sounds like a duh when you're talking about Judge and Stanton, but what about other big players, I guess like an Alex Rodriguez type, that manage to be healthy? There's obviously an elephant in the room on that particular example, but it also has something to do with how somebody like an O'Neill Cruz may age and how he may play in terms of long-term value. Frank Thomas later in his career

dealt with a lot of injuries. He was a mass of humanity, I would say. Yes, he was. Very, very large man. He listed at 6'5 i'll take the over on on the 275 for for most of his career but uh it was funny because he was one of those players i did this retro 90s like all sports 90s draft with the rotowire podcast guys and if you take away defense which frank thomas was a below average defender at a position that we don't care that much about if you strip that away and look at what he accomplished as a

hitter he was incredible he was one of the few hitters who had a slash line in the 90s that was at least in the neighborhood of what barry bonds did in that decade and that was before bonds went into turbo bonds modeonds mode in the early 2000s. But anyway, that's my random Frank Thomas thing. Frank Thomas was the first, Frank Thomas Stadium Club 91, I think, was the first expensive card I ever pulled out of a pack. ever pulled out of a pack. That was his second year. Stadium Club was beautiful.

It was a totally new card that was just glossy and really focused on the picture versus anything else. And I'm sure they made some advancements in technology to print something nice and glossy and mass-produced that way. mass-produced that way. And because of that, I had an obsession after that with 300, 400, 500 players, batters that could hit 300, OBP 400, and slug over 500. And that informed my... About 10 years later, I started playing fantasy baseball.

That card and that slash line was still informing my choices as a fantasy baseball player. Yeah, it's pretty cool when you look back at a player like that who, in this era, would be outstanding too. Because he jumped off the page and offensively charged. Oh, what would he have done with a juice ball? Yeah. I think he's very Stanton-esque in a lot of ways and probably a notch better too when you look at the year-over-year. Yeah, because of the strikeout rate.

Strikeout rate, yeah. I mean, pitching is better now, so that would change a little bit, but I don't think it would more than double his strikeout rate. It'd probably be a push into the 20% range if he played in the modern era. Yeah, maybe. But he might also have had like a 65 homer season. Yeah, definitely had the raw power to do it.

But the card I always wanted, the Frank Thomas card I always wanted, and I had a hard time finding these as a kid, was his Leaf rookie card. I don't know where, if those are mostly sold in Canada or what the story is with that 1990 Leaf set, but that was always the Frank Thomas rookie card. I didn't see it anywhere. I didn't see it in stores. I didn't see packs of 90 Leaf available very often

and just never had a shot at getting one in my collection it's true I don't have a ton of leaf also I need to get my mom on the phone here my recollection of my baseball card collection is much more expansive than this box she gave me so I don't know if my memory is incorrect or if there's another box there floating around i'll have to see if i got a i got like a like a 19 is it is it possible 1950 bowman yogi berra wow where'd you get that uh yeah 1950 i think i have a 1950 yogi bear um i was kind of into it i i i saved all of my

allowance and bought uh cards i you know one of the ones i really remember is saving all my allowance uh to buy a i saved a week's or two weeks worth of allowance to buy one pack of 1986 tops. One pack. And there was one card in there. What did you want from that set? I'm trying to think back what was in it. Bonds? No. It was a rookie card.

Second baseman. It's too late for a Ryan Sand sandberg rookie card isn't it yeah 80 82 tops 82 tops yeah i bought an old i bought an old pack it was i was it was like 86 or 87 the guy had a box of 82 tops and it was a really bad idea it was either 81 or 82 taps it was a really bad idea to buy because it was one of those sets where there's like two good cards and there's no real reason to do it but he knew what he was doing i mean he he made some money off of those but i bought one and i pulled the uh the ryan sandberg rookie and it's um well i thought it was a one where there's like two other rookies on it, but maybe not. I'm just saying 1983 tops. But you still have that one, huh?

No, but I've got the one where there's like three people on it. Oh, I think that's Donruss. Was it Donruss? Yeah, I had a friend that had that card. I know what you're talking about. The Ryan Sandberg rookie card. I'm trying to remember who the other player was on it. I'm sure I'll turn it up on Google.

Now, Donruss, actually, you know what? That's him by himself. There was one that he had with another player on it. Maybe it's a rated rookie. It's like a rookies. It's like one of those special cards where they have star rookies next year. I can picture it. Let's see.

There was the one that had the little photo of the headshot in the lower left corner and then him hitting above it. The Donruss one is the one with the bat across the bottom and the glove to the right. I remember that one from being a kid.

I swear you were right that there is a... Maybe it's not a rookie card, though. Maybe it's like an all-star card close to his rookie season that we're thinking of. Well, I... We still have time before the season starts, so maybe we'll have one about my uh, about my card collection and, and finding out if I indeed do have more cards than I thought it or fewer. Anyway,

uh, I don't know where I go with that. Um, but yeah, I used to love collecting cards. Yeah. It's memorabilia week at the athletics. So lots of cool stories up.

There's a $50. Maybe for Thursday, I'll find out which Ryan Sandberg card that was. I also have these, you know, there's some decisions I made that I'm like, I don't know about that decision. Like, I kept all my pennants. Did you have pennants growing up?

I did. I think some of them are still in my parents' basement, actually. So I've got a chance to reclaim them and put them probably in my basement someday when I have a basement, I guess, or in a garage or something. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm looking at them like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't like, I don't even figure out what to do with them. Yeah. Like,

I don't know. Like I, like I have a Minnesota tumor. Well, pennant. Yeah. How and why did you get that exactly uh and some of them are just like kind of cheesy looking and they're pretty faded and they're just like a weird idea and i just don't i don't think

i'm going to dedicate like the top of my office the roof of my office i don't know they just i i i almost threw them out if anybody wants them i i can probably send it to them yeah no like i was kind of saying they got a story on the athletic about the 50 ebay challenge where i think you spend 50 bucks and you try to get the most interesting combination of items memor memorabilia-wise. I don't know if the pennants would make the cut. I think the stuff that they're finding is quite a bit more bizarre and rare. But I think there's probably something cool to do with pennants. So if you have an idea, if you're listening and you're like,

yeah, I did this with my pennants and it's awesome, let us know, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. The injury updates, though, that I want to talk about, mostly I just want to run through a list of names, and we'll talk about a few of the guys that are the most interesting, because some of these guys are pitchers with arm injuries, right? Like Shohei Otani, working his way back from Tommy John, but he's been throwing off a mound for, I think, about a month now, and he could be full go for the start of spring training, which was definitely not the case when spring training previously started.

We didn't know when exactly he might be ready to pitch in games. So his situation is totally different. But guys like Griffin Canning and Corey Knable and Rich Hill, those guys were all positioned to miss a good chunk of the season, probably a third of it, maybe even half in some cases. They've all got a chance to be healthy. Mike Clevenger had that knee surgery back in mid-February. He said he was feeling completely normal in late April, so he's probably the safest of all these guys. James Paxton might be relatively safe. We talked a lot about him with Derek Cardy when we

were back at labor. Jordan Hicks probably coming back in July. That's only going to be missing a few weeks potentially. Maybe he's the answer in that bullpen. We've talked about the St. Louis bullpen as a possible trouble spot. And then there are a few position players as well. Aaron Hicks, he's been making progress coming back from Tommy John as well. Might DH initially and then move to the outfield at some point. Eohanio Suarez with that shoulder surgery. He thought he might have been ready for that

March opener. That seemed like he was pushing it to me. And now the Reds do expect him to be full go if spring training gets underway next month. So as you start thinking about that group of players and other guys who were dealing with injuries, it's a pretty big difference in value because some of those names I mentioned are good players who were pretty much undraftable in redraft leagues. And now they might be mid or at least late round picks that you actually want to have. Yeah, I think I had a more qualified, well, how much will they be able to interact with their teams?

How much will they be able to do exactly what they want to with their rehab. I was more qualified about that early on because we were on such strict lockdown that it felt like, well, how much do we know about Griffin Canning if he's just throwing against the wall at home? And how many tests can he have when nobody can go to the hospital and so they have COVID and so on and so forth. Whereas I'd say now, uh, most, uh, most, most states have opened up, um, elective surgeries. Um, you, you can go to the hospital, you can get an MRI, you can get a CT scan. And I think probably baseball players had some private clinics they could go to anyway during that time. And I've talked to more player development professionals, and it's hard to get a sense of all of baseball as a monolith when it comes to this kind of thing. But most of them insist that they are in constant contact with their players and that they have a

good sense of where people are in their rehab and where they are in their, uh, their prep, their prep work. So, you know, there's some complications about admitting that publicly because no one's supposed to be working and you don't want to uh require that a player does anything that puts himself at more risk um right now um so i don't i think there's been some inconsistencies about what player development people want to say publicly and what they'll say privately but i would say i'm much more of an unqualified yes these players benefited from the time off and are probably in a good place in their rehab and are getting to the time now where they can have massage therapists

and rehab therapists and they can have those kinds of interactions in a safe manner to progress their rehab. So I think that for the most part, this has been a good. the only one i can think of is like mitch handrager had like surgery like right before this whole thing happened um and he hasn't been able to have like massage and rehab therapist but even him at this point i'm sure i haven't checked with him super recently but i'm sure that like um he's had some interaction with a rehab therapist

yeah i mean back in the first half of april he had no timeline to return to baseball activities and i would imagine that over the course of the last almost six weeks now there's probably been a little bit of progress even if the injuries he's coming back from, they still could cost him a good chunk. Not a lot of people have had the two surgeries at the same time. So, yeah, we had like back and hernia surgery. So he was always kind of a long shot. Yeah, definitely. I think of the pitchers I mentioned, the two that I'm probably the most hesitant to rely on this year are Griffin Canning and Myles Michaelis.

Because in the case of Canning, I think we talked about this at the time, the Angels, for one reason or another, have tried to delay Tommy John surgeries and have had very little success doing that. And it just seems like every pitcher coming through that org tears up his elbow and ends up going down to Tommy John at some point. So I'm just a little bit worried about him, given what he's dealing with, the treatment, and where he's at overall, even though he's making progress towards trying to pitch. Now, the other guy, I think Michaelis, it's a strained flexor tendon. A lot of times that injury kind of becomes a problem with the elbow, even though this flexor is more of a forearm sort of problem. I think those two guys just stand out to me as two that I don't necessarily have to go draft just because they're closer to being ready to contributing.

Michaelis was fairly cheap. Canning was the one where the price was inflating because so many analysts were pumping over the offseason, including myself. It's a moving target right now, price in auction, price in draft. I'm not sure what that means. I feel like, what do you think Like 80% of drafts are done? I think it's

probably 50-60%. I think it's a little lower. I think the timing of when things stopped really just chopped the number of drafts that were on schedule and completed in half. That's right because you'd like to really one of my favorite things to do

if I had total control over a draft is to have it like the last weekend before the regular season so that there's no spring injuries that pop up and you have the most information you can have. So that's probably the biggest draft weekend of the year and that was ahead of that was that was after the the shutdown and i'm looking at the nfpc adp report there have not been a lot of drafts in may understandably because if you're playing at that level you want more information there are five drafts that have been completed in may shohei otani has an adp of, just for the sake of comparison here. Griffin Canning. Is that going up? I'd have to look back at my report from last month.

I think that's a little more expensive than he was in March. Canning hasn't been drafted in all five of those drafts. The earliest he was taken, any of them, was 308. So he's still pretty cheap, especially compared to where he was before. Rich Hill is a guy that I'm pretty optimistic about pick on him yeah rich hill is early pick at 232 he's drafted in all five adp of 250 he's probably gotten i'd put an up arrow next to rich hill i would expect him to creep up probably at least inside the top 200 just because because he's one of those guys, you look at him year over year,

even though he misses time, you get elite ratios. And we've talked about the Twins as an organization that we trust with how they handle pitching. I think Rich Hill can just kind of pick up right where he left off, which is a pretty high level.

I wouldn't consider this a second Tommy John, which has a higher failure rate. I don't consider this a second Tommy John, which has a higher failure rate. I don't know if it's semantics, but this is a revision. And I think it's significantly different than a full Tommy John, because what I've read about revisions is that the failure rate is really low. So I do think there's a good chance he pitches you know what 60, 70 innings this year?

Yeah, I think that's the number you would expect from him if you're kind of putting 100 on your DeGroms and Coles. I mean you can get more than 100 from those guys but if you're just sort of projecting based on past injury histories, blisters, all the different things.

With the uncertain length of spring training, I doubt we're going to go over 100. Yeah, I think you're probably right in that those first few starts that count are probably more likely to be four- and five-inning starts than six- and seven-inning starts. You're going to have some limitations probably the first couple times through the rotation. probably more likely to be four and five inning starts than six and seven inning starts you're going to have some limitations probably the first couple times through the rotation yeah so yeah i mean rich hill like look at the ratios the last three years 366 era was the

highest in 2018 down to 245 last year the whip between 109 and 113 and you're getting more than a strikeout per inning for the innings he does give you that's a very valuable pitcher so a guy that i wasn't going near with a full season but someone i will be drafting and moving up in the rankings quite a bit as we get closer to to starting back up those projections are a little aggressive on i don't know what it is the maybe the BABIP, I guess. But the last four years, he's had basically a 270 BABIP. And everybody's projecting him to have a 300 BABIP, which I guess makes sense. But there's also something, he's very good at mirroring the spin on his fastball and curveball.

I don't think we've done a lot of interaction between that and a Babbitt. It would seem to me that that could lead to a lot of pop-ups and weak ground balls, that combination, because you're hitting under the fastball and over the curveball because you're constantly thinking, trying to guess which pitch it is, and both of them have great spin efficiency and go in opposite directions so um i i have a feeling that um he's uh going to be more like his zips projection and maybe better i mean there's all these projections for a four plus era zips has a 386 and a 122 whip i mean even that at 40 years old i feel like he can do that yeah part of it could be the league change you know bumping those numbers up a little bit but i would take under on pretty much all the

ratios that i see projected across the board on rich hill's fangraphs page right now clevenger is interesting he came up on your your aces report that we talked about last week in that he had multiple pitches that had an above average stuff score and above average command of all those pitches, right? He checked those boxes. He said he was feeling completely normal in late April after having that surgery on his knee.

I don't have any hesitation at all with Clevenger as at least a top 12 pitcher, but I think he's probably going to be inside the top 10 once rankings get updated. My only caution with Clevenger, though, is that in keeper and dynasty leagues, he's older than you realize. He's already 29 years old, so don't lose sight of that because we've only seen him for a few seasons in the big leagues. Doesn't mean he's 25 or 26. He's a few years older than you'd expect yeah age with

pitching uh it's just a tough one for me i don't really know yeah i think um looking at my list now knowing what i know about injury i would i would move him ahead of paxton uh probably ahead of Nola, Corbin, Snell so that would put Clevenger battling Flaherty and Glasnow around sort of 12-15 in there that makes sense to me

and age and pitching is a strange one for me because we know that for example that fastball velocity goes down but we also know that fastball velocity going down with age affects relievers more than starters because starters have more pitches. And it seems to me that there's a moment at which a pitcher proves that he's a healthy pitcher that has lots of pitches and can adjust season to season, and then age matters a little bit less. You know what i mean like there's something about like the interaction between track record of success and age um that people kind of overemphasize the age i mean how how many years

do we have to watch justin verlander do this before we're like you know and i even asked a person in player development like what do you think the end will look like for Justin Verlander? And how many more elite seasons has he had left? And most of them said he's going to be elite almost to the end, and it'll just be more and more injuries. So, I mean, a little bit like what we've seen with Rich Hill, right? Yeah, like obliques and forearm, elbow, whatever. Those things will start to be more of an issue. Nagging, hamstring, or quad injuries could be anything.

Yeah, it's not necessarily the big Tommy John or shoulder because they've kind of proven that they've got these good mechanics that are repeatable and they've done it for a while. It's more like just the old man stuff. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's kind of a question of well how long does he want to pitch you know that's that's part of the question there too his contract runs out after 2021 so he's got this year and next already taken care of i would assume if he's still

pitching at anything close to this level unless he's just bored with baseball, he's going to probably sign another deal and try to keep it going. I'm going to call it now. He's going to sign a two-year, $50 million deal with the Dodgers. $250 million to the Dodgers. Interesting. That way he can go to the NL, make it a little bit easier on himself, That way he can go to the NL, make it a little bit easy on himself, join a team that has historically not minded giving out short, big contracts.

I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that could definitely be the path for him. But again, keep an eye on the injury news because we're starting to get some updates on players who had been shut down and they're at least doing something. Side sessions, bullpen sessions, whatever it might be. Aaron Hicks started taking batting practice this week. That's progress. Every once in a while, I open up my teams and just look at them.

Just stare at them? I can't think of anything to do. Just stare at them. I can't think of anything to do. I picked up Rowdy Tellez in my 20-team dynasty because he got dropped for a prospect, and I'll tell you why I did. It was on this podcast that we were talking about why I picked up, why I liked Rowdy Tellez. See if I can jog my memory.

Why do you like rowdy telez it wasn't me talking about oh hard hit angle hard hit angle so it's from the the jeff zimmerman piece yeah but i've i also wrote about him i think late last season as a guy uh who had a better or in the off season as a guy who who had a better barrel rate than the power output that he gave. Yeah, 91%, or 91st percentile, that is, with the barrel rate. So 13.2% barrel rate. A 91% barrel rate would be really good.

And as a guy who strikes out 28% of the time, he fits into my high variance piece as well as the kind of guy that could like chris davis uh once had a half you you were talking about chris davis had a half where he hit like 290 and and hit like 30 homers yeah and struck out 30 of the time you're almost like well roddy telez is like a great kind of last pick kind of shot in the dark type player because if he has a great spring and plays himself into the regular DH role or whatever role it is, he could have a season where he just randomly hits all the good parts of his streaks

and hits 275 with like 20, 25 homers in a half season. with like 20, 25 homers in a half season. Yeah, and he's just very overshadowed on that team because they have so much interesting young talent around him. Quality, quality batted balls, though. I like it. And I think maybe what's lost in all of this is that they could pretty easily just let him DH. I mean, like the depth chart has Lourdes Gurriel, Randall Gritchick,

and Derek Fisher currently atop the three spots, but Teoscar Hernandez could move from primary DH to one of those outfield spots. Like Derek Fisher's tooled up, but there's no guarantee of playing time there. It's easy to see any one of those, three of those four at least, between Hernandez, Fisher, Gurriel looks safer than those two guys. I think one of those guys could flop and just leave a path to regular playing time, at least against Reddick. And if Fisher ever converts his tools into better defense, I mean, he's the guy who looks like a center fielder on this team.

So I would say that his best opportunity is to showcase better defense than Randall Gritchuk. I'm fully aware that Fisher hasn't quite done that to date, but he's really fast. And you'd think he could play center, whereas Gritchuk is not as fast and seems to miscast as a center fielder. So I would say Fisher has a chance in center. Gurriel has an injury chance. He's had a fair amount of injuries in his career so far. And Teoscar Hernandez probably has the biggest bust rate, almost as big as Tellez's.

Because as much as he's done so far for a 27 year old he hasn't who's had you know 1200 plate appearances uh he has a career 106 WRC plus and some of the worst defense in the majors and he's only put up two wins in four seasons yeah keeping him off the field could be a priority the other path of course travis shaw is is atop the depth chart at first base i mean if he can't remain have broken something he can't fix yeah if he can't rebound from last season they're not going to play him he's going to be a bench guy pretty quickly too so first base then you throw on top of all this the 50 man roster which brings basically everybody's ceiling down because they're going to do more mix and match

and brings everybody's floor up, which means that... I mean, Tellez is going to make this roster. If it's a 30-man roster with a 20-man taxi squad, Tellez is making this roster, and he's going to play. Why not? If you have room for both Hernandez

and Roddy Tellez in the roster, why not just if you have room for both hernandez and roddy telez in the roster why not just platoon them as your dh yeah exactly so still a deep league guy but yeah i think that's probably the the cutoff uh for me at this point like 15 teams or deeper but a guy who's more interesting that he probably gets credit for the black tux believes every groom deserves a better experience when it comes to finding formal wear, whether that's a suit or a tuxedo for their big day. Did you know the black tux was actually started by two guys who had one of the worst tuxedo fittings you could imagine? It turns out they aren't alone in this frustration. Just listen to these one star reviews from competitor tux shops that shall not be named.

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and enjoy 10% off with the code DRAFT. That's TheBlackTux.com with the code DRAFT for 10% off your purchase. The Black Tux, formal wear for the moment. All right, you know, the question we got this week in our mailbag that inspired a good portion of our show came from Isaac, and it was the question about show me pitches uh isaac wrote in a recent episode you talked about mitch keller having a show me pitch in his arsenal i've definitely heard the term show me pitch used a lot i've always assumed it means a pitch you don't use very often whose purpose is

to add an extra layer into the hitter's thought process is that what a show me pitch really is because if a show me pitch is just kind of a not very good pitch that a pitcher will throw from time to time i wonder if it's actually a good idea to throw a show me pitch if you could define what constitutes a show me pitch as in a pitch that's thrown five percent or less or whatever it might be i wonder how those pitches would rate out across the league thanks love the show isaac so I think step one, how do we want to define a show me pitch? I want it to be more than 5%, but less than 10%. The reason for the 10% cutoff is steeped in research. Mitchell Lichtman did some research that proved that if you add an extra pitch that you throw more than 10% of the

time, you soften the three times through the order penalty. So I feel like over 10% is generally my idea of you have that pitch, you use that pitch. If you threw a hundred pitches, you threw 10 of them. That seems significant. And there's this research saying that throwing something 10% of the time gives you tangible value. So that would be like owning a pitch. Less than 5%, I feel like there's error in describing the pitch. What is it called? Pitch classification error, basically. Where sometimes it'll show up that a guy throws a cutter 3% of the time, but there's really just a bunch of, uh, sliders that looked a little

different, you know? Um, so I don't really, and that's in like a hundred, you throw a hundred and you threw them twice. Um, you know, that, that doesn't seem like you're really doing much with it. It's a fairly tight range, 5% to 10%, but it actually produces good results if you look at it. We're going to focus on a change-up, but show-me curves include Kyle Hendricks' curve, Lucas Giolito's curve, Kenta Maeda's curve, Martin Perez' curve, Anibal Sanchez' curve, Wade Miley's curve, Kenta Maeda's curve, Martin Perez curve, Anibal Sanchez curve, Wade Miley curve. A lot of those curves are like thrown by changeup guys. And it's like maybe something that's of a

similar speed to their changeup, but or maybe even slower and just looks different. And so that can keep somebody from identifying their changeup faster or sitting changeup or whatever it is. So I think that the definition was okay. And generally what a pitcher is trying to do with it is, yeah, just put something else in their mind so they can't just eliminate and get down to he's either going to throw me a fastball or slide over this count. And I think that they go to it more often when they see people kind of key-holding.

It's called key-holding them. When they see people maybe take really confident swings on a certain couple pitches, they have to say, okay, I need to get in their head more. I'm going to throw a curveball now or I'm going to throw a changeup now. It's not my best pitch, but it's something totally different that they don't expect. Yeah, I like this concept a lot, mostly because I think what we're going to find as you put the research together and kind of got this ready for the show, there are some pitches that are not used a lot that could be used more, and that might point us to guys that

would have one more really effective tool to use going forward. would have one more really effective tool to use going forward. So what were some of the more interesting show-me pitches that you found as you put this together? Okay, so I looked at pitchers, change-up pitchers, between 5% and 10%, and I found about 13 of them. And in terms of swinging strikes or whiffs per swing, they got 27%. The average is 29%.

In terms of called strikes, they got 40%. The average is 40%. And in terms of stuff, they rated it a 95 collectively. So below average stuff, not a great pitch, but able to get some called strikes on it because you get some people frozen saying oh man he threw a change up he never throws a change up but below average whiffs per swing once they swing it matters that it's not great stuff so I think that that's that that fits the definition the outcomes fit the definition the players fits the definition. The outcomes fit the definition.

The players fit the definition. The show-me change-ups came from pitchers like Zach Eflin, Julio Teran, Chris Bassett, Shane Bieber, Zach Wheeler, Trevor Bauer, Mike Fultenevich.

So these are players that are known more for their breaking balls as a group and don't have maybe standout change-ups, but use it to decent effect. I mean, to get nearly average results from below-average pitches, that's what a show me is you use it you don't use it so much that the bad stuff on the pitch shows up and people start looking for it and hitting it uh but you use it enough to get steal a called strike here or there uh maybe steal a whiff when they get badly fooled yeah it makes me just think of the worst pitches in the

big leagues and the problem might be that not they're not just necessarily bad in terms of actual movement or velocity but they might just be used so much that hitters know they're coming and that it completely craters their effectiveness yeah there's a total relationship there where you can't always say, you know, this is a really good pitch, you should throw it more. It doesn't always work that way because there's an equilibrium that's found between the batter's expectation and the pitcher's sort of raw, natural stuff on the pitch. So, for example, the worst rated changeup on here is Sensatella's.

It got a 67 stuff plus from the driveline number, which is really, really low. And yet he got a 45% called strike rate on it versus a 40% average on changeups. So if he was able to put it in the strike zone, he would get some called strikes out of it because they just didn't expect it. The best changeups by Stuff Plus are interesting. Shane Bieber got a 111. Trevor Bauer got a 106. Boyder got a 107. And Hauser got a 104.

So those are the best overall. Garrett Coles is league average, and he got a lot of whiffs off of it. I think that's just because people are trying to gear up for that fastball. So the overall fastball velocity has a lot to do with what the outcomes are like. But Boyd got good results on his changeup, and I would say that he got 38% whiffs per swing and 29% was league average. And we saw him working on it in the spring, hardcore, to the point where he was doubling up hitters on changeups,

just to see how that would work. And the change-up had significantly different depth and shape to it. And it was already rated one of the best among the show-me pitches. So I would say that if there is upside for Matthew Boyd this year, it comes from that change-up. I think the Shane Bieber thing is really interesting to see that he got below average results on the changeup, but rated by stuff, it was the best changeup in the sample. So as much as people worry about Shane Bieber, there might be another wrinkle to Shane Bieber still coming.

I'm kind of blown away by that because my takeaway from Bieber has been last year was great, but what more could this guy possibly do? Like, how could he sustain that? He's already exceeded expectations, you know,

relative to what everybody thought he was going to be by such a wide margin. Like, how could there be another level up? I mean, you move him up further and he's cracking the elite of the elite. Yeah, I think there's arrows going in different directions. I think he's...

I am a big believer... Sorry. I think that the regression arrow is pointing one direction. Yeah, like, you know, maybe more home runs or fewer strikeouts or something. Maybe worse luck on balls in play. He had like a.356 BABIP in his first year, and he's always in the zone and has had some high BABIPs in the minors. And like I could see that maybe.

So I see some regression coming for him, but I also see potential in the changeup and in his second half in the way that he avoided the hot zones, the middle of the strike zone better. He pitched on the edges more often in the chase zone as opposed to in the heart of the plate, and that he has the great command to take advantage of those strategies. So, you know, you add in the changeup and the better fastball location, and I see an arrow going the other

direction. And so I don't necessarily think he'll have a.328 ERA and a and a 105 whip again but uh i'll take the under on his projected basically 3637 era um and say he ends up a lot closer to what he did last year uh than you know some big regression monster coming for him he has he has other wrinkles he has other things he can do still right and if you can command things as well as shane bie Bieber command things that's a really nice advantage to have I mean I I'm looking back at his minor league numbers too he did such a great job keeping the ball in the park everywhere he pitched in the minors like really like extremely low home run rates and maybe this is a pitching version of the hitter k rates conversation where there's something you can do in the minors that

keeps the ball in the park that is not going to be nearly as effective against big league hitters right there's just a certain type of pitcher who gets away with things at those levels that you're just not going to get away with it could be a guy who fills up the zone it could be people in the minors sort of you know working on on, working on strike zone recognition with sub-average umpires behind them, kind of trying to guess at the zone. And this guy is like Joey Votto from the pitching side. But I think the 130 home run thing, the 1.3 home runs per nine last year, I think that's going to go down. That's encouraging because he does pretty much everything well already or very well kind of across the board. Anything else that jumped out at you before we started recording it? You brought up Jorge Lopez because I think you like to bring up Jorge Lopez a lot.

I don't because I know I'm going to be wrong. I know that this is striking me as my Alan Webster thing again where there's something I'm missing about Jorge Lopez. The numbers are missing, and I'm going to be wrong, so I'm not going to talk about it too much. You know who might have that secret sauce for you is the Brewers. They traded him away. I don't know. They seem to have a good time. Yeah, that's not a good sign either, man. The Brew they traded him away like they i don't know like they seem to

yeah that's not a good sign either man the brewers traded you away and they need pitching and they are the masters of taking you know raw stuff and and and molding it into into better pitchers than you'd expect i think and they decided not to do that with Jorge Lopez who has like a power sinker a power curveball and a by this 101 stuff stuff plus change up that he doesn't throw very often but I think it may have to do with command rates within it like I think he has some command of some pitches so he he shows up as having okay overall command, but he doesn't have good enough command of all of his pitches to actually throw them when he needs to throw them and throw them where he needs to throw them. I bet you he gets beat up on certain pitches.

Also, sinkers are out of favor. Maybe there's just something about the interaction of his sinker stuff and his command of the sinker that just doesn't work. I don't want to, I just don't want my name associated with him anymore. I'm like, I have a feeling I'm wrong about him. I just, I do have to mention him because, because every time I do any kind of sort, I'm like, oh God, Jorge Lopez is on this again. I'm like, oh, God, Jorge Lopez is on this again. I mean, he underperformed at every level for the K rates and walk rates and home run rates that he was putting up.

Like his ratios were always worse than his FIP with the exception of one really good year at AA in 2015. Like that's the only minor league season where you look back and go, hey, he was really good that year. And yet, even with that, he was always flirting with the back of top 100 prospect lists and probably one of those guys. Yeah, it's maybe a little bit like the Ronaldo Lopez problem too, where there's stuff that stands out that looks like it should work, and in unison, it just doesn't work. And deconstructing it's tough my my my favorite uh prognostication for him now is that i think he can be a pretty good reliever uh and i don't think

that's really going out on too much of a limb considering he sat 94 as a starter so like if he can sit 96 97 on a power sinker uh and focus just on that curveball maybe that he can command better, I think there have been worse pitchers that have turned into better relievers. So I think he'll be a good reliever. Mike Fulton-Avich stands out to me a little bit because he had an 89-stuff-plus changeup, but he got 35% whist per swing versus 29 average, 51% called strikes versus 40% average. So he gets a lot out of a change up that he throws 9% of the time. He just seems to know when to throw that. It's not a great pitch,

but that's a show me pitch. If you want to see show-me pitch, watch Mike Voltenavich throw a change-up. That's the definition of it. What we're trying to look for is kind of change-ups that have a little bit more upside. And those change-ups to me are like Bauer, Bieber, maybe Adrian Hauser having one is an interesting thing, and definitely Boyd at the top of the list. Yeah, I think I remember you saying Boyd's been trying to get that change up to play up a bit for a while now.

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ED, go to GetRoman.com slash rates for a free online visit and free two-day shipping. That's GetRoman.com slash rates for a free online visit and free two-day shipping. All right, you know, pitcher workloads have been a topic that have come up a few times on this show, probably in the last two months or so. We had a question from Mike in New Jersey. He wanted to know, what impact will a shortened 2020 season have on workloads for 2021 for different classes of pitchers? So will it be difficult for guys like DeGrom and Buehler, Bieber,

to get back to the 200-innings pitch level after a shortened season? And does this reset innings counts for guys who were climbing and developmentally were trying to get to the 120 to 150 range? He cites like AJ Puck and Jesus Lizardo, assuming they even approach 100 or 110 innings this year so you know overall how does this potentially impact 2021 workloads because in mike's case he's in a keeper league race to decide on holding players that you know sort of elevated prices and if there's a belief that this is going to have a carryover effect of some kind maybe trading those guys away or at least not keeping them at their full price is something that he's going to have to think about. I would not be concerned about it. I would just generally bucket this as something that we can't know, that we won't know, and that we shouldn't get too concerned about. And this is why. So on the younger guys, there is maybe some concern that they won't just you know like when they when we we go to the arizona fall league every year and they send the younger guys there

just to know what it's like to to play 162 to play deep into the year to play every day for a long period of time that that is a general thing that is for hitters and pitchers. They send them to the Arizona Fall League so they can be tired, so they know what it's like to play tired and to extend a season out like that. There may be some concern that someone like a Luzardo or Puck won't get from this season that experience of being with the big league team for a full season. However, of being with the big league team for a full season. However, I don't think that it will necessarily, I think that the way that people think about workload now is a little bit more about your training,

like how much you do to prepare versus how much they ask of you in peak. It's called acute to chronic ratio. So game day is a certain amount of stress and you have to make sure that you build to the game day stress using, like building up your stamina. So, you know, I was looking at this when I was running.

And so in order to run 13 miles, you have to run some peak stuff before that. You have to run some eights or some sevens, and you have to get there. But you also have to run a bunch of threes and fives, what they call as-you-feel days, where you go out there, and you run, and you feel your body, and you're pushing your entire fitness forward, but you're not doing that acute stress, which is game day stress, the peak run. You're not doing that. So the way that

people think about workloads and stress is more on the sort of ramping up and ramping down philosophy. So I don't think that there's too many teams that are obsessed with like 125 or this or that. I think it's more like, you know, can we get him ready? Is he stretched out? If he is stretched out, how long do we want to be stretched out? If he is stretched out, how long do we want to be stretched out? And then we have to bring him back down again. And that's, that's, I think how people, at least on the player development side, think about, about workload stress. You have to put that in with the idea that like, Luzardo may not get a full season, but I don't think that, let's say we had a full season this year

and he threw whatever he threw, I don't think they would throw him in the 220-inning bucket next year anyway. You know what I mean? I think it's sort of just a gradual process of lengthening where it's almost like lengthening for a start on a seasonal level. You kind of lengthen them for a season on a career level.

And so I think maybe there's a little bit of setback, but that's lengthen them for a season on a career level. And so I think maybe there's a little bit of setback, but that's going to be for all young pitchers. I can't imagine any young pitchers are out in front of other young pitchers on this way, unless they're like Paddock and had a full season the year before. Now for old pitchers, I think that it'll be mostly irrelevant because they will get up to the point where they can handle the acute stress. They'll pitch for a while and there'll be actually fewer chances for them to be injured as long as they follow their process and don't get stressed out too much. And I think if you're reading between the lines there and saying there's too much BS in this answer, I agree with you.

I think that we just don't know. And I don't know that you can separate out any group and be like, this group is going to be fine and this group is not. I think it's going to be a very unique picture-to-picture thing. But I can't imagine a Jake DeGrom is going to throw 160 innings in 2021 because he only threw 100 innings in 2020. I just – I don't see that happening. No, I mean it's possible that fewer acute tests of workload would make the increased number of tests in a future year – make those guys more susceptible to injury or something random like that. But it's – yeah, I don't think it would be by design. They say, oh, we can't push him as hard,

or we don't expect that to be something he can do. So I wouldn't – The only other caveat I have and also does not apply to Jacob deGrom is that I do think that we are going to go even further into kind of bullpen game territory this year, especially if pitchers are coming off a shorter spring and rosters are expanded. Now, I don't know how much of that will carry over to 20. Like, are we going to just go back to 26-man rosters in 2021?

And if we do that, does that eradicate most of the bullpen stuff? But I do think we're going to see a fair amount of bullpen games this year. Yeah, I think that's pretty pretty clear especially early in the year but i think with expanded rosters teams that don't have five good starters can cobble it together a bit more and perhaps again some of those middle pack teams that have increased playoff odds can actually find a way to win uh whereas previously maybe that wasn't on the table because they couldn't manage their entire staff quite the same way again kind of an extreme example but just one way that a team that wouldn't on the table because they couldn't manage their entire staff quite the same way. Again, kind of an extreme example, but just one way that a team that wouldn't have been a playoff contender over 162 could get there in 82 games. Thanks a lot for the question, Mike.

There's a keeper question from Dustin that came in. He can keep two prospects on his roster for the future. A bunch of good names. Royce Lewis, Kelnick, Julio Rodriguez, Christian Pache, Matt Manning, Luis Patino, Sixto Sanchez, CJ Adams, Joey Bart were the names he sent us. Julio Rodriguez is kind of in a class of his own.

I know that you tend to be looking more for the guys who are ready to go and not stashing away, but he's got dedicated prospect spots here. Julio Rodriguez, to me, is going to be a star. And I don't know if we can say that about anybody else on this list with as much certainty.

I think Royce Lewis and Jared Kelnick are the two guys I'd be thinking most about for that second spot, though. Do you have a lean from anybody else on that list, or Kelnick or Lewis for the second spot? This looks familiar. I I maybe answered it on Twitter. But yeah, I zoomed in on Kellnick and Rodriguez as my two. The thing that might separate, if I had to pick one, I think that would be difficult because they are so different. Kellnick is more ready. Julio probably has more ceiling.

Kellin steals some, which is something I look for. But Julio might be able to put together a good strikeout rate with awesome power. I'm not saying he's Juan Soto, but there might be a little bit of that in his future. So between the two of those, I feel really good. Royce Lewis and Pache. Yeah. Are close-ish, but they still have things they need to do.

Right. Like, Kalashnikovs haven't done anything wrong yet. And they, they could just continue this all the way to the major leagues. Lewis and Pache have to kind of, at least when it comes to results, have to kind of make some changes, make some adjustments.

People think they can, but they still have work to do, in other words. Witt is further away. Bart is a catcher. Abrams is the – I might put them ahead of, ahead of Lewis and Pache just because he kind of gives me a little bit of that Julio Rodriguez ceiling feeling. But I, you know, about Abrams and you might have to think about this in terms of what's going to happen this year without a minor league season.

So you have a 50 man roster and I'm'm gonna have to write about this at some point but you have a 50-man roster that you have 30 uh players in the big leagues and you have 20 you have this 20-man taxi squad uh and the taxi squad so you're gonna have two things you want to do with the taxi squad one is uh have players that are there for your major league team to step in basically have injury replacements. And that's going to be, you're going to think that there's going to be a lot of injuries this year. So that's,

I would say is going to take up 17 to 19 out of the 20 spots. Our players, you think could come up and play for your major league team. If you have an injury, I think that's going to be a huge part of the 20 man taxi squads. The other part, and I was talking to someone about one of the players on this list in particular and the 20-man roster, and they said, oh yeah, he might be our 20th man. So the other part is they're not going to have a minor league season. They're not going to have

the same development process. You might want to take some of your best prospects. And so somebody like Wanda Franco, like maybe he could be a 20th man for the Rays just because you want him around the big leaguers. You want to keep them developing and you want to keep them going. You know, I think Abrams could be a 20th man.

Bart could be a 20th man. You know, most of this list could be a 20th man. Bart could be a 20th man. Most of this list could be a 20th man. I don't know if Witt will be because are the Royals in a place where they really want... What's the Royals' calculus going to be between winning now, having players that are ready now,

how much they want Witt around? But there is going to be something that happens this year where non-elite prospects are just going to lose a full year. Yeah, and that's going to be, I think, really tricky, as you said, for the guys who were drafted in June, figuring out which of those guys are actually ready. The college guys, you can kind of see it. High school guys.

What's Torkelson going to do this year? I think this is a terrible year. You know, in every Dynasty League, or, you know, in every Dynasty League, they can do this, where you can gather players before they're drafted. I always look at that strategy and say, good on you.

I'm not going to participate. Yeah. Because I just feel like you have to get like the first yet, not even the first round. You have to get like the top. You have to get one of the top 10 guys to get it right. And then this year in particular, it's just devastating, I think, because they're just going to lose a full year of development. I think because they're just going to lose a full year of development. Um,

and we've never had this in the history of baseball where like people didn't play baseball. It's not that they were injured. They just didn't play baseball. Just breaks for the first time for 10, 15 years for some of these guys, like they were five or six years old and that's what they did every summer. It became a year round thing and now it's just not there. Maybe it could be good. I mean, maybe they, yeah playing since they were five or six years old and that's what they did every summer eventually it became a year-round thing and now it's just not there maybe it could be good i mean maybe they

maybe they have good health outcomes later because they just took a year off but uh i mean they're gonna train but they're not gonna they're not gonna have full-time play i mean i wonder if like all their strikeout rates go through the roof when they first come back because they just haven't seen elite pitching for a while so i um i don't know i i think if uh you were if like torkelson was on this list i might say i'd take kellenish and rodriguez over him because i just you know not getting any information about a player for a full year just uh gives me the willies yeah you know for me kellenic versus lewis i i think because roy because Royce Lewis was a little bit below average at high a and double a as a hitter last year that's enough for me to go ahead and say

Kellnick's the better option he's 20 better work to do right three percent yeah like he's he's closer from an offensive standpoint Royce Lewis might be the better long-term big league player because he can play more spots he could play up the middle in the infield but there is a risk that bats the mariners have this 20th man strategy and one of those mariners you don't get any information from but at least you have the information they put up already in the minor leagues which uh suggests that both of them are going to be special players i think i'll try to be succinct i think any team who isn't playing for right now that leaves guys that are near big league ready off that that extra 20 group they're making a huge mistake development probably it's like you invite young prospects to spring training or you give them

september call-ups in the past because you want them to be around the veterans you want them to be in that environment coaching sometimes is better at the big leagues. And then you'll get knowledge from other players like pitch grips and approach tips. Yeah, so use those spots. Sure, you want to use some of them to have reinforcements, like you said. But if you're not playing for this year

and a bunch of outfielders get hurt and you have to throw Rodriguez or Kelnich on the roster for a little while, is that the worst thing ever? No. You lose a little bit of service time. But in the grand scheme of things, you still want to make sure these players develop correctly. And you want them to be ready when your team is ready to be competitive again.

And to not include them on the expanded rosters, I just think that's really short-sighted. And it's going to end up hurting you more than saving that service time and saving that money is going to help you. The French cases will be really hard to decide. I think Abrams will be really hard to decide because the Padres are going to be competitive this year. They're going to have a lot of prospects that are ready, like Patina, Gore. They'll have a lot of young players they want to keep that will actually play this year. And I can't imagine that a 19-year-old C.J. Abrams that's played nine played appearances of AWOL is going to be called up to play in the big leagues.

Total chaos, as we've said time and time again, but I'm taking the two Mariners off that list if I'm in Dustin's shoes. I never take... You know, Patino, Sixto, Manning, and Bart. As much as I love Patino, I just wouldn't take a pitcher or a catcher. No, can't do it.

Even in two catcher leagues, too, I'm not stashing Bart with those other options. They just take so long. They debut later. Their offense peaks later. Their plate appearance upside is so long. They debut later. Their offense peaks later. Their plate appearance upside is so low. I'm with you. It's something that I've, over time, I used to chase them thinking,

I'm going to have an elite catcher. The payoff is going to be worth it. And a lot of times they just don't hit as much as you expect right away. So even when they come up and they're playing, they take a couple of years to sort of reach that offensive peak. A lot of times they just don't hit as much as you expect right away. So even when they come up and they're playing, they take a couple of years to sort of reach that offensive peak. Yeah, because there's like 8 million things being thrown at them when they get to the park. Yeah, well, it's like playing quarterback in the NFL, hopefully.

The defensive rigors of being a catcher are pretty significant, and that's a lot to have on your plate in addition to learning how to hit top-level pitching. And handling the pitching staff, that's been something that has had to come first for a long time for big league teams and how they develop players at that position. If you're enjoying this show on a platform

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you go that route you can tweet at us he's at enoceros and i am at derek van ryper that is going to wrap things up for this episode of rates and and Barrels. We are back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.