Rates & Barrels - Shortstop Breakdown

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Rundown1:20 Top-End Options: Story, Lindor & Turner18:05 What Should You Do With Fernando Tatis Jr.?27:11 Re-Thinking Adalberto Mondesi34:31 When Did Xander Bogaerts Become Old and Boring?37:35 Buying Bo Bichette as Prices Rise?42:21 2020 Expectations for Tim Anderson48:04 Mid-Round Options53:44 Sleepers, Late-Round ConsiderationsFollow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 72. It's February 24th. Yes, it is a Monday afternoon. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. We are working through our positional breakdown series, wrapping up the middle infield portion of that and focusing on shortstops in this episode. This week's schedule is a little bit different thanks to First Pitch Florida coming up here this weekend along with the labor auctions. We had some travel coming up at the end of the week, so we will have a second episode later this week. It will probably drop on Friday instead of Thursday. So just a heads up on that. If you're enjoying our show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, please take the time to do that. We really appreciate it. And if you're listening to this show and you're not already a subscriber to The Athletic, you can get 40% off a subscription at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Everything we do is included with a subscription.

You know, it seems like we are right in the middle of a golden age at the shortstop position because there are high quality players up top. There are interesting players in the middle and there are even options late that are worth throwing some darts on. I love the way the board sets up at a premium position, no less.

It's been that way for a few years, but it just doesn't look like it's slowing down anytime soon. Yeah, and I'm glad they're in a golden age because I don't feel like I'm in mine. But, you know, one of the things that's weird about it is that, you know, there's this conversation about, hey, you know, there's so many great shortstops, maybe I should wait on them. The problem is, they're so great that you could take shortstop off of their name and it'd still be worth drafting where they're drafting.

You can, one of the fun things you can do on the Faringraphs auction calculator is that you can sort by points. And points is the dollar system right before there's a positional adjustment. And they add this sort of positional adjustment. You wouldn't want to go into an auction using that number because it's too low. You'll see why when you do it. Mike Trout's a $30 player. If you do it by points, he's a $40 player if you add the adjusted number

in. So you don't want to just be like, oh, Mike Trout's only worth $30. The point is that if you take the positional adjustment out, here are short stops in the top 15. Trevor Story is still a top 6 bat. Treya Turner is still a top 9 bat. Alex Bregman is still a top 15 bat. Lindor and Baez are in the top 20. Tatis Jr. is in the top 20. We'll talk about all these guys later, but my point is, just on the bat alone, they deserve to be there. So I wouldn't necessarily say I'm going to skimp on shortstops and just get them later.

They're so good, they're worth taking early. You could almost go to the extreme. You could go with a shortstop in the middle infield spot and in the utility spot, which is something that when I started playing fantasy baseball would have been laughable. You just would have been light on power output or light in overall playing time, even in some cases. It's funny that you say that. You sort of talk about historical precedent

and how this has happened. And I think the way we got here is a little bit obvious in a way because what's happened in the game? We're getting more play from our young players. We're asking people to be multi-position in the minors, but it's always happened in games that the best athletes are shortstops to begin and then sort of come off the position. players, and we're getting more production out of the younger players, and we're putting the best athletes at shortstop, and the game is going to become more athletic, you know, somehow it makes sense that, like, that we have so many great shortstops, and, you know, and it's a young game.

Like, it all sort of seems to have come together for us. This is modern baseball. Modern baseball is the five-tool shortstop. And, you know, it's really Um, and, uh, you know, it's a, it's really fun too, because, um, you know, a lot of these guys are established too. It's not even that we have, you know, five guys we're going to put on the cover of a magazine and say, you know, you know, best shortstop of all time. And then 10 years later, we're going to be like, Oh my God, we really thought that guy was going to be good. I'm thinking of, of course, the Mets' best infield of all time. Cover if anybody knows about that one.

Edgardo Alfonso is all I've got to say. Anyway, on the top end of this, you've got Story, Turner, Lindor, Baez. None of these guys are old enough to worry about a drop-off, and none of these guys are too young to say, let me see them do it again. They're just really easy to project, and the only thing that will make them a bad pick, quote-unquote, is probably a fall- in like an injury yeah i mean you're talking about a position where you have four consistent first round picks and in

some rooms five because fernando tatis jr pushes his way into that range as well story comes out first if you run the auction calculator for the bat over at fangraphs comes out ahead by a little more than three dollars over trey turner a big part of that of course is coors i mean there's power there's speed he does everything it makes sense right but the the thing that i think is really interesting from that first group is actually trey turner's power i was really surprised recently it was on the the Fantasy Baseball on 15 show. We just talked about the Nationals lineup and how Trey Turner might actually hit third this year. And at first, I kind of laughed at the idea. I'm like, Trey Turner's not a number three hitter. What are you doing, Davey? I know you guys have won the World Series, but what are you thinking

here? This isn't going to work. But I pulled up his StatCast page and I started to look at the underlying power numbers. I mean, 19 homers last year, 497 slug. That was in 569 plate appearances. So he narrowly missed 20, stole 35 bases on top of that. But he had an average exit velocity of 90.3 miles per hour last year. That was the highest of his career. And he's been in the high 80s, 88.8, 89.1 in 2017 and 2016. So I kind of came to this conclusion that Trey Turner actually has more power that I've been giving him credit for all along. Not that I drafted him in the first round previously thinking I wasn't going to get any power, but I think there's more balance to the shape of his production potentially than I was giving him credit for from the jump. Yeah.

He's a really interesting player. And I think he also encapsulates how difficult it is to wrap your brain around a one year spike in, in something like the, what the ball did. Right. Because yeah, he has a 200 ISO and technically,

you know, 200 isolated slugging percentage is higher than league average. But I would say that this is kind of what league average power looks like. And if you look back, he had a 145 ISO in 2018 and 167 before. Like, he's kind of a league average power guy. And so, you know, you have to you kind of have to make that mental hurdle and be like, God, man, 19-20 homers might be league average these days, where I don't think it was like that just two, three, four years ago. So I could tell you that his barrel rate is only literally a percentage point or two above league average,

but that sort of misses the point if he's going to get to the league average power and get you 40 steals then he's amazing how do you stack those guys up lindor story turner if you get your choice of the three who do you take you know it's funny the the projections all have them at like 600 and well turner at 666 blade appearances oh i i'm just telling you man it's about injury and injury for position players is really hard to to project i mean, it's just, it's ridiculous. If you, there's a piece by Rob Arthur about projecting injury for hitters,

and it has an awesome algorithm in it where you can plug in days missed last year, days missed the year before, days missed three years ago, and kind of basically project days missed this year. But I went through it, and just because of the facts the numbers the it's used they're just the fact of the algorithm the way it's built everyone comes out to like 15 days it's like i did stanton and it was like 17 days i was like all right um it's not that much worse than average yeah he was worse than

average but like uh it was only the spread wasn't large if you're trying to project project uh injury history so i could tell you like story turner and lindor have all had injuries right so it might be compelling to be like you know which one is going to be the one to get injured this year and i have no idea which one it is. Story's 27. Turner's 26, but some of his injuries have been hit by pitches. Lindor is 26, but he had, at the beginning of last season,

a fairly big leg injury. Was it a hamstring? It's a calf, I think. Calf. That was it, calf. and then he ended up stealing 22 bases and having a great season anyway you know i didn't he was slipping out of the first round last year that injury had people pretty spooked because the prevailing thought was that he might not run as much as he had run in the past coming off the injury even if he made it back at the early end of his timetable yeah they might be kind of careful with them and they weren't

he did try less i mean 27 to 35 uh in terms of attempts uh but he tried enough to to make him an asset there um i just i slot him in last a little bit because that calf injury is a bit of a soft tissue injury you never know when those things become uh chronic um know, it's a little bit like Stanton. Yeah, he got hit in the face, but he also had serious hamstring quad type injuries and oblique injuries. And those ended up being the ones that ended up being more predictive, I think. I know Story's had injuries, but I can't, you know, like off the top of my head, 2017, there must have been some injuries. 555 plate appearances. He had the hand injury that ended his rookie season right didn't he get hit by a pitch back

in 2016 that's 2016 17 yeah i'm not sure off the top of my head what it was must have been something minor because like you said if he were completely healthy he would have got up to the 650 range or at least the low 600s because he's probably lower in the order then let's let's try another way in how about this uh sprint speed with running splits we had an intrepid listener point out that uh the first i don't know five or ten feet were more important um for uh for separating people because uh getting up to speed, it had to do with Jose Altuve being still an elite, possibly elite base dealer because he was still in the top 10 percentile of people in the first 10 feet or whatever. And I don't know if this is necessarily true, but I do know that jeff zimmerman has told me that times to first are more predictive

than sprint speed in terms of stolen bases so there is something about the shape of your speed how quickly you get up to speed uh that that is more predictive than just what are you at your top speed. So I'm going to do the first five feet. Kendrick Samuels is the slowest. The spread, though, is so small. Between Kendrick Samuels and Adalberto Montesi is.07 seconds. So let's do 10 feet. A little bit bigger spread. He's.94, and the best is.77, Gerard Dyson.

Okay. Now let's see where these guys are. Story, 32nd. Lindor, 58th. And Turner, 179th. Hmm. Weird. And he's the one who steals all the bases.

And he's the guy that, at top speed, is in the 100th percentile. Wow, that's bizarre. Listen, I'm going to go back to the projections, man. You know, the place where projections are good isn't entirely in this situation. You know, veterans that have an established track record. The place where the projections are not good is where people without a track record, you know, pitchers, people who were injured last year, and that doesn't really affect any of the three, slightly maybe Lindor, who had, you know, a better sprint speed than Turner. So I'm going to

go Story, Turner, Lindor. that's where I'm gonna go I think also Lindor if he loses two or three stone bases could be like a 15 to 16 guy whereas Story is probably gonna be I'd said the over under around 20 and Turner obviously has the most speed I've got um Lindor Story Turner but I there's so little that separates them like any given day I might just mix it up just because I've already got one of I might have Lindor already so the next time I draft from a similar position I might say all right I'm going story this time I got a story and I'm gonna go Turner this time and just just diversify because there's really so little that separates them.

Yeah, if you switch over to ATC instead of the bat, it goes Lindor, Story, Turner. So, yeah, that's right up your alley. And I just wanted to mention also, because this has come up in Twitter conversations, my default for the Oxygen Calculator is, and that's over at Fangraphs, my default is usually the bat, but I flip over to ATC, which I like because it's an aggregator. It'll have some elements of steamer, some elements of the bat, and so on. And also my default setting is 15 teams, five outfielders, middle infielders, corner infielder, slightly deeper. So when we were talking about Whitmerryfield last week, I might have mentioned a $15 projection.

If you're in a 10 or 12 team league, it's week, I might have mentioned a $15 projection. If you're in a 10 or 12 team league, it's closer to like a $3 to $5 projection. Woof. So bad. Especially if you knock them down to 15 steals like we were. So, you know, that's my default. I come from that sort of the great fancy baseball invitational setting type space

where it's 15 teams and longer lineups. Um, you have to do a little bit of, but you know, we, we, we should also attempt, I think you and I,

Derek to be as precise as possible about our recommendations. So if we're talking about, you know, dropping a guy or adding a guy or where she go on the draft sort of, and I think we do this to some extent, you know, in 12 teamers, you know, maybe I'd take them here, but in 15, you know, that sort of you and i think we do this to some extent you know in 12 teamers you know maybe i'd take them here but in 15 you know that sort of deal yeah i think we try to add that

context where it's necessary and hopefully the framework of the conversation otherwise provides a good understanding of what type of circumstances we're referring to but if you ever need clarity on something please reach out at derrick van riper on twitter if you ever need clarity on something, please reach out. At Derek Van Ryper on Twitter, at Saris on Twitter. We're not trying to trick anybody. We're trying to do the opposite. We're trying to help. Definitely not trying to confuse people.

No, no. Any time we do that, it's probably by accident. But for me, I got Lindor at the top of that list. Again, the small difference for me is just that i think he can basically be a five category guy whereas i i look i look at turner i think he's he is a five category player but he's not going to hit 30 home runs he's going to hit 20 in a typical year at the high end you get 10 more home runs there if the speed comes down from turner at all the gap between them in that category goes down i like the batting average average floor with Lindor and the run production for Lindor too

is just ridiculously good. Being in the AL, I think that's a little bit of a separator for me. It's just the chances of having that lineup turnover more and the chances of getting that PA total up into the absolute ridiculous high end of where they can go. 723 and 745 in 2017 and 2018 for Lindor. You just don't see that in the NL. Story is a ridiculous athlete, though, just to speak on him for a little bit. He can throw it up to 99 miles an hour near the top of the sprint leaderboards, hits for power, just a fantastic athlete. So, you know, no real risk there in terms of batting average or power or speed, I don't think.

So, you know, maybe you listen to us and you figure Story is second on both of our lists. Yeah, split the difference, right? But the average looks a lot more stable now than it did early in his career too when he had the K rates north of 30%. He's been between 25%, 26% the last two years. He hit 291% and 294% while doing that. Projections at the low end, I think Zips comes in lowest at 274%. The bat comes in the highest at 283%. I mean, that's a pretty nice range for a guy that had batting average issues just a couple of years ago. I think part

of this conversation has been a way of avoiding Fernando Tatis Jr. at the very beginning of the podcast, but he's the kind of player that people fight about. I mean, he came out last year and exceeded expectations for a very young rookie. The 22 homer, 16 steal campaign, hit 317, young rookie, the 22 homer, 16 steal campaign, hit 317, got on base at a 379 clip, and he did that in just 84 games. Where do we go from here? I mean, the projections are going to be less in agreement with a player like this, but they're still not bad. When you start to look at where things came in, the projections generally look at Fernando Tatis Jr. as a 30-20 player who's going to hit 265 or better. That's a really nice projection. Yeah, and what's interesting too is that the projections have him basically right there with Javier Baez. It's one or the other. If you switch,

if you do ATC, it's Tatis by 50 cents. If you do the bat, it's Baez by a dollar or two. And I think personally, I think I would still rather have Javier Baez because of the kind of stuff we talked about last time we talked about Fernando Tatis, which is that he's probably as good or better than Javier Baez. He has a lot of things in common with Javier Baez in terms of plate discipline, contact, athleticism, but he hasn't proven he is Javier Baez or better yet. So I would rather kind of have the proven commodity. As for some of the stuff I talked about

in terms of his batted ball stats, I had a really eye-opening conversation with, I think it's Jim Melichar, who runs a Twitter handle called Melicharts and writes, I don't want to get it wrong, so I'm not exactly sure where he writes. It might be PitcherList or Tennessee Pros, but one of the things that's cool is he has these visualizations, these tableau breakdowns of batted ball stats and one of the visualizations really clarified things for me I was worried that Tatis really hits his ground balls really softly and his fly balls really hard and though I think I probably mentioned that fly ball exit velocity is stickier season to season, I may have denigrated Tatis too much for this little

factoid. Because if you look at one of Melichar's Melicharts, you'll see that basically Fernando Tatis Jr. hits the ball hard in all of the angles except ground ball. So if you kind of draw the normal curve you'd expect it's more likely that he'll hit some grounders hard next year and and round out the picture that way uh than it is that he'll hit his fly balls less hard to to match the ground balls so basically if you look at a chart it pops you see oh he hits the ball hard everywhere except last year. He didn't hit the ball hard when he hit it into the ground. So most likely next year he's going to hit some balls hard into the ground, which may affect his BABIP some,

but it still means that he's very excellent at hitting the ball hard in the air, and that's what this game is all about. And as for his defense, I know it ended up bottom five on infield, outs above average on stack cast, but the reason it ended up there was flubbing easy plays. And I feel like coaching, if you could give me a player that can make the really hard plays and flubs the easy plays, or you make a guy who can only do the easy plays and can't do the hard plays, I'd rather coach the guy who can make the really hard plays about making the easy plays. There's got to be things you can talk about approach, about mindset, about what you do on the easy plays to get the job done. I think there's got to be the role of coaching there that can get him there.

I mean, if the guy shows the ability to be such a great shortstop, it seems like he can be an average shortstop as well. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. seems like he can be an average shortstop as well you know what i mean yeah absolutely i i think there's a lot to think about here with tatis and just game theory though when it comes to paying the premium for him right if he compares so favorably to javier baez and we can get javier baez in the third round instead of taking tatis in the first round what are we going to use to justify taking tatis that much earlier the ceiling the u-word upside right like how much categorical upside does tatis really have in the stolen base category in particular is it possible that he can steal

10 or 15 more bases than than bias that is that a reasonable sort of ask, or is that just wish casting? I suppose. I mean, one of the things that is actually meaningful about spring training stats is how often the team takes off. So if you want to look through spring training box scores, stolen base attempt rates are actually somewhat meaningful. It's a little piece that Jeff Zimmerman did back in the day. So I think team, and this is important for the Cubs too,

so I think team dynamics are a big deal. I wouldn't say that Javier Baez has gotten so much slower that he stole 10 bases less last year uh because he got slower i would say that you know what was asked of him you know team wise uh was different i mean he went from sprint speed of 28.8 and 2018 to 28.6 last year i don't think that's why he stole fewer bases no no there's not a enough of a decline in that but if tatis hitting bombs, it could happen to Tatis too, right? They'd be like, hey, dude, you're hitting bombs. Like, we'd rather you hit bombs than you, you know,

break a finger sliding into second. Yeah, I mean, okay, so then the question would be, is there more power potential from Tatis Jr.? Does that justify the higher price tag? I can't imagine it, dude. I mean, Javier Baez has hit 63 homers in the last two years combined.

Yeah, he has real power. And I'm not saying Tatis doesn't, but I just can't find something. And batting average-wise, Javier Baez is way safer because he's just established the batting average level. And no matter what, we can talk ourselves blue in the face about Fernando Tatis' batted ball stats,

but until he shows that he can hit.280 regularly, he hasn't shown it. A batting average is the last thing that we know for sure. I just feel like I'm having a breakthrough in that, and I've tried to say this all along, I have nothing against Fernando Tatis Jr. I want him to be good. I think he's a fun player. I'm excited to watch him play. But I can't come up with a good reason to draft him instead of Baez,

especially at a position, as we're going to go through, there's so much depth where even if your backup plan is Baez and someone else takes him and that doesn't work out, there are eight or ten other ways you can go and you can still find players who have that higher ceiling that you want. You can find guys that are just as exciting who don't command your first round pick. Yeah.

And where you're picking Tatis, like you're passing on like max. How do you say his last name? No, I want to see someone else say it. Scherzer. Scherzer. Okay, I can do that. You're passing on Max Scherzer. You're passing on maybe Justin Verlander.

You might be passing on Juan Soto. I mean, some of that seems crazy to me. The pitchers maybe I can understand, but there's a lot of hitters there too at the back end. Freddie Freeman. So I'm with you. I think that this is another reason why auctions are so great is because you can pay exactly what you want for Javier Baez or for Tatis. You know what I mean?

You don't have to play this game of like, oh, I'm not going to take Tatis here because I think Baez will be the next time I come up. And then what if he isn't? Well, I think the difference in cost is greater in a snake draft between those two players than it will be in an auction. They're only going to be a couple bucks apart in leagues like NL Labor or Next Out.

Because of what we're talking about. Because they're comparable players. It's an open market. They can go for the same price. That can happen. They can't go for the exact same draft pick. The closest thing to that would just be going back to back. You're just not going to see people pushing Baez up

20 to 25 picks above his average draft position. That's just not going to see people pushing Baez up 20 to 25 picks above his average draft position. That's just not going to happen. He doesn't have the requisite helium that causes that to happen, which is not his fault, and it's not Tatis' fault either. But again, this is why I have a hard time committing to Tatis is that I see other similar players who have the track record available a couple rounds later, and I have other things

I can do at the position if I miss out on Javi Baez. Edelberto Mondesi, who goes right in that same range, picked 39 in February for the NFBC ADP. He's, to me, very similar to Baez

play discipline-wise. He's got more speed. He's kind of like T very similar to Baez play discipline-wise. He's got more speed. He's kind of like Trey Turner-like in terms of how many bags he can carry. Otherwise, home runs and his bags, yeah. Yeah, so I think Turner's probably the more realistic comp. But, I mean, with Mondesi, the question is just health. As we get closer to the season, we'll know how healthy he is. It seems like things have progressed the way they should following his shoulder surgery. Do you like Mondesi at the price as a guy that brings a very high ceiling,

especially in that stolen base category, and doesn't command a first-round pick right now? When I started playing fantasy baseball in 2000 and I think around 2000, maybe 1999, right in there, I was extremely biased against this kind of player. Montessi, Tatis, and Baez would never have been on any of my teams. I was David Wright, you know, Chipper Jones. Like, I wanted Barry Bonds. I wanted walks, and I wanted low strikeout rates. I wanted walks and I wanted low strikeout rates. I wanted plate discipline.

And I think if you're building a real life team, it's still really important to have those types of players because they age well. Just look at Joey Votto, you know, milking the last little bits of his athleticism still, but because he has elite plate discipline, he's still valuable. You know, we know that hitting pitches outside the zone, making contact on pitches outside the zone, age is really terrible. That's why Josh Hamilton's career was over really quickly. Pablo Sandoval's career is explained a little bit by that. So there's a lot of reasons to not like these players. However, with the power inflated the way it is, if you can hit for power and be good at everything else, then at least during

your peak years, you can be a very valuable baseball player. And Brandon Phillips was like the first time I realized that where I was like, Oh crap, Brandon Phillips is not the kind of player I like, you know, but Brandon, I should not not draft Brandon Phillips. Like he's still very athletic, you know, very good at his position. He had very good fantasy seasons. So I try to talk to myself a little bit. When I see somebody like Adalberto Mondesi, I say, gah!

How could you draft someone that has a 4% walk rate and a 30% strikeout rate last year? What? How could you even play that guy? But Paul DeJong, Byron Buxton, you know, we're playing guys with extreme walk-to-strikeout rates more often because there's other ways, read Power, that they can kind of make it work.

We found out recently that slugging is more important to the game than LBP, just in terms of just correlating slugging to, to win percentage. So, um, you know, I guess I, I, I still don't think he'll be on my teams, but you know, I do think the shoulder gives us a little bit of buying opportunity here. Cause it sounds like he's like the most recent thing is he's going to play in games, uh, which doesn't sound like someone who's going to miss all spring and be all screwed up for the year. So, uh, you know, I think I'm, maybe I will. I don't know. I just wanted to be clean about and be clear about my bias against these types of players. Well, I think this is something that Clay Link

illustrated really well, probably about a year ago, actually, we were hosting a SiriusXM show together at Rotowire. And he said, we can't just look at players through the sabermetric lens and analyze them for fantasy that way. That's not really a complete analysis. You can do that and figure out how much guys are going to play and what their role is going to look like.

And that's still really important to see players the way that Major League teams see players. But eventually, the flaws you see looking through the sabermetric lens can really backfire against you they can distort your view of what a player actually brings to the table and i think mondesi is the perfect example of that because just like you for years i would look at a player like this and say yeah no not for me no thanks and those are league-winning tools when it comes to standard 5x5 leagues. There's just no way around that.

I do think it's somewhat valuable, sort of thinking about the Danny Santana piece and low-war players, people who have these big flaws in terms of defense or play discipline, they may lose their playing time. For example, if you dropped Adalberto Mondesty right now on the yankees roster how many plate appearances do you think he got this year he'd still get almost the same number with the royals they they have the they have the luxury of giving him some days off i i think they'd play him at short i think they'd move glaber back to second they'd shuffle everything around so somebody else

would lose playing time in that whole situation yeah Yeah, exactly. Urshula would be the guy that loses the playing time in that scenario because I think the difference between Mondesi, and this is a really good point to bring up the Santana replacement level, no defense kind of thing. Javi Baez has this too. Edelbert Mondesi is a premium defender, so that carries him as well. When you're a premium defender up the middle, we know big league teams care about that.

And that can offset major flaws in the plate skills profile. Yeah, like Mondesi is only predicted to be, you know, an 80 WRC plus guy with a bat. Like he's definitely very much a fancy line and not a real life line with a bat. But it's good much a fantasy line and not a real-life line with a bat. But it's good to point out the defense. You're right. Because this may mean that he may not age well.

I mean, one of his biggest skills, speed, ages terribly. His bat is not amazing. His play discipline is not amazing. There may be a time in the next three years where you should get a king's ransom for Mondesi in your dynasty leagues. But in terms of this upcoming year, if the shoulder depresses his value somewhat, I see a real buying opportunity to get someone that might hit 20 homers and 50 stolen bases

and then the only sort of adjustment you have to make to drafting him, and I don't think it's as bad as a Gallo, but you may want to draft someone who hits for batting average to pair with him at some point. I mean, he's not airport food the way Jonathan Villar is because of the premium defense, too. You're not paying a tax for a bad player because there's real- life value that backs up

his playing time when it comes to Mondesi. So if you're like, oh yeah, below average regular, you're relying on for speed, that's just like VR. No, that's the big difference. Mondesi is a fixture in the lineup because of his defense. VR doesn't have a home in a bad rebuilding situation

because of his defense. That's where they stand out. Even if he struggles a little bit with the bat and looks bad for a while, the Royals seem like the best place for him to be because they're so invested in having him be a cornerstone that they'd probably just play him all year. Yeah, they'll keep playing him. They might drop him lower in the batting order, so that hurts the counting stats a little bit.

But I think you're right. I think the playing time at this point is very safe for Mondesi. When he first broke in, I don't think that was necessarily true for all these same reasons. Xander Bogarts is also part of that. He's just such a solid player. I don't think people get that excited about him because he's not really going to steal a lot of bases. I know the Red Sox losing Mookie take a big hit offensively as a team, but for a guy that hit 33 homers, drove in 117, scored 110, and hit 309 last year, it's pretty amazing that he's just sitting right there around pick 40. strikes me as a bit of a juice ball guy.

I always had him as like a 20 homer guy in my head. Like, it still surprises me sometimes when I look at his line. I'm like, he hit 33 homers last year? He hit 309? I mean, I love his, I like his hit tool. I love his hit tool. And I'm not surprised he's not stealing 10 bases anymore, but I am very surprised he hit 33 home runs.

And just sort of looking at his spray charts, you know, he hit 33 home runs. And just sort of looking at his spray charts, you know, he hit, I'd say about five opposite field homers, maybe six, depending on how you, where you draw the line. So, you know, we do know that some of those are risky right now and could go away. But even if could go away. But even if those go away, there's going to be a general sloughing off of power in general, and he's probably safe for 25 homers next year and a 290 average. I see him as very safe. So if that's what you need at draft,

where you just need a real safe batting average and 25 homers and five steals, go for it. I don't see anything left. I mean, he's 27. He's had his peak year. Yeah, I don't think there's another level there, but in terms of what I really expect them to do, I'm not sure there's that much of a difference

between Bogarts and Anthony Rendon, and you're getting Bogarts, what, 15, maybe even 20 picks later now? That's a really interesting point. And even with the depth of shortstop, it is useful that if you could get... I think you would still rather have the shortstop because MI can be a little bit difficult on the bottom end

because we talked about how bad second base is. So even as deep as shortstop is, you've got to fill mi uh so getting bogarts and then another shortstop later uh may be better than getting rendon and a shortstop later i think what's going to happen a lot of times is if you go with a pitcher in the first round it means you missed out on that lindor story trey group you might be looking at one of these guys bogarts bias mondesi kind of fitting in like oh did i want tatis light even though he's the older version who's more established do i want mondesi like basically do i want a shot at turner or do i want just the ultimate floor type guy with bogarts like they're all there in the third round. And that's just a really nice

thing to have if you go pitcher in the first round, especially, and want to have that really nice bat to build on. You go down another chunk, though, about 20 picks later. Manny Machado, we talked about on the third base episode, one of the best values in the pool. And then Bo Bichette, who just keeps creeping up the board he's always had a great approach outstanding hit tool he has speed developing some power to go with it of course too is the price fair on beau bichette is it too high or is it somehow even too low at this point there's a player that i actually think has i think he's a player that has upside to be better than his projections. And so he's got potential return beyond what people are paying for him.

And I don't even know that they're necessarily paying... To me, he's like an $18, $20 player. He should be right there after Gley know, Torres and Gleyber Torres and Xander Bogarts go, you know, you know, comparing him to Tim Anderson, I think is really interesting because Tim Anderson is a bit raw and I think has a higher variance when it comes to batting average and may steal more bases. But, you know, I think there's a sort of safe floor for Bobachet, which is close to like 280-2020. And if he can do that and he's 21 years old,

he could go 2030, I think. I almost wonder in a weird way if Bobachet is safer than Tatis just because of his approach, like having a lower K rate, a slightly higher walk rate, being able to hit the ball to all fields already. I mean, Bichette's one of those guys that almost goes opposite field too much if you can do such a thing. I thought he did too much in the minors.

And I even talked to him about it, and he just said that he thought it was a good way to set himself up for future success and that he'd be able to learn to turn and burn over time and that he was learning which pitches he could turn on so um he did say that in like 2018 at the futures game and uh his opposite field percentage did not really go down since then so uh but it's about i i agree with him that it's a valuable skill it's one thing that like vato always said is like i want to work on going opposites opposite field center uh because i i feel like i can i can pull for power anytime i want as well um so i would say that somebody who has put up his power numbers in the minors probably isn't only going to the opposite field.

No, it's a pitch selection thing for sure. I mean, 19 homers last year between the two levels, 11 in 212 games. I didn't expect to see that much that quickly. Yeah, the rabbit ball helped, but that's not just the rabbit ball. He had eight pulled homers and three oppo. That's a good amount. It's not like half his homers were oppo or anything. And if you look at his batted balls,

he's very hard to defend. Not only is he a right-hander, which makes him harder to defend, but even his ground balls are not clustered anywhere. So he's got a very even distribution of hits. And I think that's really good for him. I think his strikeout rate is going to come down next year. And I think he might get under 20.

And so he may not walk a ton, but he's still going to be a good OBP guy because he's going to put the ball in play. He hits it hard. Oh, his stat cast numbers are good too, right? They're solid, yeah. I love Bobachet. I should have loved him more, I think, coming up, but I was a little bit worried about the power. And that's one thing that's so frustrating to me.

Like, if I could have anything, it would be minor league stat cast for hitters and minor league pitch movement numbers for for pitchers uh I just feel like I'm feeling in the dark sometimes when I'm when I'm trying to evaluate these guys it's like a whole piece of missing information but nine not like eight and eight point eight nine percent barrel rate league average is like 4.6, 90% – a 9.6 exit velocity. It looks all good to me. I like this player a lot. Yeah, it's just the steep price. I mean, the projections are really good for a guy who's only had 46 big league games.

We're looking at 2020 with a 270s, high 270s average from the projection systems. Clearly, room for more in there as well who would you rather have between bichette and tim anderson i would take bichette over tim anderson yeah which is interesting because the the projections i'm looking at for the batter 15 for bow and 18 for for 10 tim anderson's a funny player let's talk about him for a minute the batting average was not something i expected to get from him. I know he runs well. He makes pretty good contact.

But what on earth happened last year? That didn't seem like it was ever really going to be part of his profile. I mean, coming off a 240 season, he comes back and hits 335. That's wild. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I mean, yes, he can push thebitt a little bit because he has speed uh and he's not you know a a true pull hitter and last year he really distributed his balls well so yes you can push the babbitt a little bit but a 399

babbitt i don't really believe it and it's not like his plate discipline got much better i think he sat slider some because he was getting a ton of sliders and his fastball rate was going down and i think that's where the kind of the strikeout explosion came so i think he sat slider on some guys made more contact um and uh and just pushed it to about, I think that was probably his peak year. So I would expect him, and I think that he actually has risk beyond the lower end of the projection. So Zips is the lowest on him with a 274 average. I think he could hit 250 next year.

He hit 257 in 2017, 240 in 2018. I know he hit 283 in his rookie season, but the play discipline to me and the contact that goes in and out, I think he could hit 250 this year. So I see Boba Shett's batting average is safer. I see Boba Shett's power is safer. And in terms of stolen base, you know, Anderson went from 15 to 26 to 17. So I don't necessarily think that Tim Anderson is going to steal much more than 20 next year. Yeah, the distribution of where he was hitting the ball is pretty interesting. I mean, that was a big change for him a year ago.

So you're not really buying into all of that, at least. All of that, at least. Like maybe something splitting the difference between pre-2019 splits and then 2019 where it's closer to an even distribution, not as much of a pull-happy approach. He still hits the ball on the ground a lot too. That's the other drawback, I think, with Tim Anderson that makes it really hard for me to expect more.

And his ground balls were still pulled as much as ever, really. It's just that he kind of put the ball in the air a little bit more, and he put the ball in the air of the opposite field, which can be good and can be bad. There's a lot of outs on opposite field fly balls. They have to be the right quality. And he had a fair amount of line drives to right field. So, I mean, that's where the goodness came,

all those line drives to right field. But I think you know there's not that much of a difference in terms of the physical qualities of the contact and the the physics involved between a line drive to right field and a can of corn to right field i think it's really interesting that marcus simeon's only going about 10 picks earlier than tim and. And the reason I think it's really interesting is because Simeon's buildup to what he was last year was very gradual. Everything kind of clicked at once. I mean, he got the K rate down under 15%.

But year over year, we've seen pretty consistent improvement from him going back to when he first broke into the league. I know he maxed out volume-wise. We talked about that on an episode not that long ago. And projections in the batting average category especially are going to be probably more in the 260 to 270 range than the 285 that he hit last year. But even when you start to pull back on everything, there's still a really nice player left over. Does Marcus Simeon belong in the top 100? Do you at least

like him more than Tim Anderson at a similar relative price? I don't think so. As a real life player, yes. Marcus Simeon is the hardest working player I've ever seen. He's honest about

his flaws and he just attacks them. He's got that enough self honesty, which I think is hard. A lot of times you get to this level, you've done really well forever. You just think you're, you know, you're bulletproof, you know, in some ways, but he's had enough yo-yoing in his career where he can say, you know, I had that year where I had 249 with 10 homers and 12 stolen bases and it just wasn't that good. And so he went to work on his defense and he's gone to work on his play discipline. He's gone to work on his contact. So in real life, I love him as a player. He's an extremely good leader in the clubhouse, just a great player to have on your team.

just a great player to have on your team. But in fantasy, Tim Anderson's going to steal twice as many bases, and I don't think he'll hit half as many homers. That's pretty crazy to see that much of a drop-off for Marcus Simeon. But yeah, his improvement defensively especially is one of the more amazing transformations I've seen in the last decade on that side of the ball, because he didn't look like he belonged at short anymore. That first full year with Oakland,

you know, it was like, Oh, inevitably this guy's going to move to second base or to the outfield. And now he's a premium defender at short. Yeah. I mean, just hard work with Ron Washington.

It's been pretty amazing. And I, that's what i that's the kind of thing that i hope for tatis in terms of defensively that you know on some level he's heard you know the the griping about his defense and he goes to work on it so it would be an easier job for him than it was for simian yeah more more of a elite defender starter kit to work with. Do you know who led all shortstops in barrel rate last year? Is it a player we've talked about already? No. Is it something ridiculous like Jorge Polanco?

No, just a player that we've talked about as possibly being underrated. And he's coming up. I'm just sort of following along as we go down the down the down the chart he's coming up here uh we haven't i'm just pointing out that we've talked about you know 15 short stops or so and we haven't talked about the leader in barrel rate and short stops oh i think this is part of the reason why if i miss out on all these early short stops i like i'm okay with what is available later. And specifically with

Simeon and Anderson, there's not that much of a gap before you get to this next cluster where I can find something I like about everybody in this group. Carlos Correa, just outside the top 100, then you get a 30-pick drop-off to Ahmed Rosario and Elvis Andrews. So

the young guy who can steal bases, the old guy who can steal bases. Rosario, maybe we still haven't seen his best season yet. Corey Seager, who I think I've referred to as the best all-around value on the board. These are all fun players, fun picks, I think. Yeah, you're happy for different reasons with all these guys. And I would even say Jorge Polanco can be a part of that group, too. I mean, he's pretty fairly priced for a guy that was a big part of the twins amazing offense a year ago i don't see jorge polanco completely falling apart or anything either so most likely these are my middle

infielders and i'm taking a short stop before them but if i had to go short stop and middle from just that group of five i think i could pull that off and be really happy with it. Just to be clear, Carlos Correa is the barrel leader among shortstops. That makes sense. I mean, he is still, I think, a very skilled player. It was a good lead-in to this group because I think they all have different ways. I think they could all be other players that are ahead of them, in effect. So I was looking at Carlos Correa, and I was could, he could turn in a Xander Bogart season. He's literally projected to hit 280 with 30 homers. So, you know, it's not

very far from that to Xander Bogart season last year. Um, you know, Jorge Polanco could give you... I don't know if I have a good comp for him. He's kind of a weird player. He's like 280, 20, and 5. But Elvis Andrews is amazingly cheap. I got him so late for projected 270, 15 homers, 20, 25 stolen bases, you can get him for free, dude. And, you know, the way stolen bases are being hunted after, this is one of my favorite, you know, when people ask me, okay, if I miss out on stolen bases and I don't freak out about it, because everyone's freaking out about stolen bases. If I don't freak out about stolen bases,

what should I do late? And Elvis Andrews is part of the answer for me i like ahmed rosario too for that same reason um he's a little bit less unproven less proven but you know more upside obviously uh but both of those guys could give you 25 stolen bases which is it's useful i think the key to if you start to chase speed, you want to do it in the middle rounds. In the middle rounds, you're going to find guys that have stable roles, who have good skills otherwise. Andrews is a part of that.

If you miss out in this cluster, that's when you're chasing in a way where you're probably not going to find enough quality players who run enough to make you competitive in the category. Once you get outside the top 200, if you don't have a little bit of a foundation in place, there aren't quite enough fallback options for everyone to go around where you're going to

make up that ground. But Carlos Correa, it's health, right? What else is there to worry about? I guess the extra criticism he's brought upon himself recently but right and it's a little bit it's a little bit much to ask a guy who's had the health issues to be healthy in a year where he might get thrown at yes that's true the ribs have already been damaged yeah i could see kind of you know um being uh being out on him this year. But his cost has just plummeted. And, you know, I respect his abilities as a hitter and as a player. I wonder if some of his size issues that people talked about

have led to these problems staying healthy. And to your point earlier, i just wanted to point out i did a my my barf league bay area roto fantasy barf um it's a league i i took over for uh rip laura michaels and um uh in that league i hit i hit hitting really hard up front with uh trout deavers and Alvarez, Jordan Alvarez in the first three. And I did exactly what you said, where I did middle round stolen bases. And I got Elvis Andrews, Oscar Mercado and Lorenzo Cain in the middle. And I absolutely think that I have 60 to 70 stolen bases from that crew. So all I did at the end was add, uh, Grisham, Kiermaier and Bader at the very end. Uh, and Trent Grisham is another name that, um, I think will steal some bases and play

every day, um, that you can get late. So that's a segue, but let's, uh, let's hop on the segue back, uh, into short stops. hop on the segue back into short stops. And we should probably get going into some of the latter, the sort of sleepers or really late ones. And one thing I have noticed is you kind of, I think it does get a little bit, like I have one or two names here at the bottom,

but it does get a little bit less interesting at the bottom. Gene Segura read around pick 200, depending on which ADP report you look at. I still like him quite a bit too. He gets a little ugly after him. Yeah, but I think he's a little bit like Andrews where you know he's going to play a lot. He's going to add a couple of positions potentially too. He's moving over to second base already.

He's played a little bit of third base early in spring. So if they move him around and he gains eligibility at one or two more positions, aside from having a high batting average floor, a lot of playing time, I think you can get back to like 15 or 20 steals this season. And he does it with some pop as well. So I like him as a floor guy. One of the more underpriced shortstops to me looks like Willie Adames, because in all of our conversations about the Tampa Bay Rays, we keep landing on the same conclusion that Willie Adames is one of the few guys in their starting lineup who really won't be platooned and he's shown these little improvements along the way the barrel rate jumped up from 6.6 percent to 8.4 percent last year I'd still like to see him

hit the ball harder 87.8 is not the exit velocity you're necessarily getting really excited about but his adp is outside the top 300 k rate came down a little bit last year the only short-term concern i guess is that he's probably buried in that batting order right like that could that could drag the counting stats down a little bit, even though he looks like an everyday guy for this Rays team. Yeah, there could be something there. And it is interesting that he got to 584 plate appearances last year on a good team and only had 69 runs and 52 RBI. But if you run with the projection systems, they've got you handled. No projection system has them with more than 70 runs or more than 68 RBI. So, you know, 75 runs, 68 RBI. There's

nobody that's pushing him any harder than that. So I think actually that's where most of the functional upside is, is, you know, He gets a little better at plate discipline, makes a little bit more contact, and moves up the order and gets more counting stats. Maybe he still only ends up with 22 homers and five stolen bases, but it's really with 85 and 85 and runs an RBI. Which is huge for as late as he's going. I mean, that's a big win for that price point especially. Kevin Newman, I think he's going. I mean, that's a big win for that price point especially.

Kevin Newman, I think he's okay. I just don't want to pay full price for him. He was 26 last year. He debuted at his peak. And just in terms of how fast he is and how hard he hits the ball, he's the very last. Let me see here. He's 40th out of 43 short

stops in barrel rate. He's not going to hit the ball hard, not going to hit a lot of homers and I don't think he'll ever steal more races than he did last year. I sold my dynasty share of him pretty quickly and for Lorenzo Cain who may not have any dynasty value

in a year or two. But one name there at the end I do want to highlight is Dansby Swanson. He does not steal a lot of bases, but he seems pretty reliable around 10. He only hit 17 homers with a.250 average last year, so he seems kind of blah. But there's this weird thing going on under the hood.

Dansby Swanson had the fifth best barrel rate in base in not in baseball answer fifth best that'd be amazing you can imagine if he looked like that and he had the fist yeah anyway uh dance b swanson uh fifth best barrel rate among shortstops so uh between gliber torres and marcus simeon ahead of Xander Bogarts, ahead of Lindor, ahead of De Jong, ahead of Bobachet. So ahead of story, you know? So that's pretty good. And he underproduced that sort of bail rate.

So if you bump him up, and this is only do this in your head, don't do this on projections, pay for the projections. But if you bump him up in your head to a 200 ISO next year, not an amazing amount more. Now you get closer to 25 homers and 10 stolen bases and probably more like a 260, 270 average. So that's a pretty good player. I think one of those guys I'd lay an extra dollar on in an NL only, maybe a guy I'd pick for my MI over Kevin Newman, over Didi Gregorius, over Anderton Simmons, you know, if you don't need the steals, over Andrews, maybe even over a guy like DeJong,

I don't know, but, you know. Or somebody you wait a round or two more and get him later. There is some upside there that people don't... God, we can't even stop saying it. He's going into his age 26 season. He could easily have a really nice peak season this year. It's a good lineup. Playing time looks really stable.

Camargo is more of a threat right now I think to Austin Riley at third base than he is to Swanson. They're talking about Riley going back down, yeah. Yeah, that seems possible. What about Paul DeYoung, by the way? I didn't mean to fly by him and Deedy. I mean, they both have a lot of playing time.

DeYoung's hold in the heart of that order especially looks pretty firm. And with Deedy, he's going into another homer-friendly park, not as homer-friendly as Yankee Stadium, but still a really nice landing spot for him. Do you like Didi as a bounce-back candidate? I guess. You know, I keep going back to there was a Sabre seminar thing about how Didi Gregorius got more out of his home park

than anybody else in baseball, that he'd sort of figured out if he pulled the homers down the line, that if he pulled fly balls down the line, he'd get homers. And that he would have the biggest drop from leaving Yankee Stadium in terms of homer output. So that doesn't seem like a good sign.

But his new park is decent for doing that sort of, for that sort of power as well. It's just not the same as having that Yankee short porch. And also, in terms of needs and positional needs, it's a little bit of an awkward fit to be picking him for some power at that point in the draft when there's so much power everywhere up and down drafts you probably would be you know looking at oh i'd rather have rosario you know because he's gonna steal me some bags and i have tons of power on my team and there's

power everywhere you know what i mean yeah he almost just becomes a guy because so many players, he mentioned earlier, 20 home runs is just kind of the default now for so many regulars. Uh, it doesn't stand out quite as much. Uh, the young, I think is in a similar boat for what it's worth.

I mean, it's a more difficult place to hit, but not a terrible option. Just not a guy that you're really excited about. That's why he kind of falls a notch below that group of five we talked about a little earlier. I got super excited about DeJong early on last year. He looked like a different player when it came to play discipline,

but he lost most of those games over the course of the season, so I guess I jumped the gun on that one. Any really young players of interest? I mean, Carter Keboom still carries shortstop eligibility, even though if he breaks through with the Nats this year, it's probably going to be as the regular third baseman. You know, we were talking about David Fletcher. He's not young, really, but David Fletcher is playing in spring in the outfield.

So that could be how they keep Joe Adele down. That's more of a deep league situation. I do like Keboom. I like Nico Horner. But the Cubs also signed Jason Kipnis and Steven Sousa, Sousaphone. So I feel like they may send him down to begin the season too. He kind of had an aggressive timeline last year because of how things shook out with injury on the Major League squad.

They kind of just needed him. So I like him. I like Luis Urias, but I don't like his situation right now. Yeah, we talked about him a little bit on the second base breakdown. I think the park is obviously good. I think the playing time will be there once he's healthy, but still bringing him back from that handmaid surgery. So we'll have to monitor him very carefully as we get closer to opening day.

I mean, the price is low, so you could throw your last pick at him, see what happens if you have an early draft, and then you just have to be willing to cut him loose if he's on the IL and you need that roster spot for somebody else in more like shallow and mid-sized mixed leagues. I think that's the,

that's the tough thing. Like you see a player like that and you think there's tons of power. There was a new approach last year at AAA. Here comes the payoff. But in a 12-team league, you can't wait forever for a guy like that to come up and actually carve out that role. I think they want him to be the starting shortstop, but there's a reason why they keep adding infielders in Milwaukee also.

It's just in case things don't go well, in case injuries strike, and they already did in the case of Urias. More like a decent 15-team TGFBI sort of NFBC-type situation, bench guy, because you want some youth and upside on your bench, but you don't want someone you might have to wait till august or july or june for you know yeah it may only take a couple of weeks after the season you'll know whether to poop or get off the potty quicker i have a lot of poop and potties in my life so that's that's that's a that's a statement i can

get behind i've made another pun by accident. Franklin Barreto deserves one more shout-out on this podcast because I'm pretty sure he's going to make the team and back them up at short. I don't know. I think Jorge Mateo is going to be the one that's going to be traded. It's going to be Mateo or Barreto are going to be traded. And Barreto, even though he doesn't hit the ball super hard,

had a 12% barrel rate, which is very, very good. Steals bases too. He's a guy that'll make the most, I think, of his abilities when he puts the ball in play. He just needs to get more chances. The other kind of boring player I like for deeper leagues is Anderton Simmons. You just know that playing time is going to be there. He's got that double, double potential. I know you want more than 10 or 12 home runs, but I do like the lineup that he's into. So you're going to get runs.

You'll get a decent number of RBIs. He's probably not going to hurt you in batting average. Could actually be an asset in that category. Does a little bit of everything plays a lot, but a little more of an ale only type play. And maybe in a mixed league with 15 teams, I could justify it, but

anything more shallow than that, he's more of a temporary filler. Perfect monoligue player where nobody wants him and you get him for two or three bucks and he starts and shorts out for you all year and returns like 10 bucks. Yeah, that's what I like about him. You summed it up perfectly.

As always, you can reach us via email, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. Make sure you spell out the word and if you do that on Twitter, he's at Eno Saris, I'm at Derek Van Ryper. As I've mentioned before, we've got a couple other fantasy baseball podcasts running this season here at The Athletic Fantasy Baseball on 15s, our quick news-driven show every morning.

Check that out, as well as the Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are the afternoons. We drop new episodes of that. Eno, it's going to be fun hanging with you in Florida. Looking forward to doing a live Beer of the Month segment with you. Yes, the timing lines up pretty perfectly. Although, man, we're drafting so early. I feel like everybody on my team is going to be hurt before

opening day. Well, it'll make you maybe level up for some of your March Beer of the Month selections then. It'll change the shape of the opening day. Change the ABV. I've got a 15% barley

wine I'd like to recommend to everybody. Nice. Because I'm already losing a hell of a labor, and we haven't started the season yet. Yeah, I've got five players in the IL to begin the season. But no, I'm looking forward to that conference, looking forward to those auctions. And as I mentioned earlier,

our next episode will probably come out on Friday since I've got some travel, Eno's got some travel, and some other assignments to take care of as well. That's going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Thanks for listening.