Rates & Barrels - Sweepers, Pitch Design & Colorado with Adam Ottavino and Early Hitting Metrics that Matter

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Eno and DVR are joined by Mets pitcher Adam Ottavino to discuss sweepers, pitch design and development, and the success he had during a long run in Colorado. Plus, they examine the quick demotion for Jackson Holliday, several surprising starting pitchers, and hitting metrics that move the needle despite limited samples from the first month of the season. Rundown 0:21Adam Ottavino Joins the Show! 8:44 How Adam Throws His Sweeper 16:35 Citi Field's Unique Park Factors Based on Game Time 21:22 Players Entering the Game with More Pitches, Even as Relievers 27:11 Jackson Holliday Sent Back to Triple-A 36:57 Erick Fedde's Successful Return to MLB from a One-Year Stint in the KBO 43:01 Ranger Suárez's Early K% Jump 47:37 Graham Ashcraft: Casey Mize in Reverse? Ks Preceding Better Ratios? 51:24 What Matters for Hitters in Smaller Samples? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] -Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe -Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! youtube.com/ratesbarrels -Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, April 26. Derek Benryper, EnoSarris, here with you. We've got a special guest joining us at the beginning of today's show. It is Mets reliever, Adam Ottavino. Adam, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here, guys.

So we want to start today by taking a trip back in time. I want to go back to your time in Colorado because one of the recurring themes on our podcast is we think Colorado is the most difficult place to win in Major League Baseball, regardless of ownership or anything like that. Just because of the conditions of the park, you had a lot of success as a Rocky, your third all-time in ERA among Rocky's relievers in franchise history, second in strikeout

rate. Simple question. How did you do it? What do you think about your arsenal worked well in a place that so many pitchers have struggled in? Yeah, it's a good question. Um, when I first got claimed off waivers by the Rockies, I think a lot of people would have in my shoes would have been like, maybe upset about that, knowing the situation there. But I was really excited because I was in St. Louis before that and I just wasn't getting a lot of opportunity.

And I figured, Hey, if I go to Colorado, people are going to be pitching poorly. So I should get a chance here. And I just kind of embraced it from day one, I think. So that's the first part, just the mental part of it. Like I understood the challenge and I kind of understood the difference between the C level movement and the mile high movement pretty quickly. And I just tried to adjust as fast as I could. I do think that my arsenal worked there

for a couple of reasons. I think the sweeper, to me, kind of protected me against those hangers a little bit. I would throw a lot of them and I wouldn't worry about how high they were or low in the zone. And a lot of guys would swing under them. The ball just kind of would never come down.

It would kind of just sweep across the zone at the top. And I think it was just a different look than other guys were seeing. And I actually remember being on first base one time, and Carlos Lee was the first baseman. And he said, you know, Poppy, you're nasty. And I was like, well, I feel like I threw you some pretty good pitches to hit there. And he said, yeah, but like I thought they were going to break down, and they never broke down.

I swing under them, and I don know which which way to track your slider So that was kind of the first hint I got where it was like, okay Like if I can keep it flat and just moving left I think it'll play here and I think the second part of it is just my my ability to get called strikes You know any ball in play is a dangerous ball, of course So if you can limit balls and play I think that gives you a little bit of a better chance My ability to get called strikes, you know, any ball in play is a dangerous ball, of course. So if you can limit balls in play, I think that gives you a little bit of a better chance. One thing that's interesting about the sweeper is that it's a seam-shifted wake pitch, right?

So it's trying to gather seams and catch those seams and stay up. That's like what you're talking about there, that phenomenon. There's no air. Did it stay up less in Colorado Colorado but still more than people expected? Did you have sort of a gyro component to it? Was it like, is it not the truest sweeper? Like why did that work when like, like, so for example, you know, other seamshifter weight like changeups don't work that well there, right?

A pure gyro pitch is going to be the least affected pitch there. And at the time I was throwing multiple sliders, I was throwing more of a gyro with depth pitch, and then the sweeper was kind of like a surprise pitch. So I do think there was an element of it where they were expecting two plane action, like more of a depthy break to it, and then it just didn't break as much as they expected. Your sweeper is better at sea level though. Yeah, I mean, well, it's bigger

and it does stay up a little more. You know what? Also from a command perspective that kind of maybe helped me a little bit in Colorado too is it wasn't as big, I could keep it in the zone. I was a guy who struggled with my walk rate for a lot of my career and especially when I was younger and I felt like, you know,

I was in the zone a little more in course, I was getting to the better counts. I was getting to 0-2, 1-2 a lot. And I've always had, you know, an ability to kind of put guys away when I got it, when I got to that spot. So just getting to those counts, I think, it's just huge no matter where you are.

And I think maybe it was a little easier for me, of course, to throw strikes. The cutter seems to have debuted in 2015 while you were in Colorado. At least by the pitch tracking. Yeah, the first cutter I had, yeah, it was 2015, yeah. That didn't come after a bad walk year. So, you know, take me through the thought process the first time you did the cutter.

I think you had a couple iterations on that. That was just like, I wanted to work my way into the ninth inning, and I didn't want to be just a righty specialist so I was just struggling with that platoon split and I needed to come up with a third pitch to kind of bridge the gap between the other two even though I was throwing multiple sliders they were all in the same speed range so I felt like I needed something that was kind of more neutral movement and you know more neutral speed like it wasn't 95 and it wasn't 80, you know, something in the middle. That was the idea behind the cutter.

It's still the idea behind the cutter, but I've definitely gone through like five different, you know, cutter grips and thought processes over time. Yeah. I mean, most famously was the time that you've like, you know, set up shop and kind of built your own pitching lab in New York. What year was that? And what sort of thinking, what was the thought process that time when you did the cutter? It was between 2017 and 2018 was the first time.

So that's the, that's the year where you had your worst walk rate. You're coming off a horrible year in 17. I just felt like I had been in the division a while and I had gotten hurt in 2015. So that cutter that I, that I had kind of got semi-shelled through my Tommy John. When I came out the other side I didn't have a great feel for it. I'm still throwing it a little bit in 17 but that was the year that the league just decided to stop swinging against me and so I just was walking everybody. My delivery was all out of whack. That's the first thing I needed to fix that off season,

but then I really wanted to dial in on like some sort of cue for that cutter. And that was where the Edgertronic came in to play, and I started figuring things out from that side. And just gave me something to think about, so I wasn't out there kind of hoping. I kind of was out there with a little more conviction behind that pitch

I used it a lot in 2018 actually mostly to righties, which is funny But you know ended up being a huge pitch for me because I could I use it a lot first pitch Kind of avoid the ambush. I figured if they were gonna ambush me they were looking fastball or slider So I would use it a lot first pitch and then I could get to an o1 count without them seeing you know My best options is that the same cut you're throwing now? It's a little different. I continue to change my grip I mean following the sticky crackdown. I had to move to something a little bit more on the seams Because my hand wasn't glued to the ball anymore Having a hard time making it do what I wanted without slipping out

I'm having a hard time making it do what I wanted without slipping out. So, yes, I'm on the theme a little more now, and now I think of it as two different pitches. Actually, I think of it more as like a flat cutter when I'm trying to throw it in the zone and more of like a gyro depthy slider when I want it to be chase. Is that a sort of a side of the ball hand mechanic cue there for, you know, you're more on the side when you want it to go down and you're more behind it. Yeah. Like, well, so my fingers are more spread when I want to keep it flat.

And I try to think of it like, like just an off center fastball. You know, I turn my wrist, maybe like 40, 45 degrees and just kind of pull straight through it. And when I throw the downer version of it, I get my fingers together and I try to get like over the ball. Well that's like a breaking ball. It's basically a breaking ball but we just call it a cutter and they kind of know what to expect and the reason why I keep it as a cutter because I want to think about throwing as hard as I can and as soon as I think breaking ball I tend to wrap I tend to supinate extra wrap wrap the ball and a lot of speed comes up. And

that's how you throw your sweeper. Yeah I mean if yeah, I'm all the way on the right side of the ball and my hand is hanging on for dear life on the side of that ball as I come through and I'm spinning it, you know, I'm like just right off the end of it. So I do get very supinated and I wrap the ball quite a bit. Yeah. So, you know, you kind of you kind of did that on your own a little bit, that the cutter and the storefront in New York and, you know, Travis Sajak had a great story and we've talked about that a lot. What happened?

So that like that was I don't want to I'm not trying to talk crap on Colorado, but like you kind of were like, okay, pitch design is the thing. I'm not really maybe getting it from, you know, my team. So I'm going to just go and do this on my own. Is that part of it? And then then when you started changing teams after that, did anybody screw around with your your sweeper? Or was that always just like, now you got that.

Let's see what the other stuff or, you know, was there any any surprises when you got to a new team and they're like, we think you can get even more sweeper, whatever. Well, the first part of the question, you question, when I was with the Rockies, they definitely didn't understand it at first. I've always dug around on YouTube and the internet trying to see what other people are doing. And at the time, Trevor Bauer and a couple other guys

were really the only one people putting out pitch design stuff on the internet. And obviously it was very interesting to me. My dad had always commented, it'd be great if we could see the ball release off your fingertips so we could get some real info and you know technology had had just caught up at that point so I called that Edutronic company and I basically said hey have baseball people been calling you guys and they said yeah if you have so I was like all right so I'm on the right track here. Yeah, I was on the right track.

When I went to drive line, a lot of it was me learning how to use the camera so I could do it at home. You know, my dad was helping me. He was the one clicking the shutter and everything. And that's just super important because you're connecting what you have in your head with what like like feel versus real versus sort of thing. Like you sort of see what's actually happening. Yeah, exactly.

And actually a pitch that helped me a lot with was my two seam. I used to be like a traditional grip right on the train tracks, like everybody else. And then I kind of saw on the camera that my middle finger was kind of overwhelming. It was kind of overwhelming the pitch a little bit and it wasn't getting to that seam shift point.

Now at the time we didn't know it was seam shift but I knew which way I needed the ball to spin because I had just seen some information on that. Like we didn't still know what was going on, but we knew, okay, if you can get the face of the ball to be open on like the left side. That's the Barton Smith stuff, the early Barton Smith stuff where you talk about the looper.

Start drawing the sharpie on the ball. Anyway, I was able to make an adjustment with my middle finger and actually take it off the seam a little bit. And my two seam took off that next year became like a really, really good pitch for me. So that was the beginnings of it. But the interesting thing with the Rockies was, you know, I get to spring training 2018 and I bring my camera with me and I had the video guy set it up behind me in my bullpens and even my live VPs and pitching coach at the time Got very upset with me Called me into you know the conference room one day and he's like you're you're trying to get me fired

Not just trying to do my best Said no no no like I'm not trying to go above you I said listen I would love for you to watch the videos with me like your two brains are better than one on this I would love for you to watch the stuff with me and I said but you know, not for nothing I'm not trying to be you know an ass or anything But like you might want to brush up on this stuff because it's coming And so obviously I had a great year that year, you know next year I signed the Yankees and

Already, it's more prevalent there as soon as I got there that a lot seemed, you know, next year I signed the Yankees and already it's more prevalent there. As soon as I got there, a lot seemed to happen in that 2018 year. Things really took off around the league. And by the time I got to the Yankees had electronics on every bullpen mound in that spring training as soon as you were there. So they had everything and, you know, they were more they were more interested in talking strategy with me. They didn't really want to mess with my pitch mix too much. I mean, they liked it. That's why they signed me. They just wanted to talk a little bit more strategy and how they saw the game,

in terms of how often to throw my slider, stuff like that. Really ever since then, I've been in places where the coaches and the organization has given me a lot of freedom to explore my own arsenal and adding to it. You know, now I have change up and you know, I brought back the force team into the loop a little bit. You know, they're willing to help me, but they know that I kind of know what I'm doing out there for the most part and they're just willing to kind of help me with that process rather than kind of force me into anything. I like this question we got from one of our viewers. Philip wants to know,

do you think of yourselves having two separate arsenals? You know, what you do against righties versus what you do against lefties? Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I have all pitches and I will throw all of them to everyone. But as you can see in the early going here, like, you know, my preference is to be mostly sinker sweeper versus righties and lefties. I got to throw the kitchen sink out there. So lefties is any pitch, it's all five pitches all the time. Obviously, certain pitches play well off each other. But yeah, with the righties, I mean, for the

most part, it's sinker, slider. And if I feel like they're really good, you know, I have changed up in the bag there. One thing that Alex Cobb told me about Seam Shift Awake, that at least as he felt it, was that it was finicky. And that's something I've heard from Clay Holmes as well, that it can come and go. Yours seems really solid. Like I don't think I've seen a bad one necessarily. I know you probably have. You have. You've seen all your pitches. But this idea, like Clay Holmes was like, I had to develop some cues for if I was losing that seam shift wake, they weren't really taking off some minor cues I could kind of shuffle through to maybe find it again. But I also think about how does that dovetail with command? I know you have big shapes and big shapes are harder to command.

So you have two things that are working against your command. You're throwing big shapes and They depend on seam shifted weight to some extent. Do you I know the cutter is part of that, but what's the other part of that? What's the part about how do you how have you really honed in on? Commanding your sinker and your and your sweeper when they're that big and they depend on seam shifted weight every day in catch play I mean I I long toss with with four seam fastball and then when I get back to about 90 feet I throw three change-ups from 90 feet and at that point I switch to the ball with the dot on it so I can make sure I get real-time feedback on the spin of my change-up in my sinker every day and then when I get to 60 I you know I throw my pitches from 60 and I try to

just make sure I'm seeing the spin the way I want it. But it is true, it is a little finicky. I do think it's important to pay attention when you get up closer to full intensity of what your pitches are doing. You might not be able to tell as much in catch play or even warming up. But when you get out there for those, even those five, six before the inning and you let them fly, sometimes you can get a feel like, oh, that's moving a lot today, or that's not gonna move as much. You know, at City Field in particular,

and a lot of day games, we get a little bit of a wind in our face, and the pitch metrics go crazy. They go crazy those days. Like, you can throw 25 inch sinkers, and 25 inch sweepers, and guys that don't even have 18 inch vert on their four seams will get 20s.

Whoa. It's important to kind of know that on the days. So when I'm on the iPad, is that because the wind is coming in towards you up top and then comes back and kind of like swirls? We think it kind of swirls and then just gently comes out towards you a little bit. So there's a little bit of wind resistance there. So obviously you have it gives you a little bit more extreme resistance to kind of grab the seams and do stuff with when i'm on those dugout ipads i'm always checking the metrics on every pitcher and you have a sense from the other guys what they're doing what's happening today so i i know what my guys pitches are supposed to look like

shape wise so i can see okay this is one of those days and then when i go out there i know that i have to start my slider my sweeper even more to the right like if I'm throwing a righty I got to really throw it at him to keep it on the plate and it's just like a constant calibration Process now luckily I've gotten better at it because I've got enough experience To kind of understand what I'm feeling and what I'm seeing but it is tricky With the thinker in particular like at cores that would be tough because I felt like I couldn't start it off the plate I felt like I had to throw it on the plate like right at the corner to get that backdoor to seam whereas you go On the road and you feel like you can throw it, you know a fair amount off the plate and let it run back

Because just all movement is less in Yeah, and then like just depending on the situation the mindset is kind of like, okay I want to miss over the plate here or I want to miss not over the plate here So that's kind of where the command part comes in a little bit Like obviously if I need to still throw more strikes in the at bat to get the right count most of the time I'm okay missing over the plate it might not be a perfect pitch, but It's better than throwing an easy take for a ball, you know, and then, but if I have count leverage, and I'm not sure if he's gonna protect that outside corner,

like I'll try to throw it perfect or miss it off the plate a little bit. So it's more of that mindset. Another one of our viewers has a question, same as mine question is Steven Jezoulas. Are you aware of the wind and weather quirks at all stadiums, certainly being in your home park, it's easier to pick up on those patterns, But is that something you try to study and figure out

series to series now? No, no, we would maybe notice it in a game because again, like I'm looking at the metrics of my guys. So I have an idea of let's say like when Verlander was with us, like I had an idea of like what his fastball does, what his slider does. And if it looked out of the norm, I might might feel like, oh, OK, maybe there's something different going on with the weather here today. No, no other parks come to mind as being kind of weird. Washington, I've had a couple of games for sure where the wind was, it felt like it was blowing right to left.

So like third base to first base. And that felt like it made my sweeper take off crazy, but it would resist the comeback of my sinker. So that's a little bit of a different slight variation there, but I don't know, you try to be aware of it all, but at the same time, there's just so much feel involved in the moment. Here's where we can maybe take a little bit of a segue

to another way of looking at organizations is just that, for example, Tampa is in a dome, is an inside one. And what I found with Stuff Plus is that Stuff Plus For example, Tampa is in a dome, is an inside one. And what I found with Stuff Plus is that Stuff Plus loves domes, Stuff Plus loves being inside. It just loves, it's like, it's just easier. You don't have these wind, you don't have chaos as much. You know? There's less variables.

Yeah, more controlled environment for sure. And so Tampa is always like number one or number two in Stuff Plus, which is like says to me, well, they have their own Stuff Plus and mine must be somewhat similar. So we're aligning on that. They have like situation to do it, but then they also coach to it.

They take people and they say things like, hey, you should throw your best pitch more often or hey, you should try to get this more vert on this or more drop on this. Do you see more and more of that in New York? Because I'm getting the sense that New York is building up in this way. That, you know, at least the minor leagues, they've been really working on that. Do you like when the younger the younger relievers and stuff, do they now speak more that language? And is there like, is New York developing an ethos, you know, like that?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, every guy that comes up now speaks the language for sure. There are less to pitch guys now, too. There's most most guys have three real pitches and working on a fourth or fifth. Even in the pen, even in the pen. Yeah, it seems to be kind of just where things are headed, because a lot of times now we're matching in pitch design organizations are matching new pitches to arm slots. They're saying okay this is your arm slot you're a good candidate for this pitch. You know if you're really over the top that death ball that

everybody's chasing seems to be something that people go for. You know, Fairbanks. Yeah. We got the lower arm slot you kind of end up in a sinker cutter seam shifted change up sweeper and like kind of end up in a sinker, cutter, seam shifted, change up, sweeper, and like kind of a not great metric fore seam, but just from a low slot, so it works okay with VAA. People just kind of end up there, to be honest. But yes, in terms of pitch selection, every organization I've been in the last five years

is preaching pitch to your strengths, throw your best pitch as much as you can, and build off of that. And that's been the case for me in my career. Like I don't go out there telling myself, preaching pitch to your strengths throw your best pitch as much as you can and build off of that and That's been the case for me in my career Like I don't go out there telling myself Oh, I have to throw X amount of this or that but I do know that if I let my sweeper be the primary pitch Everything else seems to play better after that. So pitching backwards in a way Yeah

Because a lot of it is like you just try to figure out like well in a vacuum if I threw My pitches right down the middle which one would have be the most comfortable with the results with you know and for me it's the sweeper because ultimately they're gonna like the slugging is not going to be that high on it and the expected batting average is going to be crazy so I can live with throwing that pitch right down the middle with them knowing it more than the other pitches so that's where that kind of comes from you start with their start with that and then you figure out how to pitch off that. So are we approaching a homogeneity across baseball? There's still little things that people do differently, right? Well, yeah. I mean, first of all, the arm slots are all over the place. The angles that guys are

creating are still very, very different. But I do think that because we have such a good idea of how to teach the new, all the pitches now, I do think that we are headed a little bit more towards a homogeneity a little bit, you know, in that, in that regard, just cause, uh, yeah, we just have way more information of how to throw it. I mean, the sweeper, the amount of people that learned it in the last three or four years is just wild to me. Well, I mean, I wonder if changeups of the wild, wild west now, at least. I mean,

we know about SeamShift and Wake, but it seems like when I do stuff plus and stuff, like, change-ups are still the hardest to nail down. What was your process like in bringing the change-up back this year? I tried to work on a good change up for a while. I was using Rapsodo years ago and it didn't really give me the full picture. So I wasn't seeing the seam shift wake properties of the movement. And it was kind of spooking me and telling me that my change was really, really bad.

And I know that even right now, the Mets don't love the movement on my change up, but I feel like I know when to throw it. And I also feel like- So wait, tell me a little bit about that technological difference, because is Trackman has a better they have that difference between observed like

has the Vought has the difference between observed spin and actual spin or something. Or what's the what's I do think that Repsoto has caught up now. But at the time they were just doing spin based movement. So they were basically capturing the way the ball moved

that like came out of your hand and then basically assuming the movement of it. Whereas Trackman's tracking the movement and then reverse engineering it. And that's where the differences started to become apparent where it's like, oh, like you're releasing it this way. It should not have moved that much, but it did. There's the seam shift, that's the difference.

You know, that's what happened there along the ball flight. You were looking for that when you were building your change up. You're looking for a difference between spin-based movement and actual movement. We just knew that. We were studying Steven Strasburg at the time and he was getting his change up to three o'clock on the clock. I was trying to get mine to three o'clock. Are your release points similar? It's more similar than you would think. It just kept saying that my mine to three o'clock, but reps like your release points similar It's more similar than you would think it just kept saying that my spin was two o'clock to 15 But that's kind of how I was that's that's how I was releasing it on the seam shift. It was getting to three o'clock

I just didn't know that so I got the track man regularly and then I said oh I'm actually on something and the first year I had to change up. I actually had really good moving on it I was averaging about zero vert and like 16, 17 horizontal. It was like really nice, but I couldn't control it at all. It was another situation where my grip wasn't serving me well. Like my thumb wasn't on a seam, the ball was coming out of my hand and like earlier than I wanted it to. So coming into last year, I shifted that a little bit, got more on the seam, and actually started being able to command the pitch.

The movement then kind of wasn't as good. It was about one vert and like 13 horizontal, so it wasn't anything special. But being that, I kind of had a good sense of when to throw it, and now I could actually command it. It played really well, and it was my most effective pitch last year in terms of like, you know, just run value. Well, Adam, we know we got a game coming up for you tonight.

So you gotta get on the way to the ballpark. We appreciate the time and the insight and hopefully we'll catch up with you again sometime down the road. All right, sounds good. Thanks guys. It's Mets reliever, Adam Odovino. One of the originators of the sweeper, right?

He's on board before the sweeper was cool. I think that's the tagline for Adam Ottavino, but that success at Colorado, that just jumped off the page when we were preparing for the interview. Breaking news happening in the background that we're going to get to here in just a few minutes. You love it when the live hive lights up with questions and then there's breaking news interspersed with it. The news here is that Jackson Holiday has been optioned back to AAA. Oh, they made the decision to reset. Alright.

I don't know. How do you feel about that? Knowing that it was a very brief opportunity, but it did not go well. 50 percent K rate is a really rough start. I don't love it. I think there are other toggles. You could this could this could have continued for another week or two. And maybe then it's right. But it just feels a tick early. If you believe he was ready, feel like you have to stand by that a little bit longer. I know they don't have the luxury of letting things play out

because every game matters when you're a team that wants to go to the postseason. But this feels pretty quick to send him back. I know we just had we just had some think pieces about like, you know, what it's like to be struggling and how everyone's telling him, you'll be fine, you'll be fine. And yeah, I think that I think one of the hardest things to know as a player is when to change the process.

You know, because people, especially if you have like a strong network like he does, and your dad who's played forever is telling you, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, you know, like, then you don't change the process. But if you know, is there something wrong with the process, I would have to say that a 16% swing strike rate is not good. And you know, what does that come in, in terms of pitches? 148? I mean, that's obviously not a great sample,

but it's also really not good contact rate. So, I don't know. If he is going to change something, it's going to be super high profile and he's going to have to do that away from the public eye as much. I think so.

That'll be the big discussion. The big question is, is it time to change stuff or is it just time to reset the the attitude like not the I'm not saying he has bad attitude, but you know, the confidence. Yeah. That's the hardest thing to know when we're on the outside looking in. We don't know how he's internalizing that. The question from Pat in the Live Hive is Kobe Mayo's timeline moved up.

Maybe, it sounds like Ryan McKenna was the corresponding move when they sent Holiday down. That could be more about the upcoming schedule and matchups and certain things like that, as opposed to, you know, maybe. What's the weak link though? I mean, Gunnar is playing short and he's great Adley's not moving Santander even with his struggles is 16% better than the average

You know, I think the haze haze is really falling off and just cause was taking his job Mountcastle is breaking. I have six Seven I have seven guys that are more than 10% above the average of the bat. And that includes Cedric Mullins. So and that doesn't include Ryan on her. And so if you get the right on her, that's eight, the backup catcher is almost at league average. So I guess Ramon Urias is the weak link, but he's, he's not counted in this. What's the position I'm missing. You've got three outfielders, right?

Kauser, Mullens and Santander. You got a short stop. Westberg is okay. So there is, there's an opening there. It's second or third. Yeah. It's just the spot that holiday vacated and you could move Westberg to that spot and play someone else at third. It comes down to who you like better defensively where, and you could move Westberg to that spot and play someone else at third it comes down

To who you like better defensively where and you're probably gonna play Ramon Arias a little bit more in the short term I think the only thing with Kobe Mayo that stands out to be just number scouting what's happening at triple-a now versus last year He's striking out more striking out twenty nine point nine percent of the time He's not walking as much as he was still has a very bright future still a big% of the time, he's not walking as much as he was. Still has a very bright future, still a big part of the plan. But- Drawing the ball. Like don't you want to see that K-Raid come down a little bit before you bring him up though,

so you avoid or reduce the likelihood of the same problem you just ran into with Jackson Holliday? It's also a little bit weird because he's right-handed, and so it's not a good combo with Euryus. But who do they have that's left-handed Gunners left-handed right gonna yeah yeah Gunner bats left-handed says your mullings bats left-handed Santander is a switch Rutchman is switch how's there's a lefty Oh herns a lefty so they could actually

maybe use a writing on curse that's a lefty is cursed at playing just got called up I think he has to play. He also didn't play against a lefty. Yeah but he's gonna play against righties as long as he's on the roster. Why is he up? Because they've got O'Hern and Mountcastle. Because Mountcastle's a righty, O'Hern's a lefty so you can get two lefties in if you want to sit Mountcastle on a particular day between first base and DH or you can jam him in the out in if you want to sit Mountcastle on a particular day between first base and DH, or you could jam them in the outfield if you want to give one of the outfielders a day off. She have so much talent.

It's ridiculous. I suppose Mayo, I mean, I think the big thing is that like, if cows are, with cows are Mateo, they do have backup center fielders. I guess the big thing is when Hayes is healthy, they may not want to bring up Mayo because And it's Connor is Mayo on the 40-man roster yet. Fair question I don't think he's on the 40-man unless they had to just add him this past winter

Do not know off the top of my head wish I did Not on the 40-man roster. Yeah, I didn't think so. So you'd have to you'd have to drop somebody I mean if like Bradish ends up, know, getting hurt and going to the IL 60, you know, that opens up a roster spot. But like, you know, if if they need to open up a roster spot, then they need to drop somebody. And that means like losing talent, like are they going to drop Jonathan Heasley? I guess that's possible. You could just drop Jonathan Heasley and make room for yourself there, but you know, that's on the pitching side so maybe there's a balance you're trying to have. You're gonna drop Kyle Stowers, you know, you're gonna DFA Kyle Stowers

in order to get Mayo on the roster. I think that's probably the holdup. It's the 40-man roster and also the fact that Hayes at some point is going to come back. So right now I think they're also so stacked offensively they're like, hey, Urias plus Mateo, you know, that's fine. We'll get by with that. This is important from Jay Rogers. They didn't have any other outfielders on the 40 man when Austin Hayes got hurt either. So maybe Ryan McKenna who just came up ends up being the guy that eventually goes next right? It's just it's a revolving door when you have this much talent It's a constant squeeze to get everything to fit producer Brian also sent me a note Tommy fam coming up for the White Sox

Kevin Pilar DfA so if you've been waiting on Tommy fam, and I have been in a surprising number of leagues If you've been waiting on Tommy Fahm and I have been in a surprising number of leagues, the doors now open for Fahm to try and elevate that White Sox offense a little bit. Well, you know, you've got Dominic Fletcher with a 62 WRC plus. He supposedly makes a ton of contact, but has a 30 percent strikeout rate. He's got to get past Robbie Grossman, who has a 68 WRC plus. I think he can do that. Team is so depressing right now. Just unbelievably depressing. Has a 10 WRC plus. But he's also under contract for a few more years. So I kind of feel like the normal will be Ben and Tendi. Oh, and Roberts hurt, huh? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Roberts hurt.

Ben and 10 D. Oh, and Roberts hurt, huh? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Roberts hurt your hip injury. So it's Ben and 10 D Grossman, Fam. Oh, my God. Well, don't expect many runs in RBI from Fam. Yeah, he'll play a lot. So that'll make him relevant still in deeper leagues. Still has power, still has speed.

I don't know. I'm a little more optimistic than you are. Since we're on the White Sox, one of the topics we had for today is talking about some deeper pitching surprises that we have not discussed yet. How about Eric Fetty? He's pitching well in his return from the KBO, right? A small glimmer of hope for the White Sox

in terms of maybe having someone that they could trade to a league desperate for pitching. We just saw 11 strikeouts, a season high from Fetty last time out against the twins earlier this week. He's up to a 30 to nine strikeout to walk ratio through five starts, 26 and a third innings. The ratios look good. The wind probability is low every single time he goes out there because as we've said many times on this show, teams just not good.

But are you trusting what Eric Fetty has done up to this point through his first five starts back in the big leagues? Well, the sweeper and the splitter that he added were, are really good and stuff plus loves them and you know, they're getting good results and they're why he's succeeding the forcing that was one of the worst four teams in baseball is still one of the worst four teams in baseball. is still one of the worst Four Seams in baseball. He's got a 56 stuff plus on that. So he's in that class.

You heard out of, you know, talk about this, the cutter sweeper change up sinker guy, or that's who he is. He is Michael King. He is Clark Schmidt. He is Clark Schmidt. He is Hayden Wesnanski. That's a wide range of names though, as far as what you get for results. His change up is better than anybody on that list.

The best of a class perhaps with Michael King's Velo being down. I mean, maybe he could be, maybe I should have had Fetty ranked higher and King ranked lower. But King's gonna get more wins. I was hoping that King would add more Velo. King's force theme is way better than Fetty's. So among in that class, I'm still got a King, Fetty, Schmidt, Wazninski.

I'm sure there's more people like like that. Yeah, it's a it's a burgeoning field. But I remain a little skeptical with that foreseen that way. And not having a great fastball, whether it gets warmer, ball flies out of the cell. It's a two year deal that he signed back in the winter. And there were supposedly a lot of teams interested because Inexpensive pitching that can be completely stretched out for guy that threw a hundred and eighty in the third innings last year in the KBO You've zero worries about letting him just go that alone made him interesting to teams

And then of course the performance was great We talked about how the K minus BB percentage from Feddy last year in Korea was the best we've ever seen in the KBO, as far back as Fangraphs has it tracked. So if you're in the White Sox position, you have to trade them. Like it's gotta be an early season deal. It's gotta be something you do a month ahead of the trade deadline.

There's plenty of teams in need. We've got more pitching injuries popping up that we're gonna get to a little bit later in the show. So I'd be on the phone. I'd be seeking out a deal if I were Chris Getz trying to do something right away, even if I like Fetty and believed in him because he's not going to help you. By the time that contract is up, you're going to be in the like beginning of year three of a five to six year rebuild.

I know that Brit has a piece coming out. I'm trying to see if it came out yet. I saw it on Slack. It's, it had a hilarious title. Let's see if it's out yet. No, it's not out yet. Watch this space for a piece from Brit about the GM in Chicago. Yeah, so I think most of the times,

GMs want to land with a good season and give themselves times to change things under the hood. I think in this case, he did not stick that landing. No. And so, I think I agree with you. Where would he go? Would it mostly be good news to leave? I think so.

Yes. Team context only gets better. Park situation. Park context. Okay. Like since the Red Sox trade for him or Cincinnati trade for him. Yeah, it might not be great. Yeah, I'd be a little worried about him in a place like that.

The boost homers. Yeah, Yankees would be tough, but he already gives up. He has so far 1.7 for the season and that's that's due to the bad fastballs. I think. Right. That totally makes sense. Let's talk about Bailey Falter just for a minute, because he would be on the list of current pirates that might be somehow keeping Paul skeens at triple A. Three thirty three era point eight nine whip. But the underlying numbers look almost identical to what we've seen before.

Really, the biggest difference is that there's a little less contact in the zone and a few more swinging strikes. But as far as the strikeout rate, the walk rate, the home run rates, we're not seeing anything that's massively different to past versions of Bailey Falter. So is there anything I'm missing in the flyby with him? He has good vert and really it's almost like a cut ride fastball, very little horizontal movement.

He has good vertical approach angle on the fastball. So he's kind of a one-trick pony in a way. It's that forcing fastball and you've seen that he throws it a lot and he throws a lot more than most people do. Right now, I think he's throwing it. Let's see here. His it's weird because stuff plus doesn't like the pitch and it hates Bailey Falter in general. But there is something interesting about that pitch and he's throwing it right now. 55% of the time, that's that's that's a lot for for a four forcing these days. I have to think that this is not going to last. I mean, there's other metrics you can use. I mean, Stuff Plus says it's not good, but also like a 17 minus 7 K minus BB. K minus BB, the average is 12. So if you got a 17 minus 7,

it's not good. You could just look at 17 is not a good, you know, the guy with strikeout rate is 21. If you have a 17, then oh, maybe he has a good groundball rate, well, 37% groundball rate. So it's not a ground grounder guy. He's gonna give up some homers. He's not gonna be good on the road. And there's a guy named Paul Skeens that is up to, what was it, four and a third?

Four and a third, just inching along. Four and a third, yeah. I mean, four and a third actually to me is good enough. That's green light time I updated it for the weekly recap that's going up today I think May 7th Tuesday night home against the Angels is a Queen Queen that was the one we heard Yeah, it was gonna be the rocky series now. I think it's gonna be the Angels series So we're closing in slowly on the arrival of Paul Skeens. How about Rangers Suarez?

I think Rangers Suarez is rostered in a much wider range of leagues. His K rates up early on 27.1 percent. It's supported by an increase in swinging strike rate. He's cut his walk rate in half in the early going as well. We're talking about 33 innings, so decent amount of sample there. And he's got the ground ball rate back up in the range where it was when he crushed in 2021. Rangers Suarez had become my favorite pitcher

to be wrong about because I'm always wrong about Rangers Suarez. When I start to believe he gets hit. When I'm skeptical, he's amazing. So why am I always wrong about Rangers Suarez? Maybe you can't unpack that one. And is there anything different with Suarez that would make skeptics right to believe this time?

You know, his Sinker is much better than this Four Scene. He has that 69 stuff plus on the Four Scene. That's not nice. And the Cutter is a 103 stuff plus. So theoretically he has a fastball for each side, I guess. But I would say that he is more comfortable against... What do you think he's more comfortable against? I haven't...

I would guess righties. Do you think he's more comfortable against righties? It's pretty rare for a lefty to want to face righties. Well right now his split is pretty amazing. 206 Woba against righties, 39 against lefties the cutter is his best fastball Yeah, but for his career lefties 227 Woba righties 321 he's still more comfortable against lefties. Oh, I'm in Bailey falter

So Bailey falter has reverse splits on top of all the other weirdness? And Ranger Suarez this year has a reverse split, but it's 194 against 213. But yeah, for career, yeah, 321. I would assume that he's kind of a kitchen sink guy, right, Ranger Suarez? And when one of his secondaries is just really popping it's working but when it's not you can't get by like his best pitch is his cutter and it has a one-on-three stuff loss you know it's like it's not good enough to be like oh well I've always got this so some days when he comes in he's like oh today I've got my cutter and my change up and my curve like now you guys are in

trouble you know and then other days he's like oh well I I only have my cutter. I think he's one of those guys that kind of fits as like a top 40 to 50 starting pitcher and when they're good they deliver like top 25 starter ratios and you can't quite figure out when or why then they're a little more park dependent than a lot of other players that park is pretty difficult and when they're bad they're hard to use for more than the occasional start. So I think it's just the heater, even though it's a really impressive heater. It's also he's a ground ball guy. I mean, and ground ball guys, he's not going to give you the strikeouts career 22 right now 27, but career 22% strikeout rate. And then what you will find with ground ball guys is higher whips and 127 for his career right now.

He's got a beautiful whip. But if you just look even the last two years where he's been pretty good. 365 ERA in 2022 for for for him. 133 for Ranger Suarez whip in 2022 142 whip for him last year. So I would assume the whip going forward starts with a 1.3. That's a safe assumption. Fine. But it's not necessarily good. John, from the Live Hive, Ronaldo Lopez or Rangers Suarez, rest of season, would you rather?

Would you rather? I mean, the whip, I think, is going to go to Ronaldo Lopez. The strikeout rate is definitely going to Ronaldo Lopez. The home run rate and the ground ball rate go to Suarez. I'm taking Lopez. I don't know if I followed that step by step as like how you got to that actual. Well, I like strikeouts. Think about what is actually a Roto category.

I just listed a bunch of stuff. You just trust the K's from Lopez more. Yeah. And also all the K's from Lopez more. Yeah. And also all the stuff that I listed from Suarez are not Roto categories in most leagues and all the stuff that I listed for Lopez are Roto categories from most leagues. So. Got one more here. Graham Ashcraft.

Is this Casey Meyers in reverse where we're getting a lot of strikeouts now that we weren't getting before and we're not getting the results yet. Will the ratios follow for Ashcraft? The one thing I really like about him, he's getting deep into his starts. Modern deep, that is, not like not historically deep. When I see a game blog and every start in it starts with a five or something higher, I'm like, yeah, this is good. This is a guy that's giving me shots at wins. And that's something Ashcraft has done. Three wins and four starts so far. Love that the K-rate is up.

Is this a guy that has always popped the model finally turning the corner? 289 ERA first time through the order. 415 ERA second time through the order. 1246. Hey, what's the league average third time through the order. 1246. It was the league average third time to the order, like 650. 1246. No, it's not 12. Is it start with a five or a six?

This is the whole thing with Graham Ashcraft that kills me is how many times have I thought, oh, this would be maybe a good time for like, you know, a Graham Ashcraft tweet because he's through three innings or four innings scoreless with like five strikeouts and no walks and like, yeah, this is it. This is a baby. And then then the fifth inning comes you're like, Oh, god damn it. The way to get around that third time through the order thing is add more pitches. The thing that he has done this year is add a sinker. I like that. It is theoretically a good idea.

It's still only three pitches. That's what's so hilarious about him is he added a pitch and it's still down. No, I think. And what's funny, too, is that every time he adds a pitch, he's going to bring his stuff plus down. Well, yeah, that's true. Not as good as his head. He had some buffer though.

His stuff plus number was way higher than the results. So you could kind of like, oh, okay, sure. We'll give a little up and the arsenals better. So the pieces work. I mean, cutter, slider, sinker. That's kind of more of that banana peel that you want. But you'd really like one more peel. I'd like the curve.

Yeah, you want the curve. But I will say 343 Sierra is the best of his career by far. And that's reacting to a really good ground ball rate, really good strikeout rate, well, good strikeout rate, and really good walk rate. I like the mix. This is something where he was available in your 20 team where you pick him up.

He's available in your, if you have him in your, only you hold for a little bit longer. Like I don't think this is actionable for 12 teamers, even at 15 teamers, maybe stream away from home. That's what I would try. I don't like doing that. Cause you give up, you give up the home advantage that you get, the calls that you get from being at home,

even though you're getting a better venue. On the road this year, he has 11 and two thirds innings with three earned runs, and at home this year, he has 10 and two thirds with 10 earned runs. Hmm, yeah, and you pull back. And I'm not saying that's gonna, I'm not gonna say that's gonna continue. No, no, but when you pull back, look at his career.

That's another area, it's like, okay, how long has this really been going on? Well, kind of his whole career is home ERA in his career for Graham Ashcraft, 546, road 410. Yeah, and that 410 is so super useful. Yeah, 410s are nice these days. Stream away from home, that's the best I can do. Gross.

That's better than it was, but not the exciting breakout I was hoping for. I've been told repeatedly to stop trying to make Grand Ashcraft happen. Yeah, that's probably good advice. Let's shift the focus over to hitters for a bit. We're going to have a hitter rankings update coming out next week.

And we started talking backstage about what really moves the needle right now. I mean, yes, I can move Ellie De La Cruz up quite a bit, because I was a little lighter on Ellie De La Cruz than I should have been. But look, the bigger questions are like what metrics matter, what's close to being stable, what's close to giving us something that we can actually lean on to say? Yes, there is improvement that we care about.

I mean, my favorite we name the podcast after it is Barrel Rate. I really like barrel rate because it captures not only are you hitting the ball hard but are you getting it off the ground and so you can look at something like Elliott of the Cruises line and be like well there's too many ground balls it's not going to work he's not going to hit for power but he hits the ball so hard that when he does hit the ball in the air it it's a barrel, you know? And I think that is actually kind of a sustainable approach for him. And I think that the ground ball rate will slightly get better over time. But when you look at somebody like Michael Garcia, who was somebody that we liked going

into the season, there's a lot of people kind of asking, you know, is this not going to happen? Was were we wrong about this? Is it time to drop him intent in 12 teamers? And I would say no, because the barrel rate is up 11% is a good barrel rate. And on top of that, his strikeout rate is down. And he's stolen six bases. So I see, you know, this 213 batting average on balls and planes, that's the outlier, I don't believe in that. And I think that he could even go past, you know, this 213 batting average on balls and planes. That's the outlier. I don't believe in that. And I think that he could even go past. You see somebody like Zip saying 253.

Well, the bad X has 269 and that's because he hits the ball hard and the bad X uses more stat cast numbers. So 269. And if he if the barrel rate holds, it's a 269 with 20 homers and 20 steals. So he'll end the year with 250 and 20 homers and 20 steals, and you will be happy that you had him. And there's a little bit, just a tiny bit of a chance with somebody with this kind of strikeout rate and that kind of bad ball power and that kind of

speed, that there is like a month where he hits 350. And he actually ends the season at like 275 or something, you know, because he does have that set of skills that could kind of go off. So, you know, it's kind of paradoxical. But despite his struggles, I think I might move Mike Kelly Garcia up in rankings, depending on where I had him. Yeah, it's weird, because I know in some shadow leagues, like 10 team leagues, after the great first week, there were some questions about maybe cutting him, and process is so important. That's what we're looking at, process stats. We're looking at things like year to year

barrel rate changes. You look at hard hit rate too. You'll at least find guys that are hitting the ball harder, even if they're not lifting it consistently. You'll look at something like O swing percentage, and sometimes you wanna merge that with overall swing rates just to make sure that the approach is on sync. So across the board, left to right,

if you're watching on YouTube, we've got the barrel rate risers starting on the left. We have hard hit rate risers. That's Tyler Stevenson, Ellie De La Cruz, Riley Green. Yep, so we're going barrel rate for the first list on the left. We're looking at hard hit rate risers. These are from fan graphs. You can look at the season stats on the left. We're looking at hard hit rate risers. These are from fan graphs.

You can look at the season stats. Spends year to year. I Tyler Stevenson is a great by low, I think. Stevenson looks like an excellent by low. You know, you're looking at Riley Green being a massive riser and barrel rate. The breakout certainly looks like it could be happening. There's Michael Garcia right there. Seventh on that list.

So plenty of reason to be excited. And one thing I would say is in addition to the, okay, so it's barrel rate, hard hit rate, it's O swing percentage. We're looking for guys who are swinging less at pitches outside the zone. And this is Josh Nailer's in the middle of a breakout. And I just traded him away in one keeper league.

I feel so stupid. Yeah. And then I've got, I think it's zone swing percentage is the last one I'm looking at. Who's swinging more at pitches inside the zone? Who's attacking more? So if you can find guys on? Multiple lists like this multiple leaderboards Those are probably your most interesting players to either trade for to try and pick up in shallow leagues were available I see a med rosario popping up on a few of these lists

I don't know what the playing time situation looks like given how crowded things are in Tampa Bay, but The problem for a med Rosario was never like a lack of raw talent I always felt like it kind of came back to not enough patience at the plate and Being a low OBP sort of guy whose overall offensive skills Usually pushed him more to the bottom third of a lineup, right? So for fantasy purposes, it didn't give us enough to fall back on with counting stats. He wasn't going to be a good run producer, but he also wasn't going to score a lot of runs because he was running low OBS and getting buried in the seventh spot.

Yeah, I think they wanted him to be basically a Manny Margot replacement. You got a right hander and they're playing him mostly. Well, they've played him at second and short amazingly, but mostly in the outfield and right field. So this is really, I think a Manny Margot package, but he did a lot of work this off season in increasing his bat speed. What you're seeing is not necessarily the max EV yet,

but not seeing the max EV is not as bad as other know, as other stats. It's like one of those weird things where like he could hit a 111 tomorrow. You know, it's still it's still not really a good enough sample. But the 8% barrel rate is now in a decent sample to say, wow, look at this 12% strikeout rate. And that's 8% barrel rate. That's the best combo of those two things in his career. So you could maybe say, all right, well, he's a career 274 hitter that averaged something like, you know, seven homers a year or eight homers a year. Maybe this is the year he hits 280 with, you know, 12 to 15 homers. He's definitely had that kind of year in him before. That is, it's like a, that's not like every league guy.

But one guy that really sticks out to me that's on a lot of those lists was Brian De La Cruz. You know, he's on mostly good lists in that he's chasing a little bit less, but he's mostly hitting more barrels and he's kind of getting two barrels that you kind of expected him to given his max eb And he's showing the power you kind of you might want to have expected out of bryantolukers

He's also swinging missing a lot more and has a 30 strikeout rate right now And has like the worst park situation out of all of the names that we looked at. I tend to think that Given miami's struggles, you know the fact that he looked at. I tend to think that given Miami's struggles, the fact that he's not a free agent till 2028, that maybe they're just going to play him every day. Maybe they're in the point right now of just being like, who's gonna be here next year, rather than who's gonna help us win this year.

Yeah, I would have trusted them with Kimming at the helm to make the same sort of call. I trust them to at least play the guys that are better future fits. Like I think they're an organization that's smart enough to do that. Even if they didn't bring in enough interesting, talented players that I like for the roster

to begin the season. So I definitely see the case for De La Cruz. I think he's the kind of guy that could get dropped in a medium sized league and end up being a nice pick up just because the playing time is so steady. Just going back to Rosario for a second, I think he's one of those guys that I'd like to see what does happen with another season

in this run environment and this stolen base environment if the playing time holds. Like last year, he became a part-time player with the Dodgers. 545 played appearances for the season. 15 for 17 as a base dealer. I met Rosario has been an efficient base dealer now, going back to about 2021, pretty much ever since he got to Cleveland.

So there might be one more notch in terms of stolen base contributions if the playing time holds. My reason for not being sure about the playing time. Tampa runs too. They do run. My only concern about the playing time is not what's been happening.

He's been playing like an everyday guy recently. It's that Josh Lowe comes back. Yeah. Because Josh Lowe is a lefty, Ahmed Rosario is a righty, that could chew up some of his playing time. But if they're willing to play him in the outfield and a little bit in the dirt, maybe just maybe there's a way for him to continue playing close to an everyday clip. Also, a righty that he could swim move past, Harold Ramirez is 29 years old

and has passed through waivers before and has a 63 WRC plus right now, a 1% walk rate. You think that Ahmed Rosario's 2.5% walk rate is though, check out Harold Ramirez. And at least with Rosario, this is kind of always part of who he's been. If he keeps that K rate down under 15 percent, that can work. It's sort of that peak Tim Anderson skill set. Low K rate, low walk rate, but hits everything, hits it all over, gets to some power and steals bases.

OK, yeah, we'll we'll take that, especially if he ends up in prominent places in the lineup I just feel like we throw so much dirt on Harold Ramirez poor guy Deserves better because every time we look at that roster were like get Harold Ramirez out of there. Just just get him out of there It's not personal. We just think there are more interesting players stuck behind him. He was there three hitter a week ago Yeah, maybe maybe he's not going anywhere if he's not going anywhere. If he's not going anywhere, then Ahmed Rosario retreats to sort of backup duty because he is not good defensively. He's not going to play center field for them. The Rays taught me this a while back. I used to think that batting order placement was a sign of intent and job security. And the guy that they helped teach me this lesson with was Nathaniel Lowe back when Nathaniel Lowe was a shiny new toy that we thought was going to be a star. They were hitting him right in the heart of the order. And then they traded. It was when someone was hurt. Well, he was when someone was hurt.

And I thought, OK, he's up. They believe like he's he's their guy. They're putting him right in the thick of the order. He was in third or fourth for him pretty soon after he debuted. Whoever it was that they had, whatever veteran they had coming back, like G-Man Choi or whoever it was at the time comes back. There goes Nate Little back to AAA. And you're like, Whoa, he went from middle of the order to AAA. Just like that. I don't even think he was struggling at the plate either. It was just sort of the way the roster was built and not wanting to lose somebody else and bumping them down.

So as much as I want that to be a thing, I don't think it's always a sign that you're completely safe on the roster. I think my other example is late career, Hanley Ramirez in Cleveland. Yes, Cleveland Hanley Ramirez. There is a jersey that almost no one has. He was in the heart of their order for the month or so. Where he got there. Got DFA. Yeah.

The idea is we believe in this player until the process stats have stabilized. So like, you know, what I would say this, you know, there are some numbers on Harold Ramirez's line that are bad for Harold Ramirez. 65.8% ground ball rate for his, for this year, 55 for his career. He's 108 max CV this year. Before this year, he'd been at 113 or better. And then the O swing, which has always been bad, 51 percent for Amira's. These are all process stats that basically stabilize in the next couple of weeks, supposedly, where there's more signal stabilizing, meaning there's more signal than noise doesn't mean that it's all signal doesn't mean he couldn't improve

actually it just means it's more signal than noise and they may decide at that point it's more signal than noise like we got Ahmed Rosario he's his signals are better and we some point need to make room for junior caminero right and that doesn't seem that far off it's gonna come down to that k-rate coming down a little bit more for caminero at triple-a but they need that impact back they need that upgrade it's gonna happen I think it's more like weeks than months at this point before they make that shift and you're right about all those those things even even the things Bramirez hasn't been great at in the past they've gotten worse to the point where you have to be asking those

questions internally if you're making those decisions in the Rays front office so hitter ranking changes this time of year we're looking for barrel rate shifts we're looking for hard hit rate shifts we're looking for drops in K rate we're looking at changes in what you're swinging at not chasing as many pitches outside the zone swinging more in the zone. We're always looking at playing time, if the roles have fluctuated the way where you got more playing time,

and that's something that can move you up in value as well. So- I'm buying Varsho in any league. I'm buying Cronenworth and Conforto in sort of 15s. I'm buying Riley Green in any league. Oh, I mean, it's a buy high on Riley Green, but yeah, they were trying to trade for him and keep her in dynasty leagues last year

and people saw the same thing I did. It wasn't working, it wasn't tricking anybody, it wasn't fooling anyone at all to get Riley Green. What are you doing with Joe Adele? I mean look at Joe Adele, barrel rates up, hard hit rate up, swinging a little more outside the zone, fine, that's within career norms, K rate way down, tiny, tiny sample, 43 played appearances so far. That's within career norms. K-rate way down, tiny, tiny sample.

43 played appearances so far. He's popped a couple of homers. He's stolen five bases, been caught four times, which isn't great, but look, he's doing everything he can to fill up the stat sheet and hold onto a spot, and is this the Joe Adele we've been waiting for? I mean, the swing strike rate being the lowest

of his career is kind of fun, because that's the thing that's probably in the biggest sample out of anything he's got. You know I also love for him this number 10 and 15 that's the angels record. The the worst that number gets the higher his the more playing time he gets is how I see it. Right now, I guess, you know, he's probably, maybe some of those numbers are inflated by, you know, how they're using him, but he's seen as many, he's seen more righties and lefties. He's got 33 played appearances against righties and 10 against lefties.

So it's not, it's not just that I'm trying to figure out how they're using him. Well, Aaron Hicks looks like he might be done again, kind of like he did at the beginning of last year, right? Before that resurgence as a part-time guy in Baltimore. And now he's 34, so we know from Jeff Zimmerman's work that projected bounce backs are less believable at this age. Right, so if you look at that outfield and say,

what can we do to look both short-term and long-term? You bump Aaron Hicks out because you have more interesting short-term guys, and the answer to the second question does come back to Joe Adele. You have to figure it out. You have to decide if he's part of your organization or not. I'd rather give that playing time to Adele than Hicks. You're probably going to be bad either way, so it doesn't make that much of a difference. You're playing Ward, Trout, Adele, and Moniac as your three outfielders in your primary DH in that scenario. That's fine

that'll work. Yeah and you can keep Hicks around more as uh he'll just you just sort of retreat him in the background a little bit and then at some point uh there's somebody's got to pop up in your minor leagues where, you know, the record is now, you know, 30 and 60 or whatever. And you just release Hicks, you start phasing out Moniac because he's not playing well. I think that at some point you need to start making a meritocracy. And Adele right now is making the best case for playing time. And I think that, yeah, going forward, he's most likely to hit 230, but it's with power and speed. If he does keep this K right,

then there's a chance for 250 or 260 because he's going to hit the crap out of the ball. And so that is that's worth picking up in deeper leagues. And I don't know if it's worth the trade because the other person's now finally getting excited about him, too. Right. The person with Joe Adele is going to have the same reasons to like him that you do. You're going to have the same Fangrass page open. Yeah. So unless they've been a long term skeptic who's just been stuck with them in a dynasty

league and they're like, hey, I finally can get something for Joe Adele. I don't think that's the case. They probably believe that's why they held on to him so long. I don't think you're able to really make moves for him outside of those pickups But I think yeah 15 team leagues five outfielders I think Joe Adele gets a spot because it looks like things are shifting enough PTYs in Anaheim We need to go few thank yous on our way out the door Thanks again to Adam on a vino for joining us at the top of today's show

Thanks to Brian Smith for producing this episode behind the scenes You can find us on Twitter, at enocerous, at Derek and Riper, at Rates and Barrels. And be sure to jump into the Discord if you haven't done so already. We'll put the link for that in the show description, as we do for each and every episode. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday.

Thanks for listening.