Rates & Barrels - Updated Pitcher Rankings, Waiver Wire Moves & Hot Dog Reviews

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Eno, Paul Sporer & Niv Shah talk about the latest injury news around the league. They also break down some of the hot pickups/drops, Eno's new updated pitcher rankings, some waiver wire adds for the weekend and Niv's hot dog review of the Baltimore Dog.Rundown1:53- Kyle Hart has been optioned by the Padres7:48- Joc Pederson- should he stay or should he go?11:21- Kumar Rocker heads to the IL12:05- Willi Castro's oblique is hurting12:45- Is it Cade Smith time in Cleveland?15:46- Some good and bad news for the Royals19:31- Niv Shah joins the show to talk hot dogs & hot moves24:30-Who are the big pickups & drops of the week/weekend35:58-Eno's updated pitchers rankings53:48-Waiver wire adds for the weekendFollow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Eno Sarris & Paul SporerWith: Niv ShahProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, flights on Air Canada. How about Prague? Ooh, Paris. Those gardens. Gardens. Um, Amsterdam. Tulip Festival. I see your festival and raise you a carnival in Venice. Or Bermuda has carnaval. Ooh, colorful. You want colorful. Thailand. Lantern Festival. Boom. Book it. Um, how did we get to Thailand from Prague?

Oh, right. Prague. Oh, boy. Choose from a world of destinations, if you can. Air Canada, nice travels. The NBA playoffs are here and so is the athletic NBA Daily. Need a fresh, fun take on last night's action? We've got every dunk, buzzer beater,

and game-changing play covered. Join Dave DeFour, Zena Kata, and Espera Hine Monday through Friday for fast recaps, and join me and Alex Spears Saturdays the We're there. You're gonna do it? Three, two, one. Oh, there you go. We're in. We should just use that as the beginning. All right, everyone. Welcome to Rates barrels. We are DVR list, which means that I'm going to stumble through hosting this show. I will make mistakes. I will forget to tell you things

like you should check out the draft coverage in the athletic. I think it's day two. I don't care about football, but there are things happening and we cover it really well. My ranks are up today, pitching ranks. We'll talk about those later with Paul Sporer who joins the show to help me not have to talk all the way through. Oh my God. And later we're going to have Niv Shaw come on the show and that'll be a reunion of sorts

all the way back to I don't know like 2011 2012 when we were at First Pitch Arizona all together. So that'll be a fun part of the show right now though Paul Spore thank you for coming on the show thank you for giving us a little your time today and stepping in for DVR and Desi's out. Thanks for having me you know it's great to talk with you I'm excited to go over your pitcher rankings and uh don't worry uh you you know, you've improved as a host since we were together and you know, I can help you with the outro. I know that's the part that you're most worried about.

I made a rundown. I barely read the rundowns. You did, you made a rundown. And for anyone that listened to, you know, when I were on the sleeper on the bus and you hear me complain about not, him not reading the rundown, I did threaten to not read it to get him back. But it was a pretty good

rundown. So I had to read it. He did a good job with it. Yeah. So let's see what's next on the rundown. We've got news. Kyle Hart has been optioned in San Diego and there's no corresponding move for a starter. It's not big news. I didn't he didn't make my top 150. I don't know if he'd make yours. Obviously not now. But I don't know what their what their their plan is. They tried to stretch out Tyler Colec and spring he has a bad ERA but it's a tough environment. He's pitching in right now. Maybe they'll do in game. You know, you said Tyler Colec. It's Stephen. Do you know who Tyler Kolek is?

He's a baseball player. He is so you didn't name some like But it is funny because I think they actually might be brothers But okay Tyler Kolek was excuse me like a number two overall pick For the Marlins and he totally flopped. Oh, he was. Yeah. Yeah. He was supposed to be a dude. Now he is from Shepherd. Yeah. Yeah. They're brothers.

They have to be. Shepherd High School here in Shepherd, Texas. There's no way that two guys named Colick happened to both go there. They're related somehow. They may be their cousins or something, because it doesn't say that, you know, usually baseball reference lists a player's relations. But I guess since Tyler never made the league, they didn't list him here. But anyway, you said Tyler, that's his flame out brother.

I don't think I've ever seen walk rates that terrible. It was unreal. Wow. He was busted from day one. And it was like, okay, you know, when he first got to rookie ball, and he's walking 13 guys in 2020, okay, I can forgive that he's gonna be fine. 61 walks in 109 innings in Greensboro at 19 years old for Tyler Cole. And then the injuries came. And it just it never got better folks 14 walks

in three and two thirds. It was a nightmare. Anyway, Steven Colick, Steven, he was in the mix for spring and then didn't make it. I want Yeah, I wonder if they're just gonna go bullpen game here. With that fifth spot now. I bet you that's the solution. I don't know that there's anything actionable here. Maybe, maybe the move here is that they think that you Darvish they can have some skip days coming. So maybe they think you Darvish is like two or three weeks away.

That could be the timeline. That would be huge for them because getting him back would be great. Yes, that step for set for a big step toward return was the last update. He's throwing high intensity bullpens. That's of April 18. So that's about a week ago. So yeah, maybe this is this is to clear that path. But I am surprised that they don't have anybody. Because now they really do have to do a bullpen game. There's nobody in this bullpen. Logan glass be Ryan, burguert, never heard of him. So yeah, I don't know what they're gonna do that it has to be bullpen.

This is the story about the Padres is that you know, their depth is going to be is being tested on the offensive side. They have some guys, you know, I wanted to talk about Tiersor and Ornelas a little bit in the waiver portion of this, but we can talk about it now in that Tiersor and Ornelas is up and that's because they have they have injuries to Cronenworth and Merrill and they have some needs out there. Do you are you interested in Ornelas at all? I mean, I think he's I am. I kind of wanted him to win the job out of spring, see what he can out there. Do you, are you interested in Ornelas at all? I mean, I think he's- I am. I kind of wanted him to win the job out of spring,

see what he can do there. He hit, you know, he was hitting a bit there and had some excitement going, didn't quite get it. You mentioned the big injuries. Of course, O'Riis also got hurt when you add in with Cronin Wortham-Meyer. And then Jason Hayward got hurt. Jason Hayward, who essentially beat out Terso,

but he's batting in the middle of the lineup. Now he's only played two of the four games this week for Terso or Ornelas. So the playing time is a little sketchy and only one of those that he, excuse me, two out of five and only one of the ones that he missed was against the lefty. So I don't know why he's not getting all the righty played appearances. That part is a little bit weird to me, but I am going to be interested in Terso or Ornelas in my leagues where he's available. I play mostly deep leagues. So somebody like that, I think is more valuable in like a 15, maybe fringy in a 12. I don't think we're getting

the 10 team viability yet for Terso Ornelas though. What is going on there? How are they even filling this? So I don't know. I'm looking at the line up tracker on on fan graphs. And most recently, Tiers so has played two of the three most recently. They've got Mason McCoy up. Connor Joe is there, but not playing. Well, they got the starts. So when you look at Saturday's game, Connor Joe started in center against a righty. And then that moved Oscar Gonzalez to left. And then on Tuesday, when Terso didn't play, Mason McCoy played second, Oscar Gonzalez played left.

Who DH'd? Oh Machado got a day off of his feet and DH'd. Dave Korsunsky That McCoy thing is weird. I think that must be because they needed to play Jose Iglesias at third. So I would assume that Ornelas gets the bulk of the starts against righties going forward. I would say he get most of them, all of them. I'm not trying to get Mason McCoy in the lineup. He has a non-zero chance of outplaying Hayward and pushing Hayward maybe into the fourth outfielder role because Oscar Gonzalez is playing too. I mean, they're really testing their depth on offense and of the group, you know, Oscar

Gonzalez, Jason Hayward, Tia Saranella, it's like, I think we like Terso the best, although Oscar has some things going for him. It's just Oscar doesn't like steal like we thought he might in the minors, you know, he doesn't really run that well anymore. And he hasn't really any pop. Yeah, we haven't seen the pop yet. I will point this out. Only five games for San Diego next week to our against lefties. So maybe keep your business light on or so this week.

Yeah. So but they are going to New York. They're going to go to the Yankees and Colorado the following week. If you can afford like a bench play, you know, where you're actually buying over the next week, that might work. This one's going to be actually, I think, kind of really fascinating this week, because Jock Peterson is being dropped and Jock Peterson is being dropped and 15 teamers. So he's out there, he's available, you know, the next week might not be the worst week to play him in terms of, you know, who they're facing. I believe if you look at the Probables grid on Fangraft, so many good tools over there. What do you guys do with that?

That's a good site. He's looking at two lefties out of seven. Two lefties out of seven. Is that what you see? I got Sears and Springs bookending that athletic series and then three righties against Seattle for Josh. Yeah, maybe he's a good play for the weekend. Oh, I think so. And you know, a guy like this, like I'm not going to blame anybody for cutting him even

in a deeper league because he's been terrible. But you know that you can get these kind of freaks in Josh. He's whole for 43, I think. Yeah, well, he finally broke it. and then did you see when he broke it? He didn't bust it out of the box and almost got thrown out at second. I just take the boxcar last night He didn't have a hit he ripped a double Somewhat recently. Yeah, you have to dump a pinch hit double on the 23rd So yesterday's over four didn't hurt him. So he's won for his last 45 or something.

Yes. And it almost resulted in a game ending out because he did not bust it out of the box and it got over Bladé's head. And the thing was, it was never a homer. So you can't even say he was an admiring a homer. I think he just thought it was going to be caught. And it was one of those that kind of hit that wave of wind and Jumped over blood a his head and so then he had to bust it out of the box and almost got thrown out at second That park is so windy. It's so very bizarre park. It's so hard to decide what it's gonna play like Yeah, and I think if you use your eye test on jock Peterson, you're not in love with this guy because he looks terrible He right he's he's looked big looked big for like three, four years now.

That's true. I think we even asked Gabe Kapler once about how big Jack Peterson looked when he arrived in San Francisco. So I was expecting to see the bat speed was gone too because at 33, that's when bat speed starts really to decline. But his bat speed is still 75th percentile. And I know the barrels aren't there, the maxi V is not there. I know the power is not there. He's hitting too many grounders. But I do kind of think that there's something timeless about his approach, which is just to open up and rip that bat through and hit 20 homers a year, you know, 20, 25 homers

a year in partial playing time. So I'm not putting him on a do not pick up list. I'm interested. I'm not saying Jock does a one for 43 every year, but he goes through cold streaks that put him on the waiver wire in leagues pretty much every year. And he's one of these guys that'll bounce around. Now last year, he was awesome.1 OPS plus 23 homers in a in a 449 point appearances. But like you said, the most of the skills, the fundamental skills that make jock who he is, are still there. So I think he'll pull out of this and in a 15 teamer, you give me somebody like this that

I think Texas is going to stay pretty committed to. I'm in and I'll play him against the righties myself. So yeah, I still like a little bit of a like, you know, Mickey maniac territory, which is like a guy I have on my roster. If I get to a crunch, I'll have to drop him. But if I can keep him on my bench, he'll play half weeks for me. That's exactly the right way to do it. Second week, you know, like he'll be he'll be somebody who can be in the mix. We got

some injury news that Kumar Rockers got a shoulder impingement. I think he still doesn't have a plan against lefties. His his his pitches don't move in the right way for him against lefties. So this is, you know, a guy who has a fundamental issue with his with his arsenal as well as an injury now. So I'm not going to stick around, I think, in a lot of leagues. If it can't if you have to have that spot, I would move on. Right. If you're in the NFBC universe where you don't have IL spots, and you might be stashing another guy or something like

that, you just don't have a clean reserve roster, I think you can move on from Kumar Rocker because his numbers are really bad anyway. So if somebody really wants to like pre stash him, I say you let him I would take the shot and cut cut Kumar this weekend Yeah, I think I have a similar thing about Willie Castro I liked Willie Castro as a bench spackle because he could play everywhere for you and Spackles a great term if you if he's not gonna be that for you, you know And I think that if he was healthy, the most of the metrics look fine. I mean, maybe he's not stealing that many bags, but maybe he'll still get to 1010 and just be able to fill in anywhere for you. That's the one nice thing I like about him. But

if he's caught the Minnesota Twins injury bug, he's also not the type of player that has the upside that you need to stick around on this next one one though, this one's really tough. So Emmanuel Classe has been struggling and now his manager comes out and says he has shoulder discomfort, blowing games and Cade Smith got the last two save chances. Is there anything actionable here? I think in like 10s and 12s, it might be premature to go hard after Kate Smith as good as Kate Smith is. If Emanuel Clastet gets right, he gets the job back, I think. 100%. He's not going to lose this job to injury.

So there is that. But you didn't mention 15s because Kate Smith's already rostered there because people will take the ratios and the good Ks and a speculative save. So he's not even available. So it is really 12s and shallower. I think I'd go for Cade Smith. Now I wouldn't cut class A,

because you're 100% right that once he's healthy, he's gonna get that job back. He's not gonna lose it to injury. So if you're going for Cade Smith- Code and IL Stint becoming, you know. That's the part that we don't know. And maybe he needs it. Maybe it's a head clearing one too, because not only do we have the struggles early this year, but go back to

the playoffs too, where he was not himself. So with class A right now, everything feels like a bit of a mess. The funny thing is, is he's three and oh with four saves, because they keep winning the games that he blows. So like your fantasy production, at least in terms of those two counting categories, has still been good. Now you've had to get a 784 ERA and a 223 whip to get there, but at least he's given you those three random wins to help soften the blow a little bit. But yeah, I think Kate Smith in the shower formats where he's available, I would take

the shot. I'll take any save I can get, especially from somebody that good. Yeah, it's one of those things where Kate Smith, if he ends up with seven saves on the year is probably going to end up as a top 20 reliever in the auction. Yeah. You know, because he's going to be so good everywhere else. So there's always one of those ones where like, yeah, but nobody owned him because they were all we were all going after saves. And you don't really want to dedicate a roster spot to a pitcher that's not giving you saves or bulk. You know, it's like Tyler Holton last year with the Tigers, right? He pops up really high on the player radar, because he has seven wins and eight saves. But it was tough to roster him because he

doesn't bring the K's only 77 K's and 94 innings. And so yeah, it can be tough for those guys. They look great at the end of the year, but figuring out that they were going to be that dude during the season is tough. So I agree with that on Kate Smith predicting what reliever will be great all year, you know, in a non save setup situation. Yeah, I always love Chad Green. Chad Green was like I did. Oh, yeah. He did remember Brent Suter got like 10 wins one year. You're like, I'm gonna get Brent Suter this year.

Why? Oh, you're not going to repeat that. Yeah, he went 12 and five in 73 innings. And I'm sure people rostered in the next year and they got five wins and a 378 ERA from a guy with 53 strikeouts. So like, but I do like Kate Smith anywhere he's available. We got two pieces of news out of the Royals camp. Cole Reagan's is nursing a growing issue. That's why he left that game early. It didn't affect my ranking of him. But I guess

it's something just to think about and we will do a couple of the top pitchers in a second. But this piece of news I thought might be actionable. Jack Caglione is playing in the outfield. And right now the outfield in Kansas City, well, it is not good. Bad. It is bad. Be bad.

They needed an offensive infusion. So this makes a lot of sense here. If they can figure out a way to get him in there. They're running both Drew Waters and Kyle Isbell. I want to be honest, I've had some love for both of them over the years as intriguing like power speed types. They both play decent defense, especially Isbell.

He plays great defense. But then you got Renfro and Wright. I think if you can put Cags in Wright to take Renfro's spot, Cags is supposed to be what Renfro was at his best, right? A mashing corner outfielder. So I think you could keep Renfro in the mix against lefties, you know, and work him in there and maybe DH days when Sal's not DH-ing that sort of stuff. Yeah, because Renfro right, Waters switch, Isbell left and Cags left. So you have a mix there that you can really work and I don't think you would get rid of Renfro at that point.

Yeah, and I think Isbell and Waters can basically man center. Yes. You know, so there's an open spot waiting for him and Cags has like really top end bat speed and it was just really just mashing the ball in spring we were getting really good exit velocity readings so when you look at like a 216 ISO from him that is not he's not doing that on legs he's doing that on on hitting the ball extremely hard probably going to K 30 percent of the time at the major league level though right so? So he's going to have to.

The strikeout rate is going to go up. So it's not going to be a great batting average unless he rides pretty high babbiffs because he hits the ball super hard. So maybe he can get to like 240 that sort of deal. It's still going to be really great power. And, you know, I know Kurtz is the guy that we'll talk about in a second, you know, when we get to the free agents, but CAGs might be a good stash. This is why if you are healthy, you know, I think in your teams, there's sometimes you're like, I don't really need to do anything to this team. I don't need

to spend any time on FAB this weekend. You know, like I don't, there's no, there's no needs, you know, I think it still makes sense to kind of turn on the on the margins of your roster. If you have somebody, you know, at the bottom end of your roster that you're holding because they're injured or whatever, like maybe it'd be better to hold CAGs because you could make a shot at the overall or you know, like there's always a reason or you save off regression in your team, you think your team is going great. But you know, something could happen and then you'd be like, Oh, well, I have CAGs and CAGs got called up and I bought them for a buck or five bucks like two weeks before he got called up. So it's nice to be up early, but you should not be resting on any laurels. So I like that to always be diligent.

Even if you're in first place by 1520 points right now, check your roster, see what's up. Can you afford to stash Cags? Because yeah, he does have that upside to where he could take over the league. And even if he's striking out a bunch, we've seen guys run 28 to 32% strikeout rates for a while, but they hit so many homers and they hit the ball so hard that they can still even hit like 270

while they're blasting the ball. And I don't know if Cags is gonna be that guy, but the upside is rich with him. So yeah, I like looking to do it now before you have to say too much for him. Before the frenzy coming up, the fabble Palooza, you got to stay out of that. I've got the producer in my ear. I've got the senior hot dog correspondent on the line. Senior hot dog correspondent, Mr.

Mr. Niv Shah, I hear there's some sort of culinary disaster. Are you in a disaster zone right now? Niv? Are you okay? I am doing all right. I don't want I want to encourage the disaster that I I lived through this past week in the Baltimore hot dogs. So let's try to be positive about it. So Paul, we've had we had Niv is is is checking out the hot dogs of the world at the Nats National Stadium in which they try to create an homage a culinary homage to whatever is in town. homage is the right word.

It's not it's a shadow of an idea of what the road to hot dogs should be like. What kind of food comes from the road team? I kind of like that though, as a concept. It's very fun. So I guess you have Orioles in town. Yeah. So the Orioles, it hits all the notes. What do you think an Orioles dog would have on it? I mean, are they just going to put crab on it?

Don't they have a bunch of crab cakes out there? That's right. Grab hot dogs. Basically, that is what it was. Um I I was a little surprised by it uh because normally uh they don't it's not a place where you wanna spend a ton of money. You wanna be creative but you don't wanna spend a ton of money but this hot dog was mac and cheese and crab and the amount of crab was

exorbitant, I would say. They made up for the lack of quality in crab. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See that's a lot. And you can sort of see the mac and cheese tucking out from under there. Barely.

Yeah. They could have taken a quarter to a half of that crab and put mac and cheese on. The person who assembled this hot dog was not using a scale No, and they seem to be told just get rid of the crab meat. So Cuz we don't want that after today Yes, that's right. It may have already gone bad. It needs to get out of here. So So you looking at it there if you're watching it and yeah, it's a lot of crab. You'll notice the description says there's also Old Bay seasoning, which is a mid-Atlantic

crab topping. But I don't see it. Me neither. Correct. I think there was a whiff on deploying the Old Bay. I think the Old Bay would have been an excellent addition. When you're thinking about mac and cheese and sort of like this kind of loose crab meat, which is a terrible way to phrase it, but it's true. It's just really rich. Like it's a really

like in general is a bad phrase. That's right. I'm like peppers, spot. Right. So like old bay really does meet that need, right? Like if you've had old bay, you know what I'm talking about. It's like a nice salty red paprika, East seasoning, some hot sauce would have served this hot dog really well. But I got what I got. They changed the price to the same price every time. So, you know, I think like they made up for the Phillies dog was very profitable and they, you know, decided to lose a couple bucks on the Baltimore dog. I think it's sort of a

you know, not in a long term situation. Yeah, right. They're looking at the whole season here. They're not looking at like a... You know what I would do is, with face of that, I think I would just eat the crab separately, then eat the mac and cheese separately, and then eat the hot dogs separately because those two things, those things don't go together. Maybe the hot dog and mac and cheese could be one bite and then you have a crab sandwich left. And I think that is like That's pretty good. But it's said you tried to eat it all at once and I ate it all at once and

It was just well, it just really is rich So really like rich buttery with nothing cutting it it drowns out the hot dog Which is a difficult thing to do if you've had a hot dog, you know, that's like a challenge that like, yeah, we're gonna put crab on a hot dog. Awesome. It really speaks to, you know, Paul, you were just introduced to this entire concept and you were like, that sounds fun. Yeah, this is fun. When Philly was in town, the very first hot dog I did, it was nacho cheese and peppers and onions. And you're like, that's not fun. Really trying. Right. It's not trying. This was trying and I think the effort should be applauded angry We're gonna leave it at that. I

Don't know it was it was a trip to eat that hot dog. I'll tell you what it was I went to two Orioles games. I went Wednesday and Thursday and having it Wednesday. I did not go back to that stand on Thursday I'll be honest Didn't have to go back. I experienced it. It was stand on Thursday. I'll be honest. I didn't have to go back. I experienced it. It was true. Yeah. So that was the that was the report from your other beat that that you're chasing down for us. Auto new ads ahead of the weekend. What's what's the hottest or what are the hottest ads right now? Well, this is Gabriel Arias week. 40 percent of auto new leagues added Gabriel Arias in the last seven days.

You know, a little bit is still trailing from the guys we talked about last week, Liberatore and Tyler Molle. I'm not sure we talked about both those guys a little bit already. So we don't have to really revisit. And then Luke Kessel is having a big week as well because the call up and everything. It looks like he's got a job for a little bit. And then I want to briefly mention the cuts in the last seven days that have been it's the end of Jordan Romano it's the end of Brandon Marsh. A quarter of leagues cut both those

guys this week and Bo Brischke is also just getting cut at a pretty high rate. Yeah right right no big surprises there. I mean Marsh Marsh could like, could get it together. But if you add injury on top of struggles, and then you exactly the strikeout rate, the strikeout reported just means that like, he's walking the line anyway, like he really has to be healthy to get the most out of the 30% strikeout rate, like he really has to be able to like, you know, like singles out and leg doubles and stuff like that. And it's just the knees hurting. And he just looks more lost than I've ever seen. He's up there with lost players. I mean,

he's falling down the outfield, you know, after his drama suit. Like that's like, what keeps him in the lineup, right? He's taking it out there with him. So I think I made that Marsh cut myself somewhere and, and, you know, and Gabriel areas is somebody that that I do find fascinating because he also has the high strikeout rate, he's cut it a little bit, but I think he's just an underlying sort of 30% ish guy. But the nice thing is, you know, he's getting to those barrels more often, he's turning that good bad speed into power right now.

And he's doing it also with a 61% ground ball rate. So I actually have a hard time figuring him out. He's not a toy, like a normal Cleveland player. And he's not even John Kansky and Noel necessarily, cause he's not, you know, walk blast strikeout, you know, he's not three outcomes. Yeah. Yeah, he has a job now. And I think that's a big part of it. Like, he just like Gabriel gets to play more baseball. But I can't sit here and completely ignore the 6%

walk 27% K like that's just a bad combo. And so if he's not hitting for this power, what are you getting in it and it comes with a 27% homer to fly ball, which is probably not gonna last. So this is one of those guys that I am a stan of. I like Arias, I've been rooting for him for a while because his defense gets him in the lineup. But be careful with this. This could fade pretty quickly

and he could have an 80 WRC plus by mid-May and nobody would blink. The other thing I wanted to raise with you guys, if we could briefly, is six picks for the last week. You know, I track the biggest price increases and price increases come from usage. So players who are picked above the expected pick rate, their prices will go up over time. The top three from last week, two are not a big surprise, Tarek Scoobal, who is, seemed to be continuing where he left off, and Soderstam who's you know,

everyone's pretty excited with what he's hitting. He's a catcher that is you get to swap in there. Also, I've noticed like if I'm studying my six picks the night before, especially if it's like gonna be an early day, I'm on the west coast, you know, it actually has been sort of a nighttime before I go to bed kind of just make six picks kind of, you know, thing. I want to buy I want to put a catcher and I know who's going to start. You know, he's gonna play. Yeah, so I've been using a lot of Ben Rice and Tyler's. Yeah, non catching catchers that you can feel confident are going to play every day. Number three

is Lizardo, which I was curious about that. Want to bring that to your attention because was it just because there was a good opportunity to start him last week or like Jesus Lizardo is like, you know, he's been kicking around with pedigree for quite a while. I think he's got juice. He's like really tied to his V lo because his shapes aren't amazing. But when he's like 96 plus, he's been really great in the past. And he's 96 plus again. So I think that people just see, you know, the last time he was 96 plus, he was a three era guy with a 28% strikeout rate. And for the first time in in was Artos career, he's got win upside, I know he's only two and oh, and five starts. But with Miami, you were never really expecting wins

with Philly. Now you can feel pretty confident. And I don't know, actually, I don't know if pick six rewards wins or not, but just six dozen, but generally, that can feel pretty confident. And I don't know, actually, I don't know if Pick 6 rewards wins or not, but just in general. Pick 6 doesn't, but generally that's a good point. Like it is. I think that makes him more appealing, but yeah, the 24% strikeout minus walk has been huge for Lazardo.

So I understand the intrigue with him. You're not gonna go to a team with Caleb Cotham and not, you know, they might have complaints for you, so. You think maybe he has had a little bit better shape on some of the secondary stuff? Yeah, I mean, he's got four inches more drop on the sinker this year than he did before. And that's important because it now has like a six inch differential off the four seam. So they're like legitimately different pitches. Whereas in the past, like, you know, with the Marlins, the four seam in the sinker had

like two inches of differential. It was he was basically throwing the same thing out there. Lazzardo has a 114 location plus far and away the best he's ever had. Is that Caleb Cotham, the pitching coach playing a role there? Is that just an improvement? The big thing about driveline and command is and he's like a former driveline guy is that they they track your intended locations and then you're missing your misses off of that. So you cannot improve your command at all. They just improve the locations that they call the pitches to. Got

it. They can be like, you know, we know where you tend to miss. And we can then you know, give you better targets because we know how to get you to miss in the right direction because we're not asking you to do anything different. We're just going to show you a slightly different target that matches your miss miss locations better. So I wouldn't be surprised to do that. Point three homers. So the command and control have been there for Los Ardo now, a 3%

homer to fly ball that's going to regress. You rarely going to keep something that low, but he's shown a lot of good in these 30 innings. Really it comes down to health. I think the talent I can really believe in with Lizardo. Yeah, he was a big riser for me in my latest ranks. He's up 15 actually up almost 20 spots. We have been almost the same exact spot and the last guy I wanted to mention to you guys.

He is being auctioned in 44 leagues right now. So pretty good number of leagues over 10%. There's Andrew Heaney. We did a little bit of a deep dive on in the auto news slack yesterday and he's introduced two new pitches and he's just throwing a totally different repertoire than he's thrown before and he's throwing strikes, which obviously throw strikes. You like seeing that. There was sort of a general consensus that there's something to be excited about there. I'm in. I'm a long time Haney fan so part of it is like baked in from history.

But as soon as he signed with them, I was intrigued because what's the biggest issue with Haney? Homers. And PNC is not going to eliminate them, but it will mitigate them. And so far that has played out for sure. Now he's also running a 4% homer to fly ball. League average is about 11%. So I don't think he's also running a 4% homer to fly ball. League average is about 11%. So I don't think he's necessarily found a new thing there.

But anything below one for a homer nine for Andrew Heaney is gonna help him be good. And right now he's at.3. So I really do like Heaney. I was super intrigued too because his first start was Miami. So I'm like at the very worst, I'm gonna stream him for one start

and then I'll go from there. And I've ended up keeping him because he's been wonderful. I think he's a guy that you want to keep around the back end of your bench that you want to start at home. It's like, it's kind of what I hoped for Mitch Keller, but you know, Mitch Keller will disappoint you from time to time. Thank you so much. It is a two step at home next week for Heaney as well.

But it's the Cubs and Padres coming to visit. so it's a very big test for him, but I'm really eager to see how he handles it. The point you made about the home run rate is really good one, Paul, because if you look historically at where he's played, he has played in ballparks. His home park has been very home run friendly, unfriendly to pitchers. And so this is not just a little bit of a change for him. This is like we're going from a top five giving up home runs just a little bit of a change for him. This is like, we're going from a top five giving up home runs to a top five suppressing home runs part. That could be a big

chunk of it. But he's also throwing a couple new pitches and general consensus from the community that I heard was the pitch repertoire change is actually pretty exciting as well. So Andrew Heaney, another guy to maybe revisit. He had a times has been very too pitchy, you know? Yes. And I don't think that quality of his two pitches is good enough to do that. So I think it behooves anybody who has sort of middling stuff just to add more middling pitches.

Just throw some more on there. He's throwing a sinker that he never threw before this year, right? He's throwing a slow curve that he never threw before. year, right? He's throwing a slow curve that he never threw before and yeah, he's just making him throw his fastball a little bit less and that could be good. Stuff says it's been a good change so far. One or two stuff look stuff plus a hundred location plus.

It's it's it's an average pitcher with a above average home situation. So I think that's how I put it. I don't know if I reflected on my ranks. Now I'm looking at my ranks real quick. You put him 98. I think that's how I put him. I don't know if I reflected on my ranks. Now I'm looking at my ranks real quick. You put him 98th. I think that's fine. You know, you actually have Heaney around Mitch Keller, Chris Bassett. I'm surprised Bassett didn't move up higher. He looks like he's been pitching well, but maybe it's just surface results and it's not going to stick around. I don't know. The K-minus BB is good for Bassett, but I just I'm just gonna always be wrong on him. Whenever I'm like, yeah, go get Bassett then we get the four five ERA, you know, then I was brutal.

I don't blame people for kind of passing on him this year thinking that maybe it was the beginning of the end of age 35. But yeah, he looks great. So far. Yeah. Thanks so much. And if it's good to see you and you're you're off are you off on some travels you're going somewhere I'm going abroad for a little bit I don't know when the next hot dog is going to be but

I will have some food reporting for you guys when I am back oh yeah maybe some hot dogs of the world love it we'll see what's out there we'll see what's out there I don't want to make any promises that I can't keep. So thanks a lot guys. It was fun. Get a hot dog. Take a picture of it. Absolutely. Oh, man. All right. Thanks, guys.

Take it off the screen, please. Get it out of here. I don't want to see it anymore. You know, you know, I'm obviously built like one of those inflatable dancing men in front of a used car lot. But when I went to Baltimore, y'all, when I went to Camden, I had like seven crab cake sandwiches over the course of the night. It was the most I've ever eaten in one. They were so good because they had the Old Bay the way Niv's hot dogs should have. And it was the most I ever gorged myself. I had four at the yard and three more at the ESPN zone that we went to. It was crazy. And like I never eat that much. I'm the worst

at a buffet, but I love amazing. Amazing. All right. On that note, I will take off. Thanks guys. See you. Thanks. All right. I don't know if we can top that. The ranks are out. Paul's always working on. Do you do that daily? The daily pitching rundown? Yes, except for the weekend, which people want, but I try to take some days off. What's cool about that is that means that you're maintaining almost two lists, you have a sort of season long pitching ranks that you're maintaining and then you've been, you're attacking it on a sort of daily level where you're thinking about these guys against each other all the time. And so, you know, I've got a couple things from from your slight today, but I want to just start at the top,

because I have Yoshinobu Yamamoto nine, I had him behind Reagan's and freed with the Reagan's groin thing, maybe I made a mistake and freed is always like, you know, an injury update away to groin thing, maybe I made a mistake and freed is always like, you know, an injury update away to and the projections say I'm wrong, too. But really, there's just this weird thing that for me that yeah, we've used the oopsie projections. And even though they're powered by stuff, plus they happen with like a 3308 ERA projection. I just don't know if I trust it because the stuff number isn't quite there. And I don't know

how much I should worry about that at this point because Yamamoto has really come on like gangbusters and look like an ace. So do I care? Like, do we care that he has league average stuff by stuff? Plus, do you care? What do you what do you see when you see him? Do you think you would have happened three, four, five or something? Where would you have him? I keep my my season long rankings updated, like behind the scenes because I'll probably do a monthly update while I'm doing the SP chart. And I've got Yamamoto ahead of both of those guys. He's sitting five right now for me.

He's been unbelievable. He's on, and listen, I know their record doesn't agree with the statement I'm about to say, they're still the best team in baseball. So he's on the best team in baseball and the way he's looked, but I've had the same conflict and I'm glad we're talking here, because I wanted to ask you,

what is that disconnect? I know that stuff plus doesn't automatically translate to strikeouts one way or the other. You can have a good stuff plus and not enough strikeouts. You can have a mediocre to bad stuff plus and still get strikeouts. But why such a big disconnect with Yamamoto, where he's got a 35% K rate, 14% swing and strike

rate, both are excellent metrics, but only 97 on the stuff plus. I am perplexed by it, but I've decided to just kind of ignore it and I pushed him up my rankings to number five. When you look at the projections, it says, Yamamoto is equal to Scoobl and Skeens and he should be one of the top three pitchers in the league. And I don't know that my eye test and certainly not the model, you know, say that he's like a top three pitcher in the league. The results have been there though.

So I maybe I've just been I'm wrong. I mean, it could be but it's also 29 innings. So I don't want to automatically say you're wrong. I guess with the eye test, you're just sharper at analyzing pitches individually. Because usually for me, the eye test advice, if I'm seeing the 35% K rate, 64% on ball, I'm in. So like I said, I've been slowly inching him up. And I might even put him in the top three at this point behind scuba and skeins. But right now he's at five.

I'm just like yelling at the TV like hit this guy's fastball. Like, you know, why do you keep missing the fastball? He throws it middle middle a lot. And he doesn't locate high in the zone. He doesn't really locate low in the zone. He throws it thigh high all the time and it has dead zone movement. It has like 16 inches of vertical break and there's there's nothing that I'm looking at and I'm like hit the fastball. Now. Yes. When you see the curve and you see the splitter,

you're like, okay, those are some nasty pitches. I mean, 91 mile an hour splitter finisher that drops off the table, 77 mile an hour, huge like yo-yo curve ball, like those please the eye test, but I'm just, I'm kind of yelling at the screen, like, why aren't you hitting the fastball? And last year they had a 419 slugging against Yonono's fast fastball 340 Woba.

And this year, for some reason, they have a 290 slugging. So that's the number I think will change. So there could be some regression there. Like I think Google's fastball over his fastball, I'll take Skeen's fastball. All the guys at the top have great secondaries, you know, so I'll take crochet's fastball over him. And, you know, I I'll take crochet's fastball over him. And you know, I ended up taking me if Fried has a new set of fastballs and I really like Fried's new

fastballs. So, you know, I was like, Fried's and Reagan, I'd like their fastballs better. So it's picking the knits and maybe it's not that valuable because anybody who has Yamamoto is happy to have him. Nobody's selling him. You know, there's nobody selling him even if I have him nine. So you know, it's no big deal. But I had a guy Hunter Brown ahead of him. And it's relevant to this is that I love Hunter Brown's fastballs. And so I just love that if somebody has that, I feel like there's so much better off because yes, Hunter Brown, you

know, Nick Pollack is always saying, you know, we both have a side podcast with Nick Pollack. But Nick, you know, we both have a side podcast with Nick Pollack. But Nick hates Hunter Brown. I love Hunter Brown. He's like, what's the outpitch? And I'm like, the curveball is the outpitch. Can't Hunter Brown go to the curveball more, you know, second, third time through the league? Like isn't he just succeeding right now on the fastballs because he can?

Because that's easy. We are in so lockstep with Hunter Brown. I'm obsessed with him. And again, I will freely admit the bias part of it is that he loves Justin Verlander. That's who he models himself after. And that's my favorite picture ever. So if you can give me like a baby Verlander here, I'm in but yeah, that's how I see it. I watched most of his starts on my huge Hunter Brown stand, I think his heat's getting him there. I agree that the knuckle curve is the outpitch. And I think what we will see it go more, especially as he goes through the division because that's it

Those are the teams you're definitely gonna face two three four times and I think we'll see him unleash it more I don't know. I know Nick's been been out on him. I think he's gonna continue to lose there I like our chances with Hunter Brown. I really did I'm a pivot from that one to one that we might not be in in lockstep on. Nick Paveta at 30. I can get you were you. I was a late convert. You weren't into him this offseason. I was not. And I was consistently saying he's got home run issues. When are those going to get fixed? This park alone isn't going to fix it. But I caught myself because he is a player type

that I think it's very underrated in fantasy. It's the player type where their ERA runs a bit high but they give you a great whip. 404 and 414 ERAs the last two years. Our eye catches that and we're like, this guy's not that good. 112 and 113 whip with a 30 plus percent K rate between the two years for Nick Poveta.

And I caught myself very late in draft season. I said, you know what? This is a player type. I harp on people under rating, and here I am under rating it. So I jumped on board late. We are still about five ranks apart. I have them 35th, you have them 30th.

But I am in on the Nick Poveta train here. I've realized the error of my ways. And so far, similar to Andrew Heaney, this is like a higher end Andrew Heaney, where he moved to the right park to kind of fix his biggest issue. His home runs have been excellent. Again, it's a 3% homer to fly ball and a 0.3 homer nine.

I don't think it's gonna stay at that level for Poveta. But he doesn't need to be. If he can be a 1.0 homer 9, we would take that. Because that's going to be a low to mid 3 ZRA with a bolt loader strikeouts and a great whip. So I am in. I'm not digging in my heels. I realized the error of my ways on Pavetta. If he burns me though, I'm going to immediately pull the rip cord and say, I always hate it. I told you guys. Well, I mean, the thing that's that's classic for me about Vedas, this is, you know, one of his worst stuff pluses of his career, right? But, you know, sometimes it makes sense

for a starting pitcher to reduce their stuff plus in the pursuit of turning the lineup over a third time of showing different shapes. You know, like we were saying with Haney, Pavetta is now throwing the cutter the second most of his career. He's throwing the sinker the most of his career. And so he's widened his mix. He's also changed his position on the rubber. And so he's giving people a different look on top of the fact that he's in a park that's going to help him some. And then lastly, just even if he just plays to his projections, which are for a high three ZRA, it is that low whip with lots of strikeouts.

So it's a pretty valuable combo, even if he has some games where he kind of loses the plot, which I think are probably going to be part of any year for Pivetta. I think that probably the underlying thing that's holding him back to some extent, I know he has a great location plus right now, but I would not say that he has great natural command. And I think the location plus number sometimes can be influenced by just going into the zone more. And that doesn't mean you necessarily

have great natural command, it just means you're throwing in the zone more. And his zone rate is up by almost three points this year. And that's generally a good thing, especially if you have good stuff, but it can eventually lead to homers. Here's the thing. What I hope for Pavetta, cause again, the homers will regress. I hope it's just like a, a random bad start here and there where he gives

up multiple homers, we take it on the chain of Homer, the garage. That's what I would rather take a face caving, you know, a six, seven run here and then four more great starts. I think that's how it's going to be with him because he looks styled in right now. I watched him dice up my Tigers who are playing pretty good ball right now and he looked great. And I was like, whoa, this is not the Nick Pavetta that you see all the time. And he was awesome. And not that the Tigers lineup is scary, by the way, I want to be clear on that.

I am a Tigers Homer, but the lineup is not threatening, but he diced them really nicely. Then we have a couple of veterans in the middle here, Seth Lugo at 69 and Justin Verlander at 74. You know, Lugo, like you mentioned this K-BB is not great. And really I was looking at it and like, there's nothing really great about South Lugo right now. You can't be like, Oh, stuff this or this or that. I think the only thing that keeps Seth Lugo where he is for me is just

the park is decent. At the very least, I feel like I can play him at home. He's going to have some okay divisional foes where you're just not as afraid of those offenses sometimes. And you know, like I just think he's eminently usable. But it is interesting to have somebody who's just so good last year got Cy Young votes is not that fundamentally different under the hood and is now just going to have kind of a four to era season maybe I don't Yeah, I'm really shocked by him. I have him similar to you. Let me see where I have him exactly right now. I think he is in the in the 60't. Yeah, I'm really shocked by him. I have him similar to you. Let me see where I have him exactly right now. I think he is in the in the 60s. No, he's actually still hanging in the back 50s for me right now, which might still be high. I'm kind of holding through these choppy

waters, which I think I said in the SP chart, despite the fact that I cannot cling to anything here right now. The 9% walk rate is particularly bizarre because he's never been up there. 2021 for 46 innings he had a 10%. Other than that Seth Lugo is never anywhere near 9%. And that was a relief season anyway so. Yeah so a small sample weirdness. That's the part that I think will be fixed as long as he's not hurt or something but he does have a 92 location plus which is well below anything we've ever seen. He's always 100 or better. And so I don't know, they're not gonna go anywhere away from him

unless he's hurt. Lugo's gonna stay in that rotation. So again, I'm gonna ride this out. You do still have a 390 ERA. So as bad as things have gone, he's not bludgeoning your ERA. So I'm gonna stick through another handful of starts here, but I understand the trepidation.

Like in a 10-teamer, I'd probably bench him, but I don't think I'd cut him yet. I'd really try to still hang on in the shallower league because I think he can get back, not to last year, but get back to 2023, which was when he had a 350-70 RA and a 120 whip. I think that guy's still in there. He's not that far away. Yeah. And on Verlander, like, you know, the overlying stuff numbers, you know, do hide a fact that the fastball is not what it used to be. Right. And to some extent, like he has made some changes where he's like throwing a sweeper now. And he's like changes mechanics a little bit. But, you know, I think he

still pitches as if his fastball is good. It's great. He does. Yeah, the confidence is there perhaps too much. Like go into the secondary is more JV. You have an interesting secondary arsenal. No, I totally agree. I mentioned earlier, my favorite pitcher ever. I'm fully dialed in on all his starts and it is frustrating because yeah, you're like, Hey man, your fastball has passed you by a little bit. I know he added one one mile an hour back from last year,

but that's still to 94.6. That's not old school JV. There is still some compelling elements here though. He needs to iron it out. I think right now we're kind of teetering. And if we don't see a couple of good starts, he starts to become cuttable in like 12 teamers and shallower. But right now I'm trying to hold because I do think

that we've seen glints of upside from Verlander. Again, my bias on the table though, I do love him. The worst start for him this year was on the road in Cincinnati, which is I think pretty much an easy avoid. I think just going forward, it's so hard to do this with a name like Justin Verlander, but he's in the same grouping for me as Seth Lugo, which is like somebody you wanna keep on your roster and you wanna be careful how you use them and you basically use them at home or on the road in friendly situations.

So he's not an every start guy. And that's how I would treat these two guys going forward. Then we got some young guys in the back. I mean, one of the things I think is really hard is when somebody like Casey Mize like does everything you want him to do, right? And, you know, like innovates on the breaking pitches and irons out his reverse splits and like seemingly breaks out.

And I had him in my top 100 to start the year. I wrote him up as a, as a breakout pick. I should be just collecting my flowers and doing my victory lap. But you know, you got to kind of still kind of try to remain open-eyed. And this might even be harder for you as a Tigers fan. But like, you know, like he's still only striking out 19% of the guys he sees, you know, and it's right there, though. Yeah, again, watch all of his starts. This dude wants to be great.

And I know that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Who doesn't want to be good? But like he's out there putting in the work, like you said, and he, Casey Meyers made the changes that we all were hoping for. But right now he's riding a 194 BABIP and 90% left on base rate. Neither of those are going to hold. Those are reliever esque numbers. And even even relievers cannot maintain those all year.

So we are in a little bit of a tight spot here where we have to be careful because this could come crashing down if we don't start to see more swing and miss. Like he's got to get more strikeouts, Casey Meis does. You cannot live like this. So there are positives to take, but he's still just like right there.

Can he get that final bit and actually become a more competent starter? I think where you have him ranked makes sense. I think that's where Casey Meyers has to be right now until we see a bit more. But I am holding everywhere I can. I don't wanna cut Casey Meyers in case that last bit clicks. I will say this though, after next week,

when he goes to Houston, he has an at Colorado home to Texas two step. That will be a challenge. In fact, that used to start will be for that one. Yeah, all three of these next starts will be a challenge. And I'm really eager to see how he comes out the other end. But like you said, it's almost certainly going to be on my bench in every format for Mize. Since you you watch a lot, we highlighted his 84 mile an hour slur thing he's throwing

this year. And it was a tough one for me because stuff plus says it's about an average pitch that would be the first time he had an average breaking ball. It looks fairly pleasing to the eye. And when he places it correctly, you know, he has gotten some whiffs, varieties on it, but it also isn't a leap breaking ball. An 84 mile an hour little sort of power, curvy, you know, slurvy thing is not, I don't know, is that going to change the world for him? And that's,

that's like kind of the biggest difference other than throwing the splitter harder. I kind of almost wanted him to maybe Kevin Gosman it where he is like 40% fastball, 40% splitter and you know, mixes around the sinker and the curve. I think that might have to be how it is because and you know, to to re invoke our buddy Nick Pollock, he has concerns when somebody has to lean on a splitter because of the inconsistency of them. Now, going back to spring and even through the start of the season so far, Mises splitter has looked good and consistent.

So I do think that he could probably amp up that 24% usage, but he is trying to have a more diverse deep arsenal, which I respect. So I'm torn between like, I respect you trying to expand your arsenal, but maybe just lean on the splitter here because we need better results right now. So he's frustrating in a way that like, hasn't shown in the results yet.

222ER-A095WIP. Those are both amazing for Mies. But if you're paying attention to the underlying numbers, you know that there's some scare there that he could get right back to his mid fours ways. And then all of a sudden he's not very useful because he doesn't even have a 20% strikeout rate. And 20% isn't even good by the way. I'm just using that as a threshold

because he's never been there. We need like 23% at a minimum. I know, league average is 23, 19 is not good. Yeah, it's legit bad at 19 for me. It's like he needs to push it up. So again, stick with him for a bit where you can. You don't have to start him at Houston, at Colorado, or even home to Texas, but let's see where this goes

because he is putting in the work and I really hope he gets the results he deserves. Not just as a Tigers fan, but as some, you know, just watching somebody bust their hump to try to be better as a former number one overall pick. And my interactions with him, I've, I've felt that, you know, like you can feel when you talk to him, like this struggle and you know, the wants to be great, like why hasn't this clicked yet? But you can also feel like, you know, I am doing the work. Like I am thinking about this. I am working.

I feel the same with Torque. You know, two former number ones. Now Torque's getting the results, but you can tell both like they're really, they're trying. And of course I'm, I'm perceiving that through interactions on television, but they re and I'm glad to hear you back that up with Maiz. You see changes, you know, trying new pitches, trying new approaches, changing their contact point for Torkelson, you know, pulling more, pulling less, you know, trying different approaches.

So, you know, we're going to transition here to the, to waiver wire. And I think actually Ryan Gusto is an interesting one. He's a tough rank and probably on some waiver wires out there right now. The K minus BB is good, but some of it was affected by, you know, working in relief. The stuff plus is good, but again, that was somewhat affected by working relief. But when I look at the stuff plus just for his starts, it's about the same. He has not taken a big haircut there.

And when I look at his K minus BB in his starts, they're pretty good. And I'm I don't know why the OOPSY projections have caught up. They they've got a 455 ERA. I think he might be a good pitcher. I don't know. He might even last week, he might even have a chance to keep the job like Blanco has not been great. He might even have the chance to keep the job when McCullers comes. So I'm going for Gusto. I went for him. I don't think you are missing anything. I'm in lockstep with you here on Ryan Gusto. Houston is an organization that I have some implicit trust with. So when they have a new guy out there, I'll take a look at the very least. And everything I keep looking at with Gusto was worth picking up.

I benched him this week because I just didn't need him, but I am really excited by this. I think that there could be something here, and I totally agree with you that he could stick around. I don't think there's any reason that he necessarily has to come out, especially if Renell Blanco doesn't get better. Now, he had a good start last time out.

Don't take away my Hayden Wozneski spot, though. That's my guy, and I love what he's been doing. But I like Gusto. I think he's very rosterable in 15s, and I think he's starting to get rosterable in 12s right now, at least as a bench guy. He's got Detroit next week, which again, solid team. They're playing well, but they're not an offense you have to run away from. Yeah. So you can't invest too much for somebody that may just be back in the pen or in the minors even.

McCullers is due back the week after, sorry to interrupt you. He's due back, he's got a rehab coming. At least Roto Wire puts him back in the rotation the following week on May 10th. So keep your bids light on Gusto, but put him on your roster right now and kind of see where it goes. But, you know, Blanco has really struggled and this is more in line with what was expected of him from Prospect Pedigree and before the 10% walk rate for Blanco last year was kind of the outlier there.

This is not a guy that got good command grades in the past. And that's still high, by the way. 10% was his like good one. And that, you know, if he didn't run a 220 BABIP, he would have paid a bigger toll on that 10% walk rate. Now it's back up to 12% and the bad bips at a more normal 262 which is still pretty good but it's not 220 and so yeah we're seeing renell blanco really struggle any chance they run a six because the only guy that really should be on a five for sure is valdez brown too i think brown can handle a five man

rotation you think you're headed towards the postseason and that's what I'm saying, winning games. I mean, 13-11, you may want to get as many Brown and Valente stats from from our stats starts as you want as you could. But no one's running away from them in that division. So they're right there in the mix. So maybe they run a six for a little bit to ease McCullers back in, especially if they want to keep Blanco going. They like Gusto and McCullers comes back.

I think that adds up to a six for a little bit. They could at least try it. There's also Blanco, Gusto, like kind of piggybacking like that. That can be happening. I'll tell you what though, if they put Gusto in the secondary role, that could be cheap wins, because he comes in in the game when when the game is in the balance. I'll take three to four innings a week from him. If he can piggyback off of Blanco, as long as Blanco has three to four innings a week from him. If he can

piggyback off of Blanco, as long as Blanco has not put them in like a five, nothing hole. But if it could work there where they each get three to four innings, Gusto could then be the, uh, the follower and maybe get some win opportunity. To finish off with one more tiger for you. Uh, we'll do a couple quick sort of free agents here cause this is the fab episode. Jace Young is back and he says he wants to play with a chip on his shoulder. I kind of like that. I mean, I think that he has a lot of things going for him, but he has yet to sort of take the job and just strangle it and make it his.

So how are you feeling about Jace Young? Do you think, you know, there's been a lot of injuries that have led to this moment. I mean, who's been hurt? Started with Vierling. Starting with Vierling and then outfield got hurt, which didn't directly affect Jace, but then Gleyber Torres got hurt. Now Gleyber's back, but there is still an opening there because they can kind of mix and match with guys.

Isn't Abanez been hurt? No, Abanez is playing against he and Abanez. Jace Young and Abane is are kind of the perfect platoon. Aban starts against all lefties. Right now I'm actually a little bit surprised that JC Young got the opportunity because Zach McKinstry has been playing so well, but they've actually been using McKinstry in the outfield. So that's why those outfield injuries did actually help JC Young, even though they didn't directly do that. But Baez might be the everyday center fielder for now? For now.

And I root for him, obviously, not just because he's on the Tigers, but listen, who didn't know that that contract was bad when he signed it? Every year. It was so obvious. I wanted Correa so bad. I know Correa has been hurt and he's had his own issues, but as a Tigers fan, they got handshotted. I'm like, just bring in Correa.

Just bring in Correa. And they got Baez. Here's like, just bring in Korea, just bring it. And they got by as here's the thing with Jace Young, though, I still haven't seen any evidence, you know, that he can hit a fastball. And that was the big knock coming in. And that's exactly what I've seen in his limited MLB work. It's only 101 plate appearances. But I've seen nothing to suggest that he's better at that. He's a very patient guy. But I think he's patient to the point of passivity

where he is like waiting for some perfect pitch. And usually you would think that perfect pitch is like a fastball down the middle. That's when he swings through it. So I have some issues with with Jace Young as a fantasy asset right now that I'm not really that enamored of him because I haven't seen any evidence that he can consistently hit his pitch type values on the fastballs of the worst of all the pitches. He really feasts on breaking balls, which is, it makes you wonder if he has what they call sort of slider speed bat in terms of bat speed.

You know, 72.4 is actually slightly above average, but it can also just be what is his approach at the plate. If he's trying to get these walks, then he might just not be on time for the fastball. He used to have higher pull rates in the minors, but he also had higher strikeout rates. I wonder if there's something there where he's trying to not strike out where I think, you know, that's why I kind of like this idea of like playing the chip on his shoulder, like go get it.

Don't worry about the walk so much. Try to get some hits, get in there. Don't look for the walk every time up and see if that can help you. Cause this big walk rate with the big strikeout rate, that's not doing you any good right now. At least in the major league bubble. Cause you're not getting to the power either. Exactly, exactly.

But I root for J.S. Young, of course, obviously, as a Tigers fan, I've mentioned that 52 million times. But like, I want him to be good. I really like Josh Young, his brother, but right now I need to see more. So be careful picking them up 15 team, fill in perhaps, but that's it for me right now with J. C.

L. Will Wilson is coming up for the guardians. Why the hell would you name your kid? Will, if your last name's Wilson, we really, really, really, that's your child. Right. Like, what are you doing? I was going to be Sam Serres. That's okay. That's just alliteration. But if you had a daughter and you named her Sarah, and it was Sarah Serres, I'd be making fun of you.

And your daughter. Like, Will Wilson, shut up. Anyway, former first round pick yeah? Is this the guy you're thinking of? Oh this is the one that the Giants basically gave the Angels money for. Yeah, that's right. So he's back around, he's only 26. Remember this guy was drafted way back when, 26 years old, you know stuck around with the Giants for a while. Huge hard hit rate in AAA.

Do we have anything here? Not huge high exit velocity. It's a huge 64% hard hit rate in AAA with a 19% strikeout rate. And the interesting thing about being 26 is that's a peak season. So he could be just coming into the bigs at his peak. Right. You know, I do have some depth chart questions. If you're looking at him versus Jace Young, Jace Young has the big side of a job. Exactly. I would refer him to Wilson. Gabriel Arias is the third baseman more or less for these Guardians.

No, he's the second baseman. Ramirez is the third baseman. Oh, right. Right. Right. Wilson, he's going to bounce around the infield is going to try to give everyone like a day off type five. So I don't know where the PT comes from. Like they gave they gave Ramirez taking his job like Rokio is still a bad offensive guy. Could he be a more he's a true shortstop though. Right. Yeah. Like he can play a true short defensively Wilson is a bad hitter. Yeah, he's a bad hitter. Wilson played in the minors, mostly third base. So yeah, that's blocked off. So I think it is Arias. Has he played, has Will Wilson ever played the outfield? Because the outfield has been a need in Cleveland now

since like the loft in Manny Ramirez days, it seems like. Yeah, they just had him play a third one game. I think this one is better left out there. Maybe the big money will be Nick Kurtz. You know, he comes up and Lawrence Butler made a funny statement. He said, Oh, it's so great to make your major league debut and step out there on a major league field for the first time. Too bad. Nick Kurtz won't get that. Because his debut was at home. Obviously, he won't get that here. But that's really funny. Now, hopefully they don't send them out the way they treated Estuary Ruiz when he made fun of the organization. Kurtz, obviously huge upside already hit a ball

112 in the major leagues. I gotta ask you this though, where's the K rate gonna be? Yeah, he was at 27% in the miners that usually suggests a 30 plus percent guy now He smashes the hell out of his also not here to rain on him increase in swing strike rate between ABS and non ABS So like an 8% swing strike rate in double A and then you have 12 in in triple A Which is ABS or at least ABS and challenge and And I think that's just a AAA environment right now. It's really hard for hitters because they do this thing where like four days of the week is ABS and three days of the week is challenge system.

And so they're just yo-yoing around from zone to zone. Yeah, that's crazy. I'm looking at those zone charts from ABS versus challenge and there are still massive differences between those zones. So maybe you're not worried that Kurtz is going to strike out at a 30% clip maybe more in the mid low to mid 20s in which case he's just going to rake. He's a huge bat. So I'm not telling people not to get him. I'm just saying there could be a little bit of average

risk although we talked about this with Jack Cags where he could hit his way through the strikeouts and I really believe that with Kurtz. So even if the strikeouts are there. And he has a better home park, I think. I mean, Sutter's playing mostly hitter. There's gonna be some weird nights where the wind is just blowing the other way. But I think on some, it will be a hitters park.

Totally agree. I was there on opening day, it was 48 degrees. And the wind was aiding homers out at 48 degrees. This park has not even gotten as hot as it's going to get. Right. And that was the big thing was it's going to be blazing hot. I love Kurtz. I think I think your NFPC main event bids are going to have to start with a three and they're going to be three digits. And that's really hard because I almost never do that. I'm not I'm like a steady worker. I'm working 10s and 20s. And that is the right way might take a 100, you know, on a big one. And we'll probably, you know, we'll probably do like a 100 make good on this and probably and lose out to the guy who's I mean, what

did we see? We saw 600 bids on Chandler Simpson. This is that kind of bat that people are going to be excited about. The only thing that might keep the bids down a little bit is that if it's the person in your league who would bid high already got Simpson, maybe they don't have enough money to go big. But it is going to be why you do the make goods. I mean, you still got to come up with a number that you believe in that you would be fine with spending on him. And I think my number would start with the one I don't know if I'd go all the way to a two minds going to be in the ones. It's going to be like you said, a make good in the ones because there's going to be a couple leagues out there where Nick Kurtz goes for like 128.

We're all going to be so mad that it wasn't our league, but maybe we'll be the lucky ones where nobody else needed him and I got him for 139 or you know, whatever it is, something in the 100s there. It will happen because it happens all the time in these NFPC leagues. We are sort of one for one for two on third baseman. Let's just finish with a pair of third baseman that are on waivers that are playing pretty well and available and might just have everyday jobs. Those two are Ben Williamson in Seattle and Eric Wagamon in Miami. So two of the worst parks to hit in. Yeah, two of the worst parks, but, and Ben Williamson's job may be contingent on injury, but the injury Ryan Bliss's, you know, bicep is a big one.

He's out there a while. Yeah. It's months. Yeah. And they chose to bring up Ben Williamson instead of, you know, Colt Emerson or Cole Young. So they're excited about Williamson. Williamson has not run good power numbers in the minors, but

he has hit a ball 110 in the big leagues. He does hit the ball on the ground a little bit too much, but he doesn't strike out which is huge for those Mariners hitters. They've been striking out too much. Seems like a professional hitter. Wagaman is a professional hitter because that's what you call someone who's 27 and been with like 15 organizations. Absolutely. And he doesn't strike out, you know, he makes contact, he's been doing well. Doesn't have great power, can run a little bit. They're very similar. Which one of these two are you picking if you're picking one? I think Wagman because he's got the more consistent playing

time and listen, Marlin's lineup is bad, the park is rough, but he's batting two or three every day in that lineup. Whereas Williamson right now has been on the short side of the platoon, that could expand just because of need for them. You know, and I don't think, Miles Mastroboni, real player, but I don't think he's necessarily pushing Ben Williamson out if Ben Williamson can hit. That said, I think Wagaman is your guy here, and I would go a decent bit higher on his bid than I would with Ben Williamson right now.

Yeah, this is the kind of player that on the Miami Marlins team can put up 600 plate appearances and get to his kind of 15, 10, 260 kind of end line that will have positive value in almost every league and nobody will remember it, you know, years to come. You'll like graduate in a kind of kind of a John Bertie situation where he kind of goes from team to team afterwards. And classic blue guy where he's just, you know, he's solid when you got him. There's

deep league viability for Eric Wagerman, but I don't think he's like, you know, quote unquote, winning anybody their league. All right, we did it. We did it. Now I just the hardest part of it all is finishing it up. I'm terrible at this land the plane. I can't do it. I'm already like, are you hear to my voice? This is when we start doing trivia. I may start sounding like this, like the pitch goes up and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. But I know one thing I gotta do is thank the host,

thank the host. Thank you, Paul Spore. Thank you for having me out. It was great talking with you. It was a pleasure to hang out as always. And I can't wait till the next time I see you. And I don't even know when that'll be, but hopefully soon. And thanks for coming on and helping us. And thanks to Niv Shaw for coming on the show I can't wait till the next time I see you and I don't even know when that'll be but hopefully soon.

And thanks for coming on and helping us and thanks to Niv Shaw for coming on the show and telling us about that monstrosity. Thanks to Brian Smith for producing this and thanks to all of you for going all the places and clicking all the buttons that say you like us and thanks for listening. Discords are baby, baby. Yeah.