Rates & Barrels - Why the Cubs Should Go All-In

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Eno and DVR discuss a big weekend for the Cubs, who took two of three from the Dodgers in Los Angeles including a blowout on Saturday night, but revealed that Justin Steele will have season-ending arm surgery. They discuss the need for more pitching in Chicago even prior to Steele's injury, and add the Cubs to the Sandy Alcantara sweepstakes. Plus, they discuss what a Pete Crow-Armstrong extension might look like down the road after the two sides put negotiations on hold, and look at changes for Joe Boyle and where the money went in fantasy baseball leagues this weekend. Rundown 6:06 Justin Steele to Undergo Season-Ending Arm Surgery 12:42 Pete Crow-Armstrong and a Future Extension with Cubs 16:59 Eno's Concerns About Ben Brown's Two-Pitch Mix 19:48 CJ Abrams' Nice Start Slowed by IL Stint 23:51 Other News & Notes: Changes for Joe Boyle? 33:43 Level of Concern with Christian Walker, Mark Vientos, Jake Burger and Matt Shaw 40:53 The Early Struggles of Tomoyuki Sugano 46:29 Where the Money Went: Making Sense of Weekend Waiver Pickups Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Collect them all only at Tim's at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Welcome to Rakes and Barrels. It is Monday, April 14th. Derek Van Ryn for Innosarys here with you on this episode. We got some big injury news for the Cubs. Justin Steele is going to miss the rest of the season. We'll dig into the implications of that and talk about a Cubs team that is putting a lot of runs on the board. We've got a return from Spencer Strider coming up later on this week. Got a few mailbag questions. We're going to take a look back at where the money went this weekend. Talk about a few players that are on the move from a fantasy perspective and see if there's some

goodness to come from the recently added batch of players before we get into that, you know, how was your weekend? Oh, that's pretty good. The kids were away so I got most of my taxes done and watched movies and finished white lotus and Also went to fight club normal normal normal what you went to a normal normal normal what you went to a fight club? yeah I went to a thing that was called an open ring fight club that was put on by a biker I don't know what the word is that comes after that a biker group group is the club club club East Bay rats put on a they had bands and they had an open ring fight club and what was

interesting was there were definitely people there that had trained you know that were trained in boxing. The easiest way to see is who kept their hands up or not. There were definitely people that had been trained in boxing and I think I didn't have this confirmed but I bet they got a little bit of money and it was like sort of semi pro level some of the boxing was good Okay, so this this this was a well marketed organized thing not Like I was trying to figure that part out because they were definitely there was definitely a group that was just drunk I think and they were like just friends because they put four in the in the ring at once and these guys had no training and

they were just flailing away at each other and they kind of called that one pretty quickly. Four friends? These were people that showed up together to hang out and then just decided take some swings at each other in the ring because it looked fun? Yeah, yeah. They had no training whatsoever and looked pretty foolish out there. They called it after, I think, just one round where they were like, this is enough of this. But you know, they kind of dispersed the two where there was one that they probably let go on a little bit too long.

There was a guy who got hit multiple times and the end was just out on the canvas. And I was like, ah, should have called that one earlier. The other thing that was interesting is one guy, it was a pretty good one. They were both like looked like they trained. They were both big. It was like maybe the heavyweight round, you know, of the evening. And one of them hit the other guy in the nuts, you know, and did it right after. So he got in trouble for like punching while they were hugging, you know?

And the ref told him, stop doing that. And the next time they were hugging, he punched him in the nuts. And the other guy was like, I'm out. I'm not dealing with this stuff. I'm a better boxer than his. You guys all saw that, I'm out. Man.

So anyway, it was a lot of fun. You know, you don't get to be that close to a ring at professional boxing. So anyway, it was a lot of fun. You know, you don't get to be that close to a ring at professional boxing. No, no, unless you pay a lot of money, you know some people. We were like right up on the ring. We were like second row basically just watching this and it was interesting to see, you know, dynamics up close and I thought it was a great time. I don't know how healthy it was for the people who fought,

but, and I was like, I wasn't sure if I had to fight. And they did say at some point over the announcer, this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight. And we were like, this might be a good time for us to leave. They quietly like, oh, sorry. We thought this was something else. It was a well attended enough event that nobody noticed that we left.

But we got to interact with the fighters, too. That was another funny thing. I talked to two fighters after they left. I got the whole story on why that guy left because we couldn't really hear, you know, you just could see he's mad and he's walking off. So I kind of I caught him and I said, what happened there? He told me the story. It was a good time. And had this feel of like this guy next to us in the group next to us

just took his shirt off and went to the ring. We were like, oh, my God. He just like decided to do this. And then he got in the ring and was super polished and like knew what he was doing. So we were like, hmm, a ringer. He's been trained before he knew what he was doing. I can't top that. I mean, I did all normal stuff this weekend. So I got nothing.

My weekend was boring by comparison. It could have been bad if they'd expected us to fight. Guess I would have just fought my friend and just been like, don't hit me too hard, dude. Yeah, you would have been like the four guys that showed up and got drunk and fought each other. You'd have been just like them I Just like how you didn't even know if you would have to fight and you showed up anyway I

Appreciate that about you I can't say I would have tagged along for that one But if you would have tagged along to the Fight Club with Eno, drop us a note in the Discord, you can join the Discord with the link in the show description. On the field, not at Fight Club, the Cubs had a good weekend against the Dodgers but we got news that Justin Steele is going to need season ending surgery, it's to repair the flexor tendon in his elbow, they're also going to check out the UCL damage that he has there as well So an actual timeline for his eventual return beyond the end of this season will be known after that procedure actually happens

but this puts a damper on a Weekend in which they went into Dodger Stadium took two of three had a very entertaining win on Sunday night baseball one on a blowout on Saturday and It does a few things. I think it stabilizes Ben Brown's role in the Cubs rotation. Colin Wray moves in as the number five for now. Eventually, Javier Asad is back in the equation. So maybe Wray versus Asad is some kind of ongoing job battle for that last spot.

But I think this also puts the Cubs as yet another team in the Sandy Alcantara sweepstakes this summer because if you want to take this Cubs team seriously as a contender, I think they were probably in a position even before the steel injury to be in a position to consider an upgrade like that and now it seems like an absolutely necessary sort of trade whether it's Sandy or someone else that becomes available over the course of the season. I think this is the direction the Cubs are going to have to go. One thing I was surprised to see, I did a little comparison over at Fangraphs this morning

just to see this looks back to 2022. So it's the four seasons in which Justin Steele has been a full-time starter for the Cubs. You'll see the difference in war favor Sandy Alcantara by about three wins but Sandy's thrown 128 more regular season innings during that span. A little better whip for Sandy Alcantara both similar to low ERAs and the low 3s. Sierra's identical at 376. And even in terms of stuff, Sandi Alcantara's stuff is a little bit better, higher above average pitches across the board generally, but they're more similar than I thought going in.

And that's kind of what you need to replace on a per inning basis, right? If the gap was availability because of time lost last year for Justin Steele due to injury, that's the level that when he's out there, he brings near ace-like performances to the Cubs, and they're going to miss that dearly. Yeah, you know, the Cubs probably have a better ability maybe to get Senni Alcantara than some of the other teams we're talking about. I mean, I do believe that a trade with like Cade Horton and Kevin Alcantara than some of the other teams we're talking about. I mean, I do believe that a trade with like

Cade Horton and Kevin Alcantara, you know, would be pretty competitive with something. Who else, we've talked about the Mets being a team that may want to get on this. I mean, their best would be maybe Jonah Tong or Brandon Sprout plus Jett Williams. I think that the Cubs offer would beat that. Yeah, I think the Cubs are positioned where they have quantity in their system, probably

a few more guys and they'll eventually have room for it. The big league level proximity generally close to the big leagues. And we've seen the Marlins in recent years, maybe different front office regimes too. But even with the trades that they made in year one with Peter Bendix maybe favoring either the quantity option the guys that are almost big league ready or Taking the flyer on further away prospects So it might not take top 25 top 40 prospects even to get a deal done and the Cubs have a lot of guys that Take boxes if they'd like your young guy, you know

I doubt that they like somebody young guy, you know, I doubt that they'd like somebody like Enrique Bradfield Jr. But you know, maybe they could do something about Enrique Bradfield Jr. or somebody like that. Plus Chase McDermott in Baltimore and be competitive with these guys. I still think that the Cubs have probably a slight edge

because I just don't think that Baltimore is giving up Kobe Mayo. If Baltimore puts Kobe Mayo out there, they can get Santiago Contra, I think. Right, I think in Baltimore is giving up Kobe Mayo. If Baltimore puts Kobe Mayo out there, they can get San Diego Contra, I think. Right, I think in order to match the Kobe Mayo sort of thing, the Cubs have to trade someone they're using right now in Matt Shaw, going to that level. The number of players involved would probably go down,

but the quality goes way, way up. So I think it depends on what they want. I mean, I was pretty impressed by Kevin O'Contra though, this spring. I would try to keep him if I was the Cubs, and they'd probably want to do that. But at this point, they also do need, with the trade that they did for Kyle Tucker,

that this is kind of an all-in-ish type year. You know, like you wouldn't hate to lose it just because you lose steel. So they are the most motivated. I think those three teams are the most motivated to get sending O'Connor. And the Cubs may be the best equipped to do it. The challenging thing is that it's only April 14th and more teams are going to lose pitchers between now and the trade deadline so the longer you wait to try to get a deal done

the more the price goes up. Yeah why not. Like what are the Marlins doing? They're not going anywhere. If you can give them what you think is like a blow him off the blow You know just just your best offer just do it now and just try to get done and you get more You get more value out of Alcantara himself. Now. Do you think that Alcantara himself is Alcantara himself? It's not 100% yeah, Sandy Alcantara is not quite all the way back yet, but at the same time Contra is not quite all the way back yet, but at the same time, what are we looking at? Three starts so far? And the stuff is back, the command is just not back the same way, which is that follows what people say about the surgery.

Right. That's the typical good outcome that you'll get. Oh, good stuff's all the way here. And then how long is the command tank? Does it take a couple of months? Does it take all season? Does it take a whole year? But you also, if you get them, you get them until 2026 with a 2027 club

option and their window their windows opening right now right and it's gonna be open for a couple of years so I think a non rental is exactly what you're looking for as far as upgrading beyond this season plus I mean it's just a high stuff guy like it's that's something you want for the postseason. From a fantasy perspective are you trying to get deals done for Sandy Alcantara and your trade leagues right now because it's not good from a command perspective yet? Yeah I think I think it's a good time to get them. All right the other big storyline with the Cubs this weekend was Pete Crow Armstrong they've been trying to work out an extension

That's on hold for now there's a great piece from Patrick Mooney on the athletic and just looking at some of the The possible comps in Patrick's story Michael Harris eight years 75 million with Atlanta a few years ago That was a pretty good one I think Ezekiel Tovar in terms of service time being a great up the middle defender also another contract that that might make a lot of sense. Do you think it is a good decision for the Cubs to try and get out in front of this? We already know how good of a defender Pete Crowe Armstrong can be we've seen some interesting flashes from him during his brief time in the big

leagues and he does seem like the kind of player where if you let it ride out for a season and everything starts to click at the plate the possibility of extending him maybe goes down because he could become the type of player that Eventually wants to play all the way to free agency and go year to year or the price can go Much higher than even that Michael Harris number, which is you know, not nothing I get closer maybe eventually to Jackson Merrill territory if PCA has the big breakout at the plate this year. I think he made the right move. And I think it actually has something to do

with signing bonus and where they were drafted. He was drafted in the first round with pick 19 and got a $3.4 million signing bonus. Michael Harris was drafted in the third round and got a $500,000 signing bonus. So if you just think about what money is literally in his pocket right now, PCA had the ability to say, you know what, I'm not, you know, I normally make in 700,000 this year, but I still have some of my 3 million left, you know, and I'd rather, you know, keep that

and maybe invest that or whatever it is and bet on myself a little bit here. In terms of what he's doing under the hood, like the fact that he's kept his strikeout rate from last year, which was better than expected, and he's cut his swing strike rate, I'm pretty bullish on on him going forward. The only thing that's that's sort of missing is he doesn't really have that top end bat speed. So, you know, I like Meryl better than PCA. I don't think that's saying anything crazy, but... No, no, no. I don't think the gap between them as hitters is going to close quickly if it closes that much at all.

P. Cro-Armsom still has 40th percentile bat speed. So, most likely he's going to end up with 40th percentile power, which is sort of where he is right now. And it is hard for him to run the high-end babbips With that kind of bat speed because he's just not you know, it's hitting missiles everywhere So that's a little bit why he's hitting 230 even though he's only striking out to 23% of the time, you know But could he do bats be training? Could he just get stronger? He's 23 years old Could he just you know grow a little bit and get stronger? Yes, he could do all those things and he could have a season

I think his peak season might be something 20 25 homers and you know 30 to 40 steals But his median season right now is already like 250 with 15 homers and 35 steals 40 steals So that's he's a really good young asset And I think I missed out on him a little bit just because of The minor league strikeout rates. I thought he was gonna strike out 30% of the time in the major leagues Yeah, I mean even if this is closer to the peak version of the player he is. This is a good outcome so far I think the other thing you're looking for is eventually a little less chase peak crew Armstrong still chasing more than 40% of the time That's held up.

That was the case last year at 43.5%. He's at 42.6% through 18 games this season. But he's part of a Cubs offense that's been really good so far. They are second in WRC Plus as a team, as play begins on Monday. They're sixth best in team strikeout rate. Yeah, score one for Picota.

Who saw this one coming really? Yeah, I mean they're living up to the team that Picota projected them to be. They look like the early favorites in the NL Central. Kyle Tucker's been phenomenal out of the gates. Michael Bush showing us that last year maybe wasn't a fluke. Seiya Suzuki's off to a nice start. So it's going to come down to what they do with that pitching staff. Even with Steele in the fold, they were tied for 20 second in K minus BB percentage

as a group, they're in all their pitchers, starters and relievers coming out of the weekend. I've been a little bit worried about Ben Brown, to be honest, as much as the stuff looks like it's great and has some of the markers of, you know, decent VELO for a starter at 95.4 and then 86 mile an hour knuckle curve is like, that's a really good VELO for a knuckle curve.

It kind of a little bit reminiscent of like Lance McCullers with the hard knuckle curve and the good fastball. The strikeout rates are decent, but he's covered up a little bit by, if you're looking at K9, this is one where the k9 lies to you Because you look at the k9 you say oh ten point two per per nine like that's the same he's ever been Look on over to percentages. It's because he's walking guys that he's getting the high k9. He has a twenty three point eight percent strikeout rate

He's lost about a tick of Velo from last year He's a two pitch pitcher and stuff doesn't really like either pitch that much. Although the curve is pretty good. It's a 108 Stuff Plus. It's right around an average for a knuckle curve, which is kind of crazy, but he's got a pretty good curve. But the fastball, 84 Stuff Plus. And I'm a little bit worried about him from a two pitch perspective.

I think he's like a streamer plus. Maybe I'd consider trading him in devil's rejects, you know, like he's an exciting young pitcher, but like Jared Jones had two pitches and those two pitches were better than Ben Brown's and he had shown some aptitude to adding pitches, which brand Brown hasn't done yet. Yeah. I think with Ben Brown, if you are going to trade him, do it coming off of the weekend start. It was six scoreless, five Ks,

no walks against the Dodgers, right? I mean, just take advantage of that momentum, that little bit of extra confidence that someone on the other side of that trade would have. I'm probably gonna be a little more patient with Ben Brown than you are because the park, especially at home, I wanna throw him at home most of the time.

I think he is a little more of that streamer plus, the guy that's in your lineup often. I do think in 12 team leagues. He's the kind of player that can drive you nuts the deeper leagues where you're just like yeah He's clearly in my lineup. I've got a pitch him. Yeah, some some leads you say I got a pitch him Yeah, the leads were you like I don't have to pitch him. Should I you're like, I don't know Yeah, I could see you could just like I used him at home in a good spot And he got hit around a little bit then I didn't use him against the Dodgers and he was great Like that I can see that being kind of the story of the season for Ben Brown But now we do the added job security as a result of the unfortunate injury to Justin Steele

Okay, Martin, let's try one. Remember big you got it the Ford. It's a big deal event is on how's that? little bigger. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Nice. Now the offer? Lease a 2025 Escape Active all-wheel drive from 198 bi-weekly at 1.99% APR for 36 months with $27.55 down. Wow, that's like $99 a week. Yeah, it's a big deal. The Ford It's a big deal event visit your Toronto area Ford store for dotca today I'm Dane Brugler. I cover the NFL draft for the athletic

Spending the whole year working on a draft guide I'm looking at thousands of players putting together hundreds of full scouting reports all the nitty-gritty Details the testing data the stats but extensive background research as well. Every journey is a little bit different. I'm on the phone with a lot of these guys. Hey, when did you start playing football? What other sports did you play? Tell me about your family. You know, learning more about these guys as people.

Our draft guide picked up the name The Beast because of the crazy amount of information that's included. I have no idea how to quantify the hours I've spent putting it together. I've been covering this year's draft since last year's draft. Let's get to some other news around the league. theathletic.com slash subscribe. in 11 games hasn't been caught in the base pass 244-289-585. Interesting to see the hard hit rate right in line with the career norms 38.7%, 16.1% barrel rate, which made me jump over to the ground ball column only to find that the ground ball rates

actually up a little bit. So I think it's just a fast start for a good player, but the kind of fast start that CJ Abrams needed given the way his 2024 ended. Yeah, I know. We try to use metrics that are useful and even now it's kind of hard. A lot of these metrics like barrel rate

takes about 50 balls in play. He's at 31, right? You know, hard hit rate is something like 50 balls in play as well. If you're looking at K percentage, you kind of want a month. Even looking at something at chase rate, we just, we figured out it's 200 pitches outside the zone

is what you need. And since pitchers throw about 50% in and out of the zone across the league, you could just basically say 400 pitches overall. He has seen 181 pitches. So it's really hard to talk about any of these numbers as being predictive just yet, even if those are the numbers that are,

have the most signal in them right now, right? Because they're the ones that are about to become significant. But I do want to point out one number that is not predictive in any way, but somehow seems meaningful, the negative number in his defensive column. I don't know what that means just yet.

I don't think that they have the organizational depth to push him off the position, but I don't think he's going to be a shortstop at 30 years old. And I don't know when that, where that line is, but I do think that he's going to be pushed off the position at some point. But I do think that he's going to be pushed off the position at some point. They have a shortstop Brian Cortesia whose ETA is 2031 that is their best shortstop according to According to fangramp. Well, so their eventual replacement for CJA, but might even be in the organization yet, right? Yeah, and like even if the defense at short doesn't improve enough

to where he can stick there, it's going to play somewhere. And the other questions, of course, were just how uneven his production was the plate last year. If he's going to play like a 20, 30 or even a 30, 30 type player. Yeah, they will find a way to make that work. It might be a slightly lower OVP than you'd like, but that's still a really nice player to have Second base somewhere in the outfield. I don't know where exactly but he's hitting enough

It's kind of amazing that that he went 250 20 30 last year and wasn't Didn't have two wins above replacement by Fangrass. Yeah It's hard to do that with the old minus eight point three and that defensive value calling them column though So it behooves them to like find him a new position pretty quickly, I guess. I mean, third base is open. You know, I don't know. Some parts of what they're building look really exciting and then other parts are like, are these pieces actually going to fit together in the right way at the

right time like they did last time? You know? Totally a fair question to ask about the Nats as they go through that rebuild. Probably going to see some more Ahmed Rosario in the short term with Abrams on the IL but again supposed to be a minimum IL stint probably young Paul DeYoung he's all right for short term and I wouldn't pick out of these guys up in leagues though the other news from the weekend we did get an update from Atlanta Spencer Strider is going to return Wednesday against the Blue Jays so that is exciting be sure to make sure he's activated anywhere you have him because he's stretched out enough.

It's not going to be a short start and the stuff looked good enough, like very good during his rehab time. So no hesitation there. I mean, yeah, could there still be Sandy Alcantara command inconsistencies? Sure, always possible coming off surgery, but you have to take that chance on Strider if you stashed it wasn't like a full Tommy John it was more the internal brace so I hope that means something no Zebby Matthews yet we thought going into the weekend the twins might go to a six-man rotation according to Aaron Gleeman of the athletic they're gonna stick with five

Zebby stays in the minors we'll talk about David Festa a little bit later on in the show he was a popular ad so he'll be part of the Where the Money Went segment. Joe Boyle made a spot start, you know. I figured I had to get your attention with this one. Looked really good. The plan was to send him back down after the outing but we know Zach Littell got knocked around pretty good last week. Did anything change with Joe Boyle that gives you more confidence that he can just improve the walk rate enough to make it work and to possibly get a prolonged look in the raise rotation at some point?

A lot changed. He went from a 53 degree arm angle in 2023 to a 36 degree arm angle this year. It's a long ways. So he is no longer as over the top and on top of that, he is not chasing extension as much in terms of his pitches. Where do I find extension? I know that Lance Brodsky pointed out that his extension is different. Yes, 6.6 on the foreseam last year. Find extension. I know that Lance Brodsky pointed out that his extension is different. Yes

6.6 on the foreseam last year 6.3 Extension on the on the foreseam this year It may just be that the coaching that he was getting and I'm not I'm not saying that it was the Reds or the A's or Anything but just the type of coaching that you get when you're a young player is often get on top of the ball You know raise that arm slot, you know, you're a young player is often get on top of the ball, you know, raise that arm slot, you know, especially in the time when we had high spin rate for seamers was the thing that everybody wanted with her high ride, right? So what do you do? You get on top of the ball, you have a high, high release and you and you turn that into ride. That's the conventional one. But we we reported last week week in our arm angle segment that there might

be sort of a dropping of arm angles that's happening across the league that has to do with an understanding of what vertical approach angle looks like and that you can actually get a lower release if you drop down and if you can still get similar ride, that'll be a better pitch because it'll be flatter on approach. So maybe he has changed the things he's the key performance indicators you know these things like extension and high arm angle maybe he's maybe he's taking a different approach to that with the raise and then on top of that the most exciting thing was a new splinker. Mmm Joe Boyle with a splinker that could be good. 93 miles an hour listed as a sinker on the Savant page. This thing has as much drop as his

90 mile an hour gyro slider but it has 20 inches of arm side run. So if you look at his movement profile on Savant, you've got a bit of a perfect triangle, four seam at the top, slider, you know, and he's stopped throwing the big curve ball too. So he's got this like zero zero slider that he can actually command that he throws at 90 miles an hour,

98 mile an hour four seam with ride, and a 93 mile an hour splinker with tons of arm side movement. And I bet you Tampa just, I didn't see this necessarily, but I bet you Tampa just has him thrown to one target. So one, you know, this triangle of pitches to one target. Could work. I mean, he's always had the stuff.

I'm wondering if we have indications though that his command is still the same as it ever was and I Got the I'm gonna pop this up on the screen if you're watching on YouTube This is the plot of where the pitches were it was a great outing I'm not trying to take anything away from the results, but that's that's still the way but you can one thing you can kind of See you back a man, but you can kind of see a diagonal approach here. Something. That's his slot. Yeah, that's the slot.

You can kind of see that coming together. And I would wonder, too, if you change your slot that much, maybe there's going to be a little bit of time where you're still finding the command. Is Joe Boyle ever going to have even average command? Probably not. The question is, can he get his command to a level where he's not a long-term reliever

or a long-term up-and-down frustrating guy, the same way we talked about Edinson Volquez, the way we've talked about Edward Cabrera for years. That's still the most likely outcome for Boyle, but the fact that they're changing things with him at least has my attention. What perspective is this? This is the default one. This is relative to strike zone. It should be from behind home plate, I think.

Yeah, it's that Scrooley Pitcher Report one from the Savant box scores. Yeah, well, definitely some waste pitches there that, you know. There's something just waiting on the screen. Oh my goodness. I'm assuming that this is catcher perspective. It's got to be catcher per catcher perspective Yeah, because you sail pitches to the to your hand side, you know, those are arm side Fastballs way up there. Hopefully. Yeah, hopefully the lefties and again just to watch that's where the righties head. Yes I didn't see a report of seven hit matters. So I.

Terrible, but that would that wouldn't be out of the range of possibilities for a jobless. And nevertheless, I'm excited to see where it goes from here. And I think what we would see if there's legitimate improvement, if he stays at Durham and keeps working as a starter, you'll see a walk rate that eventually comes down a little bit. Maybe you'll see a location number at AAA that comes in a little bit higher. Instead of being in the 70s, maybe he gets into the 80s or 90s with that number over

time. That's what you're looking for, I think, long term if you're trying to find a way to get Joe Boyle onto some deep league rosters. But nice to see him have a good start against Atlanta in that assignment on Sunday. Another takeaway from the weekend, Chase Middroth broke up a Garrett crocheted no hit bid in the eighth inning on Sunday because as our friend Jason Stark likes to say, baseball. May draw out those.

Mydroth's got something going on. I think, yes, elite, elite plate discipline. He has it's only 10 to 10 plate appearances, but a 9% chase rate right now. And that does line up with what he does. I'd be fascinated to know if it's enough power. If the ISO starts with a zero, I'm a little bit less excited about him because he could fall into,

what was the other guy that had the same profile for the White Sox and Cubs that hasn't made it? Come on. Nick Madrigal? Yes. He's a little bigger than Madrigal though, right? I mean Madrigal I think was a physical size limitation. 5'10", 190 is not too big for Maidroth, but yeah that's really bigger than Madrigal, but also, you know, 105 max EV in AAA this year, 108 last year with Boston, but 105 is not great. That would be, that's like Luis Araya's territory.

And maybe he can be Luis Araya's, but it'd be a lot more exciting if he could have like a 150 ISO, then we'd be talking about somebody who is more relevant in 10 and 12 teamers. Yeah, I just looked back at Nick Madrigal. There's a 112 max EV that pops up for him in 2020 and then nothing above a 106.9 in the four years since. So I'm just wondering if that was a misread.

Which is why the teams use 90th percentile, yeah. Yeah, right. I mean, that gives you a sense of where that really ended up. But yeah, we'll keep an eye on Maidroth, though. Big OVP numbers in the min minors Shane Smith pitched pretty well again I don't think anybody wanted to start him against the Red Sox, but he came out of that with a pretty good outing So he's another interesting arm to watch you sinker for him. It's cool. It's not the other things that you want I mean the thing about saying Smith is the fastball is pretty good and you know you're kind of like what's this

what's the other stuff that's gonna make it happen because the change I guess is above average the slider is below average the curve is below average so I don't know adding a sinker is interesting but I'd much rather he had a better slider yeah I think the most optimistic projection right now from an ERA perspective comes from oopsie it's a 421 I think that most optimistic projection right now from an ERA perspective comes from oopsie to 421 I think that's a very fair expectation I think Shane Smith is still more of a deep league contributor But perhaps a really nice scoop for Chris gets in the White Sox coming out of the rule 5 draft in December

Got a few mailbag questions. We're gonna get to today Jacob 1980 sent us this one in discord level of concern right now with Christian Walker Mark Fientos, Jake Berger and Matt Shaw. My initial take on the question was one of these four guys is not like the others right we've seen enough Christian Walker, we've seen enough Jake Berger, we've even seen enough Mark Vientos relatively speaking to have a lower level of concern two and a half weeks into the season, Matt Shaw is trying to break into the big leagues for the first time and the Cubs are being very patient with him so far. He's got a very busy swing. I think that could be problematic for certain pitch types for him. It's been a rough start so far. 164, 292, 236 does have

one homer, nothing in the speed department so far. We thought we could get something there. We saw plenty could get something there. We saw plenty of rookies last year struggle early and then kind of figure it out after a month, after even two months in some cases. But I would also say that Matt Shaw is one notch below the likes of a Jackson Churio or a Wyatt Langford or some of those other prospects that struggled and then made the adjustments in season. And given the importance of every game for a Cubs team

that has playoff aspirations too, I wonder how patient they're going to be with Shaw as he tries to work through this first stretch against big league pitching. I agree with you. I mean, Christian Walker, super established. The barrel rate's still all right. The max CV is still all right.

The swing speed's still there. Same thing with Berger. Vientos, you know, the max EV is still alright, the swing speed is still there. Same thing with Berger. Vientos, you know, the max EV isn't quite there, but max EV is one of these weird things that you can't really say he doesn't have it yet because he can hit a ball 113 tomorrow and then he has it, you know? That's why bat speed is a little bit more interesting. And his K-Rite, Vientos' K-Rite is down. So there's stuff that he's doing that's okay. I think also the way that team is set up,

like they can let him struggle through it a little bit. Whereas, and that might be the thing that saves Shaw in the end, right? Is that the Cubs are playing well and he's not embarrassing himself defensively. He's actually pretty good out there defensively. And so they can say, hey, we're just, we're hitting on all

cylinders if the team was struggling to score runs they would need to get runs out of that spot right now they're like hey that's our development spot that's our player development spot we're just going to let him struggle through some stuff right now i will say from an eye test point of view i was surprised by how complicated his swing is. Yeah, you said complicated, I said busy. It's one of those swings that you kind of wonder, like, if it doesn't work all year, how different will it look next year? And if it does work this year, what quick adjustments can he make to make it less of a concern? Yeah, he's that like super inverted front foot. It looks like he's trying to like pre-coil.

He's trying to get as much bat speed as possible by like sort of just turning very far back, you know? But that's gonna also make your swing longer. What you do see in the end is right now, 10th percentile bat speed. They don't list his swing length for how long it is but he's doing all that to try and get his bat speed maybe and he doesn't have it so he might need to find his identity a little bit you know if

you're going to let's say you're not gonna hit for power then you know because you don't really have those top-end power outcomes because you have a 68 mile an hour bat speed then maybe you should focus on making contact and hitting 15 homers a year and being the guy that you look like in the minor leagues more than somebody who's gonna come up here and hit for power immediately and miss more because of it, you know?

Yeah, it's just, I think this is pretty typical. It's going to take a little bit of time. I wonder if that swing makes it harder for him to replicate the hard hit rates He had at triple a though once he gets more More of a sample like is the hard hit rate gonna come in at? 30% or 33% instead of the high 30s like that might be part of the equation for Matt Shaw as well But yeah, if you were in a 10 team redraft, would you hang around for it?

No, no not a 10. You're in a 12 team redraft. would you hang around for it? No, not in a 10. If you're in a 12 team redraft, would you hang around for it? Thinking about dropping him in a format like that too, sort of a, the would you rather is probably gonna matter in that case. Like I'm not just rushing to drop him. What if it was like parade ace, even parade ace? Like that could be an actual would you rather

in a 12 team, right? I'd probably rather have parade ace than Shaw for right now in a 12 team or even though keeper dynasty I think there's still stuff to like here I just think it's gonna take some time for it to come together Right, they give you not getting a base is not gonna steal you a bunch of bases shy either either How about in a keeper environment where maybe you're having some pressure and it's not like dynasty where you keep everybody but it's a it's a keeper where you might have six keepers

or something. And you have Joey Ortiz and Matt Shaw. Which one of those are you keeping around if you got into a roster crunch? Am I a homer? I think I like Joey Ortiz better. I'm gonna keep Ortiz around. The swing strike rate is really low.

The K percentage is really low. Neither of them maybe has the bat speed of a premium power hitter, but Joe Ortiz has shown some more in the big leagues already and has a balanced scale set. Because they both run well, they both play defense on the left side of the infield, Ortiz's defense at short is even more valuable. They could be theoretically very similar players. Right, and maybe that's what the lesson here is like just a It's lowering expectations for Shaw Relative to what he did in the minors last year

The ceiling might not be as high as the minor league production was Last season because we didn't have bat speed numbers and we didn't have exit velocities the same way we do in the major leagues still a good player still has Plenty of value, but I want to see how patient they are with him. If this turns into a month or even six weeks where he's performing like this, then I do think the possibility of a demotion and eventual recall is absolutely in the cards for Matt Shaw. For what it's worth, I think this season they've played Justin Turner at third base once. That was on Saturday.

It was against a righty against the Dodgers when they gave Shaw a day off. But Shaw's only had three days off out of 18 games so far. So the playing time share has been good. They started him in fifth in the order for those two games in Japan have dropped him to eighth and ninth though in every game since. So he's already in that like less pressure sort of role in terms of how how they're using him they don't have a lot of other adjustments left I guess is the the main the main concern that I would have here with shah but burger vientos Walker not as worried a little more track record

there to go off of thanks a lot for that question Jacob we've got a question from Naseem about the early struggles of Tomoyuki Sugano and Sugano had a lot of success in Japan We talked about him when he signed a lower k-rate pitcher comes over late in his career Better case outcomes for guys with low strikeout rates like that You might be looking at a Myles Michaelis or a Jameson tie-on and it's just a question of how wide is the arsenal? How good is the command and we've seen a handful of starts now from Sugano. What have your takeaways been so far?

In deeper leagues, is it worth weathering the early storm from him, or are you burning that roster spot on somebody else? I decided to cut him in a 15-team NFC format this past week. Maybe it'll come back to bite me because I do need pitching in that one. But I just don't think that the upside is there and I think we should be treating him as a streamer and maybe even not one of the top streamers. You know, it'd have to be one of the best two weeks starts. I think that for me to be really that interested in it,

what it comes down to is this, I put together this or you, you helped me put together this. Thank you very much. On the left is Sugano, on the right is Lugo. And so what you're seeing is that, oh, okay, overall there's some similarities here. Sugano has a 92 stuff plus Lugo has a 96. They have very many pitches that they throw a lot of. And Sugano, in some ways you could almost be like is Sugano's profile better than Lugo's because he has more pitches that are sort of 90 stuff plus you know like 90 to 100 but I would say to Zetsu that this the biggest missing thing in Sugano's profile is an out pitch he does not have

a pitch to get a whiff on this when he has two strikes. He can get you to two strikes with foul balls, miss hits, called strikes. He does have that ability but he cannot punch you out. Like he's had outings with zero strikeouts and on the right is Lugo. You can see his outpitch. Everybody knows what his outpitch is. It's the curve ball. It's always been the curve ball. He's put together things around that outpitch. And so I think that, you know, one thing that you've got to figure out is how wide is the arsenal is a thing that matters. Do they have an outpitch is the other thing that matters. You know, I would suggest even the guy

I like, Povich, that, you know, has multiple pitches and is showing command, I'm not sure he has that outpitch either. You've come around on Cade Povich a little bit. A little bit, but, you know, just looking from Stuff Plus, the only pitch that he has that's above average by Stuff Plus is the fore seam, which is just really weird. And I'm watching him to see if maybe the change is being undervalued by the model. He certainly throws at 17% of the time and he's gotten some whiffs. But I think Sugano is missing an outpitch. And so we saw some of this coming.

I think I had one share of him and I don't think I ranked him very highly. And it was because he was coming over with one of the worst strikeout rates of any Japanese pitchers ever come over. Only other one that was as bad as him was the guy in Washington that totally flamed out. Oh, guess the war or whatever. I didn't have high hopes and it was, it's poor Velo, poor stuff and we were just, I think the Baltimore is just hoping that the arsenal is wide enough that the command was good enough that you could dance around that that issue. Also, a little thing is his best pitch by stuff plus Sugano is the sweeper.

And the problem with that is I think the model may overvalue sweepers. So that's already, you know, it's giving him an average sweeper. And I think the problem with sweepers in the model is just that batters are seeing sweepers more and more and more, and they're just getting better at them. And the model has to catch up to that at some point. Maybe when we include, you know,

this year's training debt on the model and update it again, sweepers will all go down because that's sort of what's been happening. Right, so then you think about how, if that's his best pitch, that pitch is maybe overrated by the model and it's not a pitch you really want to use it as a righty to get lefties out. Yeah. So that gives you a problem with the opposite handed hitters and that's the challenge anyway. So I think that's part of the other problem with with Sugano is like even that best pitch isn't necessarily good for lefties. Yeah, he may have two splitters, but that's just you know like fine. You got more more

meh pitches. So yeah, it's a it's a tough one. I think that's only so far that like this is this is like there's a certain segment online that this is like Sugano's like their wet dream of a pitcher. He doesn't need velocity if you can put the ball where you want it and have a lot of pitches. See how did that work out? You still need to have a little more or you need that that out pitch and that's something Sugano just has not shown us yet.

It seems unlikely that one's going to turn up here now that we're a few starts in seeing him stateside Let's get to where the money went to make some sense of the weekend pickups to the best of our ability I was lucky in one of my 12 team leagues Kyron Paris was still out there So I did smash the fab piggy bank a little bit went to one seventy seven out of a thousand I noticed he was also available in 68 RotoY online championship leagues, range in those 12 teamers. 425 was the highest mid that got Kyron Paris onto a roster. 69 was the mid. There was definitely interest anywhere he was available and for good reason as we talked about last week.

But this was Zac Veen week in the online championship. A lot of people chase Zac Veen. We talked about some of the limitations and we never know how patient the Rockies are going to be with their young players. That's to me the hardest thing about figuring this out is if they're just going to let him play, the home streaming aspect might be enough for him to stick on rosters even if he has more swing and miss than we saw at AAA to begin the season. All of those things could still happen but I didn't find myself all that excited about Vien after our conversations last week so I passed on him completely. It must be hard to be a young player even just dealing with the difference in pitch mix home and away in Colorado. I doubt that it's as crazy with Colorado Springs because I don't think that

they're dialed in for winning games the same way. They're not trying to compete the same way. Their pitchers in Colorado Springs are just trying to get their best stuff numbers and, you know, the best K minus BBs and whatever. They're not necessarily trying to win those games, whereas now the pitchers he's dealing with, you know, they're throwing a completely different mix in Colorado than they're throwing anywhere else. And he's got to figure that out. That's how you get a 24% swing strike rate

in your first 23 plate appearances. But we looked back at his old swing strike rates in the minors and they weren't as good as his strikeout rates. So this was a prime candidate for me, for someone who could have his strikeout rate explode in the major leagues and be more of a 28, 29% strikeout rate guy as opposed to the 24 and 26 we saw in

the minor leagues. So give this guy a 28 percent strikeout rate and his projections are even worse. If he has a 28 percent strikeout rate, he's a 220 hitter with a below 300 OBP and then you're just rostering him only for steals basically. Yeah I think that's pretty much the thing you're chasing in the short term with Zach Vien. Dylan Dingler was a popular pickup even in the 12 team online championship because there are two catcher leagues. Jake Rogers down about a month with an oblique strain and Dingler's put up good numbers in the minors pretty much everywhere he's been at least eventually from a power perspective. Last year just 71 games in Toledo popped 17 homers had a 308 379

559 line had a little bit of spot duty with the Tigers didn't do a ton with it But he's played well early on this year. I think he's good enough even though Rogers is a great defender I think Dylan Dingler is good enough to make it more of a timeshare once Jake Rogers comes back I think he actually looks a lot like Jake Rogers in the numbers. He's a 230 guy that would hit you if you gave him 400 played appearances, might hit you 1820 homers. Yeah, I think there's maybe a little more ceiling there, but I don't know. We'll see.

We'll see what happens once he comes back. He's at least a streamer though. Like he's at least a useful short term option if you've been banged up a a catcher I wonder if I should have dropped Andy Rodriguez for him where I had the opportunity But just to check in with Andy Rodriguez, he's playing a lot of first base. He's playing all over He's a switch hitter that always has the platoon advantage The swing strike rate is good and the exit velocities were better in the minors So you think he might be able to recover that I am still in on Andres Rodriguez even though he's done zero with his opportunity so far, so I would not have made that decision to move on. Although I want to point out that Dylan Dingler is an 80 grade name. It's

straight out of a porno movie. Yeah, I mean I guess guess I wasn't thinking about that. Well, anyway, David Festa was a big pick up this weekend and we we being me and my co-owner, J.H. in the main event, we're having long discussions about him versus JT Gin and Zebi Matthews and somebody maybe like Easton Lucas and what the appropriate amount investment would be. David Festa went for 112 out of a thousand dollars and that was too rich for us and we saw that one coming. We put some make good bids on them. We thought we were going to actually win JT Gin who has changed his arm

slot a little bit and has changed his sinker, has changed his split. Like he just he looks entirely different and he's up to ticks. Just a note he was 112 stuff plus the day after his debut and then it went down to 100 stuff plus the next day once arm angle was no longer imputed. So what we're working on, and that's really annoying, and I'm annoyed myself, but it's just, you know, the work of making, dialing these models in, our model's more predictable when we put arm angle in, but arm angle is run the day after.

So what we need to do is for people that have an existing arm angle, we need to use that. You know, and if there's no existing arm angle, we use the model that imputes the arm angle. That's our pledge. That's what we're working on right now. I still think a hundred stuff plus from JT Ginn is interesting because David Festa is at 98. Zeby Matthews is likely to be there. I think that these guys are all, Easton Lucas, They're all guys that are sort of high 90s Average ish stuff, you know where you start looking at things beyond just the stuff, right? And for me, Sebi Matthews, largest mix. He's the guy I want

I don't know if I'm gonna go to the hundreds to get him But he's the guy I want out of the names we've said so far David Festa is a two-pitch guy Where the slider is only okay. I know he throws the change up but it's not good and he becomes very two-pitch at times while he's while he's going through lineups. I prefer Zebi to him. JT Ginn though if he's available in your 12 teamers I did I made the switch from I think I dropped Feddy maybe? Picked up Ginn? Are you throwing Ginn against the Brewers on the road this week? I picked him up in our league that we have together with the winners from last year.

The winners league in which I am last place, which is phenomenal. I love it. Off to a fantastic start. Love being last. I was first for a while. I'm third now. I'm Gin versus Bender right now is what I'm debating for a while. I'm third now. I'm gin versus Bender right now. This is what I'm debating for the week and I'm like second to last and save so I may use Bender over him the Brewers lineup It's fine. It's a 96 WRC plus but definitely one that I think we can pick on just a little bit to begin this season still got a few guys that

Haven't found their stride yet. Yeelich has been quiet, Hoskins has been quiet. Hoskins is a zero right now. Yeah, Ortiz hasn't found it quite yet. So I do think you can you can roll kind of average starters out there against them and until they give you a reason not to at least for deeper leagues, you know, 10, 12 team league maybe you're not picking on them with with JT Ginn. But I think Ginn and Easton Lucas are really similar in value for me. I think I like Ginn just a tick better if I had to choose. I think he'll run into a few easier matchups along

the way. And I think that's the difference, even though we are worried about how the ballpark in Sacramento will play eventually as the weather warms up. Yeah, Easton Lucas is very like sort of fastball slider, both league average, whereas Ginn has like a very interesting looking sinker right now and pairs that with the slider and the cutter I just think that there would be some a little bit of novelty with Ginn's shapes too like when I'm looking at it Ginn is a really weird he's doing really weird stuff or like his sinker has less it almost looks like a one seam or something like it has less fade less arm side run than most pitchers, but it has more drop and his cutter Actually has arm side movement, which is not ideal

But it's very different from his gyro slider. So there's something to like there with gin I just wanted to point it out and I would put these guys generally in the same bucket Which is like the smaller your league, you know the 10 team leagues, then it's only about schedule for those guys. I don't see a separator from, you know, maybe Zebi is the one that I would say he might have the upside to be separate from this group. Otherwise, it's fungible guys, you know, how did the schedule look? The prevailing trend when Zebi Matthews comes up on this show is we really like Zebi. And then we find out the twins aren't using him or that he's making a spot start and going back down. Like it's like, just give him the chance. Just let it happen already.

And maybe then, maybe then we'll be right and Zebby Matthews will get to be a difference maker. It was a little bit quiet on the reliever front. I did notice in the main event leagues, though, Abner Uribe was a frequently added player, TopBid was only a 128, there were some people who snuck him through for a buck. The main reason for that is Trevor McGill is going in for a second opinion on his knee, McGill had a blown save Saturday night, Joel Piamps started that fire and Trevor McGill came in as part of a five run ninth for the Diamondbacks. Go to the ninth inning up for nothing and to lose on the road. That's a tough loss for the Brewers, but we'll see what the second opinion reveals. I think it's fair to look at Uribe as the next guy up in that bullpen because a lot of the other options the Brewers have don't have that prototypical closer velocity.

Uribe does. And the thing we've seen early on this year, 13 percent swinging strike rate and less contact when he's in the zone as well. Right. So a little bit of improved control, more swing and miss, even inside the strike zone. I think the confidence they showed by making him their first closer last year when Devin Williams was down gives me a little bit of an indication. They want to bump him to the front of the line or at least put him in the mix if McGill ends up on the IL.

I've been a little bit annoyed with chasing saves this year. It's like I've got some shares of Bender that are working out okay, some Chapman worked out okay. I've got a ton of Jose Alvarado that I had been adding during draft and hold season. But Cincinnati has been killing me a little bit. I decided finally that it was Santillan that was going to be the closer. And now it looks like it's Pagan. I don't believe in Pagan at all. And I've been saying that maybe Graham Ashcraft is going to be the guy who's going to lead them. I'm wondering now if it's just going to be Alexis Diaz.

Diaz is back. He walked everybody on his rehab, you know, so he didn't fix whatever he had to fix, but he does have the VELO and he used to have that job. I wonder if he gets the next opportunity. Might be activated on Tuesday, according to the latest update. I just, I've never seen it. I definitely don't see it right now and I feel like they really soured on him. So I've been trying to temper my expectations

accordingly. One other reds thing before we go, Noevi Marte started back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday. He's back on the roster now. I kind of like the idea of him being a bounce back candidate. It was a lost year with the PED suspension injuries a year ago. It's his own fault that it was a lost year but nevertheless this is a guy that could come back provide some much needed life in that lineup and I think Noelle V. Marte ends up being maybe a sneaky pickup in some of the leagues where he was already scooped up and maybe he's still out there in quite a few places. That's right. What is the where has he been playing? Third? I think it's third. Let me pull up what they did defensively. Jamer's been brutal. Like Jamer Candelario just has not. And CES has also been bad.

CES got a little banged up this weekend too. Both starts came at third. They moved Candelario over to first on Saturday and Sunday with Marte playing third. Oof. Oh. Candelario. Oh. This looks terrible. Oh, this is awful. It's the worst swing strike rate of his career It's the worst bail rate of his career. It's the worst maxi B is his career is the worst hard hit of his career He's pulling 64% of the balls. He's hitting and he's pulling them on the ground. Oh This is awful. I know these are not all predictive but for a 31 year old that was bad last year, this is bad bad news Also has a guaranteed deal. Yeah, but it's the last year. No, it's not. One more year on it.

So I don't know what they're gonna do with him But that's I guess I think the easiest sort of low-hanging fruit for no I've been Marta is making Candelario a bench player I think that could be part of the equation We'll see if CES needs any time on the IL or anything like that But the Reds are 28th and WRC plus as this week begins This is a team that's supposed to be good offensively at least average So I think they might have a little bit of pressure there to make that change and see what Noel V Marte can do. I wish I had been a little more prepared for Noel V Marte's return going into this weekend's pickups, but I don't think I missed him everywhere.

There's still some leagues where he's going to be available for me next time around, and that'll come with the benefit of seeing how he plays in these next couple of series. As I mentioned up top, you can join our discord with the link in the show description. Let us know. Would you have tagged along with you know to that fight club because I definitely Would not have been in that one. I said hey, I'll catch you next weekend. We'll go out for beer Or if you also went to a fight club this weekend send us your

Maybe if you got dragged into the fray let us know you can find you know on blue sky You know Sarah stop be scud at social and DVR got be scud at social Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening. It's straight out of a porno movie.