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Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place every game every Sunday and you can even watch up to four different games at once with MultiView, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical and also YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com/bsdevice and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV and a FL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Monday, August 12th. Derek Van Ruiperino-Saris here with you on this episode. We have another pitching prospect on his way to the big leagues. We'll take a look at Zebi Matthews. We'll introduce you to the latest call-up that we'll be chasing onto rosters probably next weekend because many people could not add Zebi Matthews to the roster this weekend. We have a closer demotion in San Francisco that took place as the weekend was getting underway. Camilo Duvall at AAA right now. We'll dig into why. Take a look at his long-term outlook. Eno pulled up a report of some under-performers, hitters who have under-performed projections this year. We'll look at why things are going wrong for those players. Now that we're in nearly the midpoint of August, it's going to happen just in a couple of days. I think we can maybe start to adjust our expectations for those players a little bit. We've probably seen enough to lower expectations in that group. We've also got where the money went and some adjustments we made to our own rosters this weekend. If you're not already a member of our Discord, join the link in the show description. How's it going for you on this Monday? It's good. I'm taking my son to Snell versus Sale and we're sitting behind home plate and the tickets aren't that expensive. Hey, it's the best thing about going to the yard on Monday, I think, right? Is he getting a little bit of a discount? That must be what that is. And also for my son, it is a team minus of two days till school starts. It's right. School starts are early in California. This is like one of those like, okay, this is the last day of summer. Let's go to baseball game. We still have many high school age students working as lifeguards at our many water parks in this state so we can't let them go back to school until after Labor Day when travel season slows down. At least that's how I think it works in Wisconsin. I think that some of why my kids go to school earlier and then there's the private school, some of them go to school even earlier is so they can bake in more vacation during the during the year. And so they have these things called like ski week or mid mid spring break or whatever. So they have like a little bit. But what is annoying about that is that you're not because all these schedules are in different places. It's really hard to like coordinate with your cousins or like, you know, your friends from a different city where you're just like, nope, you're not on vacation that week. I get it. But no, I I think this was a pretty long summer break. I mean, they still get that feeling of, you know, being free and, you know, and just doing whatever they want for a little bit. We tried not to over you know, one of the things that can happen in Palo Alto is like, well, he's on this camp, I'm going to do this and he's on this camp for this. And then after that, he goes to a second camp that next day and then he's doing this thing and he's got to do the piano and he's got to do this. And you know, the kids here are very over scheduled and we push back a little bit against that. So both of our kids had weeks this year this summer where they were they had nothing planned and they could just, you know, kid out. I'm on board. Consider that our latest plea to one day have a parenting podcast where we give parenting advice and mostly tell you about things that didn't work. But I think in that case, I think that's a pretty good call because it seems like a lot of kids have way too much going on. Good to keep them busy, but you know, don't make it like adulthood where you have very little downtime. That's not what being a kid is all about. I did make him read do my older kid that was a home a little bit more. I made him read do Android's dream of electric sheep, which is a Philip K Dick novel that inspired Blade Runner, but also Philip K Dick inspired like a ton of like minority report, a ton of movies that are out with his writing. And so he said that it was challenging, but in a good way. And then he also is about halfway through the fan grass glossary. So he's reading up on all the good stuff. I am anxiously awaiting your son's view of max exit velocity. Because I am souring on I wrote about that in our recap that went up on Monday. I just I'm starting to think it just doesn't tell us anything. I'm closer to throwing it out completely than I've ever been before, but we'll save that conversation for a future day. I have to tell you, the kids are talking about it like and when I talk about kids, the eight year olds and nine year olds and 10 year olds are talking about it. We were listening to some kids in the next batting cage over yesterday while we were doing our practice and they were asking each other what their max exit velocity was. See, I think you had to shift the conversation to like the upper half, the EV 50s, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I should I should tell the kids that that's that's that's a conversation I should have with the nine year old. Yeah, you should. You got to fix it now. Otherwise, they're going to be obsessed with that top end number and not the larger swath of numbers that follow that are probably much more important and predictive. I would I would rather I mean, I would rather have like at least 85th percentile, whatever. I mean, that's that's what teams use. I mean, I use max. I thought you were throwing out the whole concept. No, I mean, just I think the thing that I'm worried about is that I'm putting too much on a player's ability to hit a baseball very, very hard when it's there's so much other information out there we use that matters more. Like, maybe it just doesn't inform us of a attainable power ceiling as much as we want it to. That's sort of the cabrine haze problem, the gap that I have fallen into with max exit velocity. But let's start with Zebi Matthews. Who is Zebi Matthews? Well, he was not born Zebi Matthews. He was born Daniel Zebulon Matthews. An eighth round pick of the twins in 2022 out of Western Carolina University, right handed pitcher has ridiculous numbers across three levels this year. Zebi Matthews started this year in Cedar Rapids at high A. He's been more recently pitching in AAA with St. Paul. The numbers they look fake 114 strikeouts against seven walks in 97 innings this season across those three levels. He's given up seven homers, which isn't bad. Equal number of homers in walks a lot of the season for Zebi Matthews. So given the injuries that are piling up on the twins, Matthews might actually throw some pretty meaningful innings for a team with playoff aspirations during these final six, seven weeks of the season. So the question really is like, how good is his stuff? I mean, as a guy that's going to be pitching at his fourth level this year when he debuts, what kind of realistic expectation should we have for Zebi Matthews? I mean, under the hood, it's all good news. I've got here the stuff plus and location plus for his pitches. It's maybe not super standout like 105 stuff plus on the four seam that could go down in the major leagues. I could go up because you might throw harder, but 95 six is pretty good Vilo. And as you see from the interaction graph that's below what was plotted here is velocity versus ride. And he's got above average ride and above average Vilo. And that's that's how you get. That's the easiest way to get to an above average stuff plus for your four seam. So it looks like I would say an above average four seam at the at the very least. And then the curve has a 108 stuff plus and the slider has a 121 stuff plus. And so that's and that's an 86 mile an hour slider, which it passes the magic number for slider sliders. The magic number is 85 miles an hour. So that's at least a three pitch mix. The other ones, the sample isn't so great on. But one thing that does stand out is the location plus is above average on every single pitch, except for the cutter. So, you know, the cutter is a question mark in terms of stuff plus and location. I'd be very interested to see what happens with that cutter in the in the major leagues. But he at the very least has a two breaking ball and fastball foundation that I think is pretty saucy. That, of course, he does have something going on if he has those K minus BV numbers in the minors. So shout out to Zebulon, Georgia, where I used to hang out a little growing up. I doubt there's anybody listening from Zebulon because I think it's population 4,000 or something. But if there is, what is up? This is a crazy moment that you were listening from Zebulon, Georgia. But so anyway, Mr. Zebulon Matthews, I think has a good future. I'm interested in him. debut coming Tuesday against the royals. And the way it looks like it's mapped out right now is that the twins have Louis Varlin available to possibly go to a six man rotation if they want to. If they use Matthews, Varlin and Festa means Pablo Lopez, Bailey Ober and Simeon Woods, Richardson are still regulars as well, then that's the way they can stretch it out the rest of the way. Any one of Matthews, Varlin or Festa could just drop out that could go to a five man rotation. So it's kind of an ongoing audition, I think, the way it's set up. I know Varlin came up for a double header and then went back down. So it's really hard to know what the actual pecking order is right now. It may hinge a lot on how Matthews fares against the royals. Set Lugo going on the side of that one. Nice spot to debut in the middle of a playoff race. And as much as I've liked Louis Varlin in the past, you know, he does have an above average stuffed number. But one thing that I have noticed is that he's trying to become a three pitch pitcher with the knuckle curve before he was kind of a little bit too close to a two pitch pitcher. I think at times or somehow he's a little bit predictable. And then the locations on his breaking balls haven't been good. So when he gets into counts where he needs a strike, he tends to lean on the fastball. And that's that's an iffy strategy in today's game. So, you know, that's what you're watching from if you're watching Lee Varlin is the ability to land the breaking ball for strikes. Zebi seems to come with that ability baked in. And that might be what what makes him have the job and in the league of Ireland out. The semi in what's Richardson has the worst fastball of the group. I like David Festa the best overall of the group just because I know a little bit about him. I've seen him make some adjustments at the major level. And Zebi has yet to make those adjustments. But not only are they auditioning for staying in the role now, but they're potentially auditioning for the third start in a playoff situation because Joe Ryan's injury may be season ending even if they go to the playoffs. Yeah, it's a Terry's major strain for Ryan. The description is a grade two. That's usually like in the four to six week range at a lower end. So, you know, you add four to six weeks to now add in recovery rehab. Like that's it's close October. So maybe we'd see him in the playoffs. It seems unlikely we'd see Joe Ryan again before the end of the regular season. Tough break for the twins. Two years talking about the quality of the top end of that rotation. Ryan's success this year step forward is a big part of why they've been able to do that. Let's talk about Camilo Dovall for a moment. This one was a little bit of a surprise to me when I saw that he was going down to triple A. But the results haven't been there this year. It's an ERA close to five, a width of 161. It's still over a strikeout per inning. So there's still some bat missing ability there. Twenty two saves. So yeah, the ratios have been bad. That's worked against your teams this year. Dovall was another one of the closers much like David Bednar who we talked about going into the weekend. Who I thought was in that circle of trust. I had no real concerns about a performance dip like this costing him the job even temporarily. But what's next for Camilo Dovall? What kinds of adjustments do you think he's going to have to make at triple A and eventually once he returns to the big leagues to reclaim his role as the Giants closer? You know, it's sort of a fascinating thing because I mean, you know, just as a fan you already know something from this, which is that this is kind of amazing, like kind of surprising, right? Like kind of, like, you know, so you can look at other teams and be like, Oh, well, David Bednar is obviously struggling and he's he's something's going on mechanically. But they're not, I don't think about to send David Bednar down. They would be just more likely to maybe say, okay, Chapman's going to get the next saves chance and we're going to work on Bednar and he can get his role back. That's, that's the sort of normal way that you take a dominant guy who's been a dominant closer. And then you figure it back out. You don't send them down. So that already tells you something. And I think it's fair to, to say that it tells you something about the interaction between the pitcher and the coaches, right? Like, like, I hate to say, like, wake up call, you know what I mean? Because you can say you can find out that his extension is, is down. You can see that his, his fastballs don't have the same stuff last this year. And you can see that there are, there must be some mechanical pomona to this. I can also see, tell you that swing percentage is down against Oval. So the league has said, this guy doesn't have very good command. We're going to wait till he throws a strike. And Deval's been in the zone less this year. So there's, there's a couple of things going on. There's a mechanical thing. And then there's an approach thing. He should be, he should be watching Emmanuel Classay and should be watching someone just throw that type of stuff that he has just in the zone and attack the zone and know that you're probably not going to give up homers because of the type of pitches you throw, right? And the below you throw on that. So that's what he should be doing. But he should also be thinking about his extension. Now, here's a quote in a Justice de Los Santos piece in the Santa Cruz Center, and it says this. He is, he has taken to Deval, the idea that his extension is down and there's something going on there. And this is what Deval tells a reporter, the coach and staff tells me I'm not stretching as long that I'm taking that step very short, Deval said through a team interpreter. But the problem with me is that I feel very comfortable with it. So they just left me alone. Okay. I mean, I hesitate to like label people, but and of course this is through an interpreter. So there's still a chance that there are some things being lost in translation. But to me, if I was his coach, I'd be very disappointed to get that sort of feed, like that's a result from feedback I was giving him. Like, okay, so that's it. So we're not changing any mechanics. So I think that's why you say, well, this is a wake up call. And he's got two things to work on, which are mechanics and approach. If he sort of, I think if there's an attitude shift being like, wow, they sent me down, there's two ways I can go. I have children. There's two ways that a wake up call can go. One is screw you. I hate this organization. You know, they're screwing me. I'm not going to do anything. You know, I've had that where you're your kids in trouble and they're like, man, they just yell at you, right? Or what you hope to do is say, no, we're giving you this space to try and make these these corrections, because we need to make these corrections. And this, this should be a wake up call of sorts. He could be back up in 10 days. Yeah, not hard to imagine. I mean, he's got electric stuff. Like it's just execute the game plan, make the adjustment. I think he can make the adjustment. The Class A comparison is really interesting though, because the big difference for me is that Dovall misses bats the way you'd expect him to typically at a level in line with how hard it was. He throws more sliders than Class A, right? Yeah, I just, I always find it odd. I feel like when I watch Dovall, his fastball command has been the shakier thing. Like the slider seems like the pitch he's a lot more comfortable with. But then he can get that he can get, he can beat on the slider just because they anticipate it. And it's not 98. And they don't have to sit 98. They might sit slider. And I, and I just from conversations around the league, and I have a piece coming about this soon, like sitting slider is a thing. People are doing them more and more, because there's fastballs are being used less and less. Sitting slider has become a viable strategy. This is like worse than ever. I mean, he's throwing it as much as he has in the last three or 49.6% slider usage from Dovall this year. And I think he's too much because he throws a 98-man hour cut fastball. Yeah, I picked him up in a solds league, way back in late April or May. And I thought somebody made a huge mistake. I'm going to rack up tons of great innings and really nice ratios. And I looked at the year to date. I mean, I basically have the same ratios. Dovall's posted all year. It just hasn't turned around so far. I think the way to read this is that you pick him up in your keeper league, if someone dropped him, and maybe next year he'll be fine. But if you're in sort of like 10 and 12 and even, I dropped him in a 15 team league, because it's like, the season is short. Even he does figure it out in two weeks. You wouldn't be using him for two weeks. And then you have four weeks left. And if you pick up Ryan Walker, you get two weeks of saves before those four weeks. And then you get a chance to get Dovall again, like anybody else, if he comes back up. So and then you, if Dovall comes back up as we as he guaranteed that he comes back into the closer role, if Ryan Walker's been doing great. Walker throws hard enough to keep the job. He's been effective enough to just be the guy for the rest of the year. So even if Dovall is back in 10 days, it might be in a set up role. It might be more of a, Hey, you're back and you're helping us and we're still a team that's in the mix for a playoff spot and we need you. But you get your job back later, if you continue to go down the progression that we want, I could see something like that unfolding. So completely understand, like the path for dropping Dovall, it actually makes sense, even if you're thinking about a possible short-term demotion. The thing that worries me about Ryan Walker is he's very cross-body. He's a, a Jake Arietta clone for me. And, and what worries me about that is that that kind of arm slot plus mechanics is often can have big platoon splits. And one thing that you can see for, for him is that, you know, lefties, he dominates righties, 167, 244, OBP, 228, slugging against righties for Ryan Walker. Against lefties, it's 222, 291, 350. That's still pretty good. But that's, that's the only place that I get a little bit, a little bit nervous with him because it is mostly, you know, sinker slider. You know, it's the mix and the mechanics can lead to, to lefty problems. We'll get to a few other closers people were chasing in the where the money went segment at the end of today's show. You know, we love talking stats here at The Athletic. Here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cashback you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cashback match. That means with Discover, you could turn $150 cashback to $300. That's right. You could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network. You earn and discover doubles. See terms at discover.com/creditcard. The clip that went viral for all the wrong reasons was Red Sox Alfielder, Jaren Duran this week and yelling a homophobic slur at a fan at Fenway Park after being heckled, which is going to probably lead to some disciplinary action, including a suspension. I was looking back for some past precedents. I know there was an incident with Kevin Pelar back in 2017. He yelled a homophobic slur at Jason Mott and got a two-game suspension. And the way I think about this, you know, is if, if the culture is going to change in Major League Baseball, in locker rooms, in clubhouses, in sport, in society in general, there has to be more than a short one two-game suspension for something like this. This has to cost players something. The Pelar suspension was without pay a couple of years ago, so financially it did cost them something. I think it's got to be a little more harsh than this just to send the right message to just explain, to show everyone this is not acceptable behavior in any facet, sport, or otherwise. And Duran issued the apology through the team, and I don't know. Like, that's just, that's like one step towards trying to right or wrong, but I am anxiously awaiting this version of discipline to see if things are changing in terms of the league's intolerance. How much, how many games was the Pelar one? It was only two. And I don't know what the right number is. That just feels light. And I think, you know, Billy Bean, not the A's architect from Moneyball, but former Big Leaguer came out after his career was over, recently passed away. He was responsible for diversity and inclusion for baseball for more than a decade, right? Like going around, telling his story, thinking about his passing, and thinking about this incident happening reasonably close after, it's like, well, how much has things changed in Big League Clubhouses in the last 10 or 15 or 20 years, right? Probably not a lot. And I think one small step, one way to start imparting that change is to make it clear that this is simply unacceptable. Yeah, yeah, two games does seem light. And I just, you know, I don't know. It is one of those things where baseball works on, on precedent, you know, and I don't know that there isn't a lot of, you know, there aren't a lot of people saying the N word to each other, you know, and getting suspended for it, you know, so there aren't other, other sort of core layers going to be like, oh, this is what we do for hate speech, you know, but yeah, this is the, you know, baseball is a private employer, and it can make the changes it wants to have the environment that it wants. This is not protected speech. You know, he has, he's at work. You can't, you can't, no matter what you think of free speech protections, you can't be yelling this sort of stuff at work. Nobody could be saying this while being a cashier at McDonald's, you know what I mean? Like you, you can't, you can't do this stuff. And so it's unfortunate that he feels that that's, you know, something that you can use, you know, as, as easily as that. Yeah. No tolerance. That's where it has to go. So we'll see what kind of response Major League Baseball and the Red Sox have here in the next couple of days. Let's move on to their topic. You pulled this together. The biggest underperformers of 2024, and I think we looked at a board like this probably mid to late June, because at that point, we're like, okay, these are the guys were probably targeting the trade because projections still like them. Anyone can have a relatively down and a half season and come back and be themselves, or maybe even better than projections in the second half. Maybe it swings back the other way in some of those cases. Maybe you get lucky. But even if you're just buying into the projection, a lot of times you can be right. This is a group that's kind of loaded with high quality players, many of whom we liked at the beginning of the season, many of whom we still liked when we did this exercise six to eight weeks ago. Julio Rodriguez just jumps off the page as the biggest underperformer among hitters by WRC. Plus he was projected for a 134 coming into the year, and he's clocked in with a 97 so far still time to write it now that he's finally healthy again, but minus 36. And you've got a bunch of other guys that are more than 25 points off their projection, including Matt Olson, Corbin Carroll, who was an easy like early first rounder. Olson was like a late first rounder. Glaiber Torres, we both love. We thought it was going to be Summer of Glaiber. Dansby Swanson, who even with a few small warts just looked like a great oatmealy player where he was going. And the always frustrating Cabrion Hayes, who's been the biggest underperformer of the group in the sense that his poor performance has been actively working against you. It's a 68 WRC plus the longer you've continued to push Cabrion Hayes out there in your lineup in most leagues, the more you've been missing out on something better in just about all formats. Yeah, and it's it's hard to it's almost hard at this point in the season to pick a guy you want off this list. You know what I mean? But I would say that Rodriguez and Olson, who were the top in terms of what they were rejected to do on this list, have shown some signs of life. Rodriguez had one of his sort of blindingly hot months that he does have. And it and it came in July, which is close to the time he had the last two seasons, where he hit 375, 434 with the 688s slugging in July and was sort of single handedly being the Seattle offense. I think that the injury was really poorly timed because it's during that time that he's super streaky and should be putting up the big numbers that save his season, you know. And for what it's worth, the strikeout rate has been climbing a little bit as the season's going. So there's a lot of sort of indicators going in different directions. But you know, for him and then Matt Olson, who we showed on the podcast, you know, with Trevor on a live stream that, you know, some of the stuff that was going on with him in terms of them filling up the zone with with fastballs low against Matt Olson. I think that we've seen a little bit of a return to reduction for Olson that is a little bit mostly seen in the ISO. At least so far in August, he's hitting 275, 357, 611 for Matt Olson. And I've seen him turn on some fastballs, especially low in the zone. So if I'm picking two guys off this list, it's easily who he gets Matt Olson. But if I take those two guys off the list, you know, and say, okay, pick someone else, it's getting a lot harder. I think there's, you know, there's with Paul Goldschmidt, I think there's real concerns about aging curves. I think that's the same for George Springer. You know, you've seen Springer, you know, kind of have a little bit of a bounce recently in terms of his splits. But, you know, it's like he returns for a little bit, and then he's gone again. You know, like he had a good July with a 274 Avers 343 OVP, 505 slugging. And in August, he's back to 167 OVP, 229 slugging, you know, it's like, was that it? Are we just going to get one good month out of out of George Springer a year now? And that's, I think a fair question when you're talking about someone who is 34 years old. So, you know, for me, I'm going to take Springer and Goldschmidt off of this list and say, I'm not, I'm not taking, I'm not wanting them going forward. I don't want them in Keeper Liggs. I, this is, this is like a pickup off of the wire situation, you know, going forward for me. Like if someone has dropped them, maybe I'll pick them up if it's free. But, so I think the most interesting names are people who are kind of mid-career, like labor Torah's, you know, Dancy Swanson and Taylor Ward, who seem to have good approaches, who just have not been as good as we expected this year. Ward was doing exactly what he was projected to do with the first two months of the season. Head of WRC+ in the 120s. I thought he was a buy-anyway sort of guy because I didn't think people were valuing Taylor Ward at that kind of level. And it's just been a brutal stretch over the last 10 weeks or so where it hasn't, it's like five homers. It doesn't really run much, just nothing really clicking for him. Some of that's team context, not being great too, but, you know, even on a bad or below average team, there should be more coming from Taylor Ward. I think the labor one still baffles me. You know, it's for the season of 238, 310, 350, 4-line, 10 homers, 4 steals. The K-rate's not bad at 21.8%. A lot of the skills seem to be there. It's just the in-game power is mostly what's lost and he's not pulling anymore. And it's like, is he just not finding the contact point or is something actually been lost? He seems awfully young to have actually lost bat speed in a way that would be irreversible. He had 27. He is somebody I would be targeting in keeper leagues as a buy low for next year, you know. I'm curious too with free agency coming up. The defense hasn't grated out well at all, right? I mean, he's below average for arm strength already plays second base. I think he's minus five for outs above average this year. I wonder if labor go. He's got to take a one-year deal and take another crack at free agency after 2025 because of the way this season has come together, barring some kind of late season run plus playoff heroics that would maybe push him back into the more coveted group of free agents. I kind of think that's the past. That's probably what's going to happen. One thing that is interesting about that is if you think about a one-year pillow deal, then he doesn't really want to sign in Miami. No, he's got to go to at least an average park for power, but maybe and even above average park again just to keep that door open. But you know who will offer money is somebody like San Francisco. He'll be trying to go somewhere like, you know, a really good situation for him would be LA. Yeah, doesn't another place where he doesn't have to be the guy kind of gets the press reset while being surrounded by other good hitters. And then a bad situation that's good for hitters is Anaheim. So that's I think Anaheim looks like it's a pretty obvious place where you might end up and that's okay. You know, so I think, you know, you kind of run through the different places he might go. And it's like, there's really only one likely place that wouldn't be great for him, which I think would be San Francisco. And then, you know, a lot of other places where it would be better for him. And you have to believe there's some fresh start here. This is, this is baggage. This is like New York baggage where they have to ask your manager about you, you know, and like you have to get, you have to get benched and you have to say things like, I'm going to get better, you know, you know, it's like, I still think that there's enough there. And he's 27. Taylor Ward is, is, is interesting to me because he's older than everybody thinks probably. If you're listening right now, guess a number in your head and the real number is 30 years old for Taylor Ward. And he's kind of streaky, you know, if you just look at his rolling production charts, you'll see that he has these peaks and valleys. And I've talked to him about his approach. And to some extent, he's like a guy who just is very selective and wants to hit pitches high in the zone for flyballs for power, you know, and it works. And in terms of his full season numbers, he probably should have a better slugging percentage and more homers than he does right now. But you can also see that during this really bad stretch, he's hitting like 55% flyballs. So he's almost like, you know, one of these like 50% flyball right guys that like gets too vertical and just starts popping everything up. And, you know, I don't know that I have a lot of confidence in the hitting coaching in Anaheim. But generally, I still like his skills, even though he's 30, and you could put him in the aging, I don't want them anymore bucket. I think 30's a lit too early to do that. His projections are still good. His skills seem like they're still pretty good. His chase rate's really low. His barrel rate's pretty good. I think generally, this is a guy that I would still buy on. I think my hesitation with glabber that's crept in just looking at him for again for a minute is just that we're looking at a guy that has done most of his damage throughout his career against fastballs. And now we're in a league that's using either more fast balls or just getting rid of bad ones. So the pitches that glabber has feasted on for most of his career are slowly disappearing. And now if you don't have a good approach that allows you to do damage on breaking or off speed stuff when you see it, there's not much left to hold on to. He has one season with a pitch type value above zero for sliders. Yeah. So I kind of think I'm looking at glabber more as a sure, someone's going to sign him and he's going to play a lot because he's young and he's still sort of interesting. But I see him more as like a monolig draft and a whole third second baseman or something next year. I'm looking at him as a little bit less of a guy that I really, really like. These flaws were there. I just looked through him because if you look back at 2019, which we know is a year with a particularly fun ball, he was crushing the ball even on non fastballs that year, relatively speaking, to get 10 homers off breaking balls that year, right? So maybe I was looking at that and using that as proof of concept. Wasn't even like even in that 38 homer year, didn't he hit like 10 of them against Baltimore? You get a leg with that more without Baltimore to yeah, it was the rebuilding Orioles with really bad pitching in the ballpark. Yeah. So so I think some of the some of the appeal has fallen. I don't think he's like undraftable. I just think he's probably for glabber to be on my rosters next year, he has to fall out to the top 200 overall. Then I'll take the shot based on playing time and the combination of skills he's shown. But I think he has to show us more against non fastballs in particular, if he's going to be the player that we, many of us, all of us almost thought he was going to be coming into 2024. Yeah. Taylor Ward. I mean, what have you got out of Anaheim? Like that's the one thing I'd wonder about. And then the other name that's on here that I think we've talked about at least once this year is Adoli Scarcea. I think that kind of falls more into the players who I didn't expect to age well been anyway. But even in that group, I'm not sure that we're seeing massive skills erosion in the areas where I thought it would be there. So I could actually see myself being for 2025 only more optimistic about a Garcia bounce back than about a glabber Torres bounce back, even though the general underlying skills of Torres historically have been the skills that I'm more likely to target. I guess I see your point. I mean, one, I was going to point to already a big drop in contact outside the zone, which is we know something that ages really terribly. And that's part of why swing strike rate is up this year. And yet his strikeout rate is not up. And he's also been successful with the swing strike rate he has this year. So yes, I don't think 2023 is coming back. But could we see like a 2022 with fewer steals next year? Could he hit 240 with 25 homers and 15 steals next year? Yeah. Yeah, that's still I mean, that's still pretty close to what his projections are. But it is so not my type of player. And with the steals leaving this package, it becomes a lot more of the low batting average slugger type, which doesn't often fit my builds and doesn't doesn't help as much as you expect late in the draft, unless you've built this thing where you've like, I've got batting average and steals at the wazoo, like, I'm going to take a bunch of our dualies, Garcia types at the end. I guess it can fit a build. It's just doesn't likely to fit my builds. I think I'm willing to chase it more with someone who's done it for several years like Garcia, when the when the k-rate hasn't gone through the roof, then I am to try and chase the Nelson Velasquez, Matt Walner, like we go after this profile 50 or 100 picks later than Garcia is going to go. But it's a bunch of guys that are kind of just trying to break through for the first time or did it for six weeks, eight weeks at the end of season. I think if the price is that low or even again, 40 to 50 picks away from those guys, if we're talking about Garcia in the pick 200 to 250 bin, the lower average big masher that plays every day, I think he's still going to play every day next year for this Rangers team, at least as the roster's currently built. And we know if they're spending this off season looks anything like their last one, that would be a great thing for Garcia to have that runway for another 600 plate appearances. Then I think he can exceed a lot of the other lower average mashers that we're chasing who sometimes fall into platoons end up coming up light and playing time if they either don't click right away or they have to share their spot. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Playing time safe is underrated. I mean, no matter what Matt Walner does, he's still on a team with Trevor Larnack and, you know, the guys that they've proven in the past will go up and down and platoon and do this, you know. Yep, it's just the way it goes. Probably look at a pitching under performer chart in a similar way and maybe next Monday, we'll kind of put that out there as something to throw out there and look at. Let's take a look at where the money went this weekend right off the top. Saw a lot of Joe Musgrove pickups. I was a part of one with our co-manager friend of ours. And I think it's probably 94, 96 in his rehab. Right, so if that's where the vylos at again, do we go ahead and say, all right, let's just throw them out there and maybe not watch it. Maybe watch the highlights of the first one just in case it ends up being disappointing because it just, it has felt like for the times we've seen Joe Musgrove this year and it hasn't been a lot. It's only been 10 starts scattered throughout the year. He has not been himself. So if he's finally back close to 100% healthy, I'm definitely interested, but I think it's a very big question mark. Getting the fastball back up to 94 miles an hour would actually be really big because I've heard from a hitting coach that they're sitting slider against Musgrove. And of course you sit slider against Musgrove because he's really pushing, that's his best aspect and he's really pushing the numbers on sliders. You can count the cutter, which is, it could be a fastball, but it's three miles an hour slower than his fastball. So if you count the cutter as a breaking ball, he is throwing breaking balls 60% of the time, even more, maybe 65. So that way you don't have to sit 92, you sit, you know, 88 and you, you know, you hit the cutter the other way and you and you slug on the sliders that are now down to 81, the slider in the curve or both at 81, 82. So I think things become easier, but if he's 94 on that fastball, then then he's going to go to it a little bit more and open up everything, you know, for the rest of his arsenal. So I'm really interested in seeing what his VLO is. I would rather throw him from my bench for the first start in the big leagues, I think. But good enough to stash in a lot of leagues just given the possibility if that VLO is back up a tick and a half to ticks compared to what we've seen this year because that unlocks everything for him. And the brain balls are still good. That version of Musgrove might not have quite the same ratios ceiling that we've grown accustomed to, but if he plays like an SP three or an SP four, finding a guy like that inexpensively on the wire for the last month and a half, you're pretty happy with that. It should get you wins too. We talked about Tyler Malley a bit on Friday, not surprisingly, he was heavily added over the weekend along with Eduardo Rodriguez. So I'm curious who your would you rather is between Malley and Rodriguez for the rest of 2024. I'm going to take Malley. His stuff isn't all the way back to where it was. But his VLO is closer. He is nine to seven this year, nine to eight before 94 one at his peak. Tyler Malley, so just a little bit off last year. Eduardo Rodriguez is 91 four was 92 three last year and 94 at his peak. So he's got further go when it comes to VLO and he didn't strike anybody out. He struck one guy out in his first start. So it just makes me nervous. You know, a guy coming back like that, showing that kind of VLO loss in the division he's in. I'm sure his, I'm sure his schedule is not that great. And then so with a 70s stuff plus for Eduardo Rodriguez, I know that he's outperformed his stuff plus in the past, but that's just, that's really, really low. And L West kind of nasty right now. We'll talk a lot about that with Brit on our Tuesday episode, but I actually think there's more interest even in shallow leagues right now in Ryan Nelson than there is in Eduardo Rodriguez. Ryan Nelson has looked like a different guy. Last 60 days of 339 ERA, 103 whip, 62 to 12 strikeout to walk ratio and 66 in a third innings. Only four homers allowed more recently. A couple of nine strikeout performances, some sevens mixed in there too. Like he seems like he's got everything working and I'm curious if there's been a pitch mix change or a stuff change that's actually unlocked this level from Nelson. Because what he debuted a couple of years ago, he was someone who popped a little bit and looked like he was going to be maybe a solid mid rotation starter with at least an average, if not above average, strikeout rate. And maybe that's starting to happen just a little bit later than we expected. It's so weird. I've always wanted him to mix up his pitches more and throw the cutter and the slider and the curve and and use all of his pitches effectively. And I think quite obviously the thing that has changed for him, Ryan Nelson is that he is going to the fastball like never before. Oh my lord, he has a game with 75% fastballs recently. And I'm not even cutting the cutter as a fastball. If you count the cutter as a fastball, he's now sitting 75% fastballs. I mean, that's like early career Freddie Peralta. That's fastball Freddie stuff. How is he doing it? Is it with ride excellent command? Like why is that working? Yeah, he's always it's always been, you know, a pitch that stuff plus loves a lot. And it is it is a comp it is ride really. But it isn't it isn't I mean, 95 V low is pretty good. I mean, it's just it's just a weird ass strategy in today's league. Maybe that's it. Maybe he's just like people like, Oh my god, this guy's just keeps throwing fastballs. Maybe they're all just like still guessing slider. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it'll work forever. And even, you know, in that in those splits, if you're talking about, you know, the strikeout minus walk rate underneath the hood for him, you know, we're talking about a 33% strikeout rate in August. I just it's so far from what he used to be started. May was 15%. I just I don't know if I believe it, but July, this could be this could be the Ryan Nelson that we can believe in. July, he had a 23% strikeout rate and a 5% walk rate. He's always had the excellent walk rates Ryan Nelson has. So that kind of a picture, I think, could give you like a high threes low four ZRA and some wins. I don't know what's what's going to happen though. I mean, there is a big discussion right now in Arizona about what's going to happen. Are they going to stick with a six man rotation? That's what I think is on fan graphs right now. If you look at they have that schedule thing, I don't know what rutawire is saying. Yeah, I mean, with gallon, gallon, I think has a minor injury, general body cramps was why he left last game. So the hydration illness, something along those lines more likely than not. But if you look at their rotation now that Merrill Kelly's healthy, gallon, Kelly, Brandon, fought, I mean, you're paying enough money to Eduardo Rodriguez and Jordan Montgomery, where you're probably not squeezing them into long relief rolls just yet. That doesn't make any sense. Maybe you stick with six until you get a little closer to playoffs and then shorten up based on form and decide kind of make it a if you're in the playoffs, make it an open audition for the last spot in the playoff rotation and just let all those guys sort of take workload off of each other and be more fresh for October if you make it back. They are hot. They have one, two, three losses in their last, you know, I'm eyeballing it, but it looks like 18 or something. Yeah, they're playing really well right now. And you know, Gallant, the reason you don't do a six man rotation is if you have like, you know, an ace, you don't want to cost your ace or your second, your two best starters any starts. You want to start them as often as possible. You know, that's how we landed on sort of a five man rotation. But as much as that gallon is their ace nominally, I don't know that he's so far better than the rest of that rotation that you really care about losing a start from Zag Gallant that you're giving to Ryan Nelson, basically, especially the way Ryan Nelson's pitching, I guess. Yeah, Nelson's form matters here. And I think with Gallant, I mean, look at the workload that they put on his arm last year. And he talked about it. He talked about it in the spring being like he stepped up off of his schedule in the off season in terms of how much throwing he did. And he was behind in the spring because of it. And that's why we were why we talked to him about it. So yeah, he he felt that extra that extra pitching he did in the playoffs. It was up over 240 innings if you count the playoff innings last year, and he's missed a little bit of time this season. So I do think part of making sure he's better than he has been so far at the end of the year is working so hard, not pushing him right. I think that helps you short term and long term. So I do think Nelson's probably pretty safe based on those factors. It also does make it hard from a fancy standpoint to time anybody on a two week start. And it makes it a little bit hard to to believe their schedule. You know, I do believe there might be a two week start from Montgomery this week. Not this week, but you know, you may see someone that somewhat time soon have a two start week and you made the oh, I want that guy for that two star week. And then they decide the day before that they're stopping the six man. Yeah, they've got off days on Thursday each of the next two weeks. So they can just use six and no one gets to and that's a nice way to go. So they got a nice stop such a stretch of schedule too. They got the Rockies to start this week at Tampa Bay for the weekend series for three at Miami to start next week and then a little bit tougher going up to Boston. Yeah, highlighted. I forget who I highlighted. I highlighted one of these pictures is having a really great schedule. I think it might have been Montgomery. Yeah, Montgomery gets Colorado at home Miami on the road and Mets, which, you know, that's a pretty good lineup. But and I think he misses if it's still a six man rotation, he misses the Dodgers series and gets at San Francisco instead. So Montgomery, as bad as he's looked, you know, I dropped him for, you know, head to head reasons and I picked him up today again. Yeah, Montgomery has been on and off rosters all season long and pretty much all of my leagues. Shout out to Spencer Araghetti for reestablishing his career high and strikeouts again over the weekend. And we are past the part where stuff plus it really matters that much anymore. Now Spencer Araghetti, we're in K-minus BB territory. This is that's the stat you should be looking at. And it hasn't been amazing, but it's been getting better and it is above average for sure. Two or fewer walks, I believe in now five of his last six starts, but the K is going through the roof and you just take a look. I mean, last eight starts of 64 to 15 strike out to walk ratio and 47 innings, mid three ZRA 109 whip. Yes, the Astros are doing it again. That's to answer the question. Yeah, they are. He's a little bit of a schedule issue with him though. I think let me see what Araghetti's got. He's got a versus White Sox, which I like, but then he goes at Baltimore. And I think they have a six man too on paper, but they could also when Verlander comes back and Verlander is slated for August 21. So is somebody going to lose their role? Is it Blanco? Is it Araghetti? Is it a six man? That throws everything up in the mix. But right now with Verlander coming back on the 21st, Fangraft says Araghetti stays in, gets the White Sox, and then at Baltimore and then at Philly. I do not necessarily want him for those, but if the schedule changes or there's a setback for Verlander, a lot of it changes, but instead the Verlander started versus Boston. So Araghetti's and the Houston Astro schedule is not actually super nice. That's very different from the Diamondback schedule. That should factor into some of our discussions or thoughts about the way this is going to go down the rest of the season. I did add Araghetti in a 12 teamer. 37 to 11 was the bid. So maybe a slight overpay, but I think it's more of a let's see how it works itself out at the very least. I get that start against the White Sox and I overpaid for a streamer, but I think there's a chance that they either go to six, trying to get Verlander completely right, or someone else goes down in the time between Verlander's return and now. That could always happen as well. Or if they lose a pitcher, it could be Blanco instead of Araghetti. Yeah, that's possible too. Blanco's workload is in just a new stratosphere right now, so they may want to monitor those innings for a bit before you get to the playoffs. The relievers, I hinted at earlier. So Ryan Walker, Justin Martinez from the DBACs, and Lucas Airsig for the Royals that believe there's a Hunter Harvey injury that may have tipped that closer battle into Airsig's favor. They still use MacArthur sometimes though, and they had Harvey with the save. I mean, they're doing the modern bullpen management, and it's a little frustrating from the outside. Yeah, based on usage, you think there's even much of a difference between Airsig and Martinez right now? I mean, I think AJ Pucks still going to be a factor like we talked about last week. I don't know if there's a clear cut. This is the guy taking over for Paul Seabald right now. My order was Walker, Airsig, Walker Martinez, Airsig. Okay. So you're prioritizing roll over stuff kind of right now, just because it's like the year to get stuff. They all have pretty good stuff too. And I think that that's something that Derek Hardy's always found is that the most important thing almost is roll. But I'll add that I do think that fastball stuff is pretty big. But if you look at these guys, all three of them have good fastballs. So not an easy way to separate those guys. I didn't get a lot of them because the bids were very high. But I've got Copac, it was like fourth on that list, basically. I do think Copac might be marching towards that closer role. He really is taking to Dodgerland and he does have the closer's fastball. I did. I don't have that much money in most of my leagues, but there was a common name that I got. I think in all three of my leagues, I did. I got Ty France in all three of my leagues. And in fact, I got Bowden Francis in all. Nope, I got Paul Blackburn instead of Bowden Francis in one of them. But Bowden Francis has a two step this week. He has a new split finger that he adds to a slow but good by stuff plus curveball. I think he's a legit three pitch mix guy now. And he's got a two step this week that I don't know who it is off the top of my head. But I think it's a decent one. Let me look at it up real quick. But that was my reasoning for him. I also thought, you know, there's a chance I get him for this two step. I paid for him at like sort of streamer level prices. But, you know, beyond that, he gets at Anaheim today. And the second part of his two step is at the Cubs, which I'll take. You know, you don't always get to pick your second part of your two step. Then after that, he gets Anaheim again. And then he gets an at Boston that I don't like and a versus Philly I don't like. So, you know, maybe I started for two weeks, leave him on the bench for a week or two. And then there's some, you know, he could get the Mets down the stretch in St. Louis. So there's other starts you might like him. And the season ends with Miami. So if Bowden Francis gets a start in the last three games in Miami, that could be a really useful thing. It might even be worth keeping around depending on what the rest of your roster looks like. So, Bowden Francis, the reason for Ty France is that, you know, you just took him out of the worst situation for a right-handed hitter almost in baseball in Seattle. And then you put him in one of the best situations for a right-handed hitter in baseball in Cincinnati. So, Ty France, you know, is playing every day too. Through some snafoos, I ended up washing Elo Jimenez into Ty France. And I don't really want to get into some mistakes I made maybe. But playing time left me in your favorites. It's going to be interesting. There's similar players in terms of projections. Mount Baltimore is not actually great for Eloie's power. And, you know, so this week, Ty France is home for six games. That's a real easy start. And people said they wanted to hear who we dropped. These are 15 teamers. So, I dropped in the TGFBI. I dropped Liodi Taveras for Elo Jimenez for 13 bucks. Liodi Taveras keeps showing up on Raspal as like a top 50 type bat. And I don't believe it anymore. This is like one of those, I just, I've given up. I just, it doesn't do any of the things I like. I don't need stolen bases. He doesn't, he's not going to hit for power. He's not hitting for batting average. I'm done. Justin, Justin Henry Malloy was a dropper for France. And he's, there's still things to like about him long term. But I think in a, in a, this situation in a redraft and it's okay to drop a guy like that. You know, his home park is not helpful. I dropped Orlando Arcea for Ty France and Barf. And Orlando Arcea was just a pickup for, for the Rockies. It was a bat streamer. I dropped Max Meyer for Bowden Francis. I think I might have just been wrong about Max Meyer. It's, it's just not a, the fastball isn't very good. And the slider isn't enough to, to make it work. I've traded to reject actually that I received an offer over the weekend. It was an auto new offer. It was Max Meyer for like three bucks right now for my Lucas AirSig who's a dollar. And as it stands right now, AirSig looks like an easy keeper. So I think that's a simple rejection because I think I'd rather have the future saves than the starter lottery ticket that Max Meyer appears to be. The guy that I've definitely been wrong about too because he looks so good coming out of spring training, those first couple of starts before they demoted him. It is a really good slider, but there's just nothing else other than the slider I think right now. Yeah, still some work to be done. Maybe an off season can fix it. Other drops from me, that league where I added Arighetti, Heston Kirsted went back on the IL with concussion symptoms. Easy drop for me just because playing time's a little choppy. And if you're back on the IL with that concussion, it might take longer to come back. Just hopefully he's able to get back and be completely healthy at some point given the severe nature of concussions. David Festa was the drop for Joe Musgrove in one league just because, you know, we're not sure Festa keeps the job, even though the stuff's really good. I think there's a little more present floor and ceiling for Musgrove. Jesus Sanchez picked up in a 12-teamer for JJ Blude. Both teams have light schedule weeks, but it's just kind of pushing a little more power out there. Sanchez continues to show us just a little bit more of a ceiling. Sanchez is making me look good, I think a little bit. I've been talking about how the bat speed is good. The swing is short. The exit velocities are really good. And I'm checking my work here. July 268, 302, 537 for Jesus Sanchez. And so far in August, 231, 318, 462. So looking a lot more viable recently, Jesus Sanchez is made a drop of Ben Rice, where I was using him as a second catcher for Joey Bart. It was just a $1 Bart pickup in a 12-team league, so I felt pretty good about that bargain bin. 15 teamers, Tyler Malley. I have a lot of money in TGFBI because everyone's been paying more than I've expected all season, and I'm actually in contention to maybe win my league. I'm not going to win the overall. I dropped Jonathan Cannon for Tyler Malley team context, being a big part of it, and baseline skills, I think, a little higher. Much more comfortable just throwing Malley out there, even in matchups I don't like than throwing Cannon out there any time, even though Cannon could figure it out and be useful eventually. I got one of your guys, Edward Cabrera, $38. No backup bid from anyone. Oh, it's ridiculous. He kills me that way, dude. I've been so often no backup bids on my bids. Today, I won a Loi 13 to no backup bid. Ty France, 11 to no backup bid. And Paul Blackburn, 11 to 7, my god, a backup bid. No, the 38-0 feels pretty bad when he could have just 11. I'm like, 11. Okay, fine. One would have been great. I'll settle for the 11-0. And then Herar in Carnacione, a $2 on a posed bid. Jordan Westbrook was a drop from me. I think he was dropped by a lot of the last week. I don't see a timetable for him with that hand, but I just assume a few weeks at a minimum. And Herar is continuing to really rocket the ball. And in fact, Herar is doing what I thought Luciano could do. And quite literally taking Luciano's time, like Luciano is not playing. And Herar in Carnacione is not starting just against Lefty's. He is basically their DH. This is how I see it. I think there's one game he took off since he's been up. So, you know, if you want a guy who rockets it all over the place and has a little bit of a swing and strike issue that has kind of seemingly figured something out in that regard, then, you know, I think he's he's as far as lightning in a bottle goes. Herar in Carnacione is actually more fun than a lot of other names, you know, because you could put him in like a Reese Hines bucket. Oh, yeah, he hits the ball hard, but he never hits the ball, except there's just like that. Oh, he had a 24% strikeout rate in AAA. And he, you know, has he figured something out there? Just a little more proof of concept. I think that you can get excited about with the Carnacione at the moment. That's exactly why I picked him up just hoping for lightning in a bottle. He's got a four game stretch to begin the week. DJ FBI plays on the NFC. So, max schedule. I figured, you know, given that they got a couple couple of lefties going that series, he's probably not sitting more than one. One of those matchups is a good to grant homes. Great story that we talked about, but not a guy you feared. And Charlie Morton, as we've seen, has struggled at times, too. So I just thought that was a really good streaming opportunity at a minimum. If in Carnacione hits, he'll keep playing. If he slumps badly, I'm cutting him next week. There's a pretty clear, like, fork in the road, probably. And there's still enough, uh, feels like pulling teeth, trying to get runs out of this offense that I think they're going to prioritize having somebody hits the ball super hard in the lineup. Yeah. And in this case, too, I just needed to get a backup out fielder because I had a couple injuries. I also thought for a lineup that has, you know, Colton Kouser, Miguel Vargas and Alex Verdugo filling out field spots. I needed something with ceiling because I needed some of those guys occasionally. I can't keep playing all of them and hope to move up a couple of spots in the standings. I don't think there's enough juice in those bats in particular, but those are the adjustments we made this weekend. We hope you had a good weekend on the wire. If you'd like to get a subscription to athletic, you can get one for $2 a month for the first year, the athletic.com/rates and barrels will get you in the door. You can find Eno on Twitter at, you know, Sarah. So you can find me at Derek Benreiper. Find the pod at rates and barrels. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
