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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/bs device 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 Friday, August 9th. Derek van Riber, Enosaris here with you on this episode. We dig into a question I've been kicking around for a little bit. Does playing in Keeper Leagues make you a better redraft player? Keeper Leagues, relatively speaking, still not that popular. A lot of people that listen to the show might play them, but they're not that mainstream because they tend to be a lot of work. We'll talk about the possible benefits of being in those leagues, or at least one of them. And drawbacks. There's some drawbacks too, but I think more pros than cons would be my initial assessment. We'll see if you can push me into a more neutral spot. We got some mailbag questions, including one about large Noot Bar, Jackson Churio. I didn't make up the mailbag question about Jackson Churio. I know what you're all thinking. That was a real question that came in from a user in our Discord named Ari. Sure, not my burner, Piper. Yeah, I don't have a burner on our own Discord. I don't operate that way. If you want to join the Discord, you can do that. The link is in the show description. We have a little project prospect conversation about baseball America updating their farm rankings midseason. So maybe a little bit of an apology is owed to the White Sox and probably some Anaheim Angels slander coming in that segment too. We'll have a weekend waiver preview later on in the episode as well. So let's start up top. I'm curious to know now, what are your drawbacks of playing in keeper and dynasty leagues? Because I came into this thinking it's only positives. I guess one drawback I will submit up top is they are time consuming. So it's time you're spending on other leagues. If you add that alongside the year round leagues and they're year round. No, the negative is, and this is going to come up later. So I'm going to preview that we're going to talk about Lars and Newbar. That's one of the questions. And what can happen, I think, in keeper leagues is you set a longer horizon for your evaluations of players. So you will be okay with longer sets of inability, longer, poor production, because you see something that you think will right ship. So if you think on the level of two or three years, but in redraft, you need to think on the level of six months, and that's all that matters. Sometimes you don't pull the plug quick enough. Okay, so you'd make an argument to the extent of maybe we keep failing with Cabrion Hayes in redraft because we play in keeper and dynasty leagues where he doesn't have to break out right now, you can keep waiting and keep waiting. So not too old, you know, he still he still got these components, he still got the raw power, you're like, it still could come together, you could still have us love a good year. Yeah, and then I think that in in redrafts, you have to be a little bit more cutthroat. I found some success with a co-owner that is extremely cutthroat, and I'm extremely not. And so we kind of bandy bandy our discussions back and forth about, you know, what he's done in the last week or two versus like, you know, what he could do in his career over the next couple of years, which might be irrelevant to the redraft. But it's not always because it's really a discussion of, you know, how long can I wait? And that's a really hard decision to make in every league. And I think it's really hard for for for teams. Just look at, yeah, we'll talk about this in the last new part, but just look at, you know, what the Cardinals have done with him, you know, or look at Tommy Fan's career, where they slow walked him in the minors, then he gets an opportunity with someone else and gets, you know, does really well. And then the Rays are like, no, we're going to cut, cut this one quick, you know. So like, there's different ways that teams think about Windows on players as well. And so that that's malleable. And that, you know, if you play Dynasty and Keeper, you have a longer window of evaluation, just naturally, I think, is the other possible evaluation downside that you would be more susceptible to play and keeper in Dynasty League, to be more susceptible to overvalue prospects or age to level production, relatively speaking, even though those are the better players in the pool for non big leaguers. And even though age level does matter, if you swing too far in that direction, because of Keeper in Dynasty Leagues, you get to the point in redraft where an older surprising player comes up, we talked about Doyle talked about Tyler Fitzgerald on yesterday's show. And I think you may have more skepticism towards the non prospects that come through Doyle wasn't a complete non prospect, but he also wasn't somebody that was popping on top 50s and like he's even on top 100s before he debuted. So I wonder if that's one of the other potential drawbacks is sort of narrowing your view of what's good in the short term because of how you think so much about the long term. 100%. 100%. I have no shares of Brendan Doyle. I have no shares of Tyler Fitzgerald. And in redrafts, I probably should. Even if Tyler Fitzgerald only hits like 230 going forward, he has the job. And there's a chance that he just has his career here now, you know, and continues this run that he's on. But I will say that like it also helps you because I have no shares of Reese Hines. And part of that is because I think in these longer terms where I'm like, these aren't skills I want to bet on. You know, these aren't skills that usually turn out in the long run. Could Reese Hines have put together an Aristies Aquino? Aquino? Like run? Yes, 100% and I could have been wrong. But I just wasn't willing to pay the 10% you know, FAB that it required paid the price that it required to play that game because I just didn't see it happening. And I see Tyler Fitzgerald is somewhat similar, but he's cut his k-ray. He's got more defensive value, you know, so they miss the boat. And part of it is because, you know, I'm looking at strikeout rate and age, age to level and things like that, you know. I think the positives though outweigh these negatives. Like these negatives aren't as bad if you become aware of them and start to correct them. But I think those are the initial negatives I've had from the first probably 10 or so years that I played those long term formats. I think having to make more decisions, which you have to do with deeper rosters, that's a good thing in the long run because you're making a lot more comparisons to what I have and what I have available to me in the pool right now. And even if the timelines on those players are different than they are in redraft, you still have to make a call. You have to come up with a reason to cut a player loose or to bundle a player in a trade or to trade for a player. And I think that sharpens your analysis quite a bit. And I got to say like I for a long time, didn't want to sign up for auto new, even though I loved the concept of it from the first time I heard about it, because I thought this will consume me. And I have so many leagues, I have 10 plus leagues most years, finally took the plunge last year, built the team very poorly, as I've talked about on this show, because it the draft overlapped the birth of my son, not ideal for focus. But anyway, I'm rebuilding already, no big deal, fine. But I'm actually having a lot of fun rebuilding. And the way Niv designed auto new is much more engaging than a lot of other leagues. If you start to fall out of it, in some keeper and dynasty leagues, in its 20 teams, there's not always something out there that's interesting. You have to dig even deeper auto news 12 teams. And even with large rosters, you can find something most weeks to go get and possibly improve your roster. So I have found that format in particular to be one that has me digging into more corners of the player pool than I might be if I played in a 20 or 24 team dynasty, which is also good and makes you better in a different way. So I would highly recommend auto new as like a good foray into keeper leagues, because it's going to open up the number of players you're looking at almost immediately. Yeah, so it'll, you know, make you prepared for anything that's coming down the wire, you know, in your redrafts. So you'll just be like, oh, I know that guy, you know, that has been on my league for a while, you know, and I've been, or I've been looking at him or I own him, you know, and, you know, the other, the other thing that's interesting is I think that a good measure of the quality of any game, if it's Settlers of Catan or, you know, a desktop game, you know, a tabletop game or a fancy game, is are there many different ways to win? And one thing I would say about auto news is there's many ways, I think there's many different ways to reveal. There's at least two really sort of prominent ones I can think of, which is load up on prospects and try to get the top prospects at a cheap enough price that you suddenly have a bunch of top prospects come to fruition at the same time on cheap, cheap things, and you can add veterans to that. I took a slightly different approach. I mean, I do have Zach Veen, Jose, Jose de Paula and Spencer Jones in my rebuild, but I also traded for a $3 Michael Bush, a $2 branded Rogers, a $1 Joey Ortiz. I got a $1 Lawrence Butler. I traded for a $5 Christian Walker. You know, so, you know, it's not guaranteed that I have, you know, a bunch of studs, but I have covered, at least in terms of depth, you know, a bunch of different positions at a cheap price. So now I can go into the auction and I have a bunch of money and I can buy whatever I want and make the pieces fit behind it because I have multi-eligible $2 guys that I can switch around. You know, so that's been my approach, but then there's definitely the just, you know, get the best prospects you can and, you know, build around the ones that work out. I'm not cutthroat enough because I don't love the draft and auto-new and which can help me when I am competitive, stay competitive. You know, I generally have like good runs with my teams that are, you know, but I generally finish like third in my league a lot, you know, and haven't gone all the way. So I'm considering if I need to be a more cutthroat and be, you know, more prospect centric. Yeah, just one step away. I mean, I've pushed it pretty hard with some of the prospects and I made a point early to make a deal for Wyatt Langford. Jackson Churio is a big part of my team. Now he's up to like eight bucks, which I'm sure will get plenty of dollars in the off-season arbitration process. But if you're bad, you don't get as many arbitration dollars. So it's kind of cool. I won't catch as many of those. And then I've got a bunch of inexpensive like five dollar and under guys that are double AA and triple AA guys right now that should, in some combination, drop into my roster over the course of next year. So if I have a few good young big leaguers now, like Neto for three, the two outfielders I mentioned with Langford and Churio, Andy Pajes for a buck, you know, Colt Keith for three, Bush for three. I got that in the big league core, the next group coming up and some interesting pitching. I think I'm doing it right. I'll know real soon by this time next year. But even while you're rebuilding like that, you should spend your money in the draft because you can, even if it doesn't help you, it's, it's like the teams in the big leagues that will sign somebody on a one-year deal, you know, sign Jack Flaherty on one-year deal, turn them into some prospects if he has to go to another different team. Exactly. Yep. And I think the trading does seem to be a bit easier, even though there's fewer teams, even though it's a 12-team league, because I think everybody plays in these auto-new leagues with a better sense of, okay, I can actually trade a prospect. I don't have to clutch every single one quite as tight because there are chances to find guys that are outside the top 50 among prospects right now that could take a big leap in the next few months. Like, I do think it's just balanced in a way where you actually get action on the trade front. And I think in deeper dynasty leagues I've played in, it is really hard. It's so unlikely that someone moves Wyatt Langford in a 20-team or a 24-team dynasty league. It's almost impossible. We've got further off. We've got really stratified in our 20-team where, you know, the top five or 10 prospects, nobody will touch, nobody will trade, nobody will, you know, they'll hug. And every other prospect is useless and invaluable in trades. Not great. So it's become pretty difficult to trade. But I did make a trade. It'll come up later. But you know, it does. I think all these things help you think about, you know, how likely these things are to continue in the long run and what the bankable skills are and, you know, what you want to look at to evaluate a player. So I do think it's generally a positive. All right. So we're leaning towards more good than bad, but you have to be aware of the ways that being in long-term leagues can start to creep into your evaluation. It can make you a little more clingy than you should be with certain player types. You mentioned this, but I have seen guys, I've seen people who work in in the prospect side of fantasy, you know, get into things like TGFBI or, you know, get into these and get a lot of first-year players in their draft. And I'm like, that's a little risky. Like, you really only should have one or two of those, you know, and you can get too far into like, the weeds really for a redraft where you're like, no, here's a funny thing about real baseball. That's a corollary is I tried to look at the correlation of age to winning percentage and like the correlation of team age to team winning percentage. And I found that there wasn't a strong correlation. And the teams that won the best were actually like 28 on average, you know, the youngest teams didn't win that much. And that's because they're rebuilding teams. They have a lot of young players. They haven't supplemented. But that's also because they haven't supplemented, you know, so the light bulb should go off a little bit when you hear that and be like, oh, yeah, my ideal fantasy team should have a couple young guys on it. But the closer I can get to 27, 28 average, you know, across my fantasy team is probably good too. Because that means I have a lot of established guys. And maybe I supplement with the right couple of 32 year olds that were cheaper because then they needed to be. And you just have to get that balance right. And of course, it's not super easy because you know, you'll end up with Paul Goldschmidt and you just be like, why, why, why do I do I do this? Because he was cheaper. And you know, nobody wanted him. I'm still laughing because this particular league, the Chad Young is nice enough to commission for us to Paul Goldschmidt was a dollar in this year's auction because the room like froze, like the room simultaneously grabbed a sip of their beer, tried to buy an Alabama shakes to her poster. They're like, this guy will go for 15. I don't want to spend 15 hours. Yeah, literally, like everybody except like Sarah Sanchez made the nomination for a buck just to start it. And everybody else looked at us because, oh, somebody will bid 15 and like did something else for 30 seconds and then look back and we're like, what the heck? And we'll, oh, that's that's a huge bargain. Goldie is going to be amazing. That's going to be maybe even a guy that gets arbitration dollars for people in the off seasons. Like, oh, that didn't actually work out at all. But but still for her, an amazing idea. Why not? Yeah. But it was just a hilarious random thing that I thought was going to make much more of an impact than it actually did over the course of this year. Speaking of making an impact though, Ari in the discord asked the question that I've been thinking about all the time. What is Jack's and Churio ceiling? And if things keep going the way they have been over the last two months, what kind of ADP are we talking about for him in redraft in 2025? I think this question was actually answered by another person or discord, JT Hamlet seven. The suggestion here, let's see if you agree with this ceiling. eventual ceiling is something like 280 to 90 around 30 homers and 40 plus steals 98% that tiles sprint speed stole over 40 bases in the miners last year. So I'd expect him to run more power. I'm not totally sure because he gets a good scouting grades, but it's an 88.9 average EV, you know, 1097 max. I think if he continues like this the rest of the season, he'll probably be drafted end of second beginning of the third round next year where guys like Ellie and Gunner were going this year. So it gets a pretty good answer to the question that Ari put out there in discord. It's not bad. I don't want it to fix, you know, I bring up max EV and I think it's important and I have seen people do research and say like, well, max EV is not correlated to stuff, but I think to really understand the power of max EV you need to understand that it describes like sort of upside over an arc of a career. So I think a better study of max EV's power might be given a certain max EV in a rookie season, what was the peak power output for this player over his career, you know, because if you look in the any one season, you may find this guy's not getting to his raw power, his max EV is irrelevant, you know, so I think it's one of those. I think again, this is sort of like what we're talking about with keeper legs versus redraft. Could he add to his max EV is I haven't seen a max EV aging curve, but a one on nine seven is not above average. In fact, Bryce and Stott just hit a ball harder than that. And so I'm going to take the under on that power. And I do wonder about the speed getting that high. I know he has that sprint speed, but then you have to take into consideration the the idea like the his manager and his team and just how they're going to play. And I just don't know that the the Brewers are going to be a go-go team in terms of just overall stolen bases. They are third. I think they are a go-go team. I think the the Murphy Brewers part of it's who they have. But I mean, look at Yellich at his age still running as much as he does, right? You give him the big money, you take all of his injuries into consideration, you still give him why hasn't Cheerios all those more this year? Some of it was the low BP to begin the season making the adjustments. We've seen a lot of young players come up who have speed and not necessarily want to make mistakes, right? So it's a it's a comfort level thing that I don't want to get sent down. Yeah, as you get more comfortable getting reads against big league pitchers, you start taking off a little bit more. He's got the OBP up at 322 right now. So he's got chances 15 for 19 so far. The ground ball rates a little bit high too. So like, you know, for the power question. So I'm going to go with 280. I don't know what the the walk rate's going to do. It wasn't really impressive in the minors. So I'm gonna go with 283 30 and then give him a peak of like a 200 ISO maybe. So 280 that would be 283 30 for 80. That's pretty good. But I don't think that's 30 homers 200 is more like 20 25 homers like 25 homers. So I'm gonna give him 25 homers. I'm gonna give him 35 steals. So 280 25 35, which is not that far from what he's doing right now. Like he's gonna end this season with like a 270 20 25. See now, now you got me digging into the leaderboards because we see so few players playing in the big leagues at this age. The comps get messy real fast, right? I mean, Jackson Churio still 20. So you don't have too many 20 year olds. So you look at let's just look at 21 year olds that have played in the big leagues since, I don't know, 2000. I'm gonna go back that far. It seems seems reasonable, right? And what do we have for best isos? We'll say for having 300 played appearances at least because he's up over that number. Oh my god. He has so much my trout. Yeah, you're gonna see a lot of my trout. If you run searches like this. So do you see? Okay, so many Machado similar ISO to what Churio did. Churio at a similar age. Third best ISO on this list. Yeah, I opened mine up. I didn't do Merrell Spicy. I didn't do split season. I did combine seasons going back 2000. I got split. I got split seasons. Churio's 23rd. Merrell is 19th in their general range is Vladimir junior Ezekiel Tovar last year, but also Nomar Mazara, Eric Hosmer, Carlos Correa, Jackson Merrill, Jason Hayward, Ryan Zimmerman. So like, they're not in the no doubt portion, like the no doubt portion above the sort of 160 to 80, 180 that I just did. So let's say you have higher than a 200 ISO and you're under 21 years old since 2000. You are like a Hall of Famer, almost Bryce Harper, Miguel Ferreira, Houli Rodriguez, Justin Upton, who had a really good career. Mike Trout, Mike Trout, Ron Lecunu, Jr., Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stan, Albert Pujols, Fernando Tetiz, Jr., Cody Bellinger, Juan Soto. So Soto and Trout did it twice. Anyway, that's a really good list. He's not quite there. Yeah, not quite there, but tons to like long term. I actually think the second, late second, early third, if he keeps on his current pace, which has been really bolstered over the last two months, I think that's a reasonable 80P expectation, whether or not it's another, hmm, we're in or not at that spot that you were all in on Ellie. I think we were both maybe a little bit like lukewarm on gunner at the price. I have shares of Cheerio this year. He was one of my guys that I thought he's worth taking a shot because after they signed an ideal, he's going to play all year. Yeah, I mean, I think in the seventh or eighth round of a 15 team league, if you're getting a top end prospect, one, two, three on a typical year, like someone who's elite or supposed to become elite, that's a good gamble. I think when that price creeps him to the fourth or fifth round, that's when you're passing on a little bit too much established value, giving up on a $20 hitter or oftentimes a $20 pitcher for a wider range of outcomes. That's the kind of the sweet spot. So the cost is a huge, huge part of your redraft approach with players like this. And I did feel like the Cheerio price didn't quite go to the moon during draft season. The other thing I want to mention really quickly is I have the qualified filter on, right? So there's more players in here if you relax that. But I thought it'd be worth having the qualified filter on because we're looking for people who play, you know, we want them, we want them to play. So in the top 25 of players, 21 and under since 2000, in the top 25, just by ISO, and all of these guys, except for the last one, and he's an exception in two ways. So I'm just going to say top 24. And I know that sounds like I'm playing around with numbers, but I'll tell you who the 25th guys at the end. So in the top 24, everybody's above the league average with WRC plus, I would venture everybody returned positive value fancy wise on this season. So these are the guys you want to bet on. And I'm going to list you the worst strikeout rates in the top 24, right? So remember, these are young players. Freddy Freeman, 22%. Ronda Kune Jr. in 2019, 26%. Giancarlo Stanton, 2011, 27%. Tatiis, 23.7, Bellinger, 26.6. Everybody else is below 21%. Okay? So there's 24 players. I also labeled, you know, some of the most amazing prospects of our time, you know, and I didn't say a single one over 27%. You know, I guess Stanton. So my point is, if you are going to bet on a young player in their rookie year, please take a look at their strikeout rate. I think that I don't want to say that strikeout rate is important for every player. But I do think that when you're landing in the big leagues, you want a Merrill and a Churio. I know I said, I like Ellie this year, and I'm profiting off of that. Maybe there's room for like a Giancarlo Stanton who plays shortstop. You know what I mean? Like maybe you can make some exceptions. But generally, if you're taking a bet, I think it's good to take a look at strikeout rate. 20, 25th was Ezekiel Tovar, who had a 70 WRC plus in 2023 with a 27% strikeout rate. But he was also the lowest ISO. He's 25th ISO. So, you know, you'll miss some Tovars, but you'll gain some barrels and Churios if you take a look at strikeout rate. 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 dollars cashback to 300 dollars. 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. I'm thinking through some of the other names on this list a little bit. And, you know, the added power generally is something you want. Most of the guys that have more power than Churio have turned out to have really good careers. And there's only a couple of guys on this list you look at and go, "Oh, if that's the outcome, that'd be disappointing." But the difference I think between this is from a power perspective. If you see Churio and then you see Eric Hosmer a couple spots where you're like, "Ugh, Eric Hosmer's here." Jackson Churio is a great runner. That is going to add so much more value to his profile in the long run. I think the most pessimistic kind of on this list is Hayward. Yeah. And even Hayward, I mean, like there's the hit by a pitch that like maybe changed everything for him. You got hit in the face with that pitch and just wasn't quite the same guy after that. Let's say you dial up the Hayward running a little bit, you know, to make him Churio. And let's say we're just going to, you know, Hayward had 11, 9, 21 stolen bases, two stolen bases, 20 and 23 in his first six seasons. Let's just give him, let's give him Churio stuff, right? So let's give him 25 stolen bases for those years, right? He also hit 18, 14, 27 homers, 14, 11, 13. I think that's a bad outcome for Churio. And that's fancy value in all six years. I think the hardest thing for us to do right now is to look at a player to see the max EV and say, okay, what does this become long term? And I wonder, too, like with the quality of pitching being what it is. And we've always wondered, like, when are you really like a finished product from a raw power perspective, kind of an unknown, I think, just given how young all these players are on this list, even if you have someone who in within the stack cast era on this list, you're only talking about 15 players, we even have a max EV, even if Churio is near the bottom of that list. I don't know if that is that meaningful. I mean, Juan Soto's max EV when he broken was 112.8. If we see Jackson Churio come back stronger next year and hit a 112, we're going to feel a lot better about his power potential than we do right now. And I don't think it's that far fetched that he could still get bigger and stronger and make something like that happen. But for now, yeah, big at a base, the way you see it, you Churio is the 14th best max EV, just ahead of Aston Russell and behind Ezekiel Tovar. So and Ozzy Albis is down there. Yes, it's the raw that we're still kind of waiting on for him. Man, there's a ton to like, 60 present future 70 from from Fanger asked on their last report. So good question, Ari, and one of those things where if you play mostly keep reliefs, you might be more willing to bet on Churio in 2025, even at that very high price for me. I'm still I'm going to absorb the last two months and really think more about it. I think before I commit to this profile, that only hit a ball 111 or something, you know, could happen any day. That's what I want to see. I'm really happy when that happens. Madigan wants to know, are we worried about Lars Nootbar's role? If you look at the way the Cardinals have used Nootbar and things got more crowded, of course, with the return of Tommy fam at the trade deadline, you will see that in three of the Cardinals last six games, Lars Nootbar didn't start. Two of those were against lefties, but one of those was against a righty. And that's the real concern, right? You become someone who loses time against pitchers from both sides, then you're falling out of favor pretty quickly in a lot of mixed leagues until that trend changes. What do you have the when you control the mail, you control information about it? Oh, it's mailbag. Okay. It's mailbag. That's a Simpsons quote, right? That's Seinfeld's Newman. Oh, that's right. Okay. I was thinking about the bees. The bees and Simpsons, what do you say? Like when you control the bees, you control the honey. Anyway, yes. So I've got a, I've got a thing. So what I asked was, why would Nootbar be sitting against these righties? And here's a righty he said again. So Jameson tie on, this is his cutter usage versus lefties on the left. And you can see that he likes to throw cutters. It's like backdoor cutters, really, you know? He throws them away and low. He likes to throw them low and in and low and away to lefties. And Lars Nootbar over here, unfortunately, the perspectives are flipped because they're a pitcher and hitter. But you can see the Lars Nootbar facing him likes the pitch, likes pitches up and in. That's where his power is. That's, I'm showing a power heat map. He's best up and in. And so I think this is just a matchup that doesn't work for Nootbar in terms of James and tie on strengths and Lars Nootbar's weaknesses. That's like just an explanation of why he might have sat against tie on. But it doesn't help you. It does help you a little bit in sort of the discussion we have been having about redraft versus keeper. So in a redraft league, this is a major red flag. And if you really need to move on and you're in a 12 team or even in a 15 team where you just need playing time and you don't, you can't depend on him to be out there at least against every righty because maybe the righty can throw low in the zone, then you've got to be out. But, you know, and I hinted on this earlier, I'm going to be in, you know, arguing with my co-manager. If I have a Nootbar or trying to acquire him in my keeper leagues, because I still see a guy who's 26 years old, has plus raw power, has averages to above averages, game power, has not pulled the ball as much as he did earlier, and has excellent plate skills and still runs. And I don't know if that chance that, you know, to get, he hasn't even gotten a full playing season yet. I don't know if that chance to get a full playing season is going to come on the Cardinals or somewhere else. You know, but I do think that's still coming. And I love his combination of swinging strike, strikeout, walk, raw power barrel. Those are all the things that we obviously care about here. And they're still all there for him. So, if he's my new kabrian haze, you know, then I'm going to be in trouble and I'm going to, I'm going to draft some re, I think it was going to be really late next year. Lars Nootbar is going to be really cheap next year. And he's going to be my fifth and sixth outfielder in, in draft and holds and, you know, and, and, and, and redrafts. And maybe they'll do a mistake, but it'll be because of my sort of keeper league mindset. I just put an offer out there for Nootbar and one of my leagues, and I just traded George Springer for a kabrian haze in my 20 team dynasty. So, I will keep making the same mistakes because I bet on these things. And usually betting on these things leads to success. And at this point, the argument, my argument for the Springer trade is just, you know, he's so close to, to Don, I think. I mean, it's just, even if he has been playing better recently, and even if he did play like that a little bit more next year, I think he'll just be injured too. So, I mean, the 34 years old, you're really losing any trade value. Yeah, I think that's, I think that is actually his trade value. Right. I think that's a, that's a pretty good exit, because even if Springer holds it together, has another good season or possibly two, more like the outcomes also feature injury is kind of chopping up that production. And the Nootbar is falling into like health grade C or D territory right now too. It's been injuries that have really robbed him of opportunities. They had crowding in the depth chart too. So, an off-season trade might be a nice way to sort of or family of town. And they try again, they say, okay, to begin the season, Nootbar's our guy or starter out there. And, you know, we'll see. I mean, you look back, the last two seasons combined now, it's a little more than a full season where the plate appearance is 755 plate appearances, 21 homers, 16 steals and 17 attempts with about a 240-ish average, you know, almost a 9% barrel rate, not chasing. Good, I'll be paying. Yeah, all those skills are still there. If the Cardinals sour on large Nootbar, there will be a few teams interested in making him a regular part of their mix. And I know the Ray's already maybe rescued Dylan Carlson from St. Louis. So, maybe they'll come back around in the off-season. It's scoop up Lars Nootbar as well. Thanks a lot for that question, Matigan. A little Felix update. I'm getting some texts from Jeff Zimmerman over at Fangrafts. And it looks like, I told my son, you know, one of his summer break thing is that he needs to read the glossary at Fangrafts and learn about advanced statistics. But when he gets there, he gets a little distracted sometimes and reads the articles. I think he's joined at Jeff Zimmerman chat. And he's now talking crap on his super shallow league in the Jeff Zimmerman chat. So, thanks Felix. Get back to work. Yeah, easy to get distracted at Fangrafts and fall into the rabbit hole. Happens to the kids. That's incredible. Got a question here from Andrew M. What has happened to David Bednar? I loved Bednar as a very safe closer entering the season, firmly in the circle of trust. I felt like the price on draft day was really good. And for my inclusion of Bednar in the circle of trust, I've been rewarded with a 577 ERA, a 131 whip. Just hasn't looked as good. 20 saves of Bednar. You've had the saves, but you've taken on taking us some water in those ratio categories. I think the basic answer for me is just that seasons are small samples for relievers. And this is, to me, really smacks of the Edwin Diaz Badyear, where some slight injury problems are combined with some surprisingly poor command. I can point you that he's lost a little bit of ride on the fastball as he's throwing it harder, that his curveball doesn't have quite the same movement. But I think these are sort of small things. He still has like a 128 stuff plus over the last 14 days. So he hasn't lost his stuff at all. It's been command. And I would point out that I talked to him once before about losing the curveball. So I think he just sometimes he loses the command. He loses the mechanics a little bit. If you are a reliever and you have two games where you give up 600 runs, it's really hard to clean up your season ERA from that. That's one thing Smoltz that he hated about relieving versus starting was one bad outing. You're trying to clean up your ERA all season as a reliever. And as a starter, you can put more good outings out there and more good sample and clean it up quicker. I think Beddong is going to be a great bet next year. I think he may lose his job this year. Again, this is that tension between long-term and short-term. They have an option in the world as Chapman who just maybe through one of the best pitches in the history of baseball. I don't know if you saw this. He threw a 104.7 front door sinker to Manny Machado that came back into the zone for a cult strike. I mean, literally, Manny Machado is like, I'm about to, he's about to like amputate me. Yeah, he's already worried about lower half injuries. And now he's got this coming at him from a 36-year-old. Yeah, 36-year-old throwing a 104.7 front door sinker. He hasn't been throwing the sinker that much over his career. He's been adding it recently. Stuffless loves the heck out of that sinker. Manny Machado looked up at him like, "What?" I think he said, "Damn." Like he could see his mouth. He said, "Damn." So anyway, that was a, oh, what I was saying, oh yes, they can give the job to Chapman for a couple weeks or for, you know, six weeks. They could do that. I do think that now is a closer again next year. So it makes him a little bit of an acquire in keeper leagues, I still think, in redrafts. I would hold until he's actually lost the job, which weird to see the stuff actually tick up and the results go as far in the wrong direction. 77 location plus over the last two weeks. That's all it takes to have a couple of bad outings, a couple homers, and it all just unravels really quickly. Thanks a lot for that question, Andrew. Let's get to a brief project prospect. This caught my eye because I saw that Baseball America dropped some updated farm rankings, mid-season rankings of every organization in baseball. And I thought to myself, we were pretty harsh on the White Sox long-term outlook. Their short-term outlook is bleak, understandably so. They've hit rock bottom this season. But the White Sox on that list, where do you think they landed? Did you see it on the outline already? Did you see the article? I did. Okay. And I was surprised. And I don't know if I even fully agree. That's okay. Even if you disagree, they have him. It's other top 10 at number eight. Highly recommend baseball America. Great content over there. You should get a subscription. Yeah, if I disagree, it's not because I think they're not good at it. Yeah, it's not that at all. It's it's like you'd be picking nits in a couple players on the list. I think the one guy in particular that you and I like less than others would be Drew Thorpe. Some of the concerns you previously outlined about Drew Thorpe might make him a 3G top 100 guy or a non-top 100 guy for you. But even if my comp is is Chris Patrick. Okay, fine. So let's say let's say Thorpe is someone that the industry as a whole is higher on and wrong about. Okay. They did. There's a whole trade of them three times, so. Well, that's true. I think they have four other guys inside BA's top 100 and three other guys inside the 50. So that's a pretty nice foundation to have. I've talked to on the show about Noah Shultz being one of my favorite pitching prospects in the minors. Colson Montgomery is having a little bit of a down year. Still has a big league future. I think that's pretty clear. That's actually the place I wanted to push back a little bit in in the positive way against myself. As the king of waffles, I'm allowed to do this. I don't know if I was a positive enough. I think that, yes, he right now Colson Montgomery has an 86 WRC plus as a 22 year old at AAA. That's youngish for the level. I think it's young for the level. Yeah, it's still young for the level. It's like a year young. It's not super young. It's a little young for the album. So you have a positive upward adjustment on the WRC plus two. It's ABS. And what we're seeing is a big spike in swing strike rate and a downward movement in his walk rate with the machines in a way that he may never play against in the future in the big leagues. That's two three 113.8 max CV is pretty standout. It's not a 120 O'Neill Cruz area, but that is a good number for a young player for Stole seven bases this year in AAA. So that's the most he's he's stolen. Not necessarily saying that's going to port over to more than three to five bags in the big leagues, but speaks well of his health, which would have been an issue. Speaks well of his athleticism, his ability to stay at short. I do think Stole and base is to say a little bit about that, you know, a decent hard hit rate. So there's a lot to like here, even if the strikeout rate is outsized and spent on top of that 29% strikeout rate and a 10.7% swing strike rate do not match. So I would say the ABS has something to do with this and that I am still fairly bullish on calls in Montgomery. He's the, I think the obviously the best top, their best prospect. And if they do have a cornerstone shortstop coming up, that does change some of their outcome because I think Carrero is pretty good too. I don't know if he's a great guy to bet on for fantasy because, you know, catchers are catchers and they sometimes take a while and offensively they don't always work out. But, you know, for the white socks, they might have some good stuff going on up the middle. Yeah, the trade that they got Edgar Carro from was the Lucas G Alito trade with the Angels. The Angels started Lucas G Alito six times and then put him on waivers and he went to Cleveland. So to get a possible long-term starting catcher, and then they got Kai Bush, who actually has debuted this year, the stuff model doesn't like him, but you know, maybe an up and down guy or reliever in the long run, at least the possible fill-in starter for now. Carro looks great. I mean, the striker rate under 20%, really nice walk rate, really nice ISOs, no problem with ground ball rate. I guess there's some question. The battle ball numbers aren't amazing, but there's also some question about his defense, but I think they'll probably just install him and catch her pretty soon. Probably most of next year he's going to be their catcher. And I think Montgomery comes up even with the AAA struggles because that still looks like a really good profile to bet on. So you, if you start putting some of those guys on the roster already, early next season. I guess could be feeling it. He might just be like, hey, no, you guys, we were talking crap on us all last year. Here's our new starting shortstop. He's 23. Here's our new catcher. He's 24. This future starts today. Maybe we went over rookie of the year with all these guys. And I think the critiques of Gex as farm director, I mean, if you look back, baseball America had them as the worst system in 2022 to start the year, the 28th ranked system to begin last year, and they were 18th to begin this year. So moving up for sure, but they hit rock bottom just a couple of years ago. So that's where I think a lot of the, hey, as Chris gets a good farm director, like there might be fair questions to ask there, but maybe that future is not as bad as we think with the White Sox, even though the present has been absolutely brutal. The other kind of takeaway I had was the angels being dead last on this list. And it makes sense because they move prospects quick, but they've also missed on a bunch of guys too. So like you can give them all the flowers for Zack Nitto and being right about that pick and even being right about how fast they brought him to the big leagues. And maybe we could even say the jury is still out on what Nolan's annual is going to be long term, just because he got to the big leagues much faster than expected. He is getting to a little bit more game power this year. It's still a 380 slug with a 4.1% barrel rate. Yeah, it's not, it's not great, but it's at least some sort of progress from a guy that I think we were pretty skeptical of. It's a 107WRC plus because the OVP is pretty good. So yeah, they rushed their guys. They're doing it again with Christian Moore, who might be promoted again the next couple of days. We talked about that earlier in the week that what he thinks they're just going to keep moving him, dude. Wow. I haven't seen the second promotion yet, but I'm just, I'm waiting for it. Oh, you're just joking. He's already got three homers in four games at double A. How long are they going to sit on that? But they are the team that's dead last. And then they had the all-picture draft. The angels might have the worst three-year outlook in baseball. It's possible that you could probably argue them off of that by looking at Oh, Hoppy and Neto. Maybe something with a Dell. You have something up the middle that's good. Just enough. I think is Kait and Dana is like an interesting starting pitcher that's close. They only have one 50 future value. And that's not even, that's not even outstanding. You know, the numbers go above 50. You know, it's not 50. It's like they have one good prospect according to fan graphs in Nelson Rada, who's 18 and has a 79 WRC plus at double A. Of course. At double A. Yeah. Because it's double A. He's already at double A. At 18 year old at double A. But he's not hidden for power. And so that's something he needs to show something, something up before he gets to the big league. So he's not, even if they have been aggressive with him, he's not going to be in the big leagues necessarily in the next couple of years. So you're putting a lot on Neto and Hoppy when there's nothing really else. You know, they're going to end up trading Taylor Ward sometime soon, I would guess, because he's not done fit their timeline. They're going to let brand jewelry grow. I don't think money I can Adele are regulars. I don't know how long they're going to play along with this Rendone situation. So really they have two players and, you know, Joyce is a good closer. He's just a closer. And we've talked about how he may not have the strikeout rates. They don't really have anybody in the starting rotation right now that I'm excited about for the future, except for maybe Detmer's who only has like two years of control left anymore. He's still stuck in triple A. And he's not even doing amazing down there. What are we doing here? That's, I mean, the general lack of pitching other than Kaden Dana, like they are in rough shape on that side in particular. I don't know how they're going to patch that part back together. I think that's where it could just be a constant problem, where there's chasing and chasing. And they made an investment there and they got Dylan Axelrod and they, you know, they were upping their, you know, some of their intellectual robustness, you know, the minor leagues. And then just fired all those guys because, you know, somebody said they didn't like that they had their iPads out. It really seemed like within, even if you hired one really good person or a couple of good people, that have some ideas, and then you put someone above them that doesn't agree with their philosophy, you're just chopping your own legs off right there. It's getting beaten down. And I've actually heard this now from a few places. There's this thing called the special, special advisor or whatever, like it's usually to the GM. It's usually a former player. And those players sometimes even have sight lines to the owners. Because those players are often players that made a lot of money for the owners. Franchise players. Yep. Those are the players that were there when they went to the World Series or One World Series. So like they, and I'm not saying at all that they have nothing to add. I just think that sometimes being a good player does not know that you necessarily know how to team build, especially in today's era. And you can undermine a lot of an organization's forward progress just with a few comments about why those guys have their iPads out, why are these nerds doing this, what's going on with this? And so I think those have to be treated sort of carefully. And this is not the only organization where that's true. I think we're seeing it happen in Houston a little bit. And I heard another organization where that sort of stuff is going on. So it's not just Artie Moreno, it's Artie Moreno and some of his advisors. And it's not going well. Yeah. Who's in the room? It's always the question you have to ask. Who actually has the ear of the owner, in most cases, that goes a very, very long way. Let's get to our weekend waiver preview all. And this is beautiful. It's a bunch of names that we've been excited about in keeper leagues and redraft leagues and it's right into the rundown. Where it all intersects. Sometimes it's just a plan. I don't want to admit it, but sometimes there is. Let's start with Joey Bart today. Because if I wasn't playing auto-new, I don't know. If I was playing keeper leagues, I got him in my other keeper league too. I don't know if I'd be as aware of how well Joey Bart has been playing for the pirates. He's now fourth in WRC plus among catchers since the all-star break. 50 plus played appearances. 20 guys in that list have played that much. So he's playing well. He's getting to his power, still in the ball in the ground a little bit too much. But I'm starting to wonder if Joey Bart is showing the kinds of skills that could make him a primary catcher for full seasons. And maybe because of his power, despite the ground ball, right, he might actually have a future where he is a single catcher league relevant player, which is not something I thought I'd say about Joey Bart if we flipped the calendar back to this time last year. One of the main sort of things that sticks out in Pittsburgh versus San Francisco, and it is a large difference for Joey Bart is swing rate, just straight swing rate. You can hone in on the chase rate, but also his zone swing is down. And if you just look at, you know, 2023 with the Giants, 48% swing rate, 31% chase rate, 2024 with the pirates, 41% swing rate, 25% chase rate. I think this is why his strikeout rate is down, his walk rate is up, and it may be why he's getting to his game power more than he ever has before. So I think they, you know, just pounded in some sort of selectivity that the Giants weren't able to kind of get out of him. And what we did know from before, at least from 2022 on is that the raw power was there. He had pretty good max EVs. And now he's just adding the best barrel rate of his career and possibly the best approach at the plate. So I don't think that Bart is much more than a 240 hitter, but I am a little bit more excited about his power right now. I think I believe this barrel rate, I believe this level of power. And I think if you let Joey Bart play a full season at catcher, he's going to hit 240 with like 25 homers that plays that's that more than plays that put some right into that range that I was thinking about that that single catcher league range. And I just looked right now in the rotowire online championship, 12 team leagues of two catchers. He's available in 82% of leagues. I think that's probably going to change this weekend based on the power output he's showing and that uptick in playing time we've seen since the break What do we make a Victor Robles? At this point, like I have analyzed Victor Robles to death. Here he is. 94% rostered now in the online championship, but only 31% rostered in CBS leagues. I trust the speed. Boys like defense, but we're seeing these little flashes. It's too small a sample to circle that barrel rate, I think. I think it is, but it's it's enough to where you think maybe he keeps getting chances and and maybe maybe he's just finally healthy again after a couple of years, especially last season, but 21 and 23 in particular injuries were a huge part of the story. The thing that's really oscillated, I think for him up and down is sort of ground ball fly ball, like he's, you know, he had this one year in 2019 where he hit for power. And I think, you know, the years after that, he kept trying to sort of replicate that. But I don't know, I really don't know. What was the question I asked you in my draft and hold? Oh, he's Victor Robles versus J. Dable a day. I was on Robles. Yeah, I was like, yeah, I guess I'll just put in Robles. There was a little bit of a 53% pull rate is the newest thing, I think. Probably going a little too far in that direction to be like sustainable, but maybe showing a wrinkle that's making him more dangerous. And the thing that caught my eye when I started to look at him, finally, I decided, okay, I will open my heart, I will let love in again. And if it crushes me and shreds my soul into a thousand pieces, I will try to put the pieces back together again someday. I saw an uptick in heart hit rate last year, up to 30.1%. Nothing great. Best of his career, best of his career. And he's nudged up again to 33%. It doesn't mean you're getting 20 plus homers from Robles, but it might mean you're getting passable power. And you put passable power on a profile with great speed and a great glove. And now you've got a guy that actually touches all five categories because he's not striking out. That's kind of the problem that I'm running into is like, this is sort of working. I know it's a profile that's easier to get in a speed filled league, but he's doing enough of everything to where this actually plays even down to like a 12 team league where you're starting five outfielders. That's why his roster rate I think went so high in the online championship. He seems like he's under rostered. Victor Robles might be under rostered on CBS as a whole being below 50%. I would say that in terms of long term, like fantasy keeper type value, since we've been talking about this, it's taken him so long to get to this point that his defense has actually started to maybe flag. We're seeing the worst defensive numbers of his career in the last two years. It's not across the board. DRS doesn't always line up with OAA and UCR, but it is possible that if he had done this four years ago, he would have had a totally different career. So I mean, look, I don't think he has much keeper asset value. And if somebody wants some cheap speed for the rest of this year, I don't think you need to hold on to him for what he might do for you next year. I would say that my overall finances and net worth would be completely different if RealBlaze was doing this four years ago, like a lot which now would change for me. I'd be going to the gym four days a week. Like all sorts of things in my life would be. I'd have a six pack. I have a six note. And I've just generally skeptical. Yeah. Fair. I just have to throw that out there. Fair. I just couldn't keep ignoring it because it's getting to the point where it's like, okay, we got to talk about this. Now you have two other outfielders I put on the run. He's also like the first person who ever went to Seattle and started striking out less. Well, it's just dudes a fun house. Like he's just a walking fun house. That's the only way I can explain it. Two other outfielders on the rundown, Parker Meadows, available in about 35% of online championship leagues, 82% of CBS leagues. I got burned by our buddy JH last night, my Thursday night fably beat me by a dollar. That's possible keeper too, in that case, for Parker Meadows. So I'm a little ticked off about that. But good AAA numbers during his demotion. I think the Tigers just let him play it out for these final two months. They need to see is Parker Meadows going to be part of their next good team as a regular? Is he going to be a fourth outfielder? Like, how does he fit into their plan? Do you think things could be different for him this time around? And if you're looking at Meadows versus Robles and maybe even against Pete Crow Armstrong, how do you stack those three guys up in terms of short term value and then your best bet for long term value? One thing I like about Pete Crow Armstrong and Parker Meadows is that the defense, there's no disagreement about the defense. Everyone says, every stat says, every scout says, those two have excellent defense in the play center field. Yeah, they could win gold gloves, like they're they're that good. They are on teams that could just install them for the defense, put them in the nine hole, especially if the Tigers rest of their rats improve. You know, it could be it could be a solution. There is pressure though on both these teams to start hitting as a lineup. And so you've seen even like veerling, you know, play center field and stuff. So, you know, in Detroit. So that's the the pressure is on the on the bat. I think I think I would rather have both those guys. I would probably like to have Pete Crow Armstrong at the top because I think his his upside is the best. Parker Meadows is 24. Peter Armstrong is 22. And so even though Pete Armstrong has some very definitive holes in that he is best low in the zone and pitchers are throwing the ball high in the zone and he's just trying to figure that out. That is something that people have figured out in the past. That is a very common problem. And even someone like JJ Bludet is figuring that out this year. So I would take Pete Armstrong first in keeper leagues because of the upside. And maybe in this year's leagues because of the excellent speed. I think Meadows is kind of just second in terms of upside. It's older at 24. His big question I think is the natural true talent contact. If he can get if he strikes out more like 20% the rest of the way, 22% the rest of the way, I will feel better about him going forward. Yeah, that's a good summary. I agree with you. I think overall in terms of the long term lean towards PCA. I think there's a little more there to work with with Parker Meadows. It's close. Like it's close enough where if he's a good contingency option, if I miss on Pete Crow Armstrong, I'm okay with Meadows is a fallback option. They're both probably going to lag a little in average. But we're seeing Meadows in the brief times he's been up. Pretty good barrel rates. Doesn't chase a lot has a pretty good idea. He's pretty good. Yeah, there's there's stuff there to grow on. I just think it's more like it's best of the three, right? It should be. Yeah. If you're looking for the more balanced player, I think Meadows is the most balanced player of the three. And the picro arm strong thing he's 20, he's 22 for 22 right now as a base dealer. And he's played all but one game since July 10th. Like he is the center fielder. He's been installed there because of that defense. You're getting a lot of playing time, even though he's tucked away at the bottom of the lineup. A couple of pitchers that are interesting Tyler Mally is available in pretty much every end up BC league because he was coming back from a long term injury. He wasn't being drafted. So he wasn't eligible to be picked up until he pitched. He came back. He's still available in 69% of CBS leagues as well. I think Mally ends up being kind of like the Jeffrey Springs of this week, maybe even a tick better because I think Mally's stuff might just be a little bit better than Springs at this point. Yeah, Springs is struggling to pass 90. Stuff Plus says that Mally isn't all the way back. But one thing that's nice is he's always located the ball really well. And that came through even in his first start. And given the fact that his Vilo was decent in his first start back, 92 three after 92 six last year, I'm willing to put sort of a 50 to $100 bid down maybe out of 1000 on Mally. But I do want to see a little bit more Vilo going forward. And if he stays at this stuff level in this Vilo level the rest of the year, he's not necessarily going to be like a top 30 top 40 pitcher for me in rankings to begin next season. Yeah, it's good time for me to try and iron some things out here though in the final two months has the two step at Boston home against the twins. So that might be enough. You're chasing volume. You've got to take that chance. You're have to get them now. You're going to stash them. You're going to have to make the move now because he's going to jump. I just got burned on a Springs two step. Yeah, well, hey, maybe you can then do it being burned on it. Double down. See if you could just undo it with one one fell swoop with Tyler Mally chasing that. Let's keep chasing and you don't tell. How about Spencer Araghetti? He's come up a couple of times in the show. I think he's actually finding something. I'm going to bet on that strikeout, right? Strikeout rate's great. The season Sierra is still in the low fours. He's had 24 innings over his last four starts gone six every time out with seven or more strikeouts in three of those starts, including 12 Ks against the Rays last time out on Sunday. At a minimum, you're getting strikeouts. But I think you might be getting more because the ratios have started to turn into very good ratios over the last month or so. Yeah, he's a stuff riser with average location, average command of the fastball and cutter. That's a good foundation. At this point, though, you're 98 innings in 26% k rate, 11% walk rate. That's where you should be looking the heaviest in this range of sample. 15% k minus bb is only a little bit above average. I believe it's 14. It's average, but it's above average, you know, and with the right matchups, he can be useful. Last name for you for the starting pitchers, DJ Hers is still out there in a few leagues. He's kept the walk rate down. And that's been the big question because as a prospect, we saw not just double digits, but 13 14% at most of his stops even saw 20% at double A when he first got to that level in 2022. Another little notch, I think, for the Nat's pitching development, 7.8%. The best that DJ Hers has ever had at any level while debuting this year, coming off of a bad start against the Giants last time out. But what kind of short and long term appeal do you see with DJ Hers? I'm the most nervous about this one. He's a change up first guy. Yeah, 7.8% walk rate. I know it's ABS, but he had a 19% walk rate this year in triple A. That seems like a huge turnaround. He's never even had an above average walk rate in his career in the minor leagues. So I believe that the command will walk out in the next couple of starts. I've been trying to sneak him on to some keeper league rosters as a throw in. We'll see if I'm lucky. And if I end up being right, so you're a little less optimistic than I am at this point. You mentioned Kelvin Fauche earlier in the week. There's a chance he keeps the closer job into 2025. So I actually picked him up in the aforementioned keeper league in which I was foiled by our friend JH three bucks. We'll see if I end up holding on to him through the offseason. But who do they have next year in terms of payroll? I'm looking at this real quick. I just don't think they'd spend on a closer. Benders still there. But benders, I think Fauche's fastball is a little bit better than vendors. They both have really good bendy pitches. Right. I think with Peter Bendix running that team, especially trying to imagine them being more like the Rays, like that's the last place. They're going to spend a lot of money. Like they don't have a lot they spend in the first place. So they're going to they're going to upgrade other areas of the roster and try to cheap their way through the night. One player with a guaranteed salary next year. One? What? That is what they call a clean slate. And then they have Jesus Lazardo, Jesus Sanchez, Anthony Bender, Kristin Pache, Braxton Garrett, Edward Cabrera, and Nick Fortes in arbitration. That's it. At least one of those guys probably will get non-tendered. They are spending this year on buyouts. They're spending what looks like almost $30 million in buyouts. Oh, yeah. Obviously not on their team. And they're still spending $3 million next year on Giancarlo Stanton. And and 12 million on Avi Garcia. Yeah, but it's it's almost a clean slate. Yeah, it's getting really close. It's pretty close. So I am intrigued long term by Kelvin Foche. And it's still out there in some redraft leagues, too. I just think the redraft problem is that they're so bad right now. Might not be many opportunities to cash in on the saves side. If you want to get a subscription to athletic $2 a month, we'll get you in the door at athletic.com/rates and barrels. You can find us on Twitter. You find Eno at Enosaris find me at Derek VanRiper find the pod at rates and barrels. And you can find things like Enos chat on the site as well, which is about to begin as we wrap up this recording. Thanks to our producer Brian Smith putting this episode together. We are back with you on Monday. Yeah, find my piece on five starters that have great schedules down the stretch that's up right now. Plus how the white Sox might change, you know, different division races down the stretch with their ineptitude coming up next week. We've got some really cool insight into what's happening in Boston and Baltimore strategically and on the organizational level. Thanks for listening. [BLANK_AUDIO]
