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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 Multi-View, 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 full Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to Raising Barrels. It's Monday, August 5th. Derek van Riper, you know, Sarah's here with you on this episode. We dig into some things that happened over the weekend, where the money went. Big weekend for fat. We had some top prospects promoted for the first time. We had one brought back happen to be on the same team. We'll talk about some of the big bids that happened there. There was a little bit of pitching available in certain instances. If you were in a league where a pitcher had to pitch this season to be in the pool, you were in luck. If you were in a league where injured players could be picked up, you probably were not in luck over the weekend. So we'll dig into some of those happenings, get some mailbag questions here, and we had a no-hitter. Blake Snell threw a no-hitter against the Reds, you know, 21 swinging strikes, 11 strikeouts. He's been great ever since he came off the IL in July. A 41-10 strikeout to walk ratio now, a 0.55 ERA, a 0.55 whip. The only two pitchers have been better by the player raider. Over the last 30 days, Dillon Cease, who's also thrown a no-hitter and Hunter Green, who has not thrown a no-hitter. But they've put up great ratios. Both of those guys have more wins than Snell during that span. But this quote says it all. Blake Snell after the game, they can't say it anymore. Complete game, shut out, no-hitter, leave me alone. Yeah, I guess we've been saying that, you know, some of his endings, that's been the long thing that you pointed out, is that some of the concerns about his endings and going deep in the games has been overblown. Big win for Stuff Plus for these three guys too, as you mentioned. Those are all big stuff guys. I did struggle a little bit when I was ranking to where to put Blake Snell just because the projections for him were so good they stomped the stuff and it was such a rocky beginning. But this is who he is. You know, I think he just has little bad stretches and underneath the hood, he's a really good pitcher. That is who he is exactly. I think we are teetering closer to the Blake Snell has an option this offseason. And if he continues to pitch anywhere near the level he's pitched at since coming off the IL, he will probably opt out and go back onto the free agent market because the guarantee of three or four or five years might be out there as opposed to just pitching on the second year of a two-year deal and staying in San Francisco. I think that's the trajectory he's on right now. If I had to predict it as of August 5, I think he's going to continue pitching well enough to make that the better option. And he could be maybe the best free agent pitcher on the board, at least on a shorter deal. Yeah, that's a good point about who's on the market because Max Freed will be a free agent, but he's dealt with a couple of injuries again this year. It makes the same sort of package, right? Yeah, with a little bit, it's like the results get there and they're a little more consistent. You don't have as wide of a, you don't have as high as a high, but you don't have as low of a low on Max Freed with ratios, but I think you trust Snell just a little bit more from a stuff perspective at this stage. Yeah, one thing that I'm just sort of struggling with is that will he go on the market? Will Blake Snell go on the market and be more attractive after he puts up 100 innings? I mean, the part of the risk was that he sometimes puts up 180 and sometimes puts up 100 to 120. So then he goes out and puts up 100 innings. No matter how good they are, I feel like he that's still the risk. I don't know. Yeah, that's the tough part. Yeah, he comes off the season or the career best since like 2018, first time he'd been up and even above the 120 range. And the deal that just happened is the one that happened, right? So you're raising a good point, like after another season of durability concerns, which that was the concern I had last winter, I wasn't worried about Blake Snell five and I have all that stuff. That's something we talked about all winter. I was worried about Blake Snell, Adductor strain, Blake Snell, various things that have put him on the IL over the years that if those have cost him more time and that hasn't gone away, that's a fair point to make too. But if it's injury risk all over the place, what I think is probably going to happen is the bigger AAV and maybe something that's still somewhat creative. Yeah, I think you go a little higher on AAV and you keep the kind of flexible options built in and maybe he gets sort of the pitcher equivalent of the Carlos Correa treatment. Like goes back, he does a little better, but it's still not quite the mega deal you would have expected with better health throughout his career. I'm still a little surprised he won't get the deal that like Robbie Ray and Kevin Gossman got after they'd had sort of pop-up seasons. You know, like four and a hundred or five and a hundred, you know? Yeah, the Ray deal was five for 115. 115, yeah. With an opt-out after 2024, so he, Rebecca Robbie Ray could opt out if he wants to too. Geez, giants are going to have a weird off season. They always do. I do think that Matt Chapman will opt out. Yeah, I mean, I think the problem is when you're on the wrong side of 30, you generally need to exercise an opt-out if you think there's any chance you can beat the current deal because if you wait another year to hit free agency, it's even less likely you're going to beat it. Time works against you so hard at that point in your career. So yeah, congrats to Blake, though. I mean, getting the haters to probably quiet down for a little bit after that no hitter. I could see Chapman signing extension. They kind of need his defense. It's going to be, it would be a, wow, he has options for both of the next years. This is crazy ass contract. They'll just bump him up to like, you know, 20, 25 million or something, maybe two for 50 or something instead of two for 36. Which is the options by AV. This pitching market's going to be kind of packed with old guys, Mac Scherzer, Justin Verlander, you know, we know they're going to struggle to come up to the 40 plus million AVs they were at previously. Alex Cobb. Yeah. I mean, Cobb unfortunately has one of the worst injury histories out there. So Snell can opt out. Garrett Cole can opt out. What do you think about that? Garrett Cole could actually opt out. I mean, he's been hurt a lot this year and he hasn't been himself and he's got 36 million. How much do you have left if he stays in four years left? So he's got to beat four averaging 36 after this season. No, I don't think he does actually. And it'll be 34 in September. He missed time with general body soreness. Again, think that was from an illness. I don't think that was an aging problem where everything just hurt. I think it was, he was sick. But that injury before that, the nerve related problem in his arm, that ultimately is going to lead to a lot of questions. If if Garrett Cole had another 200 in season this year, then I think it's a totally different conversation. I think Robbie Ray opts out. He had just had to be one in 25. He could, don't you think he could get like a three and 70 or something? Probably. Yeah, I think so. He's 32. Charlie Morton is just either going back to Atlanta or tiring, I feel like. Yep. He's pretty easy to read at this point, I think. Gileto, Eovaldi, Eovaldi could do okay. Burns will be a free agent. Oh, it vested, I think. So he gets 20 million. That's the, that's the thing that changes everything too. Corbin Burns is out there. He's a free agent this off. That's the big one. Yeah, Kakuchi will be out there and then a lot of second tier. I think Kakuchi gets the 100 million dollar deal. I think there's a lot of similarities between Kakuchi, especially because they did this in Toronto with the improved command and Robbie Ray. I think. Oh, except that Kakuchi is already 33. Yeah, so then you have to shorten the deal because of the age and how the modeling is going to work on that. I think it's maybe three for 75. Yeah, that's nice. This is the problem though. Like this is the, the problem is you put people that stare at this stuff a lot together and they're going to spit out similar numbers. And the formulas are going to spit out similar numbers. And that's why it's like, oh my god, of the places that are offering me the same number, which one do I like? It's really, it's really not any more complicated than that for Kakuchi. Yeah, I think so. And I do have that piece in my back pocket that's, you know, is it collusion as the computers did it? We just, that was just top of our heads. We spend a lot of time together. We look at a lot of the same stuff, but. It's just, it's kind of sad in a lot of ways. Shane Bieber is 29. Coming off a pretty big injury. Wait, so it's Tommy John, right? Yeah, did he have Tommy John, did he embrace? Did he ever get a co-formation on that one? Oh, so he's going to get the, what's the like two year deal special that you get when you get, they give you the first year, they kind of give you like two and 40 or two and 50. Yeah, like five to seven million the first year. And then like the big number in the second year. Yeah, or they just spread it out and just pay for, you know, get two for 40 and they pay in 20 the first year to get you for less than the second year. Hypothetically, if you're in the position of Shane Bieber, he'll be 29. So he's 29 and he'll be 30 in May. Do you take a one year deal instead to hit free agency sooner? Because again, you don't want to push that back anymore than you have to. Well, he is a free agent. Well, it's something a two year deal. And having your age 30 season be the first of a two year deal. Just sign like a one in 10 and try to just be healthy. That's the bet on yourself version, right? The bet on yourself version. Like which one are you more comfortable with? Knowing him, I could actually see the one in 10. Yeah. So there's some decent pitching out there. It's got plenty of question marks around it. Bieber's been a Cleveland Guardian. You know, he's probably been salivating at free agency. Not that Cleveland's a bad place to play. It's just sort of a little bit like Tampa ask where it's like, you know, you're not going to get paid there. Most likely. Generally, they're not going to get the big deal from Cleveland. So on some level, you're looking to get paid somewhere else. So we had some mailbag questions today. One of them actually connects to a pending free agent is Max Scherzer, a drop in 12 team dynasty leagues. This is from Reds and four in our discord. And Reds and four is contending for a title as well. I mean, armed fatigue is the cause of Max Scherzer's latest move to the IL. So even if it's only a couple of weeks, let's say it's a relatively quick stint. We're still at the point in the year now where that could be the middle of August. Yeah, it could be the end of August. August 15th is the earliest possible return date, I think. So I'm not particularly optimistic. And while I would be surprised if Max Scherzer just stopped and retired this offseason, I don't know if I'm necessarily clinging to the idea of holding on to him in a dynasty league at this point. I think the fact that he wasn't traded the trade deadline is in a major sort of red flag, basically. He does have a no trade clause, though. Yeah, but it just complicates things. You're saying in the sense that a contender generally wasn't knocking down the door. Yeah, you know, the Orioles, if he was vintage Max Scherzer and they thought they could get real Max Scherzer, the Orioles would have called, the Dodgers would have called. But what you see is 927 on the fastball right now for Max Scherzer. That's dealt 1.2 from last year and that's down basically two ticks from when he was at his best. He's never been a stuffed god, but you know, in 2021 and 2020, he had 110, 111 stuff. Even in 22 and 23, his fastball was still above 100 in stuff plus. This year, his fastball 77 stuff plus 83 overall. Like, I hate to overemphasize one stat, but that sort of brings together why teams might say, no, thanks. For us, I'm sure he could still put up like three nines. You know, I feel like a three nine ERA like he's had so far and a decent whip. Okay, strikeouts. I feel like he could do that, but the number of starts that I give him over the rest of the season, the over under is like five. Yeah, probably could count him on one hand. I was thinking four and a half or five would be where I'd probably put the number if I was making something like that. But the interesting thing here too, is you look back at these last three seasons. Now you go back to even 2022, 145 and a third for the Mets. It was 152 and two thirds last year, split between the Mets and Rangers. That's probably the higher end outcome for Scherzer in future years too. And those pitchers are valuable, but then that's still like almost a best case scenario. I think last year is the best case scenario you have going forward in the next three years. Yeah, because that was a 377 ERA and a 112 whip with more than a strikeout per inning. There was a major home run for sure last year. But I would, if I was projecting him, I'd probably project him for, you know, a 380 ERA and next year for like a hundred innings, 120. Then the, the offshoot of this question is for people out there that are thinking about this, are you interested in taking the flyer on someone who hasn't debuted yet? Let's say Brandon Sprote Mets prospect just got bumped into the AAA. Let's say Sprotes out there or Bubba Chandler's out there, upper level pitching prospects. We haven't seen the big leagues yet. 12 team dynasty, the threshold to be a consistently good valuable pitcher. Oh, it's a team dynasty. I missed the last part. It's a question in redraft, too. It's easier to drop them in redraft. It's way easier to reach out. I thought this wasn't even a, I was like, okay, I was like, this is a slam dunk. We can move on. But dynasty, you always like, you're like, oh, couldn't you train into a contender for even a small prospect, but. Or if you are a contender, like, are you just looking for someone else who helps you more? Because you can either burn the roster spot and just wait it out with Scherzer. You can swap to somebody else who's similarly. If he is a contender, I would say maybe you hold on because that could be a useful piece for your endgame, you know. All right. You think even with the deterioration, stuff is still good enough where you might prefer Scherzer at the end of the year if he's back to some of the other options. Over a lower. We're like, it's not like you're not. Yes, September starts from Scherzer versus Adam Maser. Like that's probably the kind of question. Yeah, we're not talking about Mizarowski. We're not talking about the top end pitching prospects that are still down there. You know, we're talking about back end fillers that are currently like fringy to get in or prospects that haven't debuted yet. Those are probably your alternatives in the most situations. I could go pick up Landon Knack, maybe, if you're lucky. Yeah, maybe someone dropped him when he went back down. It's 12 teams, you know. Right. I would say if you're anything lower than fourth, then yeah. Because you're probably shopped him and nobody wanted him. If you run out of I.L. spots, go do something else with your time. You can definitely run out of I.L. spots. That is a real thing that actually happens in leagues that have the limits on them. In my 12 team dynasty, I have a resource in question where it's like, he's on the I.L. But I have Jake de Grom drew Rasmussen and somebody else on the I.L. It's my I.L. is full. So I'm just staring at Reese Olsen. I'm trying to trade him to, you know, rebuilders. Further testing, at least turned to okay on Reese Olsen. But yeah, if you're kind of caught in the middle right now, he's he's someone that I would think he might easily live. Yeah, which is a good park. There should be a rebuilding team still interested in him because the reports on his shoulder are good enough to make you think that this won't be a major, major problem for him. But it is hard. I think 12 teams dynasty is maybe one of my hardest leagues. It's the one that I bug you about the most. Because I'm just like, I don't know. These are all good players. What am I? Yeah, but this is what auto new does too. And I think the at least the difference in auto new is that the chances of Mac shares are being a very inexpensive player are very low. Like he's probably not a. He's probably like a $25 Mac shares or and then you're like, yeah, that's easy drop or an easy rental to somebody else. Yeah, I'll just I'll if I can't find a taker. I cut him. I have salary cap space. I could take a couple interesting flyers from it. Yeah, that around. It makes more sense leaning more towards a drop and 12 team dynasty league. If you're not that I contending right now and you can't flip them. If you are contending, probably a little closer to a whole situation matters. Reds and four a little more in that contending bucket right now. You know, we love talking stats here at the athletic. Here's one that's super simple to remember discover. Automatically doubles the cash back you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cash back match. That means with discover, you could turn $150 cash back to $300. That's right. You could put it towards a 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. Here's a question for you. What is behind Tanner Hauck's recent struggles? I mean, Tanner Hauck was phenomenal throughout the first half. This is a multiple person question through discord. I have a text question about this over the weekend too. Results still look really good overall for the season, right? It's a 309 ERA, a 114 whip, 123 Ks and 134 innings, a career best walk rate for Tanner Hauck. This is very good to see. Like the home run rate hasn't been a problem. But more recently, he has started to come down from that. What do you think the explanation is? So six earned on eight hits last time out over five innings against the Rangers. Four earned. It was at Colorado a couple of starts ago. I think he kind of brushed that off. He had a rough start against the Padres in late June. Where he gave up seven earned and four and a third. Short start against the Yankees just after the fourth of July. So what are you seeing in the more recent outings from Hauck? There's a few things that come to mind. One is I always check out the velocity and there's a little bit of a Vilo dip. He was getting 93s, even with some 94s early in the season when he was feeling froggy. The last four have gone 93, 4, 93, 6, 93, 0, 9, 2, 5. So a little bit of a Vilo dropage. I also see that his slider has become a little bit more depthy. And in the last three starts, it has maybe almost two inches more drop than it did early in the season. That can be important because drop plays one way against same-handed. It should make it, I think, a dropier slider should be better for opposite-handed. Because you think about it, the Frisbee sliders, the sweepers do poorly against opposite-handed. So he could be doing it on purpose, but the results haven't been amazing. And then the last thing that I just have to think about is just this idea that he made a tweak that is novel in the industry, along with all of Boston, and cutting the fastball usage so much that you have to think that there might be sort of second order, like people getting used to it. Just like everyone's read the story now. Every advanced scouting, every team knows, okay, he's not going to throw the sinker much. He's throwing it 30% of the time. We have to maybe sit, are we going to sit slider? You know what I mean? And I wonder if some of those strategies are sort of those responses are filtering through. One thing that is interesting is that the slider, while it's changing in shape, and what I'm saying in terms of maybe some people sitting it, the slider has been a negative pitch type value for the first time in five out of his last six starts. So something's happened. I think they might be sitting slider or the sliders getting worse or both. And I think that the response though is fairly obvious. It's like, okay, if you're going to sitting slider, here comes some sinkers. You think there's a counter adjustment that they can try to employ? I'm sure the Red Sox see it and are trying to diagnose it. I don't have no doubts about that. But while you look at his matchups on a start-by-start basis, you're like, okay, is he back in the streamer bucket? Is that the proper way to handle Tan or how we've talked about the difficulty of pitching in Boston? It's hard enough when you have to deal with that home park. If we can't use you for all of your home starts, it starts to chip away at your value really fast. And the last eight starts, 5.23 ERA, 34Ks and 43 innings, 20 walks. So the walk rate's kind of back up and the home runs have come back mixed in there. I think they've been kind of scattered into about three starts though. So it's not necessarily every time out there he's given up homers, but we're starting to see those mistakes get crushed a bit more often. And like, where do you draw that line when it comes to being careful with him? So his next start is at home against Houston. Well, okay, I think if I'm being careful with him, that's Fenway and Houston, that's a no. And so the next start is versus Texas. Is that a no? If that's a no, then I have to go all the way to August 19 at Houston. Well, if you wouldn't throw him at home against Houston, you probably wouldn't do it on the road. Houston's right on that board. So then I'm going to August 25th versus the Diamondbacks at home. And even that could be sneaky hard because the Diamondbacks are actually not a bad offensive team. They're the best of the three offenses you just mentioned by WRC+, they keep Ks down, stand that sort of intuitively, like it doesn't make sense to me. But yes, that's I knew you were going to say something like that. So that makes sense. Does that make sense to you? There's no way that makes sense. If you're asking me who those best offenses those three would, I would go Houston, Texas, Arizona. Yeah, I'd tell I would have ranked them too. If we hadn't looked into this couple of weeks ago, I've been pleasantly surprised by the Diamondbacks this year. The other strange thing about the Diamondbacks as a team, and I realized like Corbin Carroll is a large part of where the stolen bases come from, they only have 75 steals. The makeup of with McCarthy coming back up. Yeah, they're they're like mid pack. They're tied for 14th in stolen bases as a team this year. I just, they're just not the team. I thought they'd be as a lineup, but then you certainly think about like a runner. Yeah, they're older. Yeah, they're not running. Yeah, they're just more power over speed. That's, that's not what I expect them to be. They got a 424 slug. They're sixth. The Diamondbacks are sixth in Major League Baseball and slugging. Well, you know, maybe the losing Walker is a little bit of a problem for them. It could be. I don't know if it makes them a team you target, but maybe you just fear them a little bit less. So anyway, back to the Tanner Hauck thing. I liked him coming into the season. I still like him. I think I'm going to ride or die. You're going to push him through. Okay. So in this case, you're talking about still using him against an Astros lineup. It's been kind of a fringy top 10 lineup still good. Not an easy walkover. They don't have Kyle Tucker. That's a, he does poorly against Houston though. You know, versus Texas starts to be a problem. I mean, Houston should be one he can handle. I feel like should be, but also like what's going on with the Rangers lineup this year? It's not the same Texas we saw here. They've been missing guys. They've been a key part of it too, but they have been a bit tricky. Like a team that we've probably feared more than we should, at least by the results up to the first four months of the season. But thank you for the Tanner Hauck questions. What is the one week, two week sort of thing? So five, five to 12 is one week. So he won't be a two starter anytime soon either. He could be a two starter the next week. It could be versus Texas at Houston next week. So you could sit him just for this week just to see as a sort of a bellwether. And then you'd get a two start week from him maybe against Texas and, and nope, it won't be a two start week for us though. Two start week, the next week would be at Houston versus Arizona. But you could sit in versus Houston just to see what you've got. I could see that. Anyway, yeah, good question. Yeah, I'd say put him in the SP three SP four treatment bucket right now where he's not just the automatic start the way he might have been in the earlier part of this season. Had a pretty direct question that was asked in a more polite way, Ethan in discord wanted to know why does Randy Vasquez not work with three fastballs, a decent off speed breaking balls and good location numbers? Or the way I would ask it, why isn't Randy Vasquez better? I mentioned him maybe a month or so ago as something that I kind of liked in the second half because he could possibly narrow the pitch mix a little bit, use his better stuff and maybe get some better results. We know Petco as a home park is great. The Padres are a team that keep trying to get better. So those win probabilities are probably up a bit compared to where they were at the beginning of the season. But the Ethan's question, why doesn't Randy Vasquez get better results? I wonder if he'd throw us a fastball too much. You know, the fastball, the forcing fastballs is worst pitch and he still throws at 31% of the time. It's very weird when you have five other pitches you can throw. Yeah, I wonder if he couldn't benefit from a sort of Bostonization, you know, he doesn't locate the cutter as well as he locates his other fastballs. So maybe you'd be like, okay, replace some forcing words with cutters. Well, not if you can't locate them. And the last thing is he strikes me as someone that has poor command. The walk rates have been up and down the minors. The location plus numbers are good. We did I did get some feedback from someone who worked for a team that said that he thought he agreed with my point that maybe internal location models are better than public ones. And I will say that here at pitching plus headquarters, we are working on that for sure. Then there are different ways to do it. But I would say too many fastballs and inconsistent command. That would be my guess. But still someone that I watch a lot, I watch his starts, I circle him, I put him in my fabulous, he's always, he's always sort of circling around. And I've definitely had this kind of a question in my head myself. And I'm sorry that I don't have a more definitive better answer. But I do think that he should have what it takes. And so I think if you're not getting into great counts, having a good slider and good curveball and good change up is a little bit less useful. And that's why you see really good swing strike rates and the minors, and you haven't seen on majors yet. I think that it has to do with count leverage and fastball usage. Yeah, I mean, first career now, it's up over 100 big beginnings between the time with the Yankees and other time with the Padres. 7.7% swing strike rate for someone that was consistently in double digits coming through the Yankee system. It's a bit of a puzzle for Randy Vasquez. But I think the foreseen usage would be a good place to start lowering that maybe would open up a few more interesting possibilities for him skills wise if they decide to go that route with him in San Diego. Had a few other discord notes to pass along as a follow up on Trey Sweeney from Bitcloud. The random notes that he mentioned on the episode at the end of last week, there is a significant chance that Trey Sweeney's power looks played up because of homers. He hit in Albuquerque, which has more extreme park factors than Coors. 7 of his 13 homers at the time of this writing were hit in Albuquerque this year. He had a three homer game and a two homer game in the same series earlier this year. The PCL just continues to foil us. But thank you for sending that note, Bitcloud. I think we noticed that a little bit on air when I was kind of gushing about him and then was like, Oh, he has an 86 WRC plus. At least I remember while I was looking through all the signs, I was like, why did he get trade? Oh, okay. The WRC plus is park adjusted. And so it takes the wind out of some of that power sales, but still a kind of player that I would trade for if I were the white socks. And I think you know, better than some of the other ones like Brett, better than Brendan, like I'd rather have Trey Sweeney than Brendan Schumick. You know, there's like, there's a, but like, I don't know why they traded for Mike Saroga. Like there was, they had one year of team control on Mike Saroga. What's he going to do for you? You're going to spend, you knew you were going to spend half the year waiting for him to get healthy. And then, I don't know, I think it was the kind of flyer, not unlike signing Eric Fettie with a lot less proof going on. Right. We'll give him starts if he pitches well, we'll get something back in a trade. You know, we have, we have vacancies. He was very interesting. What was the trade for? Because they got a bunch of nothing for it. It was Shoemaker and Soroka for what? That was the Aaron Bummer trade, I believe. Okay. Basically, the brave said, here's a bunch of guys we can't keep on the 40 man. You have room on your 40 man. So you take all these and get anything out of Bummer's Bummer hurt. Oh, he's pitching. Yeah, Bummer's back. He's pitching. Okay. It's got 210 fit. Wow. Yeah, that trade was Nikki Lopez, Braden Schumek, Jared Schuster, Michael Soroka, and Riley Gowns was in that trade. What a ridiculous trade. A ridiculous trade. I mean, if you have 40 man spots, you got to fill them somehow. I guess, but it just reeks of those fantasy trades you get near the trade deadline where someone's just trying to consolidate and he just gives you all your non-keepers. He's like, here are a bunch of names. I've made trades like that before, where there's a salary cap or a roster limit. And I just tell the person, like, look, these are the three names I'm clicking on. I'm only throwing them in because I can't keep them at all. If you like them, great. If you don't, I don't think they're a value add. They're just you're the first shot at them before they're waiver, guys. Yeah, in auto new, you can give people, you can loan people the money to pay for the players. So sometimes you will get the little click of the action where it's five expensive players that, you know, none of them, you're going to keep, but he's loaning you the money to keep to pay for them. So you might as well. Yeah, take these upgrades off my hands. But no, thanks for that message, BitCloud. We got one from Pyre. Every time I play OTP, Ben Joyce never works out. The game just hates him. My last run, I played as the Angels and Nolan Shannell randomly gained 65 game power and became like an eight time MVP. He'd be so good. Yeah, I mean, 65 game power would change everything for him. I guess I could, I could see a little bit why the, why the game might not like him because what we have for Ben Joyce is 34 ratings with a 20.8% strikeout rate. It's very bizarre in terms of aligning stuff to output. And I think it to some extent has to do with being a power sinker that's going to reduce home run rates and reduce babib. And that's what stuff plus has given us is a little bit of a insight into, you know, run suppression, bad ball suppression. I think that, you know, adding the sinker this year could add to more strikeouts because he's going to throw those the same handed guys. You see the whiff rate, you know, it was 10% last year, 9.9. It's up to 12.2. You see way bigger spring strike rates in the mind is way big strikeout rates. I do think he'll eventually get there. I think he's a closer, I think he's the closer now. But I could see why the game might not like, are we sure that Ben Joyce isn't another bruise dar grader all? There are similar letters there for 100% sure, you know, what it's not Ian air cano, but you know, the same sort of deal where it's like, is he going to have enough strikeouts to be the closer? But I think that that that organization's so bereft of talent, honestly, that bruise dar grader all would close for the angels right now, right? So, you know, long term, it's a concern. So if you're thinking about you've bought him, like I have a bunch of, I have two $1 Ben Joyce's in auto new that I bought like a month ago and I've got him cheap in a lot of places. It is worth thinking like, maybe I will trade this in the off season. You know, if there's a package that appeals to me because I'm not sure about his long term viability is a closer. Yeah, I don't think it's a lock. I think it's there's a lot to like, but the grader all comparison an example to me is more like, hey, this sometimes what looks like electric stuff is really good, but it doesn't translate to the strikeouts that we expect it to. And probably one of the closest comps though in the end is Jordan Hicks. Yeah, that's another guy where it didn't quite go the way we wanted it to from a fantasy perspective for a little while. It looked like it was working as a starter to begin this year, but there were. Yeah, we had some really good years in the bullpen. So, yeah, but even those years, I mean, 14 saves, I think was the career high from 2019, 12 saves last year split between couple teams. I mean, it just it never quite took off the way you would think where he was the guy getting 25 or 30 saves. I'm convinced myself that's the comp. Fair enough. Well, just because grader all is very unique in terms of what he does. Like he's short arms the ball like nobody else and a tiny extension and, you know, high velocity. He's a bizarre guy, but yeah, it's the same. It's the same phenotype for sure. But we're just wanting more from a strikeout perspective, especially. Let's take a look at where the money went this weekend because I thought there were a lot of interesting names picked up, especially in the 12 team wrote a wire online championship. The most added player of all was someone that you got on a few teams, Jeffrey Springs. And you were saying before the show, you weren't necessarily that excited to add Jeffrey Springs. So why did you do it then? He's a two star pitcher this week. So he was chasing two starts, but but no, I mean, I paid, I paid a 30 something in one league. So that's not a streamer. A streamer for me is like $11 out of 1000. So I paid more. I guess what I'm hoping for is a little more Vlo. I hate to be so Vlo specific, but 89 nine in his first start is not good for Jeffrey Springs. And you know, he was not really a stuffed guy before he's always been a command guy. But in 2023, and his first year in Tampa, 2021, his stuff did pop. Like he did have an uptick in stuff. And his fastball, forcing fast ball went up in Vlo with Tampa those years. And so 937 was 2021, where he was in the pen and starting. And then it was down to 917. But he had that great season in 2022 based off his command. I'm just not sure the command is going to come back. I just think there's a lot of questions, you know, how long are they going to let him pitch in the games? He went three and two thirds before his first one. You know, what's his strike? Are we going to be like, what's his fastball Vlo going to be like? So it was, I would say more out of desperation than anything. It's 76 pitches, though, so pretty close to a normal sort of workload. I mean, they may be a little careful with them, but I don't think it's a constant source of, oh, no, and he's going to have an opener in front of him. He's not going to be eligible for wins. I don't think it's that bad. But I do think the Vlo really needs to come back because of where springs lives on that, on that range. Like, you can't really afford to be a tick or two less than what he was when it was all kind of coming together for him a couple of years ago before the injury popped up last season. Do we have any sub 90 quality pictures? Let me see here. For this year, Tyler Anderson, Marcus Strowman, Ben, Ben Lively, that's where you're that's where you're shopping. I had the qualified guy on the without the qualified guy. Ben Lively, Jose Quintana was right there. Oh, no, man. It's a tough place to live. Brady Singer, Bailey Ober, they're a little lighter on the Vlo side. If he can, but if he can, but he, he needs to get there. Right. He's still below that level. I want to see like 90 point. I want to see some 90 ones on the gun. Like, I don't know, 89, nine is, it's a tough place to be. He might be more of a 20, 25 guy. Jeffrey Springs might be able to get it all back in the off season. Sometimes just getting back, getting through a couple of months, then going into your off season where you're not rehabbing anymore. That ends up being the thing that sort of unlocks everything going back in that right direction. We've also just to the desperation point, like we were getting close to yet another record of pitchers used. I think we're at like 750 or something. Last year, the record was set. It's always year over year. The record is set. The record is set like at 850. So that's the desperation you'll feel in differently. There's not even any top prospects coming up anytime soon. I'm not going to save fab for Jacob Misarowski if he never comes up. That's a second mention of Jacob Misarowski. You're thinking a lot about Misarowski. How many big pitching prospects are left to wait for? I mean, is Joe ever going to come up? It doesn't seem like they have to do it this year. They could just bring him up for opening day 2025. Because of the time he's missed this year with injuries, it's not any sort of developmental malpractice to do it that way. So it's a short list. We looked at it a couple weeks ago, and that's how we landed on David Festa, who was a re-ad for a lot of people. Oh, who was a definitely... I added him again, too, in a couple weeks. Yeah. Trying to go down that road again. Homer's been a problem for him in the brief time that he's been up with the twins thus far. I'm hoping it's a two-star week, but it is one of those two-star weeks where you're nervous because it's a young guy, right? And it's like, oh, he could be a two-star. He lines up to be a two-star week, but he's the only up for this start, and then somebody else is going to get healthy and take his start later in the week. That's always possible. I think what helps is that they have a double-header on Friday, so it's a little more of a stretched pitching group situation, so that probably adds a little... Yeah, absolutely. No, they have Thursday hop, but they have a double-header on Friday. But double-header's are tough to plan for as an organization. This is pretty weird, though, because Cleveland is also off Thursday. They could have just rescheduled that game for the eighth instead of just putting two on the night. In the schedule makers, that is a hard job. There has to be some reason why they decided to play a double-header that day. You also get to ask the teams. There's teams can say no to certain things. Right. That day off might have been really valuable to them for some other reasons, of course. So who would you rather have had between springs and J.P. Sears, who's also a two-star pitcher this week. He's got the White Sox for his first one. That was pretty appealing. And he's on the road against the Blue Jays on Sunday for the second one. I don't like to play J.P. Sears on the road, and so I generally stay away from that. He, for some reason, has a higher ear rate at home this year, which annoys the crab out of me. And actually, for his career, that's great. Great. Thank you, Sears, for working against my narrative. That is just beautiful. I think for me, I'm okay with Sears, and if you can get it right, you get it right, and you do well, I just feel like it's really hard to get it right with him. And with springs, I was like, if there's a percentage, if there's like a percentage that one's better than the other for this week, maybe it's really close for them this week. But if there's a percentage likelihood that one of them turns into a guy I keep in my roster, it's higher for springs. Yeah, I 100% agree with that. We've seen a higher ceiling from Jeffery Springs in the past. But I think if springs fails to get that V-Lo back, they end up being a constant source of streaming and two-star conversation as a result of using it home, try to stay away on the road or pick your spots carefully on the road. That's just sort of the way that it goes. A bunch of relievers got picked up this weekend. As they often do, I saw Victor Vodnik, AJ Puck, because Paul Seewald got removed from the closer role prior to the weekend. I think it was Ryan Thompson that got to save Friday with Puck pitching in the sixth on Sunday. Thompson was in the eighth, Puck was in the ninth, and that makes a little bit more sense. The Thompson one was a reaction to a save that Seewald was blowing. So it was more instructive that Seewald then pitched the sixth or seventh in the next game that they were winning and Puck pitched the ninth because that's when they had it all set up like they wanted to. Everything had been kind of re-racked for that particular matchup. Puck is the closer. He's the big winner so far although I do like Fauche and I hope I'm saying the name right. It does look like it's a French last name. I like him. I think he's got a little bit of a command bug up his nose and he's a little bit more like the breaking balls are better pitches than the fastballs. But it's not like he's zero V-Lo wise. 96 is only a little bit above average. It's not plus plus but I think that's enough V-Lo and I don't know. I just don't like Nardi as much. All right Seewald, Fauche over Nardi in Miami still. What are you doing with Victor Vodnik? We've had Rocky's Closers occasionally pop up provide enough value. Stuff looks like it's pretty good. It's close to a strikeout paraining this year. The home run rates not off the charts bad. Like all things considered this looks pretty good. Last 30 days especially sub 3 ERA, sub 1 whip, 5 for 5 and save chances and 13 Ks and 13 to 13. So this looks like it plays maybe as a bottom tier closer despite Vodnik having to pitch half his games in Colorado. You know I think it actually I probably should have maybe put some some bids in on him and try to get him in some places. The interesting thing about a Rocky's Closer at this point in the season is that I wouldn't want to necessarily draft a guy that might he's given you a 137 whip and a 370 ERA. Those are still innings that are stacking up against other closer innings. So there's going to be bad. Those are bad numbers for a closer and that's that's correlated of course. But this point in the season you have a lot more teams out there that say well you know my ERA whip aren't that great anyway. So just give me the saves in the case. And so in that case I think Vodnik becomes a better bet and a better fit for certain teams. Yeah I think if you had previously been using Jason Foley as a source of saves and you've been disappointed by the lack of saves in the last 30 days or so this is probably a good one for one swap fees. You were at the bottom. One thing that projections might be missing and one thing that is nice about this year's version of Stuff Plus is that we have altitude adjusted Stuff Plus and so that's why you'll see a 121 Stuff Plus for Victor Vodnik and that might not be factored into most of the public facing projections that we have. So they're all saying four eights and I'm going to take the the hard under on that projection for Vodnik. I think with that kind of stuff he can still manage to sub four. But maybe there is a I don't know something between a Daniel Bard Houston Street grade capable closer here with Vodnik. Yeah he's slightly more barred than Street in terms of stuff but yeah. Right but that's that's a good thing. Even though we had the longer run. Some command foibles yeah yeah not as bad as Bard that's that's he's a legend level. Did you come away with any shares of Kobe Mayo or Jackson the holiday from the weekend? I did not. I did not. I have some draft and hold mayos that I'm not even necessarily playing just because of who they're up against on my team. Mayo does have outside strikeout rates aside normal strikeout rates. I'm not denigrating him overall as a prospect. I'm just saying there could be a possibility comes up and struggles with making contact in his first attempt at the league. We just saw you know holiday who was a can't miss guy come up and in struggle. So you know Mayo was not somebody that I was going to drop a hundred and fifty two hundred dollars on this point this season. Holiday on the other hand I've been I feel really kind of angry about right now because in all of my fab leagues I've been trying to stash him over the last few weeks and I've had him on my rosters and then been like oh crap I got to do something else or like someone's gotten hurt you know what I mean? So he's been on and off my rosters as like the last bench guy all summer. If he breaks out now I'm going to be kind of angry but you know obviously good talent and I think slightly ahead of Mayo in terms of making adjustments already and smaller strikeout rates in the minors you know. I think he's more likely to take a full-time job whereas I think they have contingency plans if Mayo doesn't work out. Yeah the related move for a lot of people is to drop Jordan Westbrook because of the broken hand too so it was just replacing a really good middle and corner guy with one of the high ceiling literal replacements right and holiday is homered twice since coming back up they've they've kept him in the nine spot so far I don't think that's necessarily locked in for the rest of the season if he's performing they'll move him around accordingly but I think you're right I think Mayo you know seeing Big League pitching for the first time does bring more risk I wouldn't be surprised the strikeout rate was bad enough where he ends up being the guy that goes back down at some point if Westbrook makes it back I would see the timetable for Westbrook but usually a broken hand tends to be about a month for a hitter just going to take a little time for that to heal so they're both going to get a pretty good look. Mayo started all three games since debuting on Friday then you hit eight and two of them and moved up to hit sixth against the lefty that they saw on Saturday the would you rather is for these guys I mean it's like even with the downside we're talking about the swing and miss that Kobe Mayo has even with holiday faltering the first time he was up the ceiling is high enough where you probably want these guys in shallow leagues you all the way down to like 10 especially in 12 team in there but in the 12 yeah I went after holiday this weekend in one league I got him and like I'm I think the projections are very light I put this in the discord and people were generally on the side the projections are kind of like on the correct level the bad X has a 245 325 383 on holiday for the rest of the season I'd be surprised if he doesn't beat that that would that would be especially on the power and 380 slung around I don't know yeah I mean this is a guy that ended up with a 271 431 477 as a 20 year old at AAA 10 homers eight for nine as a base dealer I think it's going to click for him in these final two months like I I'd be surprised if he doesn't beat that projection and the floor on that projection is still good enough to be the last player on your bench in just about any size league yeah I've got a fascinating situation on the other side the this is the the league that I text you the most about the 12 team dynasty I have Westbrook and I have Morrell and I have Mookie so I can probably just wait for Mookie to come back and just make that switch but of course other people in the league have come calling for Westbrook saying hey I'll give you this you know perfectly wrapped Marcus Simeon and some other pieces for your your Jordan Westbrook and to some extent it's it's tempting a little bit I mean because Westbrook is 25 right so there's a chance that we're seeing something very close to his peak right now there's a question I think of like how many bases would Jordan Westbrook steal next year I mean we got two-thirds of a season from him and he stole six so if the strikeout rate comes back a little bit more next year and the batting average goes down a little bit where's the growth going to come from you know what's he going to do better next year it's a fair question right is this the the near peak performance or is there one more gear I mean he lowered the k-rate this year in the larger sample that boats well I think where the improvement comes from what if he walks more yeah but if he walks more then he'll probably turn more of those whiffs into strikeouts so he could maybe get up to 10 and 25 right 10 percent walk rate 25 percent k-rate for Westbrook so you'd have a you have OBP go up and batting average go down I feel like a lot of times at this point in the year the rest of season projection slash line is going to come up pretty close to what the 2025 slash line is going to be a hundred percent those are pointing toward what we see is what we get yeah and if you feel that way okay then you're talking about it with the reduction in power a little bit right like a 22-homer 10 steel guy with a slightly better than average batting average in a great lineup so the counting stats get a bit of a boost who is that player in the pool right now among middle infielders it's interesting it's not really I don't it's not I don't have a great comp for it is it could tell marteish even even marty I don't know if you even want better batting average right let's see if our trusty player raider can help us a little bit with some similarly valued players so Westbrook's been worth 16 bucks in a five by five league twelve by twelve five by five twelve team league other 16-dollar players Brandon Nimmo that's less average and little more speed Corey Seager usually expect more you know more average that's actually age related and yeah I don't think that's a good comp got Ezekiel Tovar is on here wow that is that's so weird I love that because Westbrook is so much my player and Tovar is so much not and look at them coming up with the same value I would bet on Westbrook skills going forward though I think yeah I think the thing with Tovar that will probably have a deeper conversation about in the off season we're doing like a position review or something is that ballpark can protect his flaws a little bit but also make it so that he's not going to improve them that's possible too but also he's only 23 so he can still get better it's not a big product so that's two years younger than Westbrook so there's there's just sort of baked in improvement yeah so I'm trying to keep an open mind with Tovar because of where he plays specifically and being a little bit younger they got him to the big leagues so quickly that he might not be at his peak I can as much as I like Jordan Westbrook I can tell myself the story that this is more or less a finished product but to get back to the comps I mean I think we're looking at like a Willy Adamus type player a fringy top 100 guy when it's good little bit of batting average downside like if the K's go up the average could dip a little bit more than expected and everything could lag slightly but I think he's a fixture for them the next couple of seasons right you think he's pretty safe as an everyday guy isn't he I think so yeah it is also interesting that a 230 ISO and 18 homers from a righty in Baltimore that there's a little bit of pressure on you know it's a decent maxi v and a 12% barrel rate 16.5% last year for Westbrook so I think to some extent my question is what the power is here's the other way he could improve here here's what I'm looking at it's a small sample of course because any season numbers against lefties just it's chopping it up pretty small Jordan Westbrook has a 29.2% K rate against lefties he's under 20% against righties he's better against same-handed pitching he's a 134 WRC plus against righties and a 113 against lefties and projections would would reverse that you don't believe in reverse you don't believe in reverse platoon splits until you basically have a thousand plate appearances in both handedness buckets right but if he is able to sustain what he's doing against righties and do what a righty normally does against lefties which being as good or better against them that's the area where oh Jordan Westbrook had one more gear that's where it would come from I wonder why he strikes out so much against lefties I'm in second I always tempted when when when people are coming to me with this kind of offer I want to win and keep that player yep that's uh that's the classic have your cake and eat it too isn't it exactly two timelines did you see any interesting drops in your legs I saw a bunch of injured guys and players that were option right I mean like trout his seasons over has to encourage that down at AAA again Westbrook with the broken hand I could see maybe picking him up for the final couple of weeks that he might be a good ad for whatever two three weeks in September whenever he's back Trevor McGill getting dropped Devin Williams is back that's not really interesting Luis Garcia is not getting saves anymore and Anaheim he's behind Kenley Jansen in Boston he made sense as a cut was there anybody that got dropped you were like yes I'm definitely interested in this player ASAP Tyro Estrada got dropped um in the great fantasy baseball invitational hmm um he's on the IL for a wrist sprain but it's not a new injury it's the old injury yeah flare it up on him right yeah but you know doesn't sound like a long one for me and if you're dropping him a few days after he's gone on the IL there's always a chance that he comes back on off the IL like within the week that's just a name that I'm monitoring because you you mentioned a lot of people got dropped or hurt but they were longer term injuries you know you know with Tyro Estrada it's like he could be back in the next week so you always want to try and catch someone where you're you're buying them before they come back so it may just be as quickly as this next week that you're back interested in and picking him up again um some David David Hamilton drops um that's just I guess is Sedan playing over him it's short I think the way they were using Hamilton the last time I looked was in more of a platoon role yeah that's still happening he's not playing against lefties that's been pretty consistent I think he's got one start against lefties I don't like the last six that they've seen and he's even getting occasional days off against righties yeah he sat on the second against the righting and they did play Rafael at short time today short yeah so I guess it's hard in this is weekly leagues that we're mostly looking at so I guess it's hard to keep him around if you don't know um I somebody just dropped uh Hunter Harvey for Lucas Ersegg which is funny because Hunter Harvey just got the save I say funny and I'm not throwing any shade on this owner because I've been Hunter Harvey is the Jackson holiday of my stash list I've been I've had him in every league waiting for him to finally become I thought he'd be the closer in Washington two months ago you know um and I don't even know that he's the closer in Kansas City now even though he got the last save in fact who do you think is the closer in Kansas City I think it might just be a committee I don't I don't know if they have a fixed closer right now and it could be they're good enough team where taking your shots on each of them might make sense but yeah Harvey got the first save they'd had in almost a week at least the first one since the deadline when everybody had reported so I guess he'd give the edge to Harvey for now and keep an eye on that situation I liked all three of them you know I like I like Ersegg I like MacArthur um MacArthur is blown enough uh saves you know he could be um he could be someone that's on the hot seat for sure yeah um these are 15 team leagues that I'm mostly in so um you know I'm going to be talking about uh players that are um borderline anyway but uh Richie Palacios was dropped in one league I think that we've talked about how that Tampa situation is just um ridiculously hard to figure out yeah and I L stint for him they said four to six weeks for a knee sprant so I must be like a Richie Palacios yeah oh okay so that makes more sense thank you yeah before when it was just the an undetermined like I L stint it was tempting to want to hold on to him if he needed speed but now it's you know maybe pick him up for the final week if he makes it back or something but put it on the speed he's yeah I was going to give you with right might even be taking off as much as he was then but yeah 19 for 20 as a base dealer in just uh 300 plate appearances this year so there's there's plenty of speed there I thought they were going to unlock a little more power with Richie Palacios and it just hasn't happened I picked up Addison Barger in one league um and in that same league Davis Snyder was dropped but uh Davis Snyder has played more than as in Barger so I think I'd rather have Davis Snyder he seems like an everyday player Barger is a guy we talked about I think as a prospect of the week once upon a time and he's interesting and I that's why I have him stashed I have don't have him in my lineup though because I need to have you playing uh five days out of the week at least before I put you in my weekly lineup so yeah I'm worried that they would use a right-handed bench option to platoon him and then in weekly leagues you're just a little bit light I'm playing time with Barger while you see if you can figure it out from a skills perspective probably more of a wait and see for me outside of the deepest of leagues but from a skills perspective if you were looking at Joey Loperfito lefty Spencer Horwitz lefty as in Barger lefty and you knew that perhaps platooning one of them would stunt their ability to uh to to develop which one would you platoon probably would platoon wow Spencer Horwitz the oldest one Horowitz because he's oldest yeah like I think there's there's less of a chance of a power a special player even though he's but you might be a good player yeah but there's a slightly lower chance for me that he's an above average regular compared to the two so really interesting player just they're all risky just yeah for different reasons yeah and that's why I think in the end what will the the choice will be that none of them is in a strict platoon and I don't even think out of some bars you'll be in a split with slow platoon and if one of them starts hitting homers that you'll see them against lefties it'll be that simple because what they're doing in all three of those players is auditioning for the future who's gonna be on the roster next year play your way into it yeah Horwitz has been consistently good you know in terms of limiting strike I know that's the hardest one and he's the lowest ceiling but he's the he's the highest floor and he's the one who's played the best at all yeah and he's he's lifting the ball enough where the barrel rate's not bad so you kind of could sell maybe there's a little more power with here he's he's gonna get on base he can be a table setter but maybe there's one more thing that he'll still unlock so yeah there's there's temptation to try and fit all those guys in the lineup and maybe just takes an injury for someone at a position that just makes it possible for all those guys to play all the time down the stretch in Toronto we are gonna head out on our way out the door a reminder you can get a subscription at the athletic.com/rates and barrels two dollars a month gets you in the door at the athletic check out all the great coverage we have got stuff from the Olympics we got fantasy football season coming up we're gonna keep you entertained hopefully for the final two months of baseball season and the post-season as well all of that for one low price the athletic.com/rates and barrels find Eno on Twitter at you know Sarah's find me at Derrick VanRiper find the pod at rates and barrels we're back with you on Tuesday thanks for listening [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
