Eno and DVR discuss an unfortunate sequence that led to two Royals players suffering an injury Thursday night, uncertainty regarding the availability of Tyler Glasnow down the stretch, several pitching prospects set to debut this weekend including Rhett Lowder and Caden Dana, and a few other intriguing waiver-wire targets to consider.
Rundown
2:44 Vinnie Pasquantino & Lucas Erceg Injured On Same Play
8:36 Tyler Glasnow and Freddie Freeman Updates
15:18 Rhett Lowder Gets the Call From the Reds
20:27 Samuel Aldegheri & Caden Dana Join the Angels
26:30 A Look at Kumar Rocker's Post-Surgery Pitch Mix
29:03 Other Pitchers We're Watching Closely for Potential Stretch Run Opportunities
40:47 Which Team Doesn't Have an Internal Stuff Model?
44:40 Does Ernie Clement Have a Late Breakout Profile?
48:12 Weekend Waiver Preview: Tigers Pitching, José Tena, Miguel Amaya and More Marlins
Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris
Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe
Join us on Thursdays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes!
Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels
Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
Producer: Brian Smith
Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hi, I'm Jason Alexander, or as you probably know me, Royal Flusher 25 from WSOP Free to Play app. WSOP players, I have some free chips just for you. Go hit the tables like the legends you are. Download the WSOP Free to Play app, where you can win rings and bracelets and tournaments and show them off to everyone at the table. If you love poker, play poker with 1 million extra chips using this promo code WSOPFREE1m. This episode is supported by Meryl. With a dedicated Meryl advisor, you get a personalized plan for your financial goals. And when plans change, Meryl's with you every step of the way. Go to ml.com/bullish to learn more. Meryl, a bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Meryl Lynch, Pierce Fenner and Smith Inc. registered broker dealer, registered investment advisor, member SIPC. If you need to hire, you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors according to Indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Ditch the busywork. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 93% of employers agree Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites according to a recent Indeed survey. When I was looking to make a hire, I wish I had used Indeed. It would have made the matching process a lot easier. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/hire. Go to indeed.com/hire right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast, indeed.com/hire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Welcome to rates and barrels. Friday, August 30th. Derek and I bring you Sarah's here with you ahead of the long weekend in the States. We are crawling to the end of the week. And we're both just dragging through these last couple of hours of work for the week. Not because we don't like our jobs, because this week has been very busy. Kids going back to school. We got all sorts of things going on. Just general life stuff. It's the way it works, right? So we'll try to help you through it. Try to get you ready for the waiver. Wire this weekend with our weekend waiver wire preview. We got some news and notes to get to and some project prospect along with a few mailbag questions and we'll get our discord fired up too. So if you're out on the boat this weekend or in the backyard or working or wherever you got to be, you can be on the discord getting help with your teams, chatting with some good folks about baseball and we got a new channel for show recommendations like TV shows and movies too. So check out the screens channel. I think we all need each other for that to get those those fresh recommendations. We had a really good reaction to our discussion about the top two that have good Soto and Judge are. And I tweeted about it, but it was a thing for the discord that the Yankees are two and ten when neither Soto or Judge get a hit 15 and 18 if they have one hit combined, but 49 and 13 if they both have a hit 21 and two when they when they have four hits and they're averaging 2.5 runs per game when those two are are hit this and 5.1 in all games. So you know, there were some responses that tweet being like, duh, like, you know, these are great players and if they play great players don't hit. I'm like, I don't know, dude, like, you know, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm sure that the Arizona Diamondbacks aren't, you know, under 500 when, you know, could tell Marte and Jack Peterson don't get a hit. Right, because there's a little bit more there to pick up the slack. I think you'd see a distribution sort of similar to the one you described when the two best players in the lineup, you know, don't get a hit get one all that with all that breakdown that would exist. I just don't think it'd be as extreme as we're seeing some of their teams might have a combination like that. A lot of teams don't have a combination that good. That's the whole point. That's how we came up. Yeah. All right. Just look at the Diamondbacks. They're definitely different. Somehow scoring those runs in the big leagues. Still surprised Peterson their best hitter. Get on in there though. It's a good time. Let's get to some news. This was a really bad, weird play in the Royals Astros game on Thursday night. So Lucas Airsig tries to feel the comebacker with his bare hand pitching hand kind of bobbles it. Have to rush the throw. That's one of those things where you're like your body like does it without it's like instinct. And then like I've done this throwing to the kids in the cage where like they hit one right over my ear and I'm like oh God why did I put my hand out? Yeah. So he rushes the throw to first base, throws a little off line, turns Vinny Pascuentino's glove hand into the path of the runner coming through first base. Vinny Pascuentino. That's not how it didn't feel. I'll get hurt like that. But a lot of guys that got hurt like that. I mean I've seen I've seen a bunch of different injuries at first base though actually the worst one I've seen there was a non professional injury. Of course it was a softball game where there are a shortstop rush to throw through it into the first baseman's shins and instead of getting hit in the shins he lifted his leg like bend at the knee lifted his leg up the foot that was planted by first base but the guy running through first ran through the leg. Clipped in was real bad. That was a fracture. That was the worst one I've seen. Fortunately big ligers have the instincts not to do that. We're so softball injury was we were like kind of trying to set up our team and it was mixed men and women and there was a discussion if I should play third base or first base and this girl was like I played D1 softball and I was like yeah you can play third base. You could stay a number there and take it. Yeah and I was like you I mean you didn't know what you're you know what you're doing. I'll just be an idiot out there you know and she yeah got one in the mouth. Did you get sure hopped? No that sucked. Yeah that's not fun. And it was like 20 minutes after we'd had a discussion we should play third. I mean she'd wanted to so and she was she was going to be better than me. Yeah I would have got you too so wrong place wrong time in that instance. Yeah and that's the taste with these guys. I mean I you know it's just it's it's going to happen sometimes on the on the on the field. It sucks. Vinny's out now he's been great and he's out now six to eight weeks they announced which even if it's on the short end you'd be lucky to come back for any playoffs. That just sucks for the royals and the royals look every day like they're you know going to get that wild card spot but now one of their best hitters. Yeah we haven't heard anything about Erasek so my instinct is that he'll be out a couple days and he'll be alright. But yeah we'll see if we get an update on him but day-to-day is the assumption for now. And Vinny Pescoutino is starting to hit even more lately. He was the ninth best hitter of the last 30 days in the fan graph's player raider. So we kind of talked about it I think mid-season where the further away he got from that shoulder injury the more likely it was that he was going to start to hit like the guy he was pre-injury. I think that was actually happening. So trying to replace him you know it's probably a mixed bag of I don't know like Nick Prado and just kind of finding finding a way on the bench to kind of scrape together a viable option at first base. I don't know if there's a straight one-for-one replacement it's going to gather up all that playing time. Can I tell you something I noticed about the the royals recently? An old friend of ours? MJ Melendez. Oh he's been half. Crazy. 264, 312, 529, slugging with an 18% strikeout right? I love it. That's great though I mean like especially in a non-Vinny Pescoutino royals lineup you're going to need MJ Melendez or some of the other guys in that mix who haven't played at a high level to play better. That's just part of how you replace a player like that. He's no weird that he's just going to end up about the same place as he did last year where he's going to have you know 18-19 homers 230 average and be like you know 5% worse than the average with the stick and it's been so many ups and downs that you're like he's terrible he's great he's terrible he's not he's not a major leaguer and some of it's going to be like he's the kind of guy who puts up a half a win a year. I mean I think in the end this is not someone to bet on long term I guess. Even though it's been good in the second half I think you're right and even though the projections across the board have him above a 100 WRC plus the rest of the way. It's strange it continues to be strange and I'll need help explaining it forever like I just why isn't he better I just don't know he's chasing more this year. Yeah he's chasing I mean it's a it seems like a terrible approach when I watch I just see the same thing every time where it's just like he swings at everything and I guess sometimes he hits the ball hard. I guess he he makes contact so you know that's not a bad strikeout rate it's not terrible it's perplexing to me. I can't put him on any more less he's not any more sleeperless he's off. Four time the sleeper breakout candidate. Burn me four times you're off. The player that probably plays a little bit more I guess in all of this I mean you would assume a lot of Sal Perez maybe playing first base and Freddy Fermi and catching more but like I said they'll shift a couple guys around and going to mix and match to offset that lost playing time for Benny Vinnie Pasquatino. A bunch of Dodgers injury news to follow up on including some vague details about Tyler Glassnow's injury he's scheduled to throw on Friday to resume throwing and there is optimism from Dave Roberts that Tyler Glassnow will return this season but that's not exactly what you want to hear with a month to go in the season if you were hoping to get even two or three starts from Tyler Glassnow before the season is over. I know you just went through the challenging exercise of reracking pitcher rankings for the final month and everything kind of comes down to schedule and availability at this point like just trying to order names like you can take a guy with top five skills and have to bury him outside the top 30 or top 40 if there's a lot of uncertainty about the number of starts he's going to make or if the few starts he is going to make happen to be against really difficult opponents. Yeah I tried to make a little mini-tier at around 50. I just thought that after 50 you get into guys where it's really schedule dependent you know you're Charlie Morton at Philadelphia do you really want to pitch him there you know same with like I know Sean Maniah has been good but at Philadelphia at Atlanta makes me scared Brandon Faunt against the Dodgers those are guys who are in like the 50s you know and the guys who are in the 40s I want to start almost all the time I don't really want to start Seth Lugo at New York but the guys above 50 I would want to start them in most their starts and the guys the guys who are ranked better than 50 I want to start them in most their starts the guys were ranked above 50 and higher I want to start in every other start or so so that's why I thought okay this is a good place to put you Darvish Tyler Glass now and Yoshi Nobu Yamamoto Yamamoto's honor rehab assignment so we've got a schedule and he's had a two start a two inning start so he could have a three and a four or a three and then be out for he could have his four in the major leagues you know because he's kind of ramping back up his Vilo wasn't quite there so you have some performance risk on top of it with Glass now I don't think you have as much performance risk but the starts that they have for him on fan graphs are at Atlanta versus Colorado at Colorado this is assuming he comes back for three starts so that's an okay I mean at Atlanta you would normally start Glass now versus Colorado to be very happy to at Colorado especially if it's like one of the last games of the season they might just put them out there for two innings and be like okay your tune up is done but you know stay healthy for the playoffs so with you Darvish he's throwing he's talking about coming back he's on the schedule the schedule is the Giants at home at the Giants Houston LA you'd want to start him for like I think three of those at least maybe all four but it's a schedule it's not like he's in the rotation yet you know what I mean so all three of those I thought were uh difficult ranks and so I just kind of threw them together around 50 totally makes sense just given the circumstances with one month go in the season be sure to check those rankings out if you don't have a subscription the athletic dot com slash rates and barrels are going to the best available deal on a sub covers everything baseball covers on the stretch fantasy football he might have a draft coming up this weekend really next week everything you want for one low price the Dodgers are pretty banged up Freddy Freeman is dealing with a hairline fracture in his finger he's missed some time this week they expect him to return on Friday but that's the sort of injury where even if he's playing I'm not quite sure he's your typical Freddy Freeman for the final month plus of the season every game that the Dodgers put between them and the Diamondbacks and Padres is a another game of buffer that could lead to him not playing as much yeah yeah the problem though is that leads only four over the Diamondbacks and five over the Padres under in play on Friday it's close enough now that you want Freddy to play I think yeah you don't want to go into a five-game skid and all of a sudden you know the the divisions off her grabs and as much as people talk about you know we've had some high profile you know teams that have gone on like gone on buys and and gone and you know and not done well in the second round recently and how people might not prefer the buy I would have to say that you get a free series with a buy you know like you could have lost in that first round yes you could have I think people and I also think it's relatively new having these types of buys so I don't know if we can look at the first few years and have some really great teams it'll play off schedules every year you know it's like give it time before we're sure that this is actually a really bad thing we know layoffs as far as hitters and timing after what four five days that can start to be a problem it kind of comes to a new question of what should teams be doing to avoid losing that what can you do to possibly simulate the experience of hitting a I batting practice against your fifth starter or like you know more tragic stuff or like you know like call up one of your prospects that still has a little bit a few innings in his arm and and have him like throw a live like you know try to do full bore you know game game type situation you know hope that uh you know he doesn't break one of your your hitters arms or something but like I did want to focus on the schedule because you know these things become important when you're talking about Freddie Freeman you know with Bobby Miller on that team he's still not a hundred percent in terms of his injury it was really hard to figure out what his schedule will be because y'all moto's coming back last night's coming back does Miller go down you know and then you're watching Bueller and you're like Bueller doesn't look a hundred percent so like and then you know that the Dodgers go to like six-man rotations you know a lot so you're just like you put the Dodgers pitchers schedules in and you're just like I have no idea another one team that's like that is the Reds so the Reds called up Rhett Louder who's exciting but they also have Brandon Lee Brandt who is the son of Charlie Lee Brandt and if you know what the timing is you know that that means that the Sun is 30 years old already and he's a minor league journeyman and the Reds are basically they have Andrew Abbott hurt they have Hunter Green hurt and Nicola Dolo went down with a finger injury so they are just scrambling we get louder uh I have his stuff plus profile from AAA as you can see he has average ride that's what that dotted line means the gray line is average he has average ride but he has plus Vilo at least uh you know above above average reload so he sits around 95 with the fastball his sinker is better than his foreseem so he's kind of a sinker slider guy with a good change-up and so the big question will be is that foreseem fastball good enough to get lefties out you know to to keep lefties off the change-up basically you know because he's going to be more sinker slider against righties more foreseem change against lefties so that's that's going to be the question mark for Rhett Louder but and then on top of that it's a really tough stadium so and then on on top of that when you're trying to you know put his schedule together you're like I don't know I don't know what his schedule is I don't know what the rest of the rotation looks like is Nick Martinez a full starter or is he a three in three in a guy that's piggybacking with another guy you know so that was the hard part of this whole enterprise and then you know another thing was like you know just I wanted to mention Bowden Francis you know pitched really well yesterday and that's he's he's got a really nice stretch going and I think we've talked about how the splitter has been a big deal for him and he has good shape on his foreseem the breaking balls a bit slow so somehow the splitter really pulls it all together I think you know I ranked him 66 which feels low suddenly and the reason why I kind of ranked him 66 oh did I 67 is his next two starts were at Boston at Philly now he goes out and has such a good start at Boston that I'm not as scared about you know playing against Philly and then after that he's met Mets Rangers Rays and Marlins so he has all of a sudden one of the best schedules since he got past this Boston thing so he's gonna make my ranking look bad but um I'm a big fan of his Zebi Matthews who I have right next to him is like the exact opposite so I had Matthews ahead of him I think they're very similar as that they both have pretty good stuff whitish enough Arsenal's really good command Matthews goes Blue Jays Rays angels and then he finishes Guardians Red Sox Orioles and so you know I had Matthews ahead one because I was like well in an ideal world you could have Matthews for the next three starts and then switched to Bowdoin but you know you might not have that luck work yeah now people are asking me Bowdoin Francis or Jared Jones I'm like I'm sorry I'm still Jared Jones I know he comes at you fast wow exactly yeah I still you know I know Jared Jones and have a great start coming back but it's it's still easily Jared Jones for me life really is like holding hands and then looking back at it yeah person that looks an awful lot like the person you're holding hands with but having hands with Jared Jones and looking at Bowdoin Francis like I don't know Bowdoin Francis is like 30 or something and like it's it's not the same thing Jared Jones is like a top prospect he throws 99 so sometimes you can just just say fastball goes burr the most comfortable workout gear I have is Viori inspired from the coastal California lifestyle of Viori mix products that hold up against the test of time but also inspire others to live vibrant healthy lives you can work out in everything from Viori but it doesn't look or feel like it and it's so comfortable you'll want to wear it all the time check out the ponto pant from their dream net collection or their core shorts those are some my favorites I wear them all the time Viori is an investment in your happiness for our listeners they're offering 20% off your first purchase get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at Viori.com/rates that's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash rates exclusions apply visit the website for full terms and conditions not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over 75 dollars and free returns go to the Viori dot com slash rates and discover the versatility of Viori clothing rethink your performance apparel with Viori. This episode is supported by Meryl with a dedicated Meryl advisor you get a personalized plan for your financial goals and when plans change meryl's with you every step of the way go to ml.com/bullish to learn more meryl a bank of america company what would you like the power to do investing involves risk meryl linch piercefender and smith incorporated registered broker dealer registered investment advisor member sipc with big wireless providers what you see is never what you get somewhere between the store and your first month's bill the price you thought you were paying magically skyrockets with mid mobile you'll never have to worry about gotchas ever again when mid mobile says $15 a month when you purchase three month plan they mean it no complicated bills and no upcharges all plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5g network use your own phone with any mid mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all of your existing contacts to get this new customer offer and your new three month premium wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month go to mint mobile dot com slash rates that's mint mobile dot com slash rates cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mint mobile dot com slash rates $45 up front payment required equivalent to $15 a month new customers on first three month plan only speed slower above 40 gigabytes on a limited plan additional taxes fees and restrictions apply see mint mobile for details if you're wondering why rankings are difficult why every decision you make for your fantasy team this time of year is difficult it's for all of those reasons because the plans are written in pencil it's because the injuries are piling up and you have these these new players being added to the mix that could be running up against season innings caps like we don't even know like where each team is setting workload guardrails for some of their guys and louder is not the only prospect debuting this weekend's project prospect will focus on a few of these other names too and louder is coming up as part of a double header that the reds have with the brewers on friday but they pulled them up they didn't make him the 27th man they didn't make him the 27th man so it's not an automatic go back down but if you could tell you could go back down yeah so that's kind of weird it's funny dl hall is the 27th man for the brewers and that double header so he will go back down even though belo looked a little bit better at triple a and his recent outing so maybe there's still something brewing with dl hall but the angels of course are bright up to my rankings come out two two two more starting pitchers coming up and aldi gary has like a five er a and oh yeah samuel aldi gary is going to come up and he's barely pitched at double i think he's made six total starts at that level a couple in the filies organization and the rest in the angels organization after that trade he's part of the carlos essevez deal aldi gary will debut friday against the mariners soft landing spot if you're in a league with first come first their pickups like if you're just desperate for anyone starting sure you could try it this feels more like you rushed job to me than caden dana who's been great at double al season even though he's younger he's got a lot more experience at the level 23 starts this year 135 and 2/3 innings over a strikeout per inning you know 2.59 era we've been here in his name for a while like he's this is this is like a slow bubble and like 135 innings of a 2.5 era you pay attention to that i like the strikeout rate i don't i can't comment on this stuff necessarily but the 50 fastball and the 70 slider grade from vanguard's is a is a decent foundation at least yeah so dana will go sunday and i'd be more interested in streaming dana in the same kind of first come first serve leagues of course pretty healthy gap between them but the thing that's tempering my enthusiasm about caden dana is last year he threw 68 and a third innings and if he's at 135 and 2/3rds right now i don't know what the angels limit is for him but if he gets into the 150 160 range there'd be no restrictions next year so we could be nearing the point where they're planning on shutting him down anyway and giving him a taste of the big leagues for a handful of starts might just be the way to cap off the season i could see that yeah i could see being to start like get him to 150 so that next year he can do whatever he wants basically innings wise and then that's it so that that's like morning's that's the problem i think you know looming here if you're interested in this group so i think out of like louder elder gary and dana even though dana on paper might be the most interesting louder might be kind of the sweet spot of team needs him he is pretty close to big league ready i remember reading a scouting report from eric long and hagan earlier this summer suggesting that louder could have been the best starter in the reds rotation upon arrival which was before the step forward from hunter green this year and nichlodolos looked really good when healthy but it just gives you an idea that this isn't just a quality back-end arm that moved quickly on awake forest louder could be an impact starter for a team that might end up with three of them in short order if he does in fact stay up you know i had him in a little mini tier with jack lighter who i thought might stay up but once option back down and joe boyl was last in the mini tier and this is another mini tier does designed uh to make me look bad because joe boyl is now a reliever yeah i saw the the boil start on saturday i think it was saturday he pitched against the brewers i was watching that start with my dad and i said okay watch the music i had never seen joe boyl before i'm like look electric stuff no idea where it's going like that's going to be everything you see sad 100 for you guys right yep oh yeah he did all the joe boyl things like every every box joe boyl can tick he ticked them all it was it made me look very smart yeah and lighter looked good uh he's looking really good stuff wise i mean everything's there stuff wise but it's the same package as boyl which is why i have them near each other his location plus did not improve much right now his location plus on 149 fastballs decent sample is 95.5 and that is barely doable the thing that's interesting about lighter we talked about this last week when uh ryan bloomfield joined me is just that the the result of triple a have taken off in recent weeks like if you go back and look at his last five outings there it's a 36 to 9 strike out to walk ratio and 23 innings the reason i think he got sent back down is because the rangers and white stocks played a double header and he was designated as the 27th man but they've got enough injuries in that texas rotation where i wouldn't look at the fact that he was the automatic demotion and say he's not getting more of a look i think they want to see what he brings to the table and try to get a read on where he's at at this point with his stuff to see if he can be in their rotation to begin 2025 and one thing that ryan peppio told me that i think is relevant for jack glider is that when he first came up he struggled with the walk rate but he did well enough and that was important was he did well enough to have the confidence to say hey my stuff actually plays in the zone and there is that interplay of command and confidence where it's like hey you know jack glider you know going for against the white socks getting out to with four strike outs and two walks that might just be good enough for him to say hey you know what like when i threw it in the zone and didn't walk the lineup it worked well you know so i'm actually you know next time i get up there i'm just going to throw all my crap and you know kind of towards middle middle and the you know the movement take it away from middle middle and and just simplify things so jack glider still has a chance i don't know joe boil's chances are running out yeah boil increasingly looks like a reliever that still needs to improve his command to even be the best possible version of himself in that role but you could see high leverage stuff when you watch him even when he's all over the place that's always been the case with boil now it's interesting that you know with lighter pitching better we also have kumar rocker healthy again at triple a and because they were teammates in college very high profile guys at van deekers came on his bb for rocker right now just absurd it seems like they're always just kind of linked together it looks great coming off tommy john though a 39 to three strikeout to walk ratio in 24 and two thirds innings that includes his first start at triple life five innings one hit ten case at round rock on wednesday so things are beginning to really kind of turn around for both of these guys especially another rocker is healthy again i'm curious if you had to make a decision today if you only have one and a keeper dynasty league and they're available in some places depending on the number of kumar rocker you're taking kumar rocker what's the big difference i just think that the command is is better you know like i'm looking at his mind if you're looking on youtube right now you're looking at his minor league kumar rocker's minor league location numbers they're all above 100 except for the change up and i know that some people have described his sliders a sweeper but i was looking at his raw movement numbers on the slider and it doesn't look like a sweeper to me which is important because if it's a bullet slider and it's got a 124 stuff plus then it's a really good hard bullet slider that he can work against lefties and righties and then he's just going to be slightly better against righties because he can do more sinker slider action on them he has the same thing as red louder where his IVB his vertical movement is not great but his velos even better than louders he sits 98 so it's a velo driven thing with his foreseem but he's going to just have to hope that his foreseem is just good enough you know that lefties don't kind of lean over the plate you know because against righties he's going to be able to sinker slider into the death so it's a similar package to red to red louders it's just he's got more extension than red louder and he's got more velo than red louder red louder actually cuts the ball off and doesn't have great extension so neither of these guys despite their numbers and despite some of the hyperbole and some of the you know some of the stuff we've heard neither one of these guys would be like a Jackson Job to me you know they're like really exciting young guys that could make it but you know i'm not like this is the next dagram like when i watch Jackson Job i'm just like this is pretty amazing so we've had this underlying question we've been trying to answer for the last couple of weeks breaking it up into parts players that we're looking at watching closely either for a late season debut or guys that could emerge to have a lot of value early in 2025 right as we did i think infielders a few weeks ago we'll get some outfielders probably next week since we're talking about lighter and rocker and they kind of fit into this conversation now now we're seeing some weekend debuts for those angel starters and for red louder you know who else are we trying to watch closely in the upper levels the minors down the stretch trying to see if we get a sneak peek at someone that could make a pretty big impact i think the pirates have a couple of starters in Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft that could be knocking on the door if not for a call up at the end of the season at least for an opportunity to compete for rotation spots going into 2025 yeah Bubba Chandler has a 139 stuff plus on a 97 mile an hour four seam with plus vertical ride whoo that's pretty sick i know i'm not looking at movement numbers right now but if you want someone who looks like Jared Jones it's in the numbers in the stuff in location numbers it's Bubba Chandler so that's really exciting and i think in some ways i almost like him better than the other two because he has a great four seam right i mean i i know that this league is kind of doing other things and there's more people kind of you know doing sinker stuff and you know i want people to have multiple fastballs and all that you know i'm just going to bet on the guy who has a better four seam because especially if they're a righty because they have to do something against lefties now Braxton Ashcraft on the other hand has a 92 stuff plus on the four seam he has some good breaking balls but this is more of a breaking ball first approach and obviously there are many pitchers in the big leagues where their breaking balls are better than their four seam their fastballs but i just i'm a little bit more inclined to reach for the guy with a good fastball i just think it's easier to see them put together things and become an ace you know you could be Seth Lugo if you have a bunch if you have a great feel for spin you can be sunny gray if you're a great feel for spin i don't think you become Garrett Cole without a great fastball you know what i'm saying like you can be one of these guys pretty good you know but like if you're looking for a Garrett Cole that's Jackson job that's Bubba Chandler's closer you know that's why you look at these guys Taj Bradley you know Jared Jones you look at guys with great four seniors yeah i think it gives you a lot of margin for error when you have a great four seamer because the other stuff can be a little slow to follow but you've got something you can throw often that's at least good enough to maybe get you through the line up twice yeah you have to get through opposite hands you know you have to have a fastball you can throw opposite hands what are you gonna do against lefties if your best pitch is a sinker your best for the hard pitch is a sinker yeah i think that totally makes sense as far as just like the basic foundational thing you're looking for if you can only choose one that would be it so is there anybody else that's going to jumping off the page to you that hasn't debuted yet pitching well on the upper levels of the minors i mean i think the white Sox even have a couple guys Hyrule Iriarte is kind of interesting he's had a good year so far i think he's worked entirely at double A sub 4 ERA almost a strikeout per inning still like to see there are some improvements in terms of the walk rate or a slightly higher k-rate from him but opportunity is going to be like wide open for the white Sox during this rebuild so the threshold for getting a chance there is a little bit lower than it is and a lot of these other situations right now yeah they also like i think it's one of those things where you kind of need to show your work a little bit like you have to have some success when you're on the white Sox and be like oh but we at least determined that this guy is part of our future so you know i think that's actually a little bit of what's happening in Anaheim you know gets the extension we go on the on the pod saying like oh he's already he's still on the hot seat i don't know you got an extension he's still on the hot seat but i also said to be fair to him and to parry and to the angels that if they all of a sudden prove that they have some like hot young pitching prospects that you know could pitch next year in the major leagues in the rotation that they could turn things around fairly quickly so you know that's what they're trying to do there i think you know the white Sox anybody could come up and be pretty exciting quickly so i agree with you on that one i think one of the other more exciting names i've been waiting on an auto new for the whole season i thought maybe there's a chance we'd see a 2024 debut it now looks much more like 2025 is tink hence in the Cardinals organization and injury cost him some time from like late June until late July so he missed a pretty critical month but hence has really good stuff the k-rates jumped up this year too at double a he's always been young for the level so given that the injury didn't cost him that much time i think there's a really good chance he could be in this rotation early in 2025 and it might bring some much needed swing and miss right we've talked for a long time about the Cardinals lacking pitching prospects that can miss bats or being unable to find guys that are high quality starters within that organization i think they might be on the verge of a graduating one with hence i'm scouting the stat line here and oh that's interesting ryan web pops when you look in in the guardians you know i was like oh there's a guy with great k-minus bv in the mind of leagues for the guardians you know you could need you could need some starting pitches i go over to stuff plus because he's been in triple a and he has a 66 stuff plus on the four seam with a 90 mile an hour average velocity so i don't know that i i'd like to retract that name okay i'm gonna have that one back yeah gunner hoegland i'm just looking at strikeout minus walk rates in double a with teams that could could use the pitcher gunner hoegland has a 57 stuff plus on his four seams so this is why i think you know it's a little bit hard for me when i'm looking at double a guys to be to get excited because i think there's all sorts of different ways to get to a good k-minus bb for example you could have a small bb yes you could and when you do that in the minor leagues i think that sometimes that can be filling up the zone against inferior hitters then you get into the major leagues and you fill up the zone against superior hitters and uh get get knocked or knocked around so i don't necessarily see a top of the k-minus bb list guy that really pops except for caden dana who is 20 years old among a bunch of 25 year olds you know one of the problems also is how many innings these guys all have a hundred innings which means they're almost like kind of journeymen you know how about Brandon sprout he said a pretty interesting season started at high a spent most of the summer at double a had a 33.2 percent k-rate 6.5 percent walk rate tons of swinging strikes gets the bump to triple a has only thrown 17 and the third innings there over four starts but has just had a miserable time with everything not striking guys out has a home run per nine above three has grotesque ratios an 883 era and a 162 whip there's a lot here to work with so i i think i'm really hesitant right now to look at what's happening to pitchers of triple a and and draw much of a meaningful conclusion about it even somebody in the the waiver preview time Madden had pretty good numbers up through double a got the triple a and the ratios have just been awful i don't think it's necessarily the function of the stuff not working i think it just might be the weirdness of triple a with abs right now well you know particularly the top of the zone and what you hear what you have here is a guy who has a 92 stuff plus in the four seam what if he was really happy living at the top of the zone in double a then he gets to triple a and those are now balls right that means it maybe has to come down a little bit further into the zone and if he doesn't have a plus plus four seamers now it's getting knocked around on top of that you don't know what the you know organizational philosophy is for you know what pitches should he be throwing right now if he was being showcased for a trade he would throw his slider a lot more right now he's throwing his slider 12 percent of the time with a 129 stuff plus easily his best pitch you know if he was being showcased for a trade bumps that up to 40 percent be a two pitch guy and trade him out of there but right now it looks like the philosophy is try to develop all your pitches throw your slider 12 percent of the time throw your cutter 18 percent of the time throw your change up 12 percent of the time curve 7 percent of the time so he's throwing all his pitches though his slider is clearly his best pitch we may see him as a major league reliever that's sort of 50/50 fastball slider that way you get that stuff plus on the four seam up by getting more velo in it you know that's something that I could see in his future but the other part of that the Mets are betting on is one of those secondary pitches jumps a little bit gets a little bit better somehow he mixes him a little bit better he reacts he figures out how to pitch to the zone and he becomes more Rebecca and starter I don't know if he's a front end starter either way as you've probably heard by now we've teamed up with BedMGM this season we'll be using BedMGM lines to make all of our picks and we'll have special offers for our listeners each week if you haven't signed up for BedMGM yet use bonus code the athletic and you'll get a one-year subscription to the athletic plus up to a fifteen hundred dollar first bed offer on your first wager with BedMGM here's how it works download the BedMGM app and sign up using bonus code the athletic make your first deposit of at least ten dollars place your first bet on any game and claim your voucher for a one-year subscription to the athletic see BedMGM.com for terms us promotional offers not available in DC Mississippi New York Nevada Ontario or Puerto Rico gambling problem call 1 800 gambler available in the US call 8778 hope and why or text hope and why 467-369 in New York call 1 800 next step in Arizona 1 800-327-5050 in Massachusetts 1 800 bets off in Iowa 1 800-270-7117 for confidential help in Michigan 1 800-981-0023 in Puerto Rico first bet offer for new customers only in partnership with Kansas crossing casino and hotel don't forget if you haven't signed up for BedMGM yet use bonus code the athletic and you'll get a one-year subscription to the athletic plus up to a fifteen hundred dollar first bed offer on your first wager George Clooney and Brad Pitt's new movie waltz is on Apple TV plus September 27th that's what I want you to be now so if you want to see George Clooney and Brad Pitt go to Apple TV plus you got to start the story there or if you want to see Brad Pitt and George Clooney go to Apple TV plus I am enjoying the show and if you want to see their new movie waltz you can't do it win help yeah I can do it do it definitely go to Apple TV plus the minute is cool okay fine it's very cool waltz upstream September 27th on Apple TV plus where do you are hey it's Kayleigh Cuoco for Priceline ready to go to your happy place for a happy price well why didn't you say so just download the Priceline app right now and save up to 60 percent on hotels so whether it's cousin Kevin's kazoo concert in Kansas City go Kevin or Becky's bachelorette bash and Bermuda you never have to miss a trip ever again so download the Priceline app today your savings are waiting go to your happy place for a happy price got your happy price Priceline the other name just number scouting that caught my eye is Quinn Matthews looking a little more into what he has done this year he's picked up a little extra velocity he's a lefty also in the cardinal system so nice to see maybe two starting pictures possibly making enough progress to join that St. Louis rotation nice track out rates yeah yeah i mean it's she's 33.8 percent at double a real nice with good walk rate doesn't seem to have a major home run problem at least to this point either so another name to sort of file away probably for draft and hold season at the very least because they're gonna be looking for some answers in that St. Louis rotation and you know he has innings that's why i remember Quinn Matthews name everybody members Quinn Matthews name no oh yes stand right yes the heavy heavy workloads yeah 40 pitches or something you know he has come as advertised with innings he already has 73 75 125 innings this year so he's going to get to 130 innings you definitely want him i think a draft and hold next year he will be he will give like if he has 150 innings and he's at in him next year 160 innings in the next year and he's at double a you know you know i feel like you can pencil at 70 of those in the major leagues at least even if he's not even if we're not talking about him for a rotation spot he'll be the seventh eighth guy you know he'll come up and pitch yeah i think that's a good way to frame it and there's room for him to be a bigger part of the plan if he's able to earn that in spring training we got a few mailbag questions to get to here one not on the screen the first first one was um from stunads 525 i never know where to put the emphasis on a discord handle is it stun ads 525 is it stunads i don't know is what i'm guessing i mean i i never want i never want to guess yeah because this person could have an amazing advertising business called stun ads and yes that's right so i don't want to i don't want to damage that but the question was the other day on the pod you mentioned that one m&b team doesn't have its own stuff plus model internally as a lifelong cardinals fan and long time listener of the pod i have to ask are we that team no it's the Rockies somebody reached out to somebody i was talking to and asked them to build them a stuff model and they were like why don't you just do that internally like you don't have any analysts yeah i was probably build a special one in colorado or you could just watch the nick one because it takes yeah you should actually i think it's actually super important for them to build a stuff model you know and they should actually probably build two stuff models one that is altitude adjusted and one that isn't because they would learn a lot from like oh these types of pitches actually you know do perform better and like you know if there's any team that you have like a huge analytics department that they listen to and invest in it should be the Rockies i think since the first time we've ever talked about the Rockies like in 2019 year one in the pod we said well what's it gonna take to win in colorado and that was i think still the jump British area we've been adamant on this show that they should have more tech more data more information more everything more gadgets than any organization in baseball they should have debuted the opener they should have debuted bullpen games they should they should have been on the front end of a lot of those things yeah hundred percent agree so thank you for that question stun ads five to five as to the Cardinals the evidence i don't actually have direct evidence that they have one but my evidence that they should have one is that mausolea came out and said we need to concentrate more on swing and miss stuff you know using the word stuff now is like a little bit loaded you know like i got craig breslow to talk for 15 minutes of winter meetings about stuff plus basically you know and use that in the in the red socks article that i use so like you know i think now stuff is almost an encoded sort of yes we have a stuff plus mama sort of how i read it maybe i'm maybe i'm you know got stuff plus on the brain but that's i mean that what is he saying he's like we need more swing and miss stuff we need to study this we need to we need to promote it we need to create it like how do you do that you know i think stuff plus is obviously something i use for evaluation but i think it's actually most powerful in development because if you say i want you to have a better curveball and the pitcher says fine i want to have a better curveball then the next question is what is a better curveball and stuff plus is the answer you know like when you when i just showed those here on youtube when we were showing those interactions between velocity and and ride that create the stuff plus for foreseemers like you can redo those interactions and you can be like here's horizontal versus vertical oh wow if you made your foreseem more horizontal which we've been chasing vertical all this time what if you made you a two-plane foreseem that actually worked too and maybe that's more attainable for you so that's the work of a pitching coach and it's aided by stuff plus in ways that i guess are not happening in kara sure seems like it could help but you know just my opinion from thousand miles away next question comes in from ponchoed which i assume is an ode to poncho's early Clement may be an interesting late breakup profile heavy pulled fly ball approach has out producing his raw power he's only striking out a nine percent clip seems like he's going to make a ton of contact on balls that have a good chance to find their way out of the ballpark and the average will hold up with the low k percentage regardless of his babit profile so what do you make of Ernie Clement an unusual sub 10 k-rate guy who's actually getting some pretty good run right now for the jays as part of the sort of lost second half i don't know there's one part of Ernie Clement's profile that just leaves me entirely cold and you know which part it is it's got to be a chase no it's the entire you should see my dashboard it's the entire right hand of my dashboard it's chase maxivy barrel and hard hit yeah let's look but it's a low very the extreme low k-percentage profiles usually come with these some options they can and some other than all bad ball stats right that's generally how it goes if you get that low of a k-rate then that's what you're giving up and he's got ten homers and 352 plate appearances he's finding a way to hit the ball of the ballpark yeah it's probably a little bit more viable in the in with the shift restrictions and you know i guess we should have seen some of this coming because the blue jays kept running him out there and kept playing him over you know other other names and other other younger you know we thought more prospecting names i do like sub 10 k-rates that's that's fun okay the best i can do for you is draft and hold uh backup infielder yeah i think he's the utility guy i think he's uh after around 45 sort of pick if he's still there i really don't think you want to build that's the best that's the best around him yeah that's the best thing is well to play like that's that's the way i look at it and that's still it's a good outcome like good for him i wouldn't be sad to have him on like as one of my final keepers my 20 team keeperly because he would be like the backup at like five positions thanks a lot for that question ponchoed you gotta look though at a sub 10 k-rate when it comes in over 350 played appearances the way it has for earny you know it could work in in 15 teamers like nfbc style where you know you want to have one guy on your bench in the beginning of the season that could cover you in a lot of different places and maybe he just ends up on your on your bench all season long where he just covers you for that friday like oh there's a surprise injury like it is you those guys are useful in those leagues too where you just like have a lot of eligibility's on your bench you know but you know i want to make sure i'm saying all these eligibility things what are his eligibility's he's going to not have second base you should have third short though third and short is good because that's third short and ci and my yeah that's pretty good might be just good enough to hang around on that blue j's roster we'll have to see but yeah i would not not do anything as far as an early early pick on him at all like it's a roster and flux too what if they sign guys and you know he's no longer even really having that heavy of a role on their on their team next year he's 28 it's not like they're circling him and making him part of the core right and i don't think he's kind of like part of the hero it's addison barger rilvis martina's like they care more about those prospects i think yeah yeah all of those guys are bigger priorities to their long-term future let's take a look at the other other names that are interesting for the weekend waiver preview a lot of places we could start i mean the tigers pitching getting turned around i saw brant herder has a two step this week that might intrigue some people at san diego at oakland those are not layout match-ups especially oakland the a's have actually been a good enough lineup to beat up on some kind of average or below average pitching at the very least lately but herder's been chewing up some innings pretty effectively for the tigers i think we're at the point in the year where anybody with a two step at least gets a look if you need innings so what do you make of herder and the success he's had in some limited opportunities with the tigers we're at the locations of those place of those they're both away hmm i'd prefer him if he was home he's okay i mean he's got a good slider below average below barberish stuff decent command the command is backed up by really good walk rates um in the minors one thing that you will notice in the minors are high babbits and yes that is often due to mind like defenses mind like parks all sorts of things it's not something i would normally look at especially for a pitcher but when i see a low stuff number and a high babbop in the minors that's you know one thing that we found with stuff plus in the projections was that it moved a needle on uh home runs per nine and babbop in the projections a lot you know so he's not a guy that i would consider very likely to he has a 222 babbop right now uh i might project him for like a 320 babbop going forward if you do that uh you get a mid four zr a won't be a two step four tie madden but he's going to make another start this weekend sunday against the red socks not necessarily one i would go pick him up and use him in for for daily leagues but if madden sticks around even though he was a guy that had brutal ratios of triple-a we just talked about brendan sprout a few minutes ago i think i'm kind of intrigued by madden as a match-up space play in september i mean we've seen the ability to miss bats 102 k's and 79 innings of triple-a this year 146 k's and 118 innings a year ago at double-a period it'd be more in the situation of i want strikeouts my ratios are already just a mess and maybe i could steal seven or eight strikeouts in the right kind of match up from someone like madden even though home runs have been a major problem for him especially this year in the international league yeah i'm i'm sorry for those that are looking uh at fangrafts the uh the model hasn't quite loaded for last night so we're working on that um i think there's just been a little bit of an interaction between us and fangrafts that's been a little bumpy at times this year but you can tell by stuff bought on fangrafts right now um that his cutter is his best pitch and stuff plus agrees with that but he doesn't throw he didn't he doesn't throw it as often as you'd expect and he throws a slider more often so i don't know if he's being optimized but that could that could give you some hope that you know he starts throwing the cutter more um and uh starts maybe accessing some of those whiffs that have been missing in the major leagues from i mean he's to go from 15 percent whiffs in triple a to 6.9 percent and his first start pretty a rapid decline for madden but i'm not that into either of these guys all right we'll see if madden ends up in the bullpen down the road because i think that could be a really nice sleeper for some saves in the future if starting doesn't work out for him he shortened up that arsenal add a little vilo and it all could come together for him in that role look at hose taina for a moment getting a lot of opportunities with the nats basically their regular third baseman so having a pretty good year at triple a columbus he was acquired in that lane thomas trade from the guardians has some power has some speed only about 15 percent rostered right now in the rotoire online championship those are 12 team nfbc leagues he's up to 60 percent in the main event but i would imagine that number creeps up even more this weekend given how much taina is playing on this nats team there aren't that many red flags for me i would say that you know his much higher swing strike rate in the minor league suggests that there may be a little bit more swing and miss coming soon he had a 14.4 percent swing strike rate taina did in triple a and he has a 7.3 in the majors that that's a little incongruous for me um but otherwise he's a guy who makes just enough hard contact doesn't chase too much hasn't had real bad strikeout rates in minor leagues i don't think i don't think this is a grant mccray situation i think he's probably a true talent like 26 25 26 percent strikeout rate he's not going to help you uh getting on base and that may limit his uh long-term value to the team and his lineup placement long-term i mean just think about the batters that the nationals have he's not going to be a top three hitter for them and projection wise uh they you know they still have him being well below average so it's not even super clear like just think about how he was acquired too you know uh it's not super clear to me that he's part of their long-term future but in the short term the red flags aren't too red and he's gotten he's got the uh the playing time and uh i'm intrigued i think um i'd like to see what he does before i'd say anything about how i'm drafting him next year but in the short term depending on the schedule depending on your needs he's a he's a pickup yeah probably more of a 15 team league sort of pickup but in a desperation sense for a 12 you could probably even do a little bit worse than taina and we've seen the guardians make some curious trades before i mean like the Nolan Jones trade with the Rockies looked pretty brutal right i mean that was that was the kind of thing that you look back at now and say how they come up with that was a burrito this one burrito i think was the player they got back in that trade 110 wrc plus as a 22 year old in double and triple a right now 16% strikeout rate 179 iso so also maybe more positional value yeah well i could easily work out in the long run forum but it just it seemed like they gave up on Nolan Jones pretty quickly for what they needed given what he did a season ago so yeah i'm keeping a close eye on taina in leagues where i need some help on the corner especially those deeper formats i also noticed megala maya is playing really well i kind of just split the season looking back since july first megala maya's hitting 337 with a 381wp in a 561 slug for the last two months five homers 13 k rate he's rostered in 36 percent of online championship leagues so you know still out there in a lot of pretty important two catcher spots that he's a slightly more rostered player in the main event at this point yeah 77 quite a bit higher actually but i'm actually a little surprised given the need for catching to people haven't been a little more aggressive with the myi i guess the one drawback is that despite playing a lot better he's still stuck in that number nine spot for the cubs most days yeah typical catcher i mean he's not i don't know that he exhibits many skills that would elevate him from the sort of blob of middle uh catchers the guys who can hit 250 but given a full season might hit you 18 homers like i feel like that describes 15 catchers the one thing that he's doing right now that would make him a tree game going forward is sporting an 18 percent striker rate so megala maya keeps an 18 percent strikeout rate going forward he does he has at the ball 111 there's still like a chance to kind of put together even more than what what he's done full season uh when it comes to next year so i think he's a fairly decent uh second catcher cheap second catcher next year and 15 team leagues i feel like he's in the same class that i'd put like joey bartin i picked up joey bart in a bunch of leagues in the last month or so and i think there's a chance bart plays a lot in pittsburgh i think a maya's pat the playing time with the cubs is a little less cloudy because with the pirates you have the long-term questions about henry davis plus the eventual return to nd roderiga is yes there's a little bit more organizational crowding in pittsburgh so i think that's one thing that does work well for megala maya right now i think you were mentioning a few marlins before we started recording that you're looking at kyle stowers playing a lot right now well stowers norby and hill are are playing a lot they were better pickups last week uh when they were going into cores than they are necessarily this week stowers doesn't they're just playing a lot i like norby the best stowers doesn't really have anything that i that i would bring to you is like this is why you should pick him up other than he's playing in deep enough leagues that matters i mean he he can barrel the ball but uh right now 36% striker rate's not working darrick hill uh is power and speed i was happy i picked him up last week he did some good things for me but a 31% strikeout rate right now with a 3% walk rate is a tough tough combo and so i'd be pretty scheduled dependent with him you know going forward there was another uh a couple of players add some barger is is playing again and it was weird because he stopped playing for a little bit and now he's playing again he's pretty much looks like he's in the lineup every day it's just a question of where so some third base amount field but the last four games in a row uh he's been in the fifth spot in the order and played third base so i wonder if uh there's a little bit of like hey the season doesn't matter anymore could add some barger just be our everyday third baseman next year my answer to that question is maybe you know i think the strikeout rate will come down a little bit for barger i think the walk rate will come up a little bit he's capitalizing on really good raw power right now he needs to continue to capitalize on that raw power it needs to continue to push that barrel rate up if he pushes that barrel rate up to 10% by the end of the year he's got a 10% barrel rate 25 26% strikeout rate 8% walk rate that should work as a starter it may not be an amazing one that you need in your fancy leagues but it would be somebody that might uh might be interesting might have some eligibility depending on your league it's 22 games at third base and 22 games in the right field so getting someone who could be ci of third baseman you know again sort of somewhere between draft and hold and bench in a 15 team league uh right now you're just picking him up because you're hoping he'll hit some dogs for you yeah i think i'm thinking about 2025 little i'm more interested in taking a shot on barger than i am on already Clement from earlier even though someone's got that really low k-rate and i think you can do yours younger and power trip like third baseman yeah he fits like a regular profile you know yes i i think you could at least talk yourself into that other thing i would say maybe this is a trap i'm going to fall into a lot but thinking about how difficult it's been for hitters to make adjustments to big league pitching last couple of seasons now we're almost 50 games in to the big league career of barger the initial adjustment phase hopefully is over i think these next 20 games down the stretch this last month will give us a much better indication of the types of adjustments he's capable of making then his first you know 50 or so games have telling us like yes that's information that matters but i just want to see if you can adapt to what has been happening because the underlying numbers aren't bad right a near 40 percent hard hit rate k-rate's not off the charts at 27.1 percent there's an okay foundation here if you can start to make those adjustments he fits i don't know this is really not scientific but we're developing a little bit of a test here for the young hitter he fits the heat map the two spots on the heat map he has two blobs on the heat map low and in and high and in i'm going to count those two because he's able to to hit low and high he hasn't done a lot out over the plate except for sort of middle middle away but higher way and lower way as just little corner holes for him i think that's doable in the big leagues you know that that's if you have a if you have a zone if you have a hole all the way across the zone high that's a lot where the pitcher can miss but just miss miss high right but if it's high in a way and they kind of go for that and they do they throw some pitch that leaks high middle and he and he slugs it that's a better situation like he has his holes are smaller and high in a way and low in a way those are traditional holes across the league if you just do a heat map of exit velocities high in a way and low in a way is the lowest exit velocities makes sense very intuitive right i mean to drive a ball that's away is a lot harder especially if it's down or up that's why i want to see a little bit more eye from him like if i want to see i want to see that walk rate climb a little bit because that means they're trying to pick him away and he's like he's he's not whiffing on those pitches away that are outside the zone that's what i that's kind of the adjustment i see for him i think it's easy to tell yourself a story with bargeard given the walk rates he's shown throughout his time in the minors that he has that ability though that's that's part of where that enthusiasm comes from i think i was a little more excited about connecting the heat map than Trevor was when we put that out there yeah i think we both were we were willing to make the leap and he was a little more like nah i don't think you could just fill those gaps in for every hit i don't think that's always going to be the case but uh we are gonna go we hope everybody has a great long weekend especially to get the extra day in the states uh you get a subscription as i mentioned earlier at the athletic.com/rates and barrels check out you know his updated ranks the rest of the season do well in your fantasy football drafts if you are partaking be safe out there do i don't care about football yeah you're just you don't have to worry about it at all must be great it's it's it's like there's a whole opening of my schedule i can i'm like ooh i get to binge watch some shows and stuff like there's actually going to be some time for me to do something other than baseball when everyone else is doing football light at the end of the tunnel so you can find you know on twitter at you know saris find me at darifandriper find a pod at rates and barrels thanks to brian smith for producing this episode that's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels we're back with you on Tuesday thanks for listening uh i like you i like you a lot college football is back like never before i'm david oven and i host until saturday the athletics leveled up college football podcast three times a week you'll hear me and my co-hosts fellow athletic senior writer chris finini and two-time national champion damey heres embraced the sports new madness with you we're also just going to have a ton of fun enjoying all the things that make college football great check out the brand new one till saturday every monday wednesday and thursday this fall, you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING]
