Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 92 : Time To Drop These Bats?

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Ep. 92 : Time To Drop These Bats? · Cards & Categories

0:15
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome everybody to episode ninety two of Cards
0:19
Speaker 1: and Categories. I am My cool Ard from Rasball, joined
0:22
Speaker 1: as always by my very good friend.
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Speaker 2: Jeremy Burer, also from Rasball. How are you doing tonight, Buddy?
0:28
Speaker 3: Doing well? We're doing a late night podcast, thanks to me.
0:33
Speaker 3: But I'm excited about the late night version of Cards
0:36
Speaker 3: and Categories and see how well we run through this.
0:39
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just gonna be the best thing ever. I
0:41
Speaker 3: think you'll have to let us know if you're listening.
0:43
Speaker 3: If it's the best thing ever, we'll do more like
0:44
Speaker 3: late night pods.
0:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, certainly if you are checking us out,
0:48
Speaker 1: rate and review us on whatever podcast platform you're listening
0:51
Speaker 1: to us. We appreciate that we are recording on a Tuesday,
0:55
Speaker 1: So sorry out there for the absolute mayhem we're about
0:58
Speaker 1: to unleash on the baseball world, because typically when we
1:03
Speaker 1: record on an off day, some momentous news will break
1:07
Speaker 1: in between the time of us recording and the post
1:11
Speaker 1: finally going up on rasball dot com. That is where
1:14
Speaker 1: you can also go check out some subscriptions. Look at
1:17
Speaker 1: the hitter Tron and the Streaminator. They've been on fire
1:20
Speaker 1: again recently with great suggestions for players to pick up
1:24
Speaker 1: well worth the price of the subscription. But you can
1:26
Speaker 1: also check out our post there, especially the baseball card posts.
1:30
Speaker 1: They will always have the pictures of the cards. There
1:33
Speaker 1: not a baseball card post today because we will be
1:36
Speaker 1: talking about bats and whether or not we need to
1:39
Speaker 1: be dropping them. A couple weeks ago, early into the season,
1:44
Speaker 1: we were trying to assess hot and cold starts and
1:46
Speaker 1: kind of what flags we're looking for. Now we've actually
1:48
Speaker 1: started hit the point where the data we've got is
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Speaker 1: pretty solid in terms of when things start stabilizing across
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Speaker 1: the board.
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Speaker 2: And so we've got.
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Speaker 1: Some players who you've likely invested a lot of draft
2:02
Speaker 1: capital into that honestly might be time to cut bait
2:05
Speaker 1: on them. But before we do that, let's get into
2:08
Speaker 1: some news and notes. As I said, we're recording on Tuesday,
2:11
Speaker 1: May twentieth, so keep that in mind as we run
2:13
Speaker 1: in through these. First one, the big one right off
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Speaker 1: the bat, Brandon Hyde is out in Baltimore as he
2:19
Speaker 1: got started off to a fifteen to twenty eight record there.
2:24
Speaker 1: The Oriols as we speak, have not won a game
2:27
Speaker 1: underneath the new manager, as they have dropped three straight
2:30
Speaker 1: it's been a disastrous season and they're down to a
2:32
Speaker 1: three twenty six winning percentage. I was looking at the
2:35
Speaker 1: MLB playoff odds on Fangraphs. They're down to two point
2:38
Speaker 1: two percent for the Baltimore Orioles. They are the second
2:42
Speaker 1: worst team in the AL behind the Chicago White Sox.
2:46
Speaker 1: Nothing's going well in Baltimore. So what is your assessment here?
2:49
Speaker 1: Do you think that Baltimore's got a chance to cash
2:52
Speaker 1: in on that two point two percent for the playoffs
2:55
Speaker 1: and any implications for our fantasy game out there.
2:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, I don't think they have a chance for
3:03
Speaker 3: And it really comes down to they just don't have
3:06
Speaker 3: what's needed from a pitching perspective, Like you look at
3:10
Speaker 3: this this rotation as it sits right now, and you're
3:13
Speaker 3: you know, running out, you know, Efflyn Sugano, Kramer, Povich, Morton,
3:20
Speaker 3: hoping Rodriguez gets healthy, you know, helping Bradish comes back,
3:24
Speaker 3: like you, they just haven't done what they needed. I
3:27
Speaker 3: think Mike Elias made some comments here which didn't do
3:32
Speaker 3: him any favors, like, well, we just haven't invested in
3:34
Speaker 3: the pitching that we need to, so we fired our manager.
3:36
Speaker 3: It's not what he said, but that's what he implied,
3:39
Speaker 3: which if you look at it from an overall perspective,
3:43
Speaker 3: they got an offense that can score some runs. They've
3:45
Speaker 3: actually been doing decent from an offensive perspective. Maybe not
3:49
Speaker 3: doing perfect, but they've got a strong, strong offense. But
3:53
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, they've got like two
3:54
Speaker 3: good pitchers on that team, And a lot of that
3:57
Speaker 3: came from the general manager perspective, making some moves, not
4:01
Speaker 3: capitalizing when they need to. So I don't see this
4:04
Speaker 3: as an indictment of Brandon Hyde. I think more the
4:07
Speaker 3: Orioles overall management. From a fancy perspective, it'll be interesting
4:13
Speaker 3: to see how things shake up with you know, platoons,
4:18
Speaker 3: especially with your your mulleins, your O'Neill's, your O'Hearn's, those
4:23
Speaker 3: kind of guys. You know, are we going to actually
4:25
Speaker 3: see some good playing times from like guys like I'd
4:28
Speaker 3: like to see up you know, getting really good opportunities
4:31
Speaker 3: with your carestads, or you know, are they going to
4:36
Speaker 3: finally commit to a cowser getting a full run. I
4:40
Speaker 3: think those will be the fun things to kind of
4:42
Speaker 3: watch here. So not not big news from a fancy perspective,
4:46
Speaker 3: but you know, kind of disappointing news at the end
4:48
Speaker 3: of the day that it feels like the Orioles are
4:51
Speaker 3: in like an oddly rebuilding mode all of a sudden
4:54
Speaker 3: with some pretty good players.
4:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree that.
4:58
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what they've done is just totally
5:01
Speaker 1: gone sideways on the turnaround of this roster in terms
5:05
Speaker 1: of what the tanking was doing. They didn't fortify it
5:08
Speaker 1: correctly the way that Elias like came through that Houston
5:12
Speaker 1: front office and got the idea for the tank and
5:15
Speaker 1: trying to rebuild from there. In terms of they just
5:18
Speaker 1: have not put the investments in the right places to
5:21
Speaker 1: be able to become the next Houston Astros or to
5:24
Speaker 1: be the twenty sixteen Cubs, where both of those teams
5:28
Speaker 1: built around the edges with the core that they had intact.
5:32
Speaker 1: You know, in Houston they brought in Justin Furlander. In
5:34
Speaker 1: Chicago they brought in John Lester. That you have to
5:38
Speaker 1: do that to be able to capitalize. And we sound
5:41
Speaker 1: a little bit like a broken record because I think
5:44
Speaker 1: throughout our time here doing this podcast, we have constantly
5:47
Speaker 1: harped on Baltimore is not doing enough to turn the corner.
5:50
Speaker 1: Especially you look at that Al East, like you're playing
5:53
Speaker 1: against the Yankees and the Red Sox day in day out.
5:56
Speaker 2: You've got to be.
5:57
Speaker 1: Really pushing the envelope if you want to be a
5:59
Speaker 1: sustained winner.
6:01
Speaker 2: And honestly, I think this might.
6:03
Speaker 1: Like it's pretty fizzled out at this point that you
6:06
Speaker 1: have to think that Gunner Henderson is going to be
6:09
Speaker 1: reticent to sign a long term contract in Baltimore given
6:12
Speaker 1: what he's seen around him.
6:14
Speaker 2: One of these.
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Speaker 1: Guys that's a core piece of their franchise is going
6:17
Speaker 1: to be in our drop section after the break, Adley Ritchman.
6:22
Speaker 2: So things are unraveling.
6:25
Speaker 1: Quickly, and especially when you look at that pitching staff,
6:27
Speaker 1: I mean, there's nothing to give you any hope. They
6:30
Speaker 1: just haven't spent any draft capital there. You took a
6:33
Speaker 1: lot of bats. But then if you're not going to
6:35
Speaker 1: sign the arms, then it's a two way street. Like
6:38
Speaker 1: baseball has an offense and a defense, and honestly, you
6:41
Speaker 1: could argue that the pitching is the offense. That like,
6:44
Speaker 1: you control the ball as the pitcher, and so if
6:46
Speaker 1: you can't handle that aspect of the game, then I
6:50
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised to see Michael Lias out the door
6:53
Speaker 1: in the offseason as well. Okay, well let's move on
6:58
Speaker 1: to our next topic, and this is to be we
7:01
Speaker 1: got a big time suspension here. Jose Alvarado, reliever left
7:04
Speaker 1: hander for the Philadelphia Phillies, was sitting in that closer's
7:09
Speaker 1: chair for a while. I mean, we were always a
7:12
Speaker 1: little wary of where it could go, just because of
7:14
Speaker 1: the skill set for Jose Alvarado, But now he's out
7:17
Speaker 1: for eighty games, can't be on the postseason roster. Jordan
7:21
Speaker 1: Romano has looked much better in Philadelphia and should walk
7:24
Speaker 1: into the closer's role there has already kind of started
7:27
Speaker 1: taking it over, but honestly, his stuff is not still
7:31
Speaker 1: kind of back to where peak Romano is. So it
7:34
Speaker 1: does feel like it's a little bit of a ticking
7:36
Speaker 1: time bomb. What are you doing with Alvarado in any
7:39
Speaker 1: leagues where you might have him, and what are you doing?
7:43
Speaker 1: Are you investing in Romano hoping that he can kind
7:45
Speaker 1: of have some sort of bounce back or is there
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Speaker 1: another arm you're looking at in Philadelphia?
7:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think, yeah, you hinted all the
7:54
Speaker 3: right things there. Alvarado moved on and you have to
7:57
Speaker 3: like you know, with any of these suspensions, the teams
7:59
Speaker 3: know about it beforehand. There's an appeals process that they
8:03
Speaker 3: kind of go through behind the scenes. And Hidsight's twenty twenty.
8:06
Speaker 3: It kind of makes sense to a degree because Alvarado
8:09
Speaker 3: was the best arm in that bullpen and he was
8:12
Speaker 3: pitching the best and they were kind of using more
8:14
Speaker 3: as a fireman role, but not always against the best
8:18
Speaker 3: part of the lineup. It's like they just didn't want
8:20
Speaker 3: to commit to him as their closer and when they
8:21
Speaker 3: needed to, And I think it's because they knew this
8:24
Speaker 3: was coming and they didn't want they needed to continue
8:27
Speaker 3: to get somebody else in that role, which is what
8:29
Speaker 3: they've been doing with Romano. Romano at the end of
8:32
Speaker 3: the day, like he's not what he was when he
8:35
Speaker 3: was first coming up with Toronto, but you know, his
8:38
Speaker 3: underlying stats are not too far off for the overall season,
8:42
Speaker 3: and he's looked a lot lot better as of late
8:45
Speaker 3: as he looked unhittable. No, but he's definitely kind of
8:49
Speaker 3: turned things around after a kind of a disastrous first
8:53
Speaker 3: start there. He hasn't given up a run since April
8:55
Speaker 3: twenty third, and so and frankly he's only walked like
9:00
Speaker 3: one guy uh since that time as well, so he's
9:05
Speaker 3: done pretty gusharn well for basically the second half of
9:09
Speaker 3: the of the first half or whatever you want to
9:11
Speaker 3: look at this at this point in time. Long term,
9:14
Speaker 3: I still love Ryan Kirkran and I just don't know
9:17
Speaker 3: if they're like they don't seem to love him as
9:19
Speaker 3: much as I do, and you know the results, maybe
9:24
Speaker 3: I've been one hundred percent there, but he's the guy
9:26
Speaker 3: that I think, long long term, is the closer in
9:29
Speaker 3: this bullpen. He's had some control issues this year, so
9:32
Speaker 3: they got to let that that work out. But if
9:34
Speaker 3: that works out, he's absolutely the closer. So for now,
9:38
Speaker 3: Romano feels like he's kind of locked into the role.
9:41
Speaker 3: I'd probably handcuff him with a Kurkering. I don't think
9:45
Speaker 3: Matt Strom is going to be the handcuff guy. They
9:47
Speaker 3: kind of like to use him in a very creative
9:50
Speaker 3: deployment role, kind of like they were using Alvarado. So
9:54
Speaker 3: I'm picking up Romano. I'm drinking that kool aid just
9:58
Speaker 3: like I was after spring training, and then I'm gonna
10:00
Speaker 3: regret it in a month. But that's okay. Saves or fickle,
10:03
Speaker 3: so you gotta do what you gotta do.
10:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's all fair that I honestly, that's
10:09
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance that the Phillies saves leader for
10:13
Speaker 1: the season is not in this bullpen. Still, I've rather
10:15
Speaker 1: that they ever reached out to David Robertson. Again, I'm
10:19
Speaker 1: sure they're already blowing up, especially the Orioles trying to
10:24
Speaker 1: get Felix Bautista. But Bautista's still got so much arm time.
10:27
Speaker 1: I don't think they would move him. But you're looking at,
10:29
Speaker 1: you know, out in I'm trying to think of other
10:32
Speaker 1: spots where you might move somebody. Ken Lee Jansen, honestly,
10:35
Speaker 1: out of the Angels would not be a terrible idea,
10:39
Speaker 1: might be a terrible idea. That's kind of crat. Yeah,
10:43
Speaker 1: I was gonna throw Kimberl out there, why not? Yeah exactly.
10:46
Speaker 1: I mean they enjoyed the Craig Kimberl experience. Cal Finnigan
10:50
Speaker 1: in intradivision could be interesting, so keep your eye on it.
10:53
Speaker 1: I don't I think Romano is the person to put
10:58
Speaker 1: kind of like your weight behind, but yeah it is.
11:02
Speaker 1: Ryan Kirkering's control issues have been pretty worrisome too. Like
11:07
Speaker 1: it's not a great spread on the K to nine
11:09
Speaker 1: to the BB nine, But yeah, I think we'll see
11:12
Speaker 1: where it all goes. Okay, let's go out to Kansas City,
11:16
Speaker 1: where we've got a pair of starters who have hit
11:18
Speaker 1: the il together. We'll start with the least significant one first,
11:22
Speaker 1: because we've got Seth Lugo going on the aisle with
11:25
Speaker 1: a sprained middle finger. Seems like it should come back
11:28
Speaker 1: pretty quick. Honestly, a sprain of the finger is a
11:30
Speaker 1: little less concerning to me than honestly a blister, because
11:34
Speaker 1: a blister just I've never really run into a situation
11:37
Speaker 1: over the years of owning players that have blisters that
11:41
Speaker 1: they just ever heal, So the sprain is almost a better.
11:47
Speaker 2: News to me.
11:48
Speaker 1: The other one is ace Cole Reagan's finally going on
11:51
Speaker 1: the aisle with that that groin issue that he's been battling.
11:55
Speaker 1: It's been a tough season, I would say for Reagan's
11:59
Speaker 1: it's been up and down, where he's pitched to a
12:01
Speaker 1: two point zero fIF he has a fourteen plus K nine,
12:05
Speaker 1: but he's just kind of like piping the ball, like
12:09
Speaker 1: the home runs have bitten him a little bit more
12:11
Speaker 1: so than they have in the past a tick up
12:14
Speaker 1: in that rate. The ground ball rate is lower though,
12:16
Speaker 1: so that's a resulted in an era of four fifty three.
12:19
Speaker 1: Do you think that there's something inherently wrong in Reagan's
12:24
Speaker 1: that could be like a sign of something greater. I've
12:27
Speaker 1: always been afraid of this guy that's had two Timmy
12:30
Speaker 1: John surgeries, and so I'm always kind of waiting for
12:33
Speaker 1: the other to shoot a drop.
12:35
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I'm really not concerned with with Reagan's, Like,
12:37
Speaker 3: if anything, buy an opportunity like he's He's striking out
12:42
Speaker 3: guys at a ridiculous clip this year. All the luck
12:46
Speaker 3: metrics are like against him right now. So really not
12:50
Speaker 3: terribly concerned. You know, if anything, this groin injury is
12:53
Speaker 3: the most concerning thing going on. Like you, as a pitcher,
12:57
Speaker 3: you got to you gotta have that foundation stable, so
13:00
Speaker 3: you need to bully recover from this. So I do
13:03
Speaker 3: think this one's going to hold him out longer than
13:05
Speaker 3: people expect. I think a lot of folks are expecting
13:06
Speaker 3: this to be a minimum ale stent. I'm thinking three
13:09
Speaker 3: four weeks as much more more like it. I don't
13:12
Speaker 3: think there'suld be a big rehab, you know, Stint or
13:15
Speaker 3: anything like that. But I'm fully, fully in on Reagan's here,
13:19
Speaker 3: no concerns with him on the flip side with with
13:23
Speaker 3: Lugo also being being there, not terribly interested, but maybe
13:28
Speaker 3: I know you're more of Lugo guys, so try to
13:31
Speaker 3: try to sell me there is Lugo. Are are you
13:33
Speaker 3: moving on with the struggles he had and you know
13:36
Speaker 3: the sprained finger here knowing the guy can't strike out
13:41
Speaker 3: more than six and a half for nine or are
13:44
Speaker 3: you still drinking the kool aid of the four seventy
13:46
Speaker 3: seven XCRA or the four or five fIF here.
13:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think I am, just because like
13:53
Speaker 1: he's proven that he can continually do this, like it's
13:56
Speaker 1: been something that's in his historical record where he just
14:00
Speaker 1: kind of outstrips his FIP. I don't know what it is,
14:03
Speaker 1: but maybe he's able to like lock down with runners
14:07
Speaker 1: on base. You can see his strand rate is actually
14:09
Speaker 1: like abnormally high in the like near eighty, which is
14:14
Speaker 1: to run that day in day out is pretty tough,
14:18
Speaker 1: and so like, yeah, I think it is a little
14:20
Speaker 1: bit of luck, but like I think he'll settle a
14:23
Speaker 1: little bit more of like what he was in twenty
14:25
Speaker 1: twenty three with San Diego. You know, mid threes era
14:29
Speaker 1: now a three e ra certainly still usable in all
14:33
Speaker 1: leagues out there, but yeah, I'm stashing Lugo. This does
14:36
Speaker 1: open an opportunity for Noah Cameron, who should stick around
14:39
Speaker 1: for the majority of that Cole Reagan's il stint, but
14:43
Speaker 1: you know who. It also opens up a spot for
14:46
Speaker 1: the only other starting pitcher in the minor leagues on
14:48
Speaker 1: the forty man roster, my boy linder Ovila. So I
14:52
Speaker 1: think he's actually he's penciled in as the starter for
14:55
Speaker 1: tomorrow night on Wednesday and should get another start. So
14:58
Speaker 1: just an a word out there. You could probably actually
15:00
Speaker 1: already see it. I just auctioned him in our automosion, so.
15:07
Speaker 3: I know we're gonna throw a few dollars just for fun.
15:09
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, but I'm excited. A Villa's still been great
15:12
Speaker 1: down in Triple A despite the surface level stats looking
15:16
Speaker 1: a little rough, because like I mean, he's got the
15:18
Speaker 1: forty four k's in the thirty eight innings. I think
15:21
Speaker 1: the whip we'll just kind of see where it goes.
15:24
Speaker 1: But he's got a good arsenal I would should be
15:26
Speaker 1: a pretty soft landing with at San Francisco and then
15:30
Speaker 1: home against the Reds, so blew into Reveala. If you're
15:33
Speaker 1: looking for a desperate guy to pick up out their
15:35
Speaker 1: early waiver wire tidbit. Okay, I probably should have put
15:39
Speaker 1: this one back to back with Jose Elvorado News, but
15:42
Speaker 1: we're gonna go back to Philly to cover Aaron Nola.
15:45
Speaker 1: Who I mean, if we could have had like a
15:50
Speaker 1: time to drop these arms segment, like, Nola probably would
15:54
Speaker 1: have been the number one de facto guy because it's
15:57
Speaker 1: been absolutely awful. And honestly, if you're still owning him
16:00
Speaker 1: at this point, I'm not sure what you're doing because
16:03
Speaker 1: he has a six one sixty RA through forty two
16:07
Speaker 1: and or forty nine and two thirds innings that's also
16:10
Speaker 1: a five h three FIP. Just has been totally terrible,
16:14
Speaker 1: getting beaten down and just like giving up. I believe
16:19
Speaker 1: a hard hit rate and a barrel rate that is, yeah,
16:22
Speaker 1: the highest of his career, not fooling anybody hits the IL.
16:26
Speaker 1: Now with this ankle sprain, are you out on Aaron
16:30
Speaker 1: Nola too?
16:32
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I think you have to be. I
16:33
Speaker 3: think you have to be. You know, he's he's lost
16:36
Speaker 3: a full tick on his fastball this year, and that's
16:39
Speaker 3: that's really really hurt him. And it's like he's not
16:43
Speaker 3: fooling anybody. When you don't have that fastball, you can't
16:46
Speaker 3: play that curve ball or that sinker off of it.
16:50
Speaker 3: And it just it feels like Aaron Nol, I mean
16:53
Speaker 3: eron Nol's been around for a long time. You know,
16:57
Speaker 3: he's got a full full decade that he's been pitched
17:00
Speaker 3: for the Phillies and then you know, tolf of his game.
17:03
Speaker 3: And again, don't get me wrong, he's had he has
17:05
Speaker 3: some bad luck going on this year. He's got a
17:08
Speaker 3: high BABEIP actually the highest in his career. He's got
17:12
Speaker 3: a strand rate that's that's down, his home run for
17:15
Speaker 3: fly balls ups, like all those you know, scary luck
17:20
Speaker 3: factors are not going the right way. And so you know,
17:23
Speaker 3: his his FIP, his ex FIP are actually decently better
17:26
Speaker 3: than his RA but like still it's questionable. And that's
17:31
Speaker 3: where I'm really concerned, is that the fastball velocities what's
17:34
Speaker 3: dropping off. And I think what he's been able to
17:37
Speaker 3: do with movement in the past deception. When you start
17:40
Speaker 3: to lose a few extra ticks, people people can easily
17:43
Speaker 3: take care of that. They can adjust when you get
17:45
Speaker 3: that extra split second. And things just aren't aren't looking
17:51
Speaker 3: good for him, and I think hitters are kind of
17:54
Speaker 3: just sitting dead red right now on on that that fastball,
17:59
Speaker 3: and that's not not great news. I mean, they're slugging
18:04
Speaker 3: eight point fifty against his four steamer in.
18:06
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty five.
18:07
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, eight fifty is a slug, don't worry a little.
18:13
Speaker 3: Luck the x slug is eight fifteen. So they are
18:18
Speaker 3: just absolutely crushing, hitting three hundred hit seven homers off
18:22
Speaker 3: the of the four seamer. And that's why everything else
18:26
Speaker 3: just isn't playing off of that, because you're they're sitting
18:29
Speaker 3: dead red his former seamer last year it had a
18:34
Speaker 3: slug of three to sixteen. The fastball is just falling
18:38
Speaker 3: off the cliff. Yeah, and that's what's happening here, Nola.
18:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
18:42
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it will be fascinating to see
18:44
Speaker 1: what he can do after this injury, because he's starting
18:47
Speaker 1: to enter that phase of his career where you've got
18:50
Speaker 1: to make the switch away from the fastball when you
18:53
Speaker 1: don't have the ticks and start going curveball or slider first.
18:57
Speaker 1: And so those are his past pitches by with rates
19:01
Speaker 1: and stuff plus and everything. So like, I think if
19:05
Speaker 1: you're looking ever for spot to start buying low on
19:08
Speaker 1: Aaron Nola is if that kind of starts flipping, if
19:12
Speaker 1: he starts going more curveball, slider heavy to make that
19:16
Speaker 1: change to be more of a spin artist kind of
19:19
Speaker 1: as veteran right handers do, then that's when I think
19:22
Speaker 1: I'd be back in because I think there is going
19:24
Speaker 1: to be a little bit of like there could be
19:25
Speaker 1: like a Charlie Morton Asque kind of like phase in
19:30
Speaker 1: his career where he's more valuable than you would think
19:34
Speaker 1: because of the age and kind of the track record,
19:36
Speaker 1: but because he's changed the arsenal and the approach, he's
19:40
Speaker 1: become a different pitcher.
19:41
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm.
19:43
Speaker 1: With you that, Like, until Aaron Nola shows any story
19:46
Speaker 1: of changes, just absolutely no, thank you.
19:50
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, we've got a double.
19:53
Speaker 1: Injury here for the Minnesota Twins, who have been scorching
19:56
Speaker 1: hot since we've really talked, but this might be starting
20:00
Speaker 1: to slow them down a little bit. I mean, although
20:03
Speaker 1: during the weekend it didn't really matter because the pitching
20:06
Speaker 1: wasn't allowing anybody to score against Baltimore and Milwaukee finally
20:10
Speaker 1: lost on Sunday, ending their streak that was up to
20:14
Speaker 1: what thirteen games I think it was, But yeah, pulled
20:17
Speaker 1: themselves right back into the middle of the Ale wild
20:22
Speaker 1: Card race. But on Thursday, I believe it was. Let
20:27
Speaker 1: me look this up again for the exact date.
20:30
Speaker 2: It was Thursday.
20:31
Speaker 1: I was watching this game and you just knew immediately, like, oh,
20:34
Speaker 1: those dudes are out forever now. There was a pop
20:38
Speaker 1: fly in Yankee Stadium. Carl's career was going back, Brian
20:41
Speaker 1: Buckston's coming in. Boom, they collide, they both go on
20:44
Speaker 1: the concussion. Il these are not the two dudes you
20:49
Speaker 1: want colliding with each other if you're the Minnesota Twins,
20:52
Speaker 1: because they've obviously proven to be kind of slow healers,
20:55
Speaker 1: kind of a lah Mike Trout, and so I'm not
20:59
Speaker 1: feeling great about these concussions. I mean, career was almost
21:03
Speaker 1: unknownable anyway with what he was putting up. But Buxton
21:06
Speaker 1: was showing some of the skills of what he could
21:09
Speaker 1: do when he was on the field. But what are
21:11
Speaker 1: you doing with Buckston and Korea in any spots that
21:13
Speaker 1: you've got them after these concussions?
21:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think there's two thoughts for me
21:18
Speaker 3: is one like, I feel like it just took this
21:20
Speaker 3: long for this to happen with those two guys, Like
21:23
Speaker 3: I feel like two of the most delicate guys in
21:26
Speaker 3: the game, and it's only you know, like serendipity or
21:30
Speaker 3: something that they ran into each other. So that's one
21:33
Speaker 3: thought here is just felt like fate. I think the
21:35
Speaker 3: other was like it finally felt to a degree that
21:39
Speaker 3: Buxton was like found who he was and was like
21:43
Speaker 3: leading into that, and we didn't have like sky high
21:46
Speaker 3: expectations for him, and you know, if you own him
21:49
Speaker 3: a fantasy game, you're kind of just playing him like
21:52
Speaker 3: at the back of your outfield, and you were kind
21:54
Speaker 3: of overall happy that you were getting some pretty good
21:56
Speaker 3: counting stats, and it's just like, yeah, this is great.
21:58
Speaker 3: This is probably above who he really is. But I
22:01
Speaker 3: think he had finally settled into that range where like
22:04
Speaker 3: I was even considered, like, is he a top one
22:08
Speaker 3: hundred hitter the rest of the season, I'm like, I
22:09
Speaker 3: don't quite feel that he is because there's so much
22:11
Speaker 3: injury risk, and then here we go, and so like
22:14
Speaker 3: it's just the story with Byron Buxton. You finally fall
22:18
Speaker 3: in love with it again and he gets hurt. So
22:21
Speaker 3: I both of these guys, I'm I was already steering
22:25
Speaker 3: away from, I'm continue to steer away from. You can't
22:28
Speaker 3: really do anything with them right now. You got to
22:30
Speaker 3: wait for them to come back. Luckily from the concussion.
22:32
Speaker 3: I l like, very very unlikely that there's lingering symptoms.
22:36
Speaker 3: They'll probably be out. My guess is a week to
22:38
Speaker 3: ten days and then they'll slowly work them back in.
22:41
Speaker 3: They'll be up to speed, So it's not like it's
22:43
Speaker 3: gonna be a lingering type of thing. But it just
22:46
Speaker 3: it just goes to show you that, like, just remember,
22:49
Speaker 3: this is who these guys are. Byron Buxton has been
22:53
Speaker 3: the league since twenty fifteen, so we'll just call that
22:57
Speaker 3: ten seasons, not counting this season. How many times has
23:01
Speaker 3: he played more than we'll just do one hundred and
23:06
Speaker 3: five games. How many times more than one hundred and five?
23:11
Speaker 2: None?
23:13
Speaker 3: Once?
23:14
Speaker 2: Okay, one hundred and.
23:15
Speaker 3: Forty games in twenty seventeen with Minnesota. He had one
23:17
Speaker 3: hundred and two last year for Minnesota's why I picked
23:19
Speaker 3: a weird number. I was trying to debate and if
23:23
Speaker 3: I baited you with that, but like, this is a
23:25
Speaker 3: guy that's like a sixty to ninety game a year.
23:28
Speaker 3: That's what That's what it's like like owning a soft
23:31
Speaker 3: side platoon bat type of thing, except for it's just
23:35
Speaker 3: gonna be an injury issue.
23:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just breaks.
23:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it makes a little bit more
23:39
Speaker 1: palatable because he's not getting platooned like when you have him.
23:42
Speaker 1: But you have to always have a backup plan if
23:45
Speaker 1: you were a Rostering Buxton exactly.
23:48
Speaker 2: Okay, let's move.
23:49
Speaker 1: On to a couple of elbow injuries. We've got Houston's
23:53
Speaker 1: Hayden west Nesky going down this week with slated for
23:57
Speaker 1: Tommy John surgery. After that elbow was barking, Probably my fault, honestly,
24:02
Speaker 1: I flagged him for a pickup and then realized that
24:06
Speaker 1: he was kind of actually was. He had started laying
24:09
Speaker 1: off of his slider this year, which I think was
24:11
Speaker 1: an indicator that his elbow was hurting him. Wraps up
24:15
Speaker 1: the season with a four to fifty arra over thirty
24:17
Speaker 1: two innings with the Astros. But before those last couple starts,
24:21
Speaker 1: he was looking relatively sharp in that rotation and was
24:26
Speaker 1: a great strikeout source had really reeled in the rock
24:29
Speaker 1: the walks put up only a one point seven walk
24:32
Speaker 1: per nine. The other one not fully confirmed, but honestly
24:36
Speaker 1: we had reported on this, like when it came out
24:38
Speaker 1: before the season, Jared Jones and Pittsburgh going back to
24:42
Speaker 1: get like the final opinions probably going to go underneath
24:45
Speaker 1: the knife. If you had to own either of these
24:47
Speaker 1: guys to dash away in a dynasty league, which one
24:51
Speaker 1: you picking?
24:51
Speaker 2: And why?
24:53
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, I this is pretty easy call for me,
24:55
Speaker 3: Like I'm picking Jones to toss away in the in
24:59
Speaker 3: the eye off next year and a half two years.
25:02
Speaker 3: I just think he has a much more electric arsenal
25:06
Speaker 3: and I think he has a lot higher upside from
25:08
Speaker 3: a pure strikeout stuff perspective. I think he's be the
25:12
Speaker 3: kind of guy that you're much more excited about coming
25:15
Speaker 3: back from Tommy John Or was Newski a little bit
25:18
Speaker 3: more finesse around the edges, which I think takes more
25:21
Speaker 3: time to come back from that type of injury. So,
25:25
Speaker 3: you know, I think we talked about Jones multiple times,
25:27
Speaker 3: like I think we call this like he was gonna
25:29
Speaker 3: follow maybe try to follow the British approach, which is
25:32
Speaker 3: like I don't I'm not really hurt, but I am
25:33
Speaker 3: we'll get a few more starts and then here we are.
25:36
Speaker 3: So I feel like we called this one, you know,
25:38
Speaker 3: right on the nose. So I'm more interested in Jones
25:41
Speaker 3: long term. I think he's got the higher upside. Tell
25:44
Speaker 3: me I'm wrong. I know you're wes Newski guy, but
25:46
Speaker 3: can you really really pick him over Jones?
25:48
Speaker 2: No?
25:49
Speaker 1: But I mean I was kind of giving you that
25:52
Speaker 1: that kind of offer because I think it's closer than
25:56
Speaker 1: I would want it to be, just because like the
25:59
Speaker 1: track record for Jones, he really popped up kind of
26:03
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, you know what I mean. And I
26:04
Speaker 1: think a lot of it was because he put in
26:07
Speaker 1: the mechanical tweaks that led to this elbow injury. You
26:10
Speaker 1: also kind of put in the Pirates factor at all
26:12
Speaker 1: that if there's a I have a lot more faith
26:17
Speaker 1: that the Astros with this downtime with west Nesky can
26:20
Speaker 1: get him back on the right track and actually maybe
26:23
Speaker 1: put him back.
26:23
Speaker 2: On the field.
26:24
Speaker 1: But before the end of twenty twenty six where not
26:27
Speaker 1: as confident that the Pirates can do that With Jared Jones.
26:30
Speaker 1: It's more of like a shout out to say, like, hey,
26:32
Speaker 1: Wesnsky is actually not a terrible stash. I think in
26:36
Speaker 1: a dynasty situation where you've got a very large, you know,
26:40
Speaker 1: IL or sixty day ils are free like an autne
26:44
Speaker 1: where you're just kind of looking for something in the future.
26:47
Speaker 1: I liked what Wesnsky flashed before he went down with
26:49
Speaker 1: this injury.
26:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a good call. Like from a
26:53
Speaker 3: dinas leeperspective, that's the kind of guy that's going to
26:55
Speaker 3: get forgotten that well pretty quickly. Yeah, and so you
26:58
Speaker 3: know it's going to be a low call adventure there.
27:01
Speaker 3: I think Joe's is gonna hold a lot more value.
27:03
Speaker 3: And honestly, I think he has little Paul Skein's value
27:08
Speaker 3: rubof to a degree, like it was just Jones and
27:10
Speaker 3: that rotation, I don't think his value would be as high.
27:13
Speaker 3: And when we sit next to Skeens are like, well,
27:15
Speaker 3: look what he could become. Like I think there's a
27:17
Speaker 3: little bit of that in people's minds, which is not
27:20
Speaker 3: fair Jones, but that's reality.
27:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that's I think you've hit it. Okay,
27:25
Speaker 1: we're gonna bounce again back to Minnesota. I really should
27:29
Speaker 1: have stacked this a lot better, but that didn't have
27:31
Speaker 1: as much editorial Time recording on Tuesday here to talk
27:36
Speaker 1: about our boy, Zebbie Matthews getting called up right hander
27:39
Speaker 1: for the Minnesota Twins. The debut was not great in
27:43
Speaker 1: terms of he only went three innings, gave up four runs,
27:46
Speaker 1: three walks, which is super unchara characteristic for him. But
27:51
Speaker 1: if anything, that also shows to me that he was
27:53
Speaker 1: battling some nerves because he punched out five and also
27:59
Speaker 1: I don't think he allowed an extra base hit. It
28:01
Speaker 1: was all singles, you know, the few walks and so
28:04
Speaker 1: just kind of one of those situations where you get
28:08
Speaker 1: deep into a start and you kind of can't unbear yourself.
28:11
Speaker 1: But I liked what Matthews showed should stick in that
28:14
Speaker 1: rotation in Minnesota for Attle. While anything in that outing
28:19
Speaker 1: that really kind of has you worried or what do
28:21
Speaker 1: you do kind of with these like one off outings
28:24
Speaker 1: to try to do you write them off the way
28:27
Speaker 1: I just did, or do you actually try to find
28:29
Speaker 1: some nugget in there to maybe make you anxious about
28:33
Speaker 1: what Matthews could be?
28:35
Speaker 3: Well? Yes, both like it. It's one thing, it's one start.
28:41
Speaker 3: You know. The only reason I say both is because
28:44
Speaker 3: I had a little concern last year with just watching
28:47
Speaker 3: him in the majors, was you know, he is such
28:51
Speaker 3: a fastball heavy pitcher and he is such good at
28:55
Speaker 3: being around the zone. It's like, is for a major
28:58
Speaker 3: league hit er, how's that gonna pl when you're just
29:01
Speaker 3: trying to wait and square up a fastball, that's all
29:03
Speaker 3: you're trying to do. And so then he ends up
29:06
Speaker 3: trying to get a little cutesy with it playing around
29:09
Speaker 3: the zone. Then that's where the walks come from. Like
29:11
Speaker 3: that's my only concern here at the end of the day. Like,
29:14
Speaker 3: I still really like the profile what he does from
29:17
Speaker 3: a control perspective that you know, the fastball moves enough,
29:20
Speaker 3: it's not the easiest thing to hit, So I still
29:24
Speaker 3: like the overall arsenal. So I've just got this like
29:26
Speaker 3: little thing in the back of my head, like is
29:28
Speaker 3: it going to translate well enough or is it because
29:31
Speaker 3: he is too fastball heavy? Are players able to sit
29:36
Speaker 3: on that? And because there's better played approach in the
29:39
Speaker 3: majors that this profile can struggle a little bit if
29:43
Speaker 3: you don't have the good enough outpitch, Like that's that's
29:47
Speaker 3: the concern here, But I don't think it's real. That's
29:52
Speaker 3: why I'm speaking on both of my my mouth. I
29:53
Speaker 3: still think he's going to be a really, really decent pitcher.
29:57
Speaker 3: I still look at his teammate like a Bailey Ober
29:58
Speaker 3: who's not like top here but just very valuable, throws hard.
30:04
Speaker 3: Is gonna, you know, go deep into games once they
30:06
Speaker 3: give him a chance to. I think he's gonna be
30:08
Speaker 3: a workhorse. I think he's gonna help your help your whip.
30:12
Speaker 3: I think should be striking guys out at a pretty
30:15
Speaker 3: high clip, give them time, let unbe comfortable. That's really
30:18
Speaker 3: what he needs.
30:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's all very fair. The one
30:22
Speaker 1: thing that maybe gives me a little more pause is,
30:24
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the just the heat maps of
30:28
Speaker 1: where he was putting that fastball. It is up in
30:31
Speaker 1: that kind of like shadow zone where I've talked about
30:33
Speaker 1: where people have been struggling, and especially I think that
30:37
Speaker 1: the good thing with ZEBI he's got enough of accuracy
30:40
Speaker 1: that I think he can refine where that zone is.
30:42
Speaker 1: But I think especially if you're making that jump from
30:45
Speaker 1: triple A where there is abs in place, and honestly,
30:50
Speaker 1: I think there's probably so full abs in some of
30:52
Speaker 1: those games, and so like making that jump to where
30:56
Speaker 1: like you can pound that part of the zone, and
30:58
Speaker 1: maybe you can't do that, Majors might be a little
31:01
Speaker 1: bit of the adjustment, but I'm on board with you
31:04
Speaker 1: that he's also I mean, he's got a five pitch mix,
31:07
Speaker 1: and when you are in the situation that he was
31:10
Speaker 1: during this start, where you're just scrambling from the get
31:13
Speaker 1: go and trying to stay inside the zone, you don't
31:17
Speaker 1: get the couple times to the order to flash the
31:20
Speaker 1: full arsenal. So he relied a lot more on that
31:23
Speaker 1: fastball and cutter than I think he will when he
31:26
Speaker 1: starts getting second and third time into the orders.
31:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll be interesting because he did throw sixty percent
31:32
Speaker 3: fastballs in this in this outing, but I feel like
31:35
Speaker 3: that's because of I mean, he was having command issues
31:39
Speaker 3: to start with, and so he couldn't go through that arsenal.
31:41
Speaker 3: So give him another two to three starts before any
31:44
Speaker 3: red flags really start to be considered.
31:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's really fair. Okay.
31:49
Speaker 1: Another call up that we've had is Matt Shaw coming
31:51
Speaker 1: back up in Chicago after he went down with the
31:56
Speaker 1: brutal start that he had to the beginning of the
31:58
Speaker 1: season one seven to nine four two forty one slash
32:02
Speaker 1: line over sixty eight played appearances with a very un
32:05
Speaker 1: characteristic twenty six and a half percent k rate. Went
32:09
Speaker 1: back down to Triple A, worked on a few things,
32:12
Speaker 1: and especially sounds like the big thing they had to
32:14
Speaker 1: work on. Uh Sahadi Sharma from the Athletic had a
32:18
Speaker 1: piece on this that Shaw has always had like a
32:21
Speaker 1: weird played approach where he's kind of twisted and he
32:24
Speaker 1: was always using this ginormous leg kick. They cut it out.
32:28
Speaker 1: Comes back first game back up with the Cubs on yesterday,
32:34
Speaker 1: the Monday of this week, and went two for four
32:37
Speaker 1: with a double, a stolen base, just kind of right
32:40
Speaker 1: back to where we thought Shaw would be. So are
32:44
Speaker 1: you rushing to add Shaw after this tweak, especially given
32:47
Speaker 1: what you saw down in Triple A.
32:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not gonna say rushing, but I'm definitely very intrigued.
32:54
Speaker 3: I always am intrigued by a player that recognizes the
32:58
Speaker 3: need to make an adjustment, especially young, and makes the
33:01
Speaker 3: adjustment the restart results starts to come. I mean, he
33:04
Speaker 3: absolutely was just blistering the ball before he got he
33:08
Speaker 3: got called up. In his in his last five games here,
33:13
Speaker 3: he hit a blistering three point fifty three with four homers,
33:18
Speaker 3: six runs, five ribbies, and just seventeen of bats, like
33:23
Speaker 3: he was just blistering the ball, and that kind of
33:26
Speaker 3: reads that he got he was getting comfortables, starting to
33:29
Speaker 3: see it better as timing was getting better, and he's
33:32
Speaker 3: he's a good hitter. We we know that from his
33:34
Speaker 3: time time in the miners. There's not there's a reason
33:36
Speaker 3: he's seen as a solid top prospect, a potential twenty
33:41
Speaker 3: twenty guy or even better. And so if he's just
33:44
Speaker 3: feeling comfortable his played like the issues he was having
33:48
Speaker 3: was he was striking out like crazy the majors. If
33:50
Speaker 3: it's if it was always a timing issue and he
33:53
Speaker 3: addressed it, I'm in, let's do this, let's go.
33:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I think so that.
33:59
Speaker 1: I think if he is out on Waverer wires, he's
34:03
Speaker 1: a great ad. Third base is pretty thin, and especially
34:05
Speaker 1: if he can get those steels going, I think he
34:08
Speaker 1: can be a really great piece down the stretch. So yeah,
34:11
Speaker 1: I'm backing on the Mattshaw experience, especially given that he
34:15
Speaker 1: didn't unravel in triple A. That is like the one
34:18
Speaker 1: like a Kobe Mayo sort of thing or something.
34:20
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, you can see the adjustment curve like
34:22
Speaker 3: you can see he went down and then like you
34:24
Speaker 3: can see, he took there's a there's like a week
34:26
Speaker 3: or two where he just wasn't hitting much and then
34:28
Speaker 3: all of a sudden it came back like which that
34:30
Speaker 3: is absolutely you know, patented tinkering. Uh, you're working on something,
34:34
Speaker 3: trying to figure it out. All right, this is I
34:37
Speaker 3: got this. I'm feeling comfortable. I'm feeling confident, and that's
34:40
Speaker 3: almost half the battles, just feeling good at the plate.
34:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's stick in I I actually got this order. Right,
34:47
Speaker 1: We're gonna stick in Chicago on the North Side to
34:49
Speaker 1: talk about Moist's Biasteros for the second straight week. But
34:52
Speaker 1: he got sent right back down when Ian Happ came
34:55
Speaker 1: off the IL. This was kind of actually one of
34:57
Speaker 1: the things I was a little bit worried about with Biasteros,
35:00
Speaker 1: the way that the Cubs were using him, and especially
35:04
Speaker 1: because they had this dead roster spot that they're using
35:08
Speaker 1: to make Justin Turner like a player coach that he
35:11
Speaker 1: barely plays any when he does, he's absolutely awful, But
35:15
Speaker 1: like that is the spot that if they didn't have Turner,
35:19
Speaker 1: that would be Biasteros's spot. And so I mean I
35:22
Speaker 1: wonder if they have that conversation with Turner or like
35:25
Speaker 1: at some point, like, especially given the Anaal Central is
35:29
Speaker 1: going to be an interesting race I think for the Cubs.
35:31
Speaker 1: So like I intrigued to see what they're gonna do
35:35
Speaker 1: with the push and pull that roster spot where you
35:37
Speaker 1: can't necessarily have a team mascot like justin Turner around
35:42
Speaker 1: unless he's gonna be productive in that spot. And on
35:45
Speaker 1: the same token, like, does this kind of show the
35:49
Speaker 1: Cub's hand in terms of how they view Biasteros's value,
35:53
Speaker 1: where like they had no problem just kind of like
35:56
Speaker 1: jerking him around for five days, sending him from Ioway
36:00
Speaker 1: to make his debut up in Chicago and that sent
36:02
Speaker 1: him right back to Iowa.
36:04
Speaker 2: That do you think that, like.
36:06
Speaker 1: You're a little worried long term with what the Cubs
36:10
Speaker 1: are doing with Biasteros here.
36:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, slightly, And so it it's it's interesting because if
36:19
Speaker 3: you actually kind of you know, look at the notes
36:21
Speaker 3: and what shares that Jed Hoyer said that they were
36:24
Speaker 3: very clear with Biostereos that this was the plan, like
36:27
Speaker 3: we want to bring you up, give you a chance,
36:29
Speaker 3: let you get at exposure, and we're gonna send you
36:31
Speaker 3: back down when we bring a hat back up and
36:34
Speaker 3: then you know your time will come and like pardon me,
36:39
Speaker 3: is like, well great, they're being very clear. They wanted
36:41
Speaker 3: to just try to get some exposure and you know,
36:44
Speaker 3: help him, but then they want him to get clear
36:46
Speaker 3: playing time. That's good. Same time, Like if they knew this,
36:50
Speaker 3: they were given like a week, Like that doesn't feel
36:55
Speaker 3: great that he's like, yeah, this is a core guy
36:57
Speaker 3: for the future and everything like that. It just gave
37:00
Speaker 3: off very very odd vibes. And it'd be I'd be
37:04
Speaker 3: less concerned if he like he was just raking in
37:07
Speaker 3: the majors and they're like this was the plan. We
37:09
Speaker 3: send them down, but like he's gonna keep breaking them.
37:11
Speaker 3: We'll bring it right back up. Like I'd be a
37:13
Speaker 3: little less concerned because he's making the noise. But he didn't,
37:16
Speaker 3: I mean he hit Okay, he didn't. He didn't come out,
37:18
Speaker 3: you know, flying or anything. So I'm a little little
37:21
Speaker 3: more concerned. Maybe it actually pushes like his eta back
37:24
Speaker 3: in the year for in my mind, like it you know, granted,
37:27
Speaker 3: you know he was called up and he gets and down,
37:29
Speaker 3: so duh, but like I almost see that he's more
37:31
Speaker 3: of like a second half, maybe even like August time
37:34
Speaker 3: frame before. I feel like we're gonna see him again
37:36
Speaker 3: if if this was what if if they truly don't
37:39
Speaker 3: make a move and open up a spot, they can't.
37:41
Speaker 3: They can't do this to him all season. That's just
37:44
Speaker 3: gonna kill his development.
37:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, That's exactly where I'm at too, where like it's
37:48
Speaker 1: very clear by Asteris doesn't need to be in Triple
37:51
Speaker 1: A anymore, and so he's twenty one years old. You
37:54
Speaker 1: want to take him to like being a really supreme
37:57
Speaker 1: bat at a premium position. The way to do that
38:00
Speaker 1: is at the major leagues, And I think part of
38:03
Speaker 1: it is like they don't view him as a catcher.
38:06
Speaker 1: He's not tall enough to play first base, and if
38:09
Speaker 1: he's just going to be a DH all the time,
38:11
Speaker 1: I'm also worried from that perspective, because like, if he's
38:15
Speaker 1: used to catching down in Triple A and being involved
38:17
Speaker 1: in the game that way, and you try to make
38:20
Speaker 1: him a DH only in the majors, that is such
38:22
Speaker 1: a different role change that I don't see how he
38:25
Speaker 1: can just perform the same, you know, It's just such
38:29
Speaker 1: a different set of routines, diffarent set of involvement and
38:34
Speaker 1: catcher is like one of those positions too where I
38:36
Speaker 1: think most dudes like would rather die in the catch
38:40
Speaker 1: here than like get pulled off that position. So like,
38:43
Speaker 1: it's very I think interesting to watch as it unfolds here,
38:48
Speaker 1: just because, like I think it'll tell us a lot
38:50
Speaker 1: about where to value by a stereos long term based
38:53
Speaker 1: on how the Cubs.
38:54
Speaker 2: Drik him up and down. Uh that's a phrase I
38:58
Speaker 2: just said over the next few weeks.
39:03
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, last bit of news before we take
39:06
Speaker 1: a little break and get into those droppable bats. We've
39:10
Speaker 1: got Colton Wong retiring. It was official. He had a
39:14
Speaker 1: fantastic career. This is another week of us like lamenting
39:18
Speaker 1: another one of our favorite Cardinals being out of the game.
39:23
Speaker 1: You have to especially look at that twenty nineteen season
39:25
Speaker 1: when he finished twentieth and MVP voting with the gold Glove.
39:28
Speaker 1: Had a just great year when he stole twenty four
39:31
Speaker 1: bases and batted two eighty five in total. Though I'm
39:34
Speaker 1: looking at b ref War put up, is it not
39:39
Speaker 1: easy to see all in one twenty two point nine
39:42
Speaker 1: b ref War two fifty six career hitter, just like
39:45
Speaker 1: a fan favorite through and through because of the big
39:48
Speaker 1: gregarious smile that Wog always had, and he was just
39:52
Speaker 1: always a fun player that I enjoyed watching. Two time
39:55
Speaker 1: Gold Glover Supreme defender. Also a little disappointing maybe compare
40:00
Speaker 1: considering like what the expectations were for him that like
40:04
Speaker 1: he was really heralded as such a supreme bat coming
40:08
Speaker 1: through the system in Saint Louis, that you know, had
40:12
Speaker 1: that pedigree of being a high draft pick, a first
40:15
Speaker 1: round pick for the Cardinals. What words do you have
40:18
Speaker 1: for Colton longest we send him off?
40:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the fly in Hawaiian you know, absolutely love
40:25
Speaker 3: Colton Wong. You know. I the only only way appropriate
40:30
Speaker 3: to do it is like I'm gonna just describe a
40:31
Speaker 3: play to see you and see if you recall, if
40:34
Speaker 3: it's burnt into your memory the way it is of
40:35
Speaker 3: her mind is as much as he had a pensiont
40:38
Speaker 3: for like the clutch Homer that was the absolutely poll
40:42
Speaker 3: shot down the line like he had, he always seemed
40:46
Speaker 3: to come up big in those those moments. He made
40:49
Speaker 3: a play I think it was in twenty nineteen or
40:53
Speaker 3: something like that where he he started one of the
40:55
Speaker 3: most unbelievable double plays I've ever seen where he he
41:00
Speaker 3: tried to. I think it was against the Angels, and
41:03
Speaker 3: he started a backhand where he didn't even actually catch
41:08
Speaker 3: the ball, but he literally kind of shovel past it.
41:11
Speaker 3: He backhanded it, literally shovel past it without even closing
41:16
Speaker 3: the glove to start the double play. And it was
41:19
Speaker 3: one of the coolest plays I ever recall. I don't
41:21
Speaker 3: know if you if you know the one I'm talking about,
41:24
Speaker 3: but all these guys were known for like fielding, tossing
41:28
Speaker 3: with the glove, things like that, and he literally did
41:30
Speaker 3: it all within one moching while in sprint and just
41:32
Speaker 3: kind of like deflected the ball, and it just was
41:36
Speaker 3: an epitome of Colton Wong was he was so supremely
41:39
Speaker 3: confident in his ability to manipulate the ball with the glove,
41:44
Speaker 3: with the with the arm, with whatever it may be.
41:47
Speaker 3: That he was absolutely a fantastic player to watch all
41:52
Speaker 3: over the Diamond and so love Colton Wong. Gonna miss him.
41:57
Speaker 3: I don't know who is going to officially retire of
42:00
Speaker 3: of our past Cardinals next week, Matt Carpenter or Colton
42:04
Speaker 3: Wong here, I don't know, Maybe Lanceolin's gonna retire again.
42:11
Speaker 2: H Kyle Gibson.
42:13
Speaker 1: Is Kyle Gibson have a special place in your heart
42:15
Speaker 1: now that he's been cutting Baltimore.
42:16
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe it'll be Kyle Gibson. So we've we've gone
42:19
Speaker 3: through quite the quite the listeners. I think Lynn did
42:21
Speaker 3: say he was officially retiring, so.
42:23
Speaker 2: We've covered that like an ago. Yes, I know.
42:25
Speaker 3: It's just like it's just all coming back to me.
42:28
Speaker 3: It's like like I don't know who's left. John Jay
42:32
Speaker 3: is gonna like announce it even though he's coaching. Now
42:34
Speaker 3: he's gonna I'm officially retired if you didn't know.
42:37
Speaker 1: So, yeah, good old late night podcasting. Can't remember our
42:41
Speaker 1: old podcast. No, I can't get in the windows going
42:44
Speaker 1: We're we're, we're fired up. We're ready to go onto these.
42:47
Speaker 2: Drop upall bats.
42:48
Speaker 1: I will Spenser real quick because we'll bring it up
42:51
Speaker 1: probably closer to the release date. Check out the card
42:54
Speaker 1: schedule in the show notes from the releases from Tops,
42:58
Speaker 1: they put twenty twenty four. Tops Inception is on the
43:02
Speaker 1: calendar now for June eighteenth, because you know, there were
43:07
Speaker 1: not enough Paul Skins rookie cards in the market, so
43:09
Speaker 1: TOPS had to go back bring Inception back. So it
43:12
Speaker 1: is really funny that, like we had a couple of
43:15
Speaker 1: years ago, a lot of these sets that were retired
43:18
Speaker 1: are coming back as they're realizing, oh hey, people want
43:21
Speaker 1: these La de La Cruz and Paul Skiing's cards and
43:24
Speaker 1: Rookie Sasaki's that Tops is finding those designs and all
43:28
Speaker 1: the cardboard that they need to keep the machine going.
43:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very very interesting. It's like, now, do all
43:33
Speaker 3: these players have this spent up to mian of the
43:35
Speaker 3: last year's all of a sudden have Rookie cards Inception.
43:38
Speaker 3: It'll be interesting like it there's just like pump of
43:40
Speaker 3: the product.
43:41
Speaker 1: So well se yeah they are no, yeah, I mean
43:43
Speaker 1: it is Skeens is in the Rookies and so like
43:46
Speaker 1: so are all the Jackson's Holiday cheerio and merrill And
43:52
Speaker 1: feels like a.
43:52
Speaker 2: Cheating a little bit. Yeah.
43:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's Tops though whatever.
43:57
Speaker 1: And I mean it's a gorgeous looking set in the
43:59
Speaker 1: promo shots I've seen so far. But like I said,
44:02
Speaker 1: I will probably do a little bit more in depth
44:04
Speaker 1: when we get closer to it, just because I'm interesting
44:07
Speaker 1: to see where the price settles on Inception this year,
44:09
Speaker 1: because it has gotten pricey for what it is, and
44:14
Speaker 1: we can maybe go on to that platform a little
44:17
Speaker 1: bit when we get to the release date. But with
44:20
Speaker 1: that we're going to take a short break. We will
44:22
Speaker 1: be back to talk about bats that you might be
44:25
Speaker 1: looking to cutting those leagues out there, So stick around,
44:44
Speaker 1: Oh right, welcome back everybody. We are going to get
44:46
Speaker 1: into discussion on some bats that we are going to
44:50
Speaker 1: be moving on from in our FAMAS leagues, just because
44:53
Speaker 1: things look pretty dire at this point. We are talking
44:56
Speaker 1: on May twentieth, we're roughly almost two hundred played appearances
45:00
Speaker 1: in for some players, especially if you're at the top
45:02
Speaker 1: of the lineup playing every day, so you're looking at
45:05
Speaker 1: a pretty substantial sample size out there that you know
45:09
Speaker 1: these guys are what they are at this point, and
45:13
Speaker 1: likely you know they've had enough time to have some
45:16
Speaker 1: hot and cold streaks to start this season. I mean,
45:19
Speaker 1: obviously one of the caveats would be like if we
45:21
Speaker 1: did this last year at au Heno Suarez, but like
45:24
Speaker 1: that's a one in a thousand type of shots. So
45:27
Speaker 1: especially you're getting pretty late into leagues, need to make
45:31
Speaker 1: some moves up those standings. These guys have been all
45:35
Speaker 1: very negative in the player Raider on rass ball just
45:38
Speaker 1: the standard twelve team five y five player raider. I
45:42
Speaker 1: think most of these guys were double digit negative and
45:45
Speaker 1: honestly all of them were probably top eight round picks
45:50
Speaker 1: in terms of certainly top one hundred. Maybe a few
45:55
Speaker 1: fell into like the one to twenties, but had to
45:58
Speaker 1: invest significant draft capital. This is probably the point in
46:00
Speaker 1: the season where I'm finally suggesting to move on from
46:03
Speaker 1: these players because you've seen so much as opposed to
46:07
Speaker 1: I try to wait it out. When you're kind of
46:10
Speaker 1: dealing with a top ten draft pick, you know you
46:14
Speaker 1: can always cut the back end and kind of move
46:16
Speaker 1: on and shuttle through those players. But what's your kind
46:18
Speaker 1: of strategy is this? Are you did you already jettison
46:21
Speaker 1: these players long ago? Are you maybe a little even
46:25
Speaker 1: more conservative where you're still kind of giving these guys
46:28
Speaker 1: a shot just given the draft capital you invested in them.
46:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a really delicate balance. Like I think
46:34
Speaker 3: it's I'm doing a little both. Like some of these guys,
46:38
Speaker 3: I've owned a little too many of these guys didn't
46:41
Speaker 3: go as playing this season. I've definitely cut a few
46:45
Speaker 3: of these guys in the league you mentioned earlier, are
46:48
Speaker 3: new league. I've cut a few of these guys months ago.
46:52
Speaker 3: I'm almost a month ago, and some of them picked
46:55
Speaker 3: up as well. But that's where I think. On the
46:58
Speaker 3: other side is that I think there are a few
47:00
Speaker 3: of these guys that I'm willing to pick up if
47:03
Speaker 3: they are cut, if I'm not relying on them, like
47:06
Speaker 3: and so we'll get into them. But I think there's
47:09
Speaker 3: a few of these guys that I see a glimmer
47:11
Speaker 3: of hope there and if they can correct the one
47:13
Speaker 3: thing that's an issue, then I can see them coming back.
47:15
Speaker 3: Where there's a few of these guys where I'm like,
47:17
Speaker 3: there's not a clear issue, like they're just off and
47:21
Speaker 3: like the profile. When this profile gets off, it's real off.
47:24
Speaker 3: And so I think there's a little bit of both
47:27
Speaker 3: sides of that there. From a pure draft capal perspective,
47:30
Speaker 3: you've lost.
47:30
Speaker 2: At this point.
47:31
Speaker 3: So if somebody's willing to trade for them and you know,
47:35
Speaker 3: sell on you know, dimes for dimes on a dollar.
47:38
Speaker 3: But if if they're getting cut, there's a few I'm willing.
47:41
Speaker 2: To pick up. Yeah, I think that's fair.
47:43
Speaker 1: Okay, Well let's get into these names, because I figured
47:45
Speaker 1: this would also be right up your alley as the
47:47
Speaker 1: top one hundred hitter writer at bras Ball, You've written
47:50
Speaker 1: about all these guys probably plenty over the past few years.
47:53
Speaker 1: So first one we have right off the bat is
47:56
Speaker 1: Marcus Simeon's second basement for the Texas Rangers.
48:00
Speaker 2: It's rough.
48:02
Speaker 1: This's a one seventy four two sixty seven, two thirty
48:06
Speaker 1: four slash line. That's a forty eight WRC. Plus he's
48:10
Speaker 1: still playing every day. He's got forty seven games played,
48:13
Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety one played appearances because the defense
48:16
Speaker 1: has been superb. But you you've got all the indicators
48:21
Speaker 1: underneath the hood that I think are going the wrong way.
48:23
Speaker 1: For Simeon, He's got a K percentage that has spiked
48:27
Speaker 1: to twenty two and a half. He's barrel rate, his
48:31
Speaker 1: hard hit rate, actually the barrel rates a little bit up,
48:35
Speaker 1: but the hard hit rate is right kind of where
48:37
Speaker 1: it has been. The most concerning thing for me here
48:40
Speaker 1: is the swinging strike rate has spiked to a high
48:45
Speaker 1: that hasn't happened since his rookie year. And that's just
48:48
Speaker 1: the way that player careers work.
48:51
Speaker 2: Like I said, Marcus.
48:52
Speaker 3: Simian's thirty four years old.
48:54
Speaker 1: I think you're starting to see that k rate spike,
48:56
Speaker 1: the swinging strike rate spike, because he can't catch up
49:00
Speaker 1: to a fastball anymore, and so what he's doing is
49:03
Speaker 1: he's cheating, and so things start falling apart pretty quickly
49:07
Speaker 1: from there. Honestly, he hurts you so much because he
49:12
Speaker 1: plays so much that that batting average is just grinding
49:15
Speaker 1: you into a dust. If you are still rostering him
49:18
Speaker 1: in a proto league, is it time to cut Marcus
49:22
Speaker 1: Simeon for you?
49:23
Speaker 3: So this is one of those guys that falls into
49:25
Speaker 3: that category for me of yeah, I'm fine cutting him,
49:28
Speaker 3: but I'm also very fine adding to my bench to
49:32
Speaker 3: write it out because everything you said is true, but
49:36
Speaker 3: it's all directly and one specific spot in his profile.
49:40
Speaker 3: His bats speed has never been good, so he's never
49:43
Speaker 3: been the fastest guy. He's never kept with the fastball.
49:45
Speaker 3: What he's struggled with is that, like if you look
49:48
Speaker 3: at it from a chase perspective, with perspective, he's having
49:51
Speaker 3: no problem at all. If the ball's in the zone,
49:54
Speaker 3: he's actually not chasing a ton more than he has.
49:57
Speaker 3: But when he's swinging outside the zone. Always been a
50:00
Speaker 3: guy that's made decent contact out of that and he
50:03
Speaker 3: is missing completely. He can't make any contact outside the zone,
50:07
Speaker 3: which is just baffling. League average for Chase contact rate
50:11
Speaker 3: is about fifty eight percent, and he's always been right
50:14
Speaker 3: there or slightly above. He's at forty one percent this year.
50:17
Speaker 3: It's drastic, and that's completely driving all the other all
50:21
Speaker 3: the other metrics, and so not that I know that
50:24
Speaker 3: how he's going to solve it, but it's very very
50:27
Speaker 3: clearly one thing. And when that one thing is driving
50:31
Speaker 3: all your other metrics, then if you can fix it,
50:35
Speaker 3: everything comes back. And so that's why I'm a little
50:38
Speaker 3: bit more willing with Simeon because I can see specifically
50:40
Speaker 3: what's going on, and if you look at all the
50:42
Speaker 3: other things like profiles, if you look at a Savant page,
50:44
Speaker 3: you're like, what the heck would you have ever invest
50:46
Speaker 3: in this guy? Then you go back in his history
50:48
Speaker 3: and he's like, he's always hit the same exit laws,
50:51
Speaker 3: he's always had these bats, piece he's always been this guy.
50:54
Speaker 3: It's just that he was making more contact, he wasn't
50:57
Speaker 3: striking out as much, and he was getting on base
50:59
Speaker 3: and in his speed plays and like all these other
51:02
Speaker 3: things just kind of came came through it. So for
51:04
Speaker 3: some reason, he's having trouble out of his zone and
51:08
Speaker 3: I don't know what that is. Maybe it's like as
51:12
Speaker 3: he's advanced in age, he's having trouble, but like the
51:14
Speaker 3: bat speed's not any different, so I can't explain it.
51:17
Speaker 3: But that's why I'm willing to, Like I cut him sure,
51:20
Speaker 3: like I've got him in a leak. Yeah, I got
51:22
Speaker 3: him in a month ago in a league, like because
51:24
Speaker 3: we know Simeon is a roller coaster of a player,
51:27
Speaker 3: but because he's that roller coaster, he's been bad before
51:30
Speaker 3: and he's come back, Like I can see it. I
51:32
Speaker 3: absolutely could see him like Picks the All Star break
51:36
Speaker 3: off all of a sudden, he kind of readjust figure
51:38
Speaker 3: out what's going on and he's off for the races.
51:40
Speaker 3: So I'm willing to sign up for that if it's
51:43
Speaker 3: my bench spot.
51:44
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I think I think that's fair. I mean
51:47
Speaker 1: I think if you want to look like for a
51:49
Speaker 1: reason to roster him, like if he just kind of
51:51
Speaker 1: lingers out there, I would say, watch that strikeout rate,
51:54
Speaker 1: like watch how he's doing, because you can also see
51:57
Speaker 1: the first strike rate is up like four ticks as well.
52:01
Speaker 1: That also shows you that pitchers aren't afraid of him
52:04
Speaker 1: that they're just kind of piping first strikes in there too.
52:08
Speaker 1: So like there's a lot of really bad indicators. But
52:11
Speaker 1: second base is just also a total black hole that
52:15
Speaker 1: like the back end of the second base pool is
52:18
Speaker 1: so bad that like even with Simeon's I mean, right now,
52:22
Speaker 1: it's not worth it because like you can see it.
52:25
Speaker 1: You know, he's a negative, like ten to fifteen dollars player,
52:29
Speaker 1: but the stolen bases might be intriguing in certain matchups
52:33
Speaker 1: and you can kind of see it that at least
52:35
Speaker 1: with Simeon, it's an easy answer. I think like we've
52:39
Speaker 1: kind of gone through because this next guy, I have
52:42
Speaker 1: no clue. I've dropped him in a couple places that
52:44
Speaker 1: I had him. We're talking about outfielder Anthony Santander from
52:48
Speaker 1: the Toronto Blue Jays who just signed there this year.
52:51
Speaker 1: His savant page matches his jersey colors. It is you
52:55
Speaker 1: thought Marcus Simeon had a bad savant page. Anthony Saintdandir,
52:59
Speaker 1: who came off of a forty four homer season, looks
53:03
Speaker 1: like Alan Trejo, Like it is bad, bad, bad. On
53:07
Speaker 1: top of it all, he is now slashing onet eighty
53:10
Speaker 1: two two sixty four threeh eight with a one twenty
53:14
Speaker 1: six ISO, a twenty four point seven percent k rate
53:18
Speaker 1: over one hundred and seventy eight plate appearances. That all
53:21
Speaker 1: adds up to a sixty four WRC plus a four
53:24
Speaker 1: point three percent barrel rate.
53:26
Speaker 2: That's half of what Marcus Simians is.
53:29
Speaker 1: I've totally moved on from sontender Do you see anything
53:32
Speaker 1: redeeming in this profile? He is much older than he
53:36
Speaker 1: would think. He's already thirty and was kind of a
53:39
Speaker 1: he was a rule five pick, Like he's bounced around
53:42
Speaker 1: a little bit that a lot of these flags I
53:44
Speaker 1: think were there when we saw the signing in Toronto.
53:48
Speaker 1: But is this just a case of the new contract
53:51
Speaker 1: giving him too much pressure or are you just dreadfully
53:55
Speaker 1: worried about Sontendier.
53:58
Speaker 3: I'm worried. I'm very because like we get to the
54:00
Speaker 3: point where, like I can't find one thing that's gone
54:04
Speaker 3: wrong here, Like like I said, Simion, like it's very clear,
54:08
Speaker 3: there's very clear one thing going on that's ben kind
54:11
Speaker 3: of percolating to other numbers in Santander, Like you're like, well,
54:16
Speaker 3: his baby BIPs down, his baby, it's down like nine
54:19
Speaker 3: points compared to last year when he had forty four homers,
54:22
Speaker 3: Like he was like, oh, okay, well that's that's that's
54:24
Speaker 3: not really a big deal. You look at his like
54:26
Speaker 3: plate approach, like, yeah, he's chasing a slightly bit more,
54:29
Speaker 3: he's whiffing slight like, but they're all like these little
54:32
Speaker 3: little slight, slight things to your point, like it's not
54:35
Speaker 3: like all of a sudden, you know, his his you know,
54:38
Speaker 3: swing speed is drastically now. It's down, but not convincingly,
54:44
Speaker 3: Like there's not one thing that jumps out to me.
54:46
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, things are really really different. If anything,
54:50
Speaker 3: he's getting more and more fastballs this year, and that
54:55
Speaker 3: kind of goes to your point, like he gets fastball
54:58
Speaker 3: sixty four percent of the time. That's that's incredible. And
55:02
Speaker 3: last year he only hit two twenty one against fastballs,
55:07
Speaker 3: and you know, his homers hit a lot of them,
55:10
Speaker 3: but he was actually had a lot of homers off
55:11
Speaker 3: the breaking balls, off speed pitches more frequently than the fastballs.
55:16
Speaker 3: And it feels like he's maybe just struggling to pick
55:19
Speaker 3: things up, like maybe is there like a Max Munsey
55:23
Speaker 3: thing here where he needs a new pair of glasses.
55:25
Speaker 3: I don't know, but like that that's what concerns with
55:28
Speaker 3: Santandaero is like there is just across the board, like
55:31
Speaker 3: everything is dropped off, and he was already a massive
55:35
Speaker 3: power without much else bat and like that was already
55:40
Speaker 3: a hard cell but it was working. When you hit
55:43
Speaker 3: mid forties homers now and a worst lineup and not producing, yeah,
55:51
Speaker 3: I just you can't own it. You can't own this.
55:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
55:54
Speaker 1: I mean he has been dealing with a shoulder injury
55:57
Speaker 1: and I think also a hip injury this past week.
55:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's I think like even in like fifteen teamers,
56:04
Speaker 1: you might be able to move on from Santander because
56:06
Speaker 1: like it's gonna start getting to the point too where
56:09
Speaker 1: the Blue Jays have to just make a call on
56:11
Speaker 1: what they're gonna do with him and whether or not
56:14
Speaker 1: he's actually going to be a full time player because
56:17
Speaker 1: like they're right in the hunt for a playoff spot.
56:20
Speaker 1: And but this was so much money into him, so
56:22
Speaker 1: I know it's like it's I you can't cut him
56:26
Speaker 1: or anything because it's so early in the contract, but like, yeah,
56:28
Speaker 1: he might just have to ride the pine.
56:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you look at the free agent market, like
56:33
Speaker 3: he didn't have much of one. I don't. I don't
56:35
Speaker 3: think this was a mystery to a lot of teams
56:37
Speaker 3: that like his profile was very, very rocky. It's far
56:41
Speaker 3: like he has a ton of potential, but like it
56:44
Speaker 3: was on a knife's edge type of thing.
56:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree.
56:48
Speaker 1: Okay, let's move on to our next player, as we've
56:51
Speaker 1: got Salvador Perez, thirty five year old catcher for the
56:54
Speaker 1: Kansas City Royals, who has been another negative player with
56:58
Speaker 1: a two eighteen two four three twenty four slash line
57:02
Speaker 1: that's a fifty seven WRC plus, has only hit two
57:06
Speaker 1: homers for you in the days of maybe trying to
57:10
Speaker 1: shoehorn him into a first base spot on here roster
57:14
Speaker 1: are long over, as he's squarely in catcher territory. But
57:18
Speaker 1: you look at his savant page, still pretty good, good XBA,
57:22
Speaker 1: good ex wOBA, good x slug, good barrel rate, pretty
57:26
Speaker 1: good batspeed, pretty good hard hit rate. So this one,
57:30
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit more torn on what do you
57:31
Speaker 1: see in Salvador Perez's profile right now? Do you think
57:35
Speaker 1: he can turn it around? Or has father time finally
57:37
Speaker 1: come for the thirty five year old?
57:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually wrote about him. I think it was
57:43
Speaker 3: just last week, and a number of catchers that I
57:45
Speaker 3: was actually kind of moving down to the rankings because
57:47
Speaker 3: they just are struggling to kind of produce. And then
57:50
Speaker 3: you have a lot the catcher position, I like has
57:53
Speaker 3: really consolidated. You have a lot more in that murky
57:56
Speaker 3: middle from a catcher position that you know, Joey Bart
58:01
Speaker 3: is not that far off from Salvador Perez anymore. And
58:05
Speaker 3: so I think that's that's really hurt Perez. Where he
58:08
Speaker 3: could play the game, where he could hit like two
58:10
Speaker 3: forty and hit twenty homers, twenty five homers and be
58:13
Speaker 3: actually pretty gout shur and valuable, and now that feels
58:16
Speaker 3: like most catchers can do that. And it like if
58:20
Speaker 3: you just look at kind of his numbers over the
58:23
Speaker 3: last few years, like he had a really good twenty four,
58:26
Speaker 3: but he even had kind of dropped off in twenty three,
58:30
Speaker 3: and it it just it does feel like father time.
58:33
Speaker 3: I it's different, like Santander, you know, fell off a cliff,
58:38
Speaker 3: whereas Perez it feels like it's kind of been gradual.
58:41
Speaker 3: But he had a few kind of luck bump luck
58:43
Speaker 3: bumps here in the in the middle, and you know,
58:48
Speaker 3: he had a strong baby last year I saw the
58:51
Speaker 3: ball fly out of the ballpark a little bit more,
58:53
Speaker 3: and so that that can kind of carry you. He
58:57
Speaker 3: is getting really unlucky this year. Only three percent of
59:00
Speaker 3: his home runs on the fly balls are leaving the ballpark,
59:04
Speaker 3: and his hard hit rates relatively in line with last year.
59:07
Speaker 3: So I don't know that he at this point is
59:11
Speaker 3: truly droppable, but it's it's really hard to live with
59:20
Speaker 3: it with what else is available at catcher, I think
59:23
Speaker 3: is a hard part. Like I think he's gonna have
59:25
Speaker 3: some degree of a bounce back, but the days of
59:30
Speaker 3: him hitting you know, two sixty two seventy busting twenty
59:34
Speaker 3: five thirty home runs, I feel like are passed. And
59:37
Speaker 3: if you're sitting here looking at a two thirty with
59:39
Speaker 3: you know, fifteen to twenty homers, that's probably who he is.
59:41
Speaker 3: But that's in a catcher position. I feel like he's
59:45
Speaker 3: dropped back and others have run up. Yeah, now that's
59:47
Speaker 3: that's He quickly moved from a top five option to
59:51
Speaker 3: a second catcher in a two catcher league option. So yeah, again,
59:56
Speaker 3: not dropping him necessarily, but if there's a hot hand
1:00:01
Speaker 3: out there, I might be willing to stream somebody else
1:00:04
Speaker 3: until he kind of feels to write the ship.
1:00:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think I'm right there with you that
1:00:09
Speaker 1: I think he has kind of slid back in the
1:00:11
Speaker 1: catcher pool where, yeah, in single catcher like twelve team leagues,
1:00:17
Speaker 1: he's probably not viable, Like he probably is just that
1:00:21
Speaker 1: tier below. So I've been writing just about every week
1:00:25
Speaker 1: about Jonaheim. I think I'd rather have Jonah him over
1:00:27
Speaker 1: sal Prez. But he's right there at that like line
1:00:30
Speaker 1: of like do you want to write him or not?
1:00:33
Speaker 1: And then you've also got a factor and I think
1:00:35
Speaker 1: some of this is also it's been pretty cold in
1:00:38
Speaker 1: the Midwest to start the spring, and once it starts
1:00:41
Speaker 1: heating up in Kansas City, I think you'll see a
1:00:43
Speaker 1: little more oomph in his bat.
1:00:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. Like again, there's not a problem with
1:00:47
Speaker 3: owning him at this point. It's just he hasn't produced
1:00:51
Speaker 3: what you want, and it depends on where your expectations are.
1:00:54
Speaker 3: That's what it comes down to, Yeah, and what's available
1:00:57
Speaker 3: to you in that in that free agent pool. So okay,
1:01:00
Speaker 3: let's move on to another catcher who you thought that
1:01:03
Speaker 3: was bad for sal Perez. Let's talk Adlie Rutchman here,
1:01:07
Speaker 3: because this is a lot of like what has collapsed
1:01:11
Speaker 3: in Baltimore too, is like you know, Gunnery, obviously he's
1:01:15
Speaker 3: been working his way back from the oblique injury, so
1:01:18
Speaker 3: you can give him a.
1:01:18
Speaker 2: Little bit of a pass.
1:01:19
Speaker 1: Jackson Holliday, we always kind of were worried whether or
1:01:23
Speaker 1: not he had enough kind of power in that bat
1:01:27
Speaker 1: on contact to play in games just because of his
1:01:30
Speaker 1: overall size. I don't think there was ever really any
1:01:33
Speaker 1: worries about Adlie Richmond just kind of being the next
1:01:37
Speaker 1: almost Sal Perez in Baltimore, to be just a franchise cornerstone.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: But at this point it's starting to really unravel since
1:01:46
Speaker 1: he suffered like a hand injury. It's always been mysterious
1:01:50
Speaker 1: what happened. There was like a foul tipball late in
1:01:53
Speaker 1: June of last year. Here is Adlei Richman's line since
1:01:57
Speaker 1: the beginning of July last year. Because I think you're
1:02:00
Speaker 1: gonna this is grody eighty six three h six slash
1:02:07
Speaker 1: line over four hundred and fifty five played appearances. That's
1:02:10
Speaker 1: a seventy three WRC plus.
1:02:13
Speaker 2: That is awful. That is like, I mean, you're looking
1:02:17
Speaker 2: at that.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: I don't even know where that be on the player
1:02:21
Speaker 1: Raider that's not even an ownable in like a fifteen
1:02:24
Speaker 1: team league, certainly not in a twelve team two catcher league.
1:02:29
Speaker 1: What is going on with Adleie Rutchman? Because lots of
1:02:32
Speaker 1: people out there have huge dynasty shares wrapped up in him.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: What on earth do you do with this type of
1:02:38
Speaker 1: player who just has totally fallen apart this This.
1:02:42
Speaker 3: Is honestly the hardest one of anybody that we're gonna
1:02:46
Speaker 3: talk about, because I don't understand what's happening. Like, if
1:02:53
Speaker 3: you look at the underlying metrics, they actually look decent.
1:02:57
Speaker 3: They look good to a degree, Like he has the
1:03:00
Speaker 3: best hard hit rate of his career. He's you know,
1:03:06
Speaker 3: he hasn't had like a big jump in his strikeouts. Yeah,
1:03:08
Speaker 3: babep has killed him. This year's two twenty eight babup
1:03:11
Speaker 3: against a career two eighty three, and so that's definitely
1:03:13
Speaker 3: holding his average down. His ex batting average this year
1:03:17
Speaker 3: is actually two seventy two, and so, like, honestly, I
1:03:22
Speaker 3: think there's a degree of this which is bad luck
1:03:25
Speaker 3: and then the Orioles being so kind of dysfunctional that's
1:03:29
Speaker 3: dragging them down, plus overly ambitious expectations, Like I feel
1:03:34
Speaker 3: like there's all these things coming because I actually look,
1:03:36
Speaker 3: he's done this year and you projected out because more
1:03:40
Speaker 3: or less, you can multiply all his stats by four
1:03:42
Speaker 3: for a full season. Not quite but you know, bear
1:03:46
Speaker 3: with me. It's late on a Tuesday night here. But
1:03:49
Speaker 3: but like, if you just take his homers, he's at
1:03:51
Speaker 3: four of them so far, multiply by four, you know,
1:03:54
Speaker 3: which was just round down fifteen homers. His runs, you know,
1:03:59
Speaker 3: he's being mid seventies. RBI is definitely definitely low. But
1:04:03
Speaker 3: I blend out on the orioles his average if we'd
1:04:06
Speaker 3: use his XBA, it's two seventy two. Like I look
1:04:09
Speaker 3: at that and be like, Okay, that's kind of what
1:04:11
Speaker 3: he did last season, which was a little down, which
1:04:13
Speaker 3: was kind of what he did the season before.
1:04:15
Speaker 2: Like it's.
1:04:17
Speaker 3: We're our expectations too high for Adley? Is that really
1:04:21
Speaker 3: what the problem is? Year? And so when he's doing
1:04:24
Speaker 3: a when he's had a little bad luck, it's actually
1:04:27
Speaker 3: hurting him because even though his savant page, you kind
1:04:29
Speaker 3: of just go through the years like, yeah, when he
1:04:33
Speaker 3: his twenty twenty three season looked fantastic and kind of
1:04:36
Speaker 3: drove a lot of the hype, but it's not that
1:04:40
Speaker 3: much worse this year either, So I'm really struggling with
1:04:42
Speaker 3: Adelie's Like, I think, at the end of the day,
1:04:45
Speaker 3: it's not that Adlie's doing terribly bad. He's got some
1:04:48
Speaker 3: bad luck going on right now. But maybe Adlie's just
1:04:51
Speaker 3: a slightly above average catcher from a hitting perspective.
1:04:55
Speaker 2: I think that might be.
1:04:56
Speaker 3: Honestly, what's happening here.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's that, And I think the Orioles
1:05:02
Speaker 1: rode him into the ground in twenty three and twenty
1:05:04
Speaker 1: four then to give six hundred and eighty seven and
1:05:08
Speaker 1: six hundred and thirty eight plead appearances. Although be it
1:05:11
Speaker 1: like somewhere at first base in DH that much playing
1:05:14
Speaker 1: volume for your franchise catcher that doesn't usually turn out
1:05:18
Speaker 1: terribly well, Like it takes a very very elite player
1:05:22
Speaker 1: to overcome that type of grind, and especially given I
1:05:27
Speaker 1: think you're also just seeing what happens why you don't
1:05:31
Speaker 1: invest in catchers very much for Dynasty fantasy purposes because
1:05:36
Speaker 1: it can unravel so fast and it doesn't take very
1:05:40
Speaker 1: much more than whatever the mysterious hand injury is or
1:05:44
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe there's even like a concussion kind of
1:05:46
Speaker 1: worked in there somewhere or especially we were just talking about,
1:05:51
Speaker 1: you know, catchers being really tough to like take that
1:05:54
Speaker 1: gear away from them. He might be hiding something else
1:05:58
Speaker 1: that I am very worried about Adli because, like I
1:06:03
Speaker 1: just also don't think there's much you can do with
1:06:05
Speaker 1: him if you're in a dynasty situation, like who's gonna
1:06:07
Speaker 1: be buying him? At this point, he's twenty seven and
1:06:11
Speaker 1: we've already gone over what's wrong in Baltimore, so you're
1:06:15
Speaker 1: kind of stuck with him, unfortunately. And next year I
1:06:18
Speaker 1: think he's gonna be a little more properly valued. But
1:06:22
Speaker 1: there's always going to be an athlete guy I think
1:06:24
Speaker 1: at the draft table and Adley person, sorry, an athlete
1:06:28
Speaker 1: person at the draft table, and they will always bring
1:06:33
Speaker 1: that price up.
1:06:34
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna I'm gonna make a inappropriate comp here.
1:06:38
Speaker 3: It's just is not fair to uh a player. I'm
1:06:40
Speaker 3: gonna camp him too. But do you know what age
1:06:45
Speaker 3: Joe Mauer first started playing first base.
1:06:49
Speaker 2: Twenty nine twenty eight.
1:06:53
Speaker 3: He played a combination of first and catcher for twenty
1:06:57
Speaker 3: eight and twenty nine seasons, and then once he hit
1:07:01
Speaker 3: twenty nine. Once he hit thirty, he was a first
1:07:03
Speaker 3: baseman at least twenty seven. Yeah, to your point about
1:07:08
Speaker 3: running to the ground like this, and if you just
1:07:11
Speaker 3: actually look at the profile of a good plate approach
1:07:15
Speaker 3: catcher that had decent power, but more just like a
1:07:19
Speaker 3: season or two of good power here and there, like,
1:07:23
Speaker 3: that's kind of who Joe Mauer was. He's just sustained
1:07:27
Speaker 3: it better and had a much better average. I know
1:07:31
Speaker 3: it's not a fair comp but like, I think you're
1:07:33
Speaker 3: onto something here of like that that kept that position
1:07:37
Speaker 3: for as wonderful as that as badly is, I think
1:07:41
Speaker 3: that the demands of that is actually really really hurting
1:07:44
Speaker 3: him because it's hard to argue to have him as
1:07:46
Speaker 3: like a full time first baseman right now with what
1:07:49
Speaker 3: he's doing, which is what you might have to do
1:07:51
Speaker 3: to get the most out of him. So it's an
1:07:53
Speaker 3: interesting dilemma. I'm still again, it's I still think he's
1:07:56
Speaker 3: young enough. I still think here's enough upside. The underlying
1:07:59
Speaker 3: metrics are still exciting enough. I'm not like casting them off.
1:08:01
Speaker 3: I'm not selling them for pennies on the dollar. I'm
1:08:04
Speaker 3: but I'm concerned. I'm concerned with him if somebody else
1:08:07
Speaker 3: has cast him off, I'm willing to try to take
1:08:09
Speaker 3: take the bait for a little bit and see what happens,
1:08:11
Speaker 3: because you know he's not he's one of those guys
1:08:14
Speaker 3: on this list. If we're talking about him in like
1:08:17
Speaker 3: two months and he's hit fifteen homers and you know,
1:08:21
Speaker 3: hit three ninety in that time period, I'm not like
1:08:23
Speaker 3: terribly shocked. I'd be very surprised, but like, I'm not
1:08:27
Speaker 3: terribly shocked because I think there, I really do think
1:08:31
Speaker 3: he's one of the purest bats in the league. I
1:08:34
Speaker 3: just don't I think to your point, he's kind of
1:08:36
Speaker 3: ground down a little bit and now he's run into
1:08:38
Speaker 3: bad luck and it's really really hurt him.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you in ten team twelve team
1:08:45
Speaker 1: leagues with one catcher? Like he's not even been close
1:08:49
Speaker 1: to usable. So are you cutting him in leagues like.
1:08:53
Speaker 3: That if it's a redraft situation, I don't think I
1:08:59
Speaker 3: am you know what I was able to pick up.
1:09:01
Speaker 3: It's kind of like if I picked up like an
1:09:03
Speaker 3: Augustine Ramirez or Drake Baldwin or Francisco Alvarez, like when
1:09:08
Speaker 3: they were cheap and that was my backup to Adley,
1:09:12
Speaker 3: I'm I'm benching him and then and then trade baiting him.
1:09:17
Speaker 3: Is what I'm trying to do is I'm not fully
1:09:19
Speaker 3: cutting him, but I also I'm I was looking elsewhere.
1:09:24
Speaker 3: I also don't think I'm gonna cut him to bring
1:09:27
Speaker 3: on like I've been using Joey Bart a lot for fun.
1:09:30
Speaker 3: I'm not cutting him for a Joey Bart like I
1:09:33
Speaker 3: think the the there's a trade off of like I
1:09:36
Speaker 3: think Bart might be playing slightly better right now, but
1:09:38
Speaker 3: his ceiling is like slightly above Adley's floor type of thing,
1:09:42
Speaker 3: so it's not It kind of depends the league dynamic
1:09:45
Speaker 3: for sure.
1:09:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I would say, because let me just look
1:09:49
Speaker 1: up one of these players real fast, because I haven't
1:09:52
Speaker 1: had to think about him in a hot minute after
1:09:54
Speaker 1: he kind of rows out of.
1:09:56
Speaker 3: My purview on the waiver wire.
1:09:57
Speaker 1: But here's the top ten catchers right now and our
1:10:01
Speaker 1: player Raider, because I think if you're in a situation
1:10:03
Speaker 1: where if any of these top ten are available, you
1:10:07
Speaker 1: can add them over Adley.
1:10:10
Speaker 2: We're looking at cal Rawley.
1:10:12
Speaker 1: Hunter Goodman, William Contreras, Wilson Contraras, Carson Kelly, which might
1:10:18
Speaker 1: be the most controversial one, but he's looked way better.
1:10:21
Speaker 1: He plays in a really great offense, Shay lang Lears,
1:10:25
Speaker 1: Will Smith, Logan o'hoppy, Yvon Herrera, Austin Wells. That's the
1:10:30
Speaker 1: top ten in our player rader, and I think I
1:10:33
Speaker 1: don't know if Adley can crack that from here on out.
1:10:35
Speaker 1: That Like, if one of those dudes is sitting on
1:10:37
Speaker 1: your waiver wire in a really thin league, I think
1:10:40
Speaker 1: you do have to make that move, and it's gonna hurt,
1:10:43
Speaker 1: but you have to do it.
1:10:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough. If you sort him by war for
1:10:50
Speaker 3: the season, fangrass war, he's the thirtieth catcher, thirtieth hikes catcher,
1:10:56
Speaker 3: but he's two spots behind your boy Jonah him. Yeah,
1:11:00
Speaker 3: So I'm not sure if that's helping any of us, uh,
1:11:02
Speaker 3: six spots behind my Joey Bart comparison. But but you're right,
1:11:07
Speaker 3: like there's there's a lot can we talk about those catchers.
1:11:10
Speaker 3: There's just this big murkhy middle where your Hunter Goodman's,
1:11:13
Speaker 3: your Shay Langaliers, your Miguel Amaya's, your Sean Murphy's, your
1:11:16
Speaker 3: Austin Wells. Like Augustin Ramirez, I think is quickly running
1:11:19
Speaker 3: past that group. There's a lot more in there, and
1:11:24
Speaker 3: so you can't get by with average production. This is
1:11:26
Speaker 3: why we neither you are probably ever owned a heavily
1:11:30
Speaker 3: because what you have to give in at that position
1:11:33
Speaker 3: is just not worth it.
1:11:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, especially in draft season, like a lot of
1:11:37
Speaker 1: these dudes were going later, especially like Austin Wells, Like
1:11:40
Speaker 1: that was a great kind of like midpoint where uh,
1:11:45
Speaker 1: the market I think will come back to like match
1:11:48
Speaker 1: this a little bit next year, but it'll be fascinating
1:11:51
Speaker 1: here for the rest of twenty twenty five. All right,
1:11:53
Speaker 1: let's move on to our next player. We are going
1:11:55
Speaker 1: to talk about centerfielder for the Colorado Rockies, Brenton Doyle,
1:12:00
Speaker 1: who is off to a rough start of the season.
1:12:03
Speaker 1: Two oh four two fifty three twenty slash line. That's
1:12:07
Speaker 1: a forty six WRC plus, pretty much half of the
1:12:10
Speaker 1: WRC plus he had last year it was only a
1:12:12
Speaker 1: ninety seven. Just because it's really funny looking at Rockies'
1:12:16
Speaker 1: stat lines, because like when you do them by way
1:12:21
Speaker 1: to runs created plus and other kind of weighted stats,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: it makes their lines look so awful. So last year
1:12:29
Speaker 1: he put up a twenty three thirty season. That's twenty
1:12:32
Speaker 1: three bombs, thirty stolen bases only four of each so
1:12:35
Speaker 1: far this year, batting not as much in the leadoff
1:12:38
Speaker 1: spot as he was last year because he got to
1:12:40
Speaker 1: six hundred and three played appearances for the Rockies. It
1:12:43
Speaker 1: was just a fantastic season. What are you doing with
1:12:47
Speaker 1: Brenton Doyle in any leagues?
1:12:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm I'm I'm holding Brenton Doyle right now.
1:12:54
Speaker 3: He's got a little rough luck. From a power perspective,
1:12:57
Speaker 3: the speed's still there, which is kind of baffling to
1:13:01
Speaker 3: me that he's not running more. I'm not quite sure
1:13:05
Speaker 3: what's fully driving that he's had some bad luck. From
1:13:10
Speaker 3: the average perspective, his expatan average is actually two fifty three,
1:13:13
Speaker 3: so it looks a lot better. I want to say
1:13:17
Speaker 3: Brenton Doyle was kind of a Laine Thomas type of
1:13:20
Speaker 3: comp here, where like he delivers results slightly better than
1:13:24
Speaker 3: what he he's capable of playing in Colorado, helps and
1:13:29
Speaker 3: things like that. But it's almost like the Rockies of
1:13:32
Speaker 3: like second guessed him or something because like again, like
1:13:36
Speaker 3: he's he's not to your point, necessarily hitting out the
1:13:38
Speaker 3: lead off spot. He's his you know what his sprint
1:13:41
Speaker 3: speed is? Do you have in front of you? If
1:13:42
Speaker 3: not I've been a quizy be if we haven't done
1:13:44
Speaker 3: of those. Okay, well, sprint speed ninety fourth percentile sprint speed,
1:13:48
Speaker 3: Like the guy can absolutely fly and he stole thirty
1:13:52
Speaker 3: bases and thirty five attempts last year. He's four and
1:13:54
Speaker 3: oh this year, like, why are they not giving him
1:13:56
Speaker 3: a chance to run? Like I that's what's baffling to
1:13:59
Speaker 3: me with Doyle. I think he performed above his potential
1:14:03
Speaker 3: last year. I absolutely do. And but if you were
1:14:07
Speaker 3: telling me he was a fifteen twenty bat with middling
1:14:11
Speaker 3: runs RBI production, hitting two fifty, I'll be like, yeah,
1:14:15
Speaker 3: that feels right.
1:14:16
Speaker 2: And he actually just nailed his projections.
1:14:18
Speaker 3: Well, I was looking at projections. That's why I don't
1:14:21
Speaker 3: do that. No, you just know that I don't need
1:14:24
Speaker 3: no sticking projections here. But like that, that's who he is.
1:14:29
Speaker 3: But his lines not matching that. And so, like I said,
1:14:32
Speaker 3: I feel like you can explain the homers a little
1:14:33
Speaker 3: bit with a little flyball bad luck. You know, the
1:14:37
Speaker 3: batting average has Also, his babypit's pretty pretty low right now,
1:14:41
Speaker 3: so that's driving something that So I think things do
1:14:44
Speaker 3: come back to Brenton Doyle. I'm just really perplexed with
1:14:47
Speaker 3: the speed. That's That's the thing that's bothering me, is
1:14:49
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know, Like maybe maybe this fire
1:14:54
Speaker 3: and above Black's gonna help him here what we'll see,
1:14:58
Speaker 3: But I'd like to see him running a little bit more.
1:15:03
Speaker 3: But being a guy that doesn't get on base incredibly well,
1:15:07
Speaker 3: that might also be playing a factor here.
1:15:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's actually a big factor.
1:15:11
Speaker 1: When you have a two fifty on base, that kind
1:15:13
Speaker 1: of limits your steel chances, and the less leadoff hitting
1:15:17
Speaker 1: I think is part of it too. But I mean,
1:15:19
Speaker 1: I think there's a good possibility he could move up,
1:15:22
Speaker 1: although I mean Jordan Beck has looked real comfortable there.
1:15:25
Speaker 1: I mean, but the trade off is then ultimately that
1:15:28
Speaker 1: you get more RBIs out of Doyle.
1:15:31
Speaker 2: Certainly he's usable at home. When you look at his
1:15:33
Speaker 2: home road splits. All of his homers have come at home,
1:15:37
Speaker 2: I believe.
1:15:37
Speaker 1: Let me look, they have, yes, as well as he's
1:15:42
Speaker 1: split the stolen bases. But he's also in two forty
1:15:44
Speaker 1: one at home with the sixteen RBI, So in any situation,
1:15:50
Speaker 1: he's certainly streamable at home. I think he's still worth owning.
1:15:53
Speaker 1: I'm with you because this is the type of player
1:15:55
Speaker 1: where like volume is part of the game playing center field.
1:16:00
Speaker 1: He also he was on the bereavement list because him
1:16:02
Speaker 1: and his wife lost a child, like at.
1:16:05
Speaker 2: Some point in April, I believe.
1:16:07
Speaker 1: So I think that really sunk him for a couple
1:16:10
Speaker 1: of weeks too, and also might be contributing a little
1:16:13
Speaker 1: bit to the home and away splits in terms of,
1:16:15
Speaker 1: you know, not feeling comfortable on the road. And so yes,
1:16:20
Speaker 1: this is certainly somebody who I would be targeting if
1:16:22
Speaker 1: somebody is dangling him in a league, because nobody's coming
1:16:26
Speaker 1: for Breton Doyle's job in center field in Colorado, and
1:16:29
Speaker 1: you just kind of have to hope that the magic
1:16:31
Speaker 1: of Coruis field can help him turn around a season. Okay,
1:16:37
Speaker 1: let's move on to our next player who another offseason
1:16:40
Speaker 1: signing another very old player here, which I don't think
1:16:44
Speaker 1: is a coincidence in terms of thirty four year old
1:16:47
Speaker 1: first basement Christian Walker of the Houston Astros struggling to
1:16:50
Speaker 1: a two h two two seventy thix six two seventy
1:16:53
Speaker 1: six three forty seven slash line. That's the seventy nine
1:16:56
Speaker 1: WRC plus five homers, nineteen runs an RBI piece I
1:17:03
Speaker 1: would be moving on if I had him anywhere, especially
1:17:06
Speaker 1: you're looking at that oblique injury that he was battling
1:17:09
Speaker 1: to begin the season.
1:17:11
Speaker 2: This is not a profile that.
1:17:12
Speaker 1: Goes in ages. Well where are you at on Christian Walker?
1:17:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that's fair. Like we talked on
1:17:20
Speaker 3: the off season that he's he's the perfect fit for
1:17:23
Speaker 3: Houston with what he's doing, and like that's where all
1:17:25
Speaker 3: the value that he's provided has come has been just
1:17:28
Speaker 3: using the short porch there and left, but it's come
1:17:32
Speaker 3: with very little else and a lot of things have
1:17:35
Speaker 3: kind of started to drop off with all these guys.
1:17:37
Speaker 3: There's poor luck and things like that coming around. But
1:17:41
Speaker 3: he just does look across the board that he's taken
1:17:43
Speaker 3: a step back, and I think even though like, yeah,
1:17:48
Speaker 3: you compare him to like Doyle, like they don't look
1:17:51
Speaker 3: that different on paper, but Doyle's younger on the upswing,
1:17:54
Speaker 3: and there's definitely a little bit more luck at play there,
1:17:59
Speaker 3: whereas you look at somebody like Walker and you even Santander,
1:18:03
Speaker 3: you go back to him, look at what the market did,
1:18:05
Speaker 3: Like these teams anymore are so analytical, so smart. Yeah,
1:18:10
Speaker 3: Christian Walker didn't have markets. Anthony Santander did not have
1:18:13
Speaker 3: a market and so when all of a sudden they
1:18:16
Speaker 3: go off with these cold starts, I think there's also
1:18:18
Speaker 3: a snowball effect, like they're pressing, they're trying to prove
1:18:21
Speaker 3: that contract, all those things, and so yeah, now again
1:18:26
Speaker 3: I don't feel like he's outright like Jettison's off the
1:18:30
Speaker 3: off of teams at this point. I still think we're
1:18:32
Speaker 3: still early after the season. You can't fully send them off.
1:18:36
Speaker 3: But like if if you're tight for money type for spots,
1:18:40
Speaker 3: like he's definitely in the consideration list. I wouldn't be
1:18:43
Speaker 3: surprised for seeing him get hot because he has always
1:18:45
Speaker 3: been a streaky hitter. But I'm just I'm not find
1:18:48
Speaker 3: like silver lining again. I go back to like Simy
1:18:50
Speaker 3: and what we talked about, like I see what's going
1:18:51
Speaker 3: on here. It's it just looks like regression for the
1:18:55
Speaker 3: most part with Walker here, like not not a good kind.
1:18:58
Speaker 3: It feels like like we're gett and old.
1:19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it looks like the end of a
1:19:03
Speaker 1: career of a thirty four year old, first basement, so
1:19:05
Speaker 1: what it is you can even see it, Like the
1:19:08
Speaker 1: defense isn't there either, So it's like he would have
1:19:11
Speaker 1: thought that the Astros would have learned their lesson with
1:19:13
Speaker 1: Jose A. Bray you in terms of like signing these
1:19:17
Speaker 1: large deals for first basemen that like it was strange.
1:19:22
Speaker 1: I felt like most people were excited about this deal
1:19:25
Speaker 1: when Walker signed with the astrospots like I don't know,
1:19:28
Speaker 1: Like I just don't get it because like he's not somebody,
1:19:33
Speaker 1: especially like when the Yankees passed on him, and like
1:19:36
Speaker 1: we're just like it was very clear that the Yankees
1:19:38
Speaker 1: needed a first baseman and let him go to Houston
1:19:41
Speaker 1: and Jim Crane could do his thing. That like, yeah,
1:19:45
Speaker 1: I am not I think as encouraged about Walker as
1:19:49
Speaker 1: you are. All Right, well, let's save maybe the most
1:19:55
Speaker 1: intriguing conversation for last, because I don't even know where
1:20:01
Speaker 1: to start because this is just like gone so sideways
1:20:03
Speaker 1: and it looks so strange looking at his line. We're
1:20:06
Speaker 1: talking about left fielder Jose Altuve for the Houston Astros
1:20:12
Speaker 1: with a two thirty six two ninety three thirty seven
1:20:16
Speaker 1: slash one. This is seventy nine WRC plus he has
1:20:19
Speaker 1: four homers and three bombs. But it's really kind of
1:20:23
Speaker 1: eating away at you because again, it's a little bit
1:20:25
Speaker 1: like a Simon situation where he's playing so much that
1:20:29
Speaker 1: like the lack of the volume that he's providing is
1:20:33
Speaker 1: eroding your team pretty quickly. I think this is a
1:20:36
Speaker 1: little bit of a case of I still don't understand
1:20:39
Speaker 1: why he got sent out to left field that like
1:20:41
Speaker 1: you're learning that on the play. You also just he's
1:20:44
Speaker 1: thirty five years old. He has the worst Baseball Savant
1:20:48
Speaker 1: page I think I've ever seen in the history of
1:20:50
Speaker 1: Baseball savant right now. So I'm sure you're just being
1:20:54
Speaker 1: being peppered with questions about jose Al TV on the
1:20:57
Speaker 1: top one hundred hitter side.
1:20:58
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts here?
1:21:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one is really confounding because I think, like
1:21:05
Speaker 3: your brief analysis is kind of where I'm at, is
1:21:07
Speaker 3: that I feel like the Astros broke Hotel twove by
1:21:11
Speaker 3: putting him in the outfield, Like and the reason I
1:21:13
Speaker 3: look at it is it is someone like Semeon if
1:21:16
Speaker 3: you look at his profile, Uh, he's on page has
1:21:19
Speaker 3: never been that fantastic, to be honest, but he's doing
1:21:23
Speaker 3: one of those odd things that I've ever seen, which
1:21:26
Speaker 3: is he's not swinging at pitches in the middle of
1:21:28
Speaker 3: the zone. Like if you just like, so you know,
1:21:32
Speaker 3: there's this what they call meatball swing percentage is what
1:21:35
Speaker 3: Savant has out there, and the league average is about
1:21:39
Speaker 3: three every four times you got a meatball, you swing
1:21:42
Speaker 3: at it. Josel two Vey's career has been right about average,
1:21:47
Speaker 3: and he's been anywhere from seventy five eighty percent of
1:21:51
Speaker 3: the time. He's swing at the fifty seven percent of
1:21:54
Speaker 3: the time right now, Like it's and so you look
1:21:57
Speaker 3: at his his like his zone swing rate, it's way down,
1:22:00
Speaker 3: likes down ten points. But his contact rates right on place,
1:22:02
Speaker 3: His chase rates a right on place, His chase contacts
1:22:05
Speaker 3: righting plates. His first pitch swing is realtively in career,
1:22:08
Speaker 3: like all of these things, but he's not swinging it
1:22:11
Speaker 3: good pitches in the middle of the zone. Guess what's
1:22:14
Speaker 3: easiest to hit good pitches in the middle of the zone.
1:22:18
Speaker 3: And so like that's what's really confounded me here is like,
1:22:21
Speaker 3: just like Simeon, it feels very much there's one thing
1:22:25
Speaker 3: he needs to fix that doesn't feel that hard to
1:22:27
Speaker 3: fix that swing back that things like it's definitely a
1:22:32
Speaker 3: mental games as a hitter, but like, think through what
1:22:34
Speaker 3: you're gonna swing at. I think you're onto something here
1:22:37
Speaker 3: that they've just messed with Oseel Tuva and he's so
1:22:40
Speaker 3: out of this element. And as a player, if you're
1:22:42
Speaker 3: not comfortable, things spiral real fast. Because this that that's
1:22:47
Speaker 3: not a choice, that's a I'm not comfortable with the plate.
1:22:51
Speaker 3: It's it's like back to Matt Shaw, like having a
1:22:54
Speaker 3: crazy leg cake or something. It's like I can't figure
1:22:56
Speaker 3: out where I'm at, Like that's what's going on with
1:22:57
Speaker 3: Altuve here, and so it could turn around. That's what's
1:23:01
Speaker 3: so confound you with him is like again, Altwov has
1:23:04
Speaker 3: never been this crazy power guy, even though he's hit
1:23:06
Speaker 3: some good powers. Just that he's made contact use that
1:23:08
Speaker 3: short porch. His steels are down because well guess what,
1:23:12
Speaker 3: just like Doyle, he's not on base, Like those things
1:23:16
Speaker 3: are hurting him. So I'm really confused of why he
1:23:20
Speaker 3: just stops swinging and pitches in the middle zone.
1:23:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he also there's just so many variables he's
1:23:27
Speaker 1: dealing with now. He's he's dealing with the position change.
1:23:30
Speaker 1: He's not hitting lead off, he's hitting third now, which
1:23:33
Speaker 1: he requested because like he needed time to run back
1:23:37
Speaker 1: from the outfield and like get prepared.
1:23:39
Speaker 3: For the at bat and so it's like, I mean,
1:23:41
Speaker 3: I feel about slow hit my Beer League softball I
1:23:43
Speaker 3: feel the same thing.
1:23:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's also how are the Astros also just like,
1:23:48
Speaker 1: oh yeah, okay, that sounds great, Like no big deal,
1:23:51
Speaker 1: We'll just move you down the order and instead of
1:23:52
Speaker 1: like whoa, maybe like we should reconsider what we're doing.
1:23:58
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going I mean yeah, like, but
1:24:00
Speaker 3: I don't feel like he's this guy that ages out,
1:24:02
Speaker 3: like we talk with Walker and some of the other
1:24:04
Speaker 3: guys that like are getting older, Like I feel like
1:24:07
Speaker 3: el Twovea has never had the profile that you were
1:24:09
Speaker 3: worried about that as much, and so like, yeah, it's
1:24:12
Speaker 3: just like again, I feel like the Astros bro cosale
1:24:14
Speaker 3: two fay.
1:24:16
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, this isn't fair to you.
1:24:19
Speaker 1: I mean, I think they're trying to revive him because
1:24:21
Speaker 1: you can see it in the game longs. He's starting
1:24:23
Speaker 1: to play second a little more often than he was
1:24:26
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the year, but he also he
1:24:28
Speaker 1: hasn't hit a homer since April twenty eighth. In that span,
1:24:32
Speaker 1: since April twenty eighth, he's slashed one sixty two, two
1:24:35
Speaker 1: fifty two twenty one over seventy six played appearances, has
1:24:40
Speaker 1: hit only four doubles, and so like it's really gone awry.
1:24:46
Speaker 1: So in shallow leagues, I think, I you can probably
1:24:50
Speaker 1: cut him. But we just talked about how bad second
1:24:52
Speaker 1: base is. That like even that volume still might play
1:24:56
Speaker 1: as a late am I background option and second base,
1:25:01
Speaker 1: but if you've got to move on, I understand.
1:25:04
Speaker 3: Yeah. He when we when we first started talking, there's
1:25:07
Speaker 3: very few guys I'm willing like, I'm willing to kind
1:25:10
Speaker 3: of try to buy low on L two bait here
1:25:11
Speaker 3: because like again I'm looking at him like it feels
1:25:14
Speaker 3: like this is not impossible to fix, and if it
1:25:17
Speaker 3: gets fixed, he's a two eighty two ninety hitter like
1:25:21
Speaker 3: sneaking some balls out of the park because then all
1:25:23
Speaker 3: starting he starts running again, Like I And there's a
1:25:25
Speaker 3: few years ago he had something I feel like similar
1:25:27
Speaker 3: where he just kind of was off and then he
1:25:29
Speaker 3: kind of figured out and got back. So again I'm
1:25:31
Speaker 3: willing to kind of buy on the cheap here. I'm
1:25:33
Speaker 3: not I'm not paying big bucks by any means, but
1:25:38
Speaker 3: I you know, it was twenty twenty where he basically
1:25:41
Speaker 3: was the same player. He was kind of like lost
1:25:46
Speaker 3: in it. I mean truly, look at look at the page,
1:25:49
Speaker 3: look at the spot. It's literally identical, funny and it
1:25:53
Speaker 3: was forty eight games in twenty twenty forty five and
1:25:56
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five five homers, four homers, two steals, three
1:25:58
Speaker 3: steals two nineteen average to thirty six hovergs. Like he
1:26:01
Speaker 3: literally has done this before, and then he has been
1:26:04
Speaker 3: buying for the last four seasons, so like, I he
1:26:06
Speaker 3: can come back from this. Let me look, I look
1:26:09
Speaker 3: at his meat ball swing percentages in twenty twenty. All right,
1:26:14
Speaker 3: well that was different, so there goes that hole.
1:26:16
Speaker 2: Elsa's so.
1:26:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he was also I mean, the babe
1:26:22
Speaker 1: really ate him alive in twenty twenty and it was
1:26:24
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. He was also thirty that like, yeah, I
1:26:28
Speaker 1: think it is one of the last how many years
1:26:30
Speaker 1: does he have left on this contract? He goes through
1:26:33
Speaker 1: twenty twenty nine? What is Houston doing?
1:26:37
Speaker 3: That's a smart organization that quickly became not as smart.
1:26:41
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, well that's going to wrap us up for
1:26:44
Speaker 1: this week here on cards and categories. If you've got
1:26:47
Speaker 1: somebody else that you want us to provide advice on
1:26:50
Speaker 1: on whether or not you should be dropping them from
1:26:52
Speaker 1: your team.
1:26:53
Speaker 2: Reach out to us on the ras ball post.
1:26:56
Speaker 1: You can reach out to the podcast at cards categories
1:27:00
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Also find the podcast on Blue
1:27:03
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1:27:06
Speaker 2: Broove let people know where they can reach you. Yep.
1:27:09
Speaker 3: Find me on socials, Twitter x, Blue Sky, Jabrewer one seven.
1:27:13
Speaker 3: Find me on rasball on weekends on Sundays doing hitter
1:27:16
Speaker 3: profiles top one hitters for the rest of the season.
1:27:19
Speaker 3: COOLi where can people find you?
1:27:20
Speaker 2: Yeah?
1:27:21
Speaker 1: You can also find me on raswell right now on
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Speaker 1: Saturdays doing those waiver Wire columns for you. And you
1:27:28
Speaker 1: can also check out this post too. I will respond
1:27:31
Speaker 1: to anything there. I also post on Reddit too, so
1:27:35
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1:27:41
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1:28:03
Speaker 2: And with that we are going to wrap it up
1:28:04
Speaker 2: for this week.
1:28:05
Speaker 1: We will be back relatively same time, same place next
1:28:09
Speaker 1: week as we get further and further into this paceball season.
1:28:12
Speaker 2: Thanks everybody see it.