transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Today on Rates & Barrels, we discuss a few surprises in the standings and make our picks for teams that can bounce back from really slow starts. And we dig into some surprising April performances, including the resurgence of Jordan Walker. Let's go. Welcome to Rates & Barrels, Thursday, April 23rd. Derek VanRiper, Eno Sarris, and Trevor May here with you. Trevor, I have a question for you right off the jump. Have you ever caught a baseball inside of your jersey at any phase of your life?

Speaker 2:
[00:42] No. Not even, I'm trying to think if I ever even tried to do it on purpose. I don't think I've ever executed that, especially as a pitcher. Usually, I just wore it off the butt. That was always the goal. That was a W for me. The chances that I fielded a ball were almost zero. The only time I ever probably do it cleanly is if I caught it in my jersey, frankly.

Speaker 1:
[01:06] If it just hit you or just went directly into your glove. I saw a few of those, I think I saw one of those as far back, maybe as little league, where someone hit a liner up the middle and just went into the kid's glove and was like, well, it's a good thing it didn't hit him in the face because he didn't move the glove. It just went exactly what we're supposed to do. Happened yesterday, though, to Logan Gilbert. We saw Carlos Cortez smoke a line drive off him in the first inning. It went into his jersey. A little bit of confusion on the field. It's a dead ball as soon as it gets stuck to a player. That's the actual rule. Ump's actually called it correctly. They have to place the runners in that situation. The runners did not, the runner on third did not get home plate. They later scored in the inning, but it was one of those chaotic moments for us watching, where I think some people were like, why isn't that just an out? Like he technically caught it, right? I mean, what was your instinct when you saw that, Eno?

Speaker 3:
[01:56] I know the rule and I know the rule, not because of anything a pitcher has ever done or anything out in the field. I remember this rule because a catcher, and I think it was in a Giants game, a catcher caught a foul tip, but not with his glove. And the rule is, using a cap, mask, pocket, or any other uniform part to secure a ball is invalid and not considered a catch. So that batter was not out because the catcher did not catch the ball. He had sort of jammed it, I think, between two parts of his equipment. You know, he just sort of caught it, but not with his glove. So you have to catch the ball with your glove or your hand. And so I knew that was the rule, but it kind of seems so cool that you almost want to change that rule. I don't know, like keep the ball off the ground. What if that was the rule? Just however you can.

Speaker 1:
[02:55] I'd be out of the world with that.

Speaker 2:
[02:56] Yeah, I always, people ask me about the rule as well. And I just said, it has to be, the discrepancy is like, the ball has to stop in your glove. So you can like, it can go, if it went into his jersey, like went around his body and then flew out of the front and then he caught it, it would have been a catch. But like, if it stops anywhere but in your glove or your hand, something associated with your hands, then it doesn't count. So like, you gotta hope it keeps moving.

Speaker 1:
[03:24] Right. So in the unlikely event that the ball gets hit into a player's jersey, let's imagine yesterday, this line drive goes in Logan Gilbert's jersey. It somehow just like wiggles its way out the bottom, out of different buttonhole gap or down the pant leg somehow. It doesn't seem to be enough room in there, but Logan Gilbert, I don't know man, Trevor you were saying before the show, you need the right type of body shape for this to even be possible, for the jersey to even hang off of your body in a way where there's enough room for the ball to get in there.

Speaker 2:
[03:55] Yeah, there's not very many guys who wear their jerseys that big anymore either. So he's one of the few, probably few guys left, but I don't know what size jersey Logan Gilbert had to wear for it to be snug. Very small, he is a slender guy, that's for sure.

Speaker 1:
[04:12] But if that ball keeps moving and comes back out, then it's a lot of balls. The fact that it just stopped in there, that's what made it a dead ball.

Speaker 2:
[04:19] If it went out of his pants or something or came out of his jersey slowly, they would probably go review it and just make sure they'd have to find if it were in there for a while, for example. That would be hilarious, actually. It would be really, really funny if it were like Michael Pineda because he's the only guy I can think of whose front of his jersey was constantly untucked because there wasn't one big enough. He's the only guy who would have an untucked front of the jersey where it could come out of the front. With him, what would happen if I just watching all the umpires get together and talk to each other about it would be hilarious. I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[04:54] Okay, so I couldn't find the part of the rule that you were talking about, about ending somewhere, but I did find a play where Paul O'Neill is bobbling the ball and then kicks it and he kicks it towards another player who catches it with his glove.

Speaker 2:
[05:13] Well, you've seen outfielders go and knock it over the wall and then it come back down and them catch it and that's an out too, as long as it doesn't touch the wall or anything.

Speaker 3:
[05:22] Yeah, right, you can't touch the wall.

Speaker 2:
[05:23] We see guys in the outfield bobbling all the time. Jacob Young did it last year, like twice.

Speaker 3:
[05:28] That's right, that's right.

Speaker 2:
[05:29] It was crazy, so yeah, there's a lot of crazy ways to do it. Bellinger did it earlier this year. He did it on the same day that Adele robbed the three homers, so no one talked about it, but he made a crazy pop-up, it popped up over his shoulder and then he caught it again running. Yeah, you can do that. You could juggle the whole time and then as long as you end up catching the ball, it's an out.

Speaker 1:
[05:54] I think the other thing to keep in mind with the juggling too is that you can't do that to hold the runners on the base. There's a rule where the runners can begin to advance once the bobbling starts.

Speaker 3:
[06:05] After the first touch, I think they're about to go.

Speaker 1:
[06:08] Yeah, so that's the other part of that. So if you're sitting there at home, hey, maybe I can get my kid to juggle the ball and get extra outs in the middle. It's not going to happen like that, but it looks like Logan Gilbert was okay, albeit a bit shaken up after that and understandably so, because that was a very bizarre and scary situation for him at the start of that game against the A's on Wednesday. I want to ask you guys, did Craig Council have a point earlier this week? He was musing about the Ohtani Rule affording the Dodgers an extra pitcher. Is he right? Like is this actually unfair? Should Ohtani count as a pitcher? And then basically it means that they'd get an extra position player on the roster instead, which leads to some follow up questions.

Speaker 3:
[06:52] Either way, they're going to get some benefit from this because he's a guy that can do both things. And the rule is pretty clear, you know, like you have to do 20 games with three plate appearances, you know, to be considered a two way player. So who, what pitcher out there, like not even Mike Lorenzen, who, you know, there was some thought that he might do some hitting. No, nobody's given 60 plate appearances willingly to a pitcher since we have the University age.

Speaker 1:
[07:20] No, might be a little while before it happens again, but I mean, I was thinking about it, Trevor, just from the perspective of that, that rule, that limit on pitchers is there for a reason. So if anything, if he had to count towards something, it would be for me in my logical brain, like he's had to count as a pitcher and they should get to have one extra bench position player, which I don't know, would it be a defensive center fielder, a speed specialist? Like I don't even know what type of player they would necessarily want to use that on because it's not somebody who'd play a lot, but it's somebody that could provide very situational value.

Speaker 2:
[07:54] Yeah, I think that's just the best way to do it because if you flip it and you say, okay, well, if there's no rule and he has to just establish one and then you have to move things around constantly in order to play him, like that's not feasible. You can't do it, like especially with the option rules and all that, you're just like moving guys back and forth and that's just what no one wants that. So like this is just the best version of the rule to have Shohei Ohtani be able to do both things. And interesting thing about this conversation and I think Council is I think correct in having that be frustrating because you're like we can't, it's something that we just can't take advantage of, no one else can take advantage of because the rules around it are strict enough in order to be able to use it. But at the same time, he's like, he's a smart guy. I know he understands it like, but I also understand like you have to have those strict rules so everyone doesn't just abuse it. So it's like when they're not really using it because if any, they are, Joey Ohtani is a true two-way player. He just is a true one. Like he's providing just as much value or more in both sides than anybody else's and just the one way he's doing it. The big thing for me is it's the 13 pitcher limit that's the problem. Like if we just didn't, if we didn't, which frankly I still hate it and I'm like having flexibility. Pitchers get hurt so much more than everywhere else and that we're going to make that super strict so we can never go more than eight relievers. I was a reliever. Having eight relievers was the minimum number of relievers you could possibly need and it's the maximum you can have. So like the minimum number that any team needs to keep their team healthy is the maximum that you can have. It's silly. We added a position player to the rosters and that's all we did. That's all we do is add things for the position player. So I'm like, the thing that's really making this really egregious, in my opinion, is the fact that there's a maximum number of pitchers.

Speaker 3:
[09:48] Yeah, but the reason we do that is because I think a team would try to figure out how to have 14 or 15 pitchers by having two super utility guys that can play all over. They're almost always on the bench. You know, they would be that. And they would, the more pitchers you have, the more the strikeout rate goes up.

Speaker 2:
[10:12] Yeah, and that's the big thing, right?

Speaker 3:
[10:14] That's what they were trying to combat. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[10:16] And that's the thing. Like I'm always like the trade off here, instead of having like a, before it was like, you know, you just had to have enough players to play. But no one would do that. Like there was no real like, it was just based on like things that you wouldn't strategically want to do. But if having a one flex spot, just one, like the new spots just could be either or, the only reason to not do that is for what Reno just said, because they want more offense. And also, this will never be said publicly, there's another benefit to that. If pitchers are a little tired, they tend to give them more runs too. So like, it's just, it's like, it's too, you're attacking it from both directions. And that's, they're already like, we want pitchers to be tired, but they're like, but it's not the worst thing in the world if more runs are given up. Right. And that is just kind of, it's like a wink, wink. And it's always, it's just been that way ever since we've been changing rules here in the last 10 years. But that's what's making this feel so egregious, is that you don't have that flexibility anymore. And when you don't have that flexibility, you see a team have a measure of what the old flexibility used to be, and it happens to be the team that also has a role that's 500 times bigger than everyone else's. Like it's just, it can get frustrating for guys who are like, I don't know how to compete with this because we can't. But this is the best way to do it within the way the rules are. There's just not a better way to do it.

Speaker 3:
[11:41] I would have a simple thing because I was asked on San Diego regular year today, but would we see another Ohtani going forward? And I said, well, not the way the player development is set up right now, because it's such a sorting process that even a guy like Jack Caglinone, or Jake Cronenworth, guys that have come in as two-way players, they just figure out which one you're better at, and then you end up doing that, and you get selected for that. So, I mean, I would say if you are that upset, the way to do it is to get even, which is to dedicate some portion of your player development process to allowing space for two-way players.

Speaker 1:
[12:17] Trying to think of some other recent examples, I think Peyton Tolley, much like Jack Caglinone, could do both pretty well, but then you think about how that alters the timetable of reaching the big leagues. Maybe you're a year and a half to two years away when you're drafted as a pitcher, but you're three or four away as a hitter. And then that becomes a big problem because you're a liability as a hitter if they're gonna try and use you that way, but I don't know. I think it seems likely that Ohtani, doing what he's done and being as good as he is, is going to open up enough minds at various levels of the game to get us to a point where we at least have a few two-way players in the game, even if none of them are ever going to do both things as well as Shohei has done them. Right? Like that wouldn't be that surprising to me.

Speaker 2:
[13:07] I think there's also one thing to keep in mind with Shohei Ohtani. One, not a draft. So the draft is different, you're making this different calculation in the draft. Two, he's coming from Japan and he was like, he was the second coming over there. The marketing around this guy, like immediately, whatever team got him, they had that value immediately. So now it's worth it. So it's worth it to give it a long time. Then he's also just a freak. So he's doing the things well. It didn't become immediately apparent that he was way better at one than the other either. So it's like a perfect storm of things. But then him coming over, there was negotiation happening anyway, so you can build the negotiation in. When you're drafted, you can't. So you just don't have, you can, but it's not the same way, not even close.

Speaker 3:
[14:00] I think the way they would have to work, I think you set it all up. I think the way they would have to work would be a Bryce Harper situation, but he's a two-way guy and he has all the hype, and so then he uses the hype as leverage. And so he's like, when he does interviews, he's like, I want to be a two-way player. I love showing. I want to be a two-way player. Whoever drafts me, I want to be a two-way player. And makes that his issue. And so that you know when you draft him, you have to give him the chance to be a two-way player. So there has to be somebody who has that same hype, has some leverage, has some way to make the team, let him try that. And has to be, frankly, of high enough value in both that he doesn't fall on his face right away and won. And the team say, oh, all right, well, we gave you a chance. We gave you one year. Now you're a hitter. Now you're a pitcher.

Speaker 2:
[14:45] Well, kids are specializing like when they're 13 and in America.

Speaker 3:
[14:50] Yeah, we have pitcher only in our high school here. You know, Palo Alto High is two or three pitcher only.

Speaker 2:
[14:57] Two or three?

Speaker 3:
[14:58] Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 2:
[14:59] I was a pitcher only my senior year, but that's because I had already signed to college and they're like, you're going to pitch, you're not going to play. I'm like, all right, I also suck at hitting. I get it. I understand. But like that just made sense. But even that was rare. Everyone's like, you're just so good that you're a pitcher only. Like that's and everyone else has to play every position because no one in this league is really doing anything. So but it's weird. You're so good that you specialize that. That's an odd thing. So I don't know if we're going to see many Americans do this moving forward.

Speaker 1:
[15:32] I kind of like it as if you're good enough to continue pursuing it, giving yourself an out in case of significant injury derails one facet of your game. Right? I mean, like you completely blow out a shoulder, it might crater you as a hitter too, depending on how bad the injury is.

Speaker 3:
[15:48] That's not how a young athlete thinks. The young athlete thinks I'm going to be the next Shohei.

Speaker 1:
[15:52] I mean, that's the positive way to think about it anyway. Right? Instead of the, what's the way to raise my floor? What's the way to do the downside in my life?

Speaker 2:
[16:03] I got to think about free agency.

Speaker 1:
[16:06] Yeah. Don't go into it thinking about it like that. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we got some weird stuff happening in the standings and some individual performances that are way off expectations. We'll try to figure out which of those performances, if any, are real going forward. Welcome back to Rates and Barrels, talking about standing surprises here as we get rolling. Trevor, this was an idea you threw at us yesterday. I did not realize the Reds are already plus four Empathagorean wins on the 23rd of April. So, their fast start? Yeah, great, nice, nice fast start. Good job. You were a playoff team last year. Maybe your long-term trajectory is still a nice slight up arrow. You're doing this without your ace.

Speaker 2:
[17:28] The game is big enough samples as where it really starts to smooth out because it's based on your underlying metrics. The interesting thing I thought, I think it was from Lance Brodzowski. He had a graph and I can't remember the statistic he was using to look at or maybe the metrics that he was using to look at overall value pitching and hitting for teams. Teams, how they're performing versus how the record plays out. The team farthest into the quadrant, which was the bottom left, which was the quadrant, was the Reds. At that time, they were 16 and 7. I was like, that's odd. That's when I went and looked and saw that they had four more wins. Basically, they're just scraping by. Each win is independent. If you think about it that way, you can get away with this for a long time. It's just hard to do if you can't count on the means that are getting you those wins, which is the problem. They just so happen to be like when they are not hitting or not putting together good at bats or whatever, they're getting enough pitching to win a game and vice versa, and you just can't count on that. The exact opposite of that is the Mets. The Mets are like, the day they pitch, they can't hit. The day they hit, they can't pitch. And it's, so you get the flip side. So that is, I think the Pythagorean way that these are approached, like tend to kind of, they kind of, it kind of shakes out to be about what the playoff teams are at the end of the year. Maybe one switching because they're so close. But like most of it, it's pretty spot on, pretty spot on at the end of the year. And it's a pretty good indicator. That's one of the main things. I love looking at the standing because there's all this weird stuff now and those extra like runs for runs against that show could give you an idea like, ooh, that record might be... If this happened again, if these two numbers were the same in a different 25 games, this record could become wildly different. And that is the case for the Reds. So, I mean, they did get in last year, right? And you're right, they don't have their ace. And yeah, they could be getting lucky going on little runs enough because there's 12 teams to get in. It could happen, but does this, I wouldn't be confident that they're gonna run away with the vision. There's much stronger, there's other division leaders that have much stronger numbers where they might even be underperforming and they're still in first. Those are the teams that I'm feeling more comfortable with.

Speaker 3:
[20:01] Yeah, I mean, I agree that they're not gonna end up in first, but I do think that there's something interesting about what they've done so far and what they're projected to do. And like I just sort of like look at who's underperforming and who's overperforming. And yes, they've been outscored. The Reds have been outscored by two runs. And so they should quote unquote have a 500 record or maybe even below 500 record. And they're projected to have a below 500 record and end up at 500 at the end of the year and be out of the playoffs. I get all that. But when I look at what they've done, they've scored 3.9 runs a game. And when I look at this offense, I see more guys under performing than over performing. So Sal Stewart is not a true talent, 170 WRC plus guy, but I think he is, we've talked about this yesterday, just I think he is a top five first baseman in the league. So I think he is someone you can count on. Ellie is somebody who can count on. We talked about how I think Matt McClain is going to be better going forward. Spencer Steers below average right now. I think he is at least an average hitter. Eugenio Suarez has an 83 WRC plus right now. I think he is better than that. Tyler Stephenson has a 55 WRC plus. I think he is better than that. I think that Cabrion Hayes has a minus 16 WRC plus. Though I don't know exactly how good he is offensively, either he gets better than that or he gets replaced by Eugenio Suarez, Noel V. Marte. There are some options they have where they can do something different than a minus 16 WRC plus at third base. So I see this offense as doing better going forward. And when I look at the pitching, I think it can do about the same as it has so far because as many over performers as I see, I think Red Louder is an over performer. I see under performers as bad as I think Andrew Abbott might be. I don't think he's a 5'8 ERA guy. And we haven't even seen Lodolo yet. And we haven't seen Green yet. So I think if they can hang around and then get Lodolo and Green back, I actually think they're a playoff team. And my bold prediction was they were going to win a home playoff game this year. And I don't feel that negative about it. I think this is a good start. It's one of those starts you have to bank. If you're going to have one of those years, yes, it might end up as a quote unquote lucky year where they end up at the end of the season with like a plus 10 run differential, but they're in the playoffs. That's, hey, that's baseball. That's baseball, Susan.

Speaker 1:
[22:41] I don't know. I don't know if I can buy it. I think they're bad. Brady Singer, 14.5% K rate. Rhett Lauder, 15.3. Andrew Abbott, 13.2% K rate. Like what? I know they're missing Hunter Green, but the other guys that have this rotation are. Yeah. And I like Green and Lodolo a lot, but it's the hitting too. It's the hitting depth. Like Matt McClain is still struggling. That's kind of a surprise. That was a question we were talking about earlier in the week. Suarez is old enough where when we say he's going to bounce back, I believe that, but it's also probably not bouncing back to the guy he was last year, more likely not to level below that. They do get to make a decision on Brian Hayes at some point in the next couple of months, I would say, like this is just not working.

Speaker 3:
[23:30] Yeah. How much more time do you give him?

Speaker 1:
[23:32] Yeah. So there's probably some more shuffling going on there. I'm just, I'm skeptical. Even if that Pythagorean number was zero instead of four, like I don't see it right now with this team. I think I'm more convinced by nearly everybody else in that division as being like true talent, what they are up to this point and yeah, the plus four kind of highlights the problem for me. So I guess the point would be here, you banked it if Eno is right and the health and return of those guys over the course of the year, like those key players, like it's banked. So maybe they could end up being fine, but I'm very skeptical overall.

Speaker 3:
[24:13] The one prediction that looks like it's going to be like, Rock Solid True was our, I don't know who made it, but somebody on this pod made the projection that the NL Central was going to be a dogfight and it was going to be really tight. And it is two games separate all five teams. They're all above 500.

Speaker 2:
[24:34] The interesting one that I didn't include in this list is the fact that recently the Pirates, having best year they've had in a long time, 13-10, still in last. That just is tough. They're like, dude, we're crushing it. Still in last place. That stinks for them. I know it's early, but that just was a funny thing I noticed.

Speaker 1:
[24:56] I mean, the NL East has kind of flipped from last year. That's been kind of weird so far. I think there's a bigger question, I'll throw it to you guys in just a second, that maybe drills into that a little bit. The Astros leading the league and run score being in last place, that's pretty weird. Let's put it this way. Of the five teams that are off to disappointing starts relative to pretty lofty projections, who do you think actually turns it around and gets close to living up to those expectations, even meets them because they just play really well here on out? I think the five teams most people are thinking about here would be the Red Sox, the Royals, the Astros, the Phillies and the Mets. Who are you trusting the most to get out of their early tailspin?

Speaker 3:
[25:39] It doesn't look good for the Phillies, man. They have a minus 50 run differential. They're allowing five and a half runs a game and scoring 3.4. It's hard for me to hitch my wagon to that. They have to regress so hard in both facets of the game that I want to pick a team that is at least doing something well. That you're like, oh, if only the offense gets going. So for me, the choice is between the Mets and Astros maybe. Because the Mets runs allowed is actually right where they should be. They're pitching okay. And it's just needing to get the offense going. And the Astros is the flip side where their runs scored is great. Their runs allowed is bad. I will say that all these teams that you've just mentioned are basically a game away from 500 in the rest of season, like the full projected season, they're all. But I do think that one of these teams won't end up at 81 or 82 wins. Somebody's going to rattle off a really nice month or two. And I keep coming back to the Red Sox. Their offense is what needs to get going. And if Marcelo Meyer and Caleb Durbin can get going, it isn't the best offense. But if they can get going, then it's an offense that's at least pretty good at every spot, even with the story regressions. So I'm waffling. If I have to pick one, Red Sox, I'm going to pick Astros. They're scoring. They have the best run differential. They're going to figure out pitching somehow. I don't know how. A hundred rounds started throwing again.

Speaker 1:
[27:20] That's huge that he started throwing again just because the possible long end return from a grade two shoulder strain in my brain was more like July. If he's throwing already, then their timetable of late May maybe actually holds up.

Speaker 3:
[27:38] Let's not talk about the Astros timetables is something we want to follow.

Speaker 1:
[27:42] Yeah. I'm just acknowledging that he's throwing is ahead of my expectations because when I hear grade two shoulder strain, I expect several months on the shelf because that more often than not is what you get.

Speaker 2:
[27:54] Yeah. I think the key for the Astros is, one, we got to start getting Amai dinner at the hotel. That's number one. Just anything from him. Just where he comes back because I just did a deep dive of him. That was the weirdest eight and two-thirds innings I've ever seen.

Speaker 3:
[28:21] The ups and the downs.

Speaker 2:
[28:23] Just like the craziest whiff rate, but no chase. But he's a five-pitch pitcher that throws two pitches 91% of the time. His slider goes the wrong way. I don't know. His splitters really good, but he won't throw it. But also, he can't cut the ball. He's not used to this. There's all this crap going on. I just think that if he just feels comfortable, that they might have something there, at least a three, and then maybe get some consistency. It's just about consistency at this point. No honor brown. They're just throwing guys out there.

Speaker 3:
[28:55] Just go to him and ask what schedule he wants. Do you want to go once every six days? You know, seven days?

Speaker 2:
[29:00] There's a bullpen the day before he starts. I understand they're routine-oriented. The Japanese players just are. Watch Yamamoto. He does a bunch of stuff. No one does. This is just something that is something in Japan. They do things differently because they can, but they just can't throw a bullpen the day before every time. You just can't. You can throw a flat ground or whatever, but you do that and then your arm's tired. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:28] It also feels like pitching is something that maybe you could turn around quicker. Like Burroughs has been really unlucky on balls and play. What if he just figures a little small thing out? Boom, he's okay. He might figure something out. Boom, he's okay. Then Brown comes back in a month. That's how the Astros get back on this. With the Red Sox, what I'm talking about is young players taking a big leap forward, which it could happen or it couldn't.

Speaker 2:
[29:56] I would say that if I probably should answer the question, Red Sox are probably one of the higher, at least in terms of personnel and getting a little bit from every position. They have a lot of veterans starting pitching that if they struggle, they figured out many, many times in their career, they can figure out again. Just in terms of keeping the ship kind of watertight.

Speaker 3:
[30:19] Like crochet and run hair, like getting it ready to bag it back.

Speaker 2:
[30:21] I think they're in a good, they're well positioned. I think they did a good job in the off season of building it that way so that they can just kind of be more stable. And on the other side, it's like, like the Phillies and Mets are just fricking, they are. Ah, like they, they're so on paper, just like the ceiling is so high. So like you can't write them off, but we've seen so many teams like that. They start like this and then they just never, they be walking to the clubhouse every day. You're like, hope we win today. And then it's like a virus and the Mets have had it for, not just this year. They had it the last four months of last year. So it hasn't changed. And they got 10 new guys. And it's still the same thing, even worse. And so like they got it, like there has to be a change in that. But then again, you flip that switch, then and now we're the other way. We're rattling 12 off in a row because they have that good on paper. Like on, like Robert, Louis Robert goes off and then Lindor is healthy and starts going off. And then Soto comes back and he's just beat Soto. And you're like, oh my God, this team can't lose because they are hitting. But I, you know, I've played for them and I talk about them a lot. That's just something I go, I'm like, I'm just gonna say that I'll wait and see if that happens because I've been trying so hard to help with the lightning and the curse. Though I will say, whenever Mads watches a Mets game, every single time in his entire life, he's watching the game they've won. Yesterday was the first game he watched. They did it again. In 2024, when he was just born, he watched the series against the Braves where they clinched. It was his first game he ever opened his eyes on focus towards the TV and that happened. So I'm just saying, I'll try. Guys, I'm going to try. I'll plot my one and a half year old in front of the TV as much as you need me to.

Speaker 3:
[32:11] I mean, that's a nice commitment.

Speaker 1:
[32:13] I mean, that's a lot of brain development happening and the risk of your son developing an affiliation for the Mets is very high.

Speaker 2:
[32:23] Well, sorry, there's pictures of me in the jersey around. So he points to the TV and goes da-da.

Speaker 1:
[32:27] I'm like, yeah, there you go. So it's already happened. The neurons are already firing.

Speaker 2:
[32:32] Yeah. Then maybe I can get a second to use the bathroom.

Speaker 1:
[32:36] I mean, that's that's key. Did you think it was strange? I saw this post, Melissa Lockard had like a newser on The Athletic and Juan Soto talking about his time on the IL. He was asked if he'd been in contact with his teammates and his quote was, they've been on the road most of the time, so I haven't talked to them. You didn't send text to your teammates, be like, hey, how are you doing? I mean, maybe I have a completely jaded perception of how close various people in the clubhouse are, but it kind of sounded like he just did his own thing and wasn't really thinking that much about what was happening while he was on the IL.

Speaker 2:
[33:16] Juan, I'm going to give you a strategy. Lie, just lie.

Speaker 1:
[33:22] Yeah, I think that's kind of-

Speaker 2:
[33:23] Just say, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[33:25] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[33:25] There you go. Yeah, I talk to them all the time, and that's it. Because where you are right now saying something like that is going to be, we're going to be talking about it for the next seven months.

Speaker 1:
[33:37] Right, and it might be, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that more typical than people realize that guys are behind rehabbing and they'll check in when you get back. You'll just be back in the clubhouse and say, oh yeah, you guys were going through a bad losing streak while I was here trying to fix my calf. What was he supposed to say?

Speaker 2:
[33:57] You got it. You got this. Today's the day. I mean, it's one of those things like one of your buddies does something funny or hits, has a huge game, and you're like, attaboy. That's pretty much it. I mean, other people love to chat and talk and whatever.

Speaker 3:
[34:16] You don't even want to talk about a losing streak. You don't want to talk about it.

Speaker 2:
[34:21] You don't really talk about what's happening in the game that much. You do that in person. That's just an in person thing. Yeah. It's like everyone doesn't want to talk about it all the time too, especially when things aren't going well. You're there all day thinking about it all the time. You try to talk about other things. If you don't have other things to talk about, then you don't really talk.

Speaker 3:
[34:38] There was a piece by Andrew McCullough about how players talk to each other now in terms of WhatsApp, group chat, and now some teams are pushing towards Slack. But if you're communicating via Slack, there's no way that you're online. So it's like, hey guys, cast feeling better. Be there in a couple of days.

Speaker 1:
[35:01] I thought about this. Imagine one of us on this show suffers a podcasting injury. We go on the podcasting IL, strain vocal cords, right? Two weeks. Am I going to be sending frequent texts about the show? Maybe if there's like, we need an idea, whatever, we'll plan something together. But I generally think we're just gonna, we'll get back to it when whoever comes back. Yeah, there's just not, there's not much to say. Like I'm not here, I feel bad about it.

Speaker 3:
[35:34] I don't know, when you say it that way, I'd be like, no, we'd probably be texting total a lot.

Speaker 1:
[35:37] Well, we probably would be because we're normal humans. And like, it seems like within the way baseball functions, Trevor's point of, just say, yeah, don't give the New York media and the national media anything that makes you seem like you're disconnected from your teammates.

Speaker 2:
[35:56] When you're on a historic losing stream with a huge payroll, like, did we learn it that bad? I just don't think Juan Soto gives one crap about, if they freak out about it or not, I just don't think he cares either way. And I mean, I envy that big time.

Speaker 1:
[36:19] I think if I'm trying to pick from one of those five teams, I'm slowly becoming more concerned about the Red Sox. They had generally high expectations about their young core taking that step forward this year. It's not too late for it to happen. I think it's also a question of some of the pitching depth, even though they went out and signed Ranger. I think the arrival of Peyton Tolley could prove to be an upgrade over Connolly early. If they have to make a decision on those two guys at some point, they may just coexist because of injuries in the rotation. But I don't know. I just think that might just be, it also might be the toughest uphill battle because of the division they're in too, where that's where...

Speaker 3:
[36:55] Yeah, but you got to pick one, man. I mean, I could argue your way out of any of these. I thought I was the most pessimistic about the Astros and when I put up against these teams, I've probably taken the Astros.

Speaker 1:
[37:08] Reluctantly, probably buying into the Mets, which seems weird. That's the pure sicko stuff. I think it is the on paper, the expectations, the belief that even though the struggle started in the second half of last year, the personnel there is good enough to figure it out. It's not an inexperienced team. There's just reasons to believe they can play up to their basic protections.

Speaker 3:
[37:35] Doing some of the stuff that you want them to do to sort through, like calling up Chris and Scott, it's like, okay, that's probably a good idea. He's probably better than David Peterson and what you've been running out in the fifth spot. So this is the time to make moves like that. You should get AJ Minter off the IL and maybe make him the closer.

Speaker 1:
[37:54] Maybe just for a little while, but-

Speaker 3:
[37:56] By the way, I'm a little bit more pessimistic about Devin Williams after looking into it a little bit more. He has lost the gyro spin on his change up, and we said that Stuff Plus doesn't usually love change up. Stuff Plus said his change up was the best in the league, and now it says it's like 80 out of 100. Like it's not good. Something's actually changed. His change up is not as good as it was before.

Speaker 2:
[38:23] Just for fun though, he has a 588 bad up, just saying.

Speaker 3:
[38:26] That's true, and he still has a 35 percent strikeout rates.

Speaker 2:
[38:29] That is 588. That's tough. Every time the ball is put in play, it's a hit. As a pitcher, you're like, well, can't let him put him into play, and then suddenly you don't throw very many strikes anymore. Been there a lot. Been there a lot.

Speaker 1:
[38:44] This week on Starkville, Braves manager Walt Weiss joined Jason and Doug. We talked a lot about the Braves pitching success earlier this week, and Walt dug into some of the success they've had with their depth position players.

Speaker 4:
[38:57] My guess is somebody is going to step up here and get an opportunity and take advantage of it. And, you know, it's been guys like Dom Smith who have done that for us. Dom Smith does not get the opportunities that he's getting right now if ProFar is still here. And Dom has directly won a few games for us already. You know, it's Mauricio Dubons of the world. Some of these opportunities were created by that bad news that we got in Northport. And so far it's playing out. The guys are getting opportunities and they're making the most of them. And it's been great to see.

Speaker 1:
[39:33] Be sure to check out that full interview on Saturday's episode of Starkville wherever you watch or listen to Rates and Barrels. We are gonna take one more break. When we come back, we dig into a few surprises in St. Louis, including the resurgence of Jordan Walker. So I've got a couple of player performances that are standing out to us. We'll run through these reasonably quickly, because I do want to talk about deception. We've been kicking that can down the road for about a month or so now. And simple headline here is like, is this real? I mean, Jordan Walker is off to a great start so far this year, he's already popped eight homers, has plenty of swing and missed, 31.6% K rate. Fine, I don't care. If you're going to get to the power that often, you could strike out 30% of the time. That's going to work just fine. The big difference is he's hitting the ball in the air a lot more often. As we know, he went to driveline early in the off season to rebuild that swing. You think about what he's been doing so far, you see the improvement early on against fastballs after two years really struggling against them, crushing fastballs as part of this fast start. Are we looking at a guy that we see maybe sustaining these early gains and pushing his way to the 25 to 30 homer range by season's end, Trevor?

Speaker 2:
[40:55] I am starting to lean towards, I think that this is the first example of a click, a guy, someone finally gave him something like, hey, this is what you do super well, so let's focus on doing this thing as well as we can and then starting to layer in the rest. So like, I think he came in and he was like, I'm a five tool guy, I'm big, I can hit the ball hard, I can run like a deer, I have a great outfield arm, I can run, I can do all these things great, I need to come up and be that guy. He's 20, like, no, you can't be, you're not there yet and utilizing what those tools are is kind of the name of the game now. Then he plays for the Cardinals, the Cardinals have been, they're one of the most old school, there's been fundamentals, like, you're fast, so it's okay if you hit the ball in the ground. That might be true for somebody else. For Jordan Walker, him hitting the ball in the ground with a 78 mile an hour bat speed and hitting the ball hard as hell, that's an out. Not only is it an out, he's hitting it so hard that it's being filled in earlier and then he's being thrown at it first because the guy got the ball faster. So it's like, that's not gonna work. And so I think he was constantly in this liminal space and he was like, what am I trying to do and who am I? And then he went to driveline who they've gotten a lot of flack from the old heads saying, just pull the ball in the air. For some guys starting with the idea that I'm gonna try to pull the ball in the air because when I do, I get better results. That is what he, like that's true. It's obvious that that is something he should try for and be okay with the swing and miss at the beginning with when he's getting these harder hit balls. And I think that's what's happening. We're very early in this process, but I think that he's leaning into, this is the thing that I'm good at. This is a strength of mine, so I need to be able to utilize my strength in baseball games and then just let the other things happen. So that's why his whiff is still high. That's why he's like, but he's swinging at pitches that he wants to swing at, and he's just getting his A swing off every time because that's what he needs to do to be successful. He's not a B plus swing every single time to where he's getting no results either way. He's getting good results when he hits the ball hard. It's a 20% barrel rate. He's crushing the ball when he hits it. Then what happens is you do that long enough, you have confidence that you're swinging at the pitches you're supposed to be swinging at, then suddenly you start to learn, what does a B swing work when I'm swinging at a pitch that I'm not supposed to be swinging at, but I'm trying to fight and keep an A bat going? That's the next level. But you had to do the first thing before you can do the second thing. I think we're seeing him do the first thing, and from what he's saying is that that is kind of what he is committed to. So he's like, okay, last year, swinging a miss and whiffing 30% of the time, what's going on? This year, 30% of the time still? Okay, but I know I'm hitting the ball when I hit it. Good, it's like he's getting those same numbers. He's not chasing as much. You're still the same whiff, but you're not chasing as much. That tells me there's an intent change or a swing change, not a I don't know what I'm doing change. And so the intent has changed, and that is something that I'm always looking for, and it shows up in numbers and I think he has it. It's exciting. If I'm the Cardinals fans, I'm excited because I think he's on the path. He's starting to walk now down that path. It's taken a couple of years, it's only 23, to being a true superstar, 6'6, 250. Like the kid is, could be incredible if we keep incrementally changing things. It's just gonna take him a little bit longer. It's just the way it is, in my opinion.

Speaker 3:
[44:23] Yeah, I think the changes have been subtle. I think some of the stuff that you're talking about is totally there. For example, you're talking about like, this is who you are. Here are his swing rates from the past. This is all pitches, so it's not even broken down by pitch type, but he used to just swing at the turbo, sort of drop the bat on the low and inside. That's what his favorite thing to do. What you're seeing now is he's not swinging at maybe back foot sliders as much anymore. So it's not the bottom corner, he's looking more middle. He's sort of, the entire swing map has shrunk. Into like two nitro zones that he likes, up and away and down but not in all the way. So I think that's like, they probably showed him like, this is where you do best with your swing, focus on these pitches. That as much as anything could be the source of all this. I know there's some mechanical changes because if you look at his stance, he's more closer together. The distance between his feet is nine inches less than it was last year. He's never been this closed in his stance. He went in 2023, he was 43 degrees open. This year, he's 11 degrees open. So he's made a real change in his stance. So he's closed it up and he's got the best plate discipline of his career in terms of Z minus, in terms of zone swing minus O swing. He's up to really good numbers now where he's at 40 percent. That's above average. He used to be at 30 and 35. So he's made a real improvement there. He's shored up his zones. He decided this is what I can do. And his attack angle is up. He's lifting the ball more, the best fly ball rate of his career. So all these things are coming together, but I like the fact that there are small changes, a little bit of a stance change, a little bit of honing on these things. It's not like he came in and his tilt changed from 30 to 40 or, it's not like there are these huge changes. I think it was more refinement of like, hey, this is what you do well, focus on that, do that, and don't worry if you swing and miss sometimes.

Speaker 1:
[46:35] I think there was one other thing I noticed about Walker before he went to driveline. We were looking at some of the stance tools over at baseball savant, and when you split them out by month, you can just toggle through over time. It just get a sense for each little adjustment on the way. I think compared to every other player I've looked at so far, it doesn't mean he's the most aggressive in making changes. Walker's feet and the way he was moving around month to month, just to me drove home the point that he was looking for something that was comfortable. It's something wasn't quite right. It's just a very erratic pattern. So to see him-

Speaker 3:
[47:09] It reminded me of Terry Pendleton used to go through stances on a weekly basis.

Speaker 1:
[47:15] Yeah. I mean, so hopefully we'll see a little more consistency.

Speaker 2:
[47:19] Just every day, just somewhere else. So I think that's a good rule of thumb when you're looking at a young guy is like, how consistently are they doing? Does it look like they've intentionally tried to do the same thing over and over again? Because that means they feel like they found something. And them just feeling like they found something is a good sign. Yes. So I love it. They're like, here's a slight change. His ideal attack angle between five and 20 degrees. This is big for driveline. I did this assessment. I know what they care about. And they told me to do that. I couldn't physically do it, but like they told me to do it. And his has gone up 20 percent since his rookie year. Like it's 60 percent this year, 40 percent that year. Like he's in that range. He's found something like it allows me to get this angle every single time. And now all I need to do is focus on which pitches. So they just can do both at the same time. And that we're seeing that happening in real time. And that's a really good sign. It's exciting. But does that mean he's just like now he's an all-star, all-star stud? Maybe not yet. But the potential is still there. All those tools we heard about when he was 20, those can now, it sounds like his strategies have put them in play.

Speaker 1:
[48:29] I think quantifying it from rest of season projections, the bat X kind of agreeing with the premise of the original question, would he be a 25 to 30 homer guy this year? Ultimately the answer would be yeah. It comes with a 245, 312, 440 projected slash line. That's good. It's not great. I think it's kind of the step forward of I'm a regular. I'm a fixture in this lineup. I will be here for the next few years, right? That's a step forward, a pretty significant step forward. So if you got them on your fantasy team, you're happy. If you're the Cardinals, you're happy. This all seems like a big step in the right direction for Jordan Walker. They're also getting a lot from Riley O'Brien. 13 in the third inning so far this year has not allowed an earned run. 33% K rate hasn't walked the batter. What's going on here? I had Matt Sponson as the guy coming out of last season that I liked the most in this pen, the breakthrough, to be the closer all season long. Riley O'Brien has claimed that job as his own.

Speaker 3:
[49:29] Well, I think this is why we have something like Stuff Plus, to alert yourself, alert you to huge, massive changes. Then you can look under the hood, because when he came up with Cincinnati in 2021, Riley O'Brien had an 81 Stuff Plus, and he was a 51 degree arm angle, over the top cutter sweeper guy. Now, in 2026, he's a 31 degree sinker sweeper guy. If you're looking at the visuals, you've seen is a massive change in an arm angle, but also a refinement between 24 and 26. He's added more sink to his sinker, and added more lift to his sweeper, and made things even more horizontal. He's deadly horizontal. I do wonder if there's a little bit of Ryan Walker to this, just when looking at the movement patterns. It's very left to right, and I think if the Cardinals are going to be a surprise team this year, they're 14 and 10, and if they find the exact right match up plays in the back end of their bullpen, there might be some days I go to Jojo Romero, because there is a chance that someone who's this sideways could have some issues against lefties. The good news though is he has a real gyroslider in the middle there that gives him an option. You know, if you're out of Eno, always wanted to have that gyroslider, that cutter in the middle of the two. And so that's going to be a really big deal when facing lefties. You got to have something where you can play the two breaking balls off each other. Otherwise, they're going to see that sweeper all day and probably spit on it most of the time. So that's why you throw the cutter, they think it's the sweeper, the gyroslider, they think it's the sweeper, they don't swing, you get a cult strike. So that's the difference between him and Ryan Walker. Is that gyroslider? And that might be all that it takes. He's got everything it takes to be a closer all year this year. It's just kind of sad that it took him to 31 because he had to undergo all these massive changes to his arm angle. You had a guy that did the same thing you were talking about. It was kind of crazy.

Speaker 2:
[51:49] Yeah, Jake Deakman, same thing. This was before Stadcast. People only know him as the big lanky lefty throwing really hard from really low, but he was an iron mic. He was straight over the top. He's like 60 arm angle or something when he was in the minors. He was a starter and he was in danger of being released. But then they were pretty candid with him. He went to the fall league. They said, we want to drop you down. This was like, we're not going to drop your arm angles because we think it's more comfortable. Like, no, we want to make you a sidearm guy. We want to see what's there. Completely expecting his VELO is going to drop. He was like 90, 93. And then he goes in and he's throwing 90, through 97 like four days later. And they're like, so the next year he came in, big league camp, sidearm, four seam slider and it was in the big leagues halfway through that year. And then never went back. I think he went to AAA for like a little bit at some point in the next couple of years, but like was in the big leagues for the rest of the time. So sometimes there's just like a natural.

Speaker 3:
[52:46] And Riley has better command than Deekman. Yeah, like the natural command.

Speaker 2:
[52:50] And Deekman got up younger like Riley. But the one thing that's interesting, I'm looking at where his location has been. Riley could not be locating his synchronous sweeper better. He could not. They are in the bottom corners of the zone, both on both directions they're moving in. I think you were right. Like so that command is the big reason, like he's just throwing right down the middle and it's moving exactly where he wants to. Ryan Walker did that early in his like when he first came up, remember he was just like dotting both ways and he got a little erratic and that's one issue when with pitches and move, ask Nolan McClain, pitches and move this much are just like it's sometimes, I don't know how to get this to that spot. So that is one thing that is gonna be hard because if he's hitting these spots, it really doesn't matter what hitters are trying to do. Like they have to guess and they're probably gonna be wrong a lot. But having that little slider and then he does throw change up, he's been confident in the past. If he were able to throw his change up and have it in the same, just below the spot of sinkers in and then the other slider, where his sweeper is now, it's just all she wrote. Well, that's the next level if he gets figured out a little bit. But for now, you just can't do better than this. So I would bang on him continuing to do this. It's really impressive and it's either going right or it's going left.

Speaker 3:
[54:05] You just pick one and if you throw 98, it's pretty hard to pick.

Speaker 2:
[54:09] It's pretty hard to pick one. When you throw that hard, you don't have time to make that decision. So you have to just guess. He forces people to guess and that's a great position to be in if you are closer that throws pitches that tend to get ground balls anyways. So even if you're right, like Mason Miller actually, if you guess right on the fastball, you might be able to get it over the fence. You guessed right on the sinker, you still probably are going to hit it just around the third base for a double. That's the best you can hope for. So that's one benefit of him having the arsenal he has.

Speaker 1:
[54:37] One more name for today, and again, deception I think is going to get kicked on the road for one more week. Okay, I'm prepared. We're very well prepared for this conversation. So Randy Vásquez has a 26.3 percent K-rate, which is one of the most surprising stats, I would say, of the first month of the season, because we've seen enough Randy Vásquez to have expectations that he's well below 20 percent. I think I looked at him as a clear back-end innings eater, kind of important because of all the injury concerns in San Diego. But I had written him off as someone that could have a potential breakout like this. So unlike Walker, projections are not jumping in quite the way you'd expect. Oopsie is the most optimistic for strikeout rate going forward at 18.4 percent. So is there something here that the projections are failing to catch up to that makes you believe that Randy Vásquez is in fact going to be a surprise pop-up guy that the Padres have desperately needed this year in that rotation? What are your thoughts here, Trevor?

Speaker 2:
[55:46] I got to say the cutter, the cutter actually has changed and is a much better pitch this year. Last year it was kind of just went down a little bit, didn't have a lot of horizontal movement. It looks like he has tilted the tilt up a little bit. Now it's much more horizontal. The same thing is forcing also is riding a little bit more and is actually running a little bit more. So those two pitches might be tunneled enough to where the whiff on the cutter has jumped up quite a bit. It's actually, I think it might be as big as whip jump. So like last year he threw it the most. The cutter was his number one thrown pitch at the 24.9% and he had a 17.7% whiff rate, which even for cutter's sake, that's a little low. This year, the whiff rate is 33.3%. That's a lot better. That is becoming much more of a swing and miss pitch. It's his only pitch he uses a lot that he has above 30%, which is kind of the line you're looking for. Some of the other stuff might be a little bit flash of the pan because he's thrown like 30 sliders, 20 sweepers, and those both are about 30% to whiff rate and nothing else is really high. But like having a pitch that people are swinging and missing at is making the other pitches better. And that's why we see this jump in the whiff rate. So what I'm trying to say is there's a real change to the pitch. The pitch is different. So what I tend to say is this is real until the hitters start to tell you that it's not. And if you change a pitch and then people are swinging and missing out a lot, and it's making the other pitches get swings and misses, that has staying power and maybe not at this level. Maybe the whiff rate doesn't stay that high, but it being higher than last year, I think is a real thing.

Speaker 3:
[57:22] Yeah. The frustrating thing for me is that there are some negative changes that happened too. So he added Velo and I love that. And it's 94.9 now instead of 93.5. And I love the changes that Trevor talked about with the cutter is a better pitch, and the fore seam is a better pitch. Those two pitches are better and that's a big part of why he's doing well. But the sweeper lost three, four inches of sweep. And it's not the same pitch. And I think the sweeper and curveball are morphing together somehow because their movement patterns are very similar now. And so I think he needs to do some work on the breaking balls. And that's so weird because the breaking balls were what he was good at when he first came up. He was like, oh, I've got three breaking balls. These are great breaking balls. And right now, all three of his breaking balls, you know, have worse movement than they had last year. So he needs to dial in the breaking balls a little bit. And I don't know if there's something he did with the four-seam and cutter that's made these other two pitches better. But in fact, is that good news? Is it good news that there's these things that he used to do better that he could go back to? Maybe it is. Because he's doing so well right now, just on the VELO and the new four-seam and cutter, why can't he get his old sweeper back? You know, like why couldn't he find something that conflicts with the breaking ball? I think I'll take, if we're debating whether to take the over on the rest of season 18% projected swing strikeout rate, I'm going to take the over. I'm going to take the over because I think he, if he can separate that sweeper and curveball, which he has done in the past, I think then this could like click into something that's more sustainable.

Speaker 2:
[59:08] There is one issue with those curveball, breaking balls too, which is funny. This shouldn't be an issue, it might be an adjustment period. Those are also being thrown two miles an hour harder. So when you throw a sweeper harder, it doesn't have as much time. You actually don't want your sweeper, unless you're Griffin Jacks. It doesn't matter. But this is a Jason Adamism for you. He would be like, I want my sweeper 76, because it's going to go three feet. It'll just keep going because I have the right spin. That might be a function of him adding the velocity and feeling good about the cutter, then the sweeper just became an afterthought, and now it's 85 instead of 82. It's not like it broke a ton before. It was 12 inches, now it's 9 inches. If he can get it back to 12 inches, it's just about figuring out how to use it. I think you're right, the curve ball also has jumped up in velocity, and that movement has dropped. That's what happens when you usually sacrifice with the bigger breaking balls, you sacrifice movement for velocity, and figuring out how to drop the V-load maybe a mile an hour back down on those two might actually make that adjustment big enough. But it seems like he's doing the Jake Irvin a little bit and really starting to lean into the East-West. That benefit actually might overshadow the negative changes enough to where he's a little bit better. Two steps forward once in a while.

Speaker 3:
[60:29] To your point, Stuff Plus, which factors in that difference in V, though we actually use acceleration instead of movement for that reason, likes the change in the curve ball. So the curve ball, I could see it's harder now, a little bit less movement, that seems like it's a better situation, but it did not like the changes to the sliders. And I do think that when I look at the, you know, if you want to look at the movement map real quick here, I'll show you before and after. And, you know, in 2026, the gyro slider has the exact same movement as the cutter, but it's five miles an hour slower. Is that good or is that bad? I tend to think when I see pitches overlaid on top of each other with a movement is the same. I know that they're not the same because the below is different, but I would just say this breaking ball chart for 2026 versus that breaking ball chart in 2025, there's more differentiation.

Speaker 2:
[61:21] Yeah, he starts for, I'm looking at it right now. He's got four pitches that break that are just like a gradient. It's like one big oblong thing. And then some, there's some in every single one. Especially that slider.

Speaker 3:
[61:33] Maybe cut one, like maybe just cut the sweeper and focus on the curve or cut the gyro slider and focus on the cutter. I could see him actually cutting a pitch and benefiting from it.

Speaker 2:
[61:43] Cut the gyro. The gyro is all over the place.

Speaker 3:
[61:45] Yeah, that has tons of different movement, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:49] Yeah, it is pretty interesting. I mean, I think the gap between what he's done and what he's projected to do, that's like eight percentage points in strikeout rates. So for somewhere near the middle, a 21, 22% K-Rate still, that's a big improvement. That's good. Number three type starter, right?

Speaker 3:
[62:06] I mean, you're pretty happy with that. I mean, they needed someone to pop up into this, especially with Pavetta's injury. So maybe Lucas Giletto. I was on the radio today talking about the sustainability of that start. They do look good and they have players that could play better. I think Tatis is going to hit a home run this year. I think that's probably something we can bank on. So I think Vásquez doing this is a really good sign for the Padres, and signing Lucas Gilito is a really good sign for them. That they're amassing guys, they got Canning coming. I think they're going to find their way through this. I was worried that there was a big collapse potential for these San Diego Padres, but I think they're doing just enough and starting out well enough that I think that this is a playoff team.

Speaker 1:
[62:58] I mean, they're certainly doing a good job of delivering some April Hopium for the skeptics. They're safely in the bank here with about eight days left to go in this month, but the Tati's struggles may be married on a conversation here in the near future. We're going to go. The deception conversation officially moves back another week. It's going to happen eventually. We promise. We will have this conversation on the show at some point. You can join our Discord with the link in the show description. That's the best place to send us mailbag questions. We got Fantasy Friday coming up. It's going to do it for this episode of Rates & Barrels. We're back with you tomorrow.

Speaker 3:
[63:34] Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1:
[63:35] Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed it, drop us a like, leave a rating or sound off in the comments. We'll see you next time.