0:00

The scan shows no

0:02

structural damage. Good news,

0:04

right? Maybe not. I'll talk

0:06

with Dr. Jim Ferretti,

0:08

the Fantasy Sports Doctor, about

0:10

that, and a whole

0:12

lot more. Next, on

0:14

BaseballHQ Radio. Learn to

0:17

play the winners way,

0:19

because BaseballHQ Radio starts

0:22

right now. And here's

0:24

your host, from BaseballHQ.com.

0:31

And welcome to Baseball HQ Radio

0:33

for Friday, April the 11th. It's

0:35

show number 13 of the 2025

0:37

fantasy baseball season. I am Patrick

0:39

Davittier host and we do have

0:41

another great Friday full edition for

0:43

you. We'll have two feature expert

0:46

interviews. First, Jason Collette, from RotaWire

0:48

and the Sleeper in the Bust

0:50

podcast. Jason and I will discuss

0:52

the early pace of home runs

0:54

this season, why LEDila Cruz will

0:56

have a lot fewer stolen bases.

0:58

about how to manage a full

1:00

rebuild starting, well now, and he'll

1:03

have some boons and veins. Then

1:05

in our second expert interview, Dr.

1:07

Jim Ferretti, the Fantasy Sports Doctor,

1:09

joins me to talk about the

1:12

advantages of thinking about player injuries

1:14

from earlier in the medical process.

1:16

He'll also tell us why no

1:19

structural damage is often bad news.

1:21

And we'll discuss the vagueness of

1:23

return date estimates. Plus he'll have

1:26

some injury related boons and bays.

1:28

We'll also have our regular weekly fantasy

1:30

news update with Ray Murphy

1:32

of BaseballHQ.com. We'll look at

1:35

American League players including Texas

1:37

outfielder Wyatt Langford and Kansas

1:39

City pitcher Chris Boovich. Then

1:41

we'll head over to the

1:43

National League, looking at players

1:45

including St. Louis catcher Yvonne

1:47

Herrera and Cubs starter Justin

1:49

Steele. We'll also have our

1:51

regular commentaries from the analysts

1:53

at baseball hQ.com the best

1:55

fantasy baseball website in the

1:58

business in the frequent flyer

2:00

Alex Becky looks at Toronto

2:02

left-handed starter Easton Lucas and

2:04

in extra innings I'll be

2:06

talking about a prospect who

2:08

just had the 12th fastest

2:10

hit in stat cast history.

2:12

It's another big Friday full

2:14

of edition. Thanks for joining

2:16

us here at Baseball HQ

2:18

Radio. Hey what do you

2:20

say? Have you got Jack

2:22

Caliononi stash somewhere? No, we're

2:24

gonna talk some Jack Caliononi.

2:30

I'll have more to say about Jack

2:32

Kelly and only later, but let me

2:34

just lay a foundation by saying, holy

2:36

crap, how fast? And in the first

2:38

inning of this Friday full edition, it's

2:40

our first expert interview with Jason Collette

2:42

from Rotoire and the Sleeper in the

2:44

Bust podcast. Jason, welcome back to Baseball

2:46

HQ Radio. Hey Patrick, thanks for having

2:48

me back. How many drafts are you

2:50

playing this year? You know, it's funny

2:52

because I know we always do this

2:55

exercise and I've been bragging all winter

2:57

that I'm like, I finally got my

2:59

draft count under 10 and I've been

3:01

playing eight. Turns out I'm in 10

3:03

leagues. So, two of them you were

3:05

sleepwalking through. Well, I also subdrafted for

3:07

two people, so maybe that's why I

3:09

already felt like 10, but there's a

3:11

couple of people that had some things

3:13

and so I ended up doing two

3:15

N L only. drafts for people. But

3:17

I honestly thought I was an eight

3:19

and then I sat down and looked

3:22

and seen where everything is. I'm like,

3:24

wait, that's 10. So I'm in 10

3:26

Patrick. Well, keep working at it. You'll

3:28

get it down sooner or later to

3:30

maybe next year, you'll get it down

3:32

to 12. I did. You'll get it

3:34

down sooner or later to maybe next

3:36

year, you'll get it down to 12.

3:38

I did trim it. Where is it

3:40

hurt me most? It was like, where

3:42

is it hurt me most? inputting everything

3:44

like if I could find an AI

3:47

tool that would do the input for

3:49

me done and if somebody listening to

3:51

this has one reach out but that

3:53

was that was really my goal was

3:55

to get it down to a single

3:57

digit because of the time the time

3:59

constraints and so I'm at 10 and

4:01

I'm looking at that and thinking maybe

4:03

10 isn't so bad after all because

4:05

right now I don't feel because a

4:07

lot there's some draft and hold in

4:09

there and then there is a couple

4:11

of I've got three AL only league

4:14

so it's a lot of the same

4:16

thing in each one right so yeah

4:18

it's it's more manageable this year. How

4:20

are you doing generally speaking? Let's see

4:22

in my 12 team Mix League and

4:24

this it's a it's a local league

4:26

but it's probably like the like the

4:28

expert local league, because folks like Derek

4:30

Ben Riper, Steve Casalino, Ariel Colin, Derek

4:32

Cardi, all these folks are in this

4:34

league. So it's 12 team mix league

4:36

that it's local, but it's really should

4:39

be an expert league, it's ridiculous. But

4:41

I'm fifth there in a local league,

4:43

a 15 team that we do saves

4:45

and holds and OVP. I'm a point

4:47

out of first. Then I have my

4:49

local AL League, I'm sixth, AL Labor,

4:51

and that's the spite. I have no

4:53

Roy. Los Spencer Aragetti and Zet Gelloff

4:55

and I'm still in for so I'm

4:57

happy. That's good. Uh, XFL. No, it's

4:59

a rebuilding. That's a dynasty elite. We

5:01

drafted November. I've already lost Garrett Cole,

5:03

McClanahan, Royce Lewis, Jean-Carla Stanton, Evan Carter,

5:06

Mike Soroca, Justin Steele, Justin Steele and

5:08

Sean Manaya. So it's a rebuild year.

5:10

And then I have two drafting holds

5:12

on 14th and 8th. RotaWire, O.C., the

5:14

one that beat Jason Collette, won them

5:16

fourth, so I'm like doing pretty decently

5:18

there. And then finally in the in

5:20

the Wharf League, which is part of

5:22

Justin Mason's Earth League, I am 12,

5:24

another league with some injury situations there.

5:26

So all in all, really happy about

5:28

where I am in labor and tout,

5:31

considering the different things happening there and

5:33

especially tout. I need to get in

5:35

the upper half of those standings. It's

5:37

a bit of a slump there lately.

5:39

Think about your best team. What's really

5:41

gone right my best team was really

5:43

gone right for the for the a

5:45

15 team, the one that has OVP

5:47

and saves and holds. It's just been

5:49

a matter of, honestly, avoiding injuries, but

5:51

I look back at that roster and

5:53

see where things work because I see,

5:55

okay, I'm a point out of first,

5:58

but I'm still, like, Yandiya has hit

6:00

his first home run last night. I'm

6:02

still carrying Zach Neto as injured because

6:04

I can't find a good replacement. And

6:06

I just lost Jackson Merrill as well,

6:08

and I haven't had too many. critical

6:10

injuries and I haven't had too many

6:12

critical blowups either. So it just really

6:14

risk risk adverse approach to that particular

6:16

draft. That's a 15 team reset. So

6:18

it's a new, you know, no keepers,

6:20

no nothing and it was able to

6:23

take a different approach there and so

6:25

far it's working. Ask me how my

6:27

Earth League team is doing. How's your

6:29

Earth League team doing? I'm leading my

6:31

league and I'm third overall. Nice. Yeah.

6:33

Was Justin still first overall because Justin...

6:35

Well, no, TTF yeah, I just did

6:37

this first overall. Yeah, I didn't play

6:39

TGF B. I didn't either. That was

6:41

one of the that was one of

6:43

the three fab. But I told Justin,

6:45

I loved the TGF B. I concept

6:47

that I said, if you do a

6:50

draft and hold, I'm all in, I'm

6:52

back in. I would love just to

6:54

go in and set my lineups twice

6:56

a week, but I can't I had

6:58

to cut back Fab leagues and that

7:00

was one of them. Yeah, I hear

7:02

you. So on Tuesday of this week,

7:04

Jason, you had a collect calls column

7:06

at Rotowire talking about the home run

7:08

pace in baseball through Sunday of this

7:10

week. I think the Collins said you

7:12

were at 143 games played in total

7:15

in the books by coincidence or by

7:17

happenstance exactly the same as last season

7:19

at this time. How do you know

7:21

there's enough data in the pipe to

7:23

infer accurate conclusions? So I've looked at

7:25

this over the years and I've gone

7:27

back in the article that talks about

7:29

like going back to 2016 I went

7:31

back and looked and said okay where

7:33

like I would say it is pretty

7:35

much set in stone that the home

7:37

on rate is not going to get

7:39

worse. But we know as the way.

7:42

whether it warms up and everything, the

7:44

home run rate will improve. So we

7:46

know it's not gonna go down. It's

7:48

just how much will it improve. And

7:50

that's really what I've looked at. And

7:52

then so over the, over that sample

7:54

size, when I took a look, I

7:56

could find an average, it's weird because

7:58

the first year, the sample size, it's

8:00

weird because the first year of the

8:02

sample size, it's weird, the first year

8:04

of the sample size, there was a

8:07

10% delta in the early to last.

8:09

played appearances divided by home runs. So

8:11

I'm gonna like a home run is

8:13

hit every X amount of played appearances

8:15

with that. And so that's what I've

8:17

taken a look at and that way

8:19

it can kind of give us an

8:21

expectation because over the years and Todd

8:23

Zola's looked at this too because he

8:25

and I have talked about this a

8:27

lot, you can take the first 10

8:29

to 15 games of a season and

8:31

get a pretty good idea of where

8:34

home runs are going. for the course

8:36

of the year. So if you end

8:38

in, you know, hindsight's always 20, you

8:40

can go back and look at some

8:42

previous seasons, like you go back and

8:44

look at 2023, like hmm, you know,

8:46

10, 15 games in the season, that

8:48

didn't look that great. And look back

8:50

at 2019, that's a great one. Go

8:52

back and look at 2019 and look

8:54

at like the first 10 games of

8:56

the season. Holy crap, something's happening. So,

8:59

yeah. So that's where I like to

9:01

write this article right this weekend every

9:03

single year. Because just to try to

9:05

get folks a heads up, and I

9:07

would say, you know, I ran that

9:09

that data was being That data was

9:11

from end to game Sunday, and obviously

9:13

this week, you know, this whole week

9:15

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. has been a very

9:17

cold week and we've seen a lot

9:19

of we've seen what three no-hitter alerts

9:21

you know we've seen some things happening

9:23

the ball has not traveled well I

9:26

will say some of that's come down

9:28

I'm looking I run these numbers every

9:30

single morning and I'm looking at things

9:32

right now and at this time last

9:34

year so the sample size has increased

9:36

a little bit and obviously this this

9:38

weather this week of weather has put

9:40

a dent in things but at this

9:42

time last year through a 189 contest

9:44

so 300 if my math is correct.

9:46

There were, the league was on pace

9:48

to hit 5,14 home runs. Today, the

9:50

league is on pace to hit 5,177

9:53

home runs right now. Now the pace

9:55

was a little higher early on, but

9:57

that's where things are at the moment.

9:59

So again, we will see more home

10:01

runs, even on the same gradual curve

10:03

that we normally have, but at this

10:05

point last year. compared to this point

10:07

right now, we are still on pace

10:09

for more home runs. However, you know,

10:11

that's only a 160 home runs more.

10:13

That's one more per game or one

10:15

more per contest or day of the

10:18

schedule. That's not a lot. And then,

10:20

but it doesn't match the narrative. Right

10:22

now, the narrative has been the ball

10:24

is due. This is the popular narrative

10:26

that I've seen on social media and

10:28

heard on radio and TV, right? The

10:30

ball is ju and torpedo bats are

10:32

a magic elixir that will fix everything.

10:34

That's what we continue. That's what we've

10:36

heard. And simply put, the data does

10:38

not match up with that because the

10:40

home run, the flyball rate is almost

10:42

identical. This point last year, 11.1 percent.

10:45

Right now, 11.2. It's just the home

10:47

run for contact, almost identical. Everything looks

10:49

just about the same. And so the

10:51

numbers don't match the narrative that we're

10:53

currently hearing in the media. You said

10:55

in the article in just now that

10:57

you're looking at 5,000 plus home runs

10:59

as an as an end of the

11:01

season expectation It's a very high total

11:03

relative to all of baseball history But

11:05

when you look at it compared to

11:07

the happy fun ball season in 2019

11:10

6800 home runs, so there's a really

11:12

big gap between the two and that

11:14

suggests to me that the baseball's not

11:16

as happy and not as much fun

11:18

as it was then and I agree

11:20

with you that whoever says that the

11:22

ball is juiced is probably barking up

11:24

the wrong tree. Yeah it is. Like

11:26

I said, relative to last year we

11:28

will see more home runs because the

11:30

league finished the year with... 5,453 home

11:32

runs last year. And I just said

11:34

a minute ago that it was on

11:37

pace at this point last year to

11:39

hit just over 5,000, 5,000 14. So

11:41

that happened, right? And so if we

11:43

were to give just a similar percentage

11:45

and say, okay, if the league's on

11:47

pace at 5,177 home runs right now

11:49

and get that same, that would put

11:51

the lead total close to 5,600. And

11:53

that was the point of the article

11:55

is like we're looking at a range

11:57

on the on the low end. I

11:59

think I said it was 5605. I'm

12:02

trying to call top my head on

12:04

the high end. If things go crazy

12:06

again like they did last year, we

12:08

could get the 6,000 home runs, but

12:10

it's going to take a leap of

12:12

faith to go that direction. I'm not

12:14

saying we're getting the 6,000, but it

12:16

is in the realm of possibility. But

12:18

again, I don't believe the ball is

12:20

juiced. you can see if you go

12:22

to the drag dashboard at baseball savant

12:24

you can see there's actually more drag

12:26

on the baseball right now but we

12:29

can't see we don't have an easy

12:31

way to measure the coefficient of restitution

12:33

on how that ball reacts once the

12:35

but once the bat strikes the ball

12:37

so we look at contact data to

12:39

try to get the best get and

12:41

contact data we're not seeing that much

12:43

of a difference either right on things

12:45

so Again, I don't feel the ball

12:47

is used. I also don't feel that

12:49

the torpedo bat is a magic elixir.

12:51

The torpedo bat needs a second ingredient

12:54

and that's called really crappy Milwaukee pitching

12:56

to get there and to really take

12:58

off. And there was a really good

13:00

article at baseball prospectus about it and

13:02

somebody was like, yeah, the torpedo bats

13:04

work if you're throwing 80 poo right

13:06

over the middle of the plate. And

13:08

these guys are crushing it. So I

13:10

forget the author, I wish I could

13:12

credit them. the growth factor and I

13:14

found this part of it interesting that

13:16

you had a high average and a

13:18

low based on the growth factors what

13:21

that you've seen over the past couple

13:23

of years or over certain periods how

13:25

were the those those possibilities from high

13:27

to low for in-season growth of home

13:29

runs developed. I just took an average,

13:31

I just basically was like, okay, over

13:33

that over the sample size from 2016

13:35

and 2024, what was the lowest in

13:37

season Delta that we saw for early

13:39

played appearance was divided by home runs

13:41

over the end and then and that

13:43

happened in 2021. And then I looked

13:46

at the high end that which I

13:48

said was last year 10.2% so I

13:50

took what was at the time what

13:52

the league was on pace for and

13:54

then just ran the numbers from there

13:56

to say where are we at and

13:58

at. for the article on the low

14:00

end 5,61 home runs, which was about

14:02

160 more than what we saw last

14:04

year. And then on the very high

14:06

end, 6,096, which will be the fourth

14:08

highest total ever in a season. So

14:10

just based off what we've seen year

14:13

every year, that's where I ran the

14:15

numbers and just said, you know, what's

14:17

what are we on pace for? And

14:19

the conclusion you said was. we should

14:21

assume as a fact that 2025 is

14:23

gonna have more home runs than the

14:25

5400-ish that we had last season. Now

14:27

the question is, how do we as

14:29

fantasy managers take this fact of more

14:31

abundant home runs into our consideration and

14:33

planning as we go through this season?

14:35

The odd part of it? Normally we

14:38

would say, okay, more home runs equals

14:40

more runs and that's going to affect

14:42

our, you know, our runs or whatever

14:44

we projected was going to be for

14:46

what we needed for the runs category,

14:48

what we needed for our BIs and

14:50

how our pitchers were going to be

14:52

impacting ERA. But here's the, here's the

14:54

curveball Patrick. We're actually seeing fewer runs

14:56

per game scored right now than we

14:58

were at this point last year. And

15:00

this point last year, we are all

15:02

bitching about there's no offense and baseball.

15:05

These games are low scoring and these

15:07

games are low scoring and nothing. this

15:09

time last season we're 4.3 right now

15:11

and you know I you as a

15:13

Reds fan you're like yeah I know

15:15

I got shut out three times last

15:17

week so we're seeing fewer runs per

15:19

game and so more home runs but

15:21

fewer fewer fewer runs per game yet

15:23

the league the legal base percentage is

15:25

only down six points so it's not

15:27

like there's been a giant drop in

15:30

traffic on the bases it's just we

15:32

have a lot of the run and

15:34

Joe Sheehan's written a lot about this

15:36

in his recent newsletters. A lot of

15:38

the runs are attached to home runs.

15:40

And if the home runs aren't being

15:42

hit, the runs aren't being scored. So

15:44

that's really interesting. I would normally say,

15:46

again, more home runs, okay, than me,

15:48

adjust all these things. But until the

15:50

lead starts hitting more singles, start to

15:52

try some more walks, and try to

15:54

get on base, we're gonna see more

15:57

solo shots. And so it may be

15:59

a net zero. Yeah, you say it's

16:01

only a six-point drop in OVP, but

16:03

when you multiply that by, we're already

16:05

at 10,000 plate appearances or something like

16:07

that, and, you know, it doesn't sound

16:09

like six points of OVP's going to

16:11

matter that much, but you had multiplied

16:13

by those 10,000 plate appearances. You're talking

16:15

about quite a few less getting on

16:17

base situations and ergo... maybe a lot

16:19

more solo home runs rather than, you

16:22

know, two on and three RBI's kind

16:24

of home runs. Right. And so it's

16:26

even again, looking at the numbers this

16:28

morning that I have that aren't in

16:30

the article, it was a four point

16:32

difference is selected percentage. I mentioned the

16:34

six point difference in OVP, but then

16:36

we have a seven point difference in

16:38

batting average. And again, last year, we're

16:40

like, where are the hits? The league

16:42

is currently hitting two 35. You know,

16:44

let's think back a couple of years

16:46

ago, we're banning the shift. That should

16:49

improve batting average. That's going to improve

16:51

this. What has it? It's like if

16:53

we're hitting 235 and the league doesn't

16:55

start digging out this whole soon, we

16:57

may have the lowest first month batting

16:59

average in recent history. And that's how

17:01

bad things have been right now with

17:03

this. So I don't know if we

17:05

need. you know more guys that will

17:07

hit all fields like please bring back

17:09

each year and Tony Gwyn I know

17:11

I know those at the high end

17:14

but it's one of the reasons why

17:16

I've enjoyed watching Jake Mangam from the

17:18

race he hits to all fields as

17:20

like you get a pitch in the

17:22

outside fine I'm gonna flick it and

17:24

go the other way and get on

17:26

base but we need to have more

17:28

guys focused on just getting on base

17:30

rather than trying to elevate and celebrate

17:32

because at right now it's getting tough

17:34

I mean we all love baseball we're

17:36

happy it's bad but the league hit

17:38

in 235 and sitting around waiting for

17:41

home runs is kind of eventually grow,

17:43

wear on us, not grow on us,

17:45

unless what we don't want, but it's

17:47

gonna wear, it's gonna wear us down.

17:49

Getting back to the question of, okay,

17:51

we assume that there's going to be

17:53

more home runs, I'm thinking back to,

17:55

you remember, 6,000 home run season, the

17:57

first one was in 2017. Right. And

17:59

I had Justin Smoke that year on

18:01

my roster. He hit 38, which was

18:03

a career high. And a lot of

18:06

guys had career high home run totals

18:08

that year. Charlie Blackman hit 37, Scope

18:10

hit 32. Logan Morrison of the race.

18:12

38. 38. Never anywhere near that. In

18:14

any other year, George Springer had 34.

18:16

That was his career high even up

18:18

till now. The thinking at the time

18:20

was that the happy fun ball was

18:22

adding, you know, 10 feet or 8

18:24

feet or something like that. to the

18:26

batted ball distances, which would seem to

18:28

benefit a guy like Smoke, because he's

18:30

got a lot of warning track power,

18:33

but not like John Carlos Stanton type

18:35

power. And so 10 extra feet, if

18:37

it's going to land halfway up the

18:39

warning track, 10 extra feet puts it

18:41

just over the fence, and thus he

18:43

gets the benefit of 14 extra home

18:45

runs a year. Whereas Staten's hitting 450

18:47

foot home runs, now they're 460 foot

18:49

home runs, but they're not more home

18:51

runs. What do we know now about

18:53

which players are going to benefit the

18:55

shape of the home run growth? Honestly,

18:58

I don't think we do know. So

19:00

we mentioned that we're on pace for

19:02

more home runs this year with that,

19:04

but we don't have enough data. So

19:06

let's let's remember. We have two brand

19:08

new ballparks. in the sample set that

19:10

we didn't have last year, and we

19:12

have an adjusted ballpark in Baltimore. I

19:14

would say watching the race game last

19:16

night, there were six home runs. They

19:18

were all hit by right-handed batters, and

19:20

they all went to right field. They

19:22

about that what you will, but that's

19:25

not how games were played in Tropicana

19:27

Field. You rarely saw opposite field home

19:29

runs. by right handers in the right

19:31

field, but all six home runs yesterday

19:33

were to right center or right field.

19:35

Two of them were unicorn, including the

19:37

Jose Caballero Grand Slam, was a unicorn

19:39

slam, would have been out in no

19:41

other park. And I mentioned a no

19:43

other park piece because Tom Tango has

19:45

talked about on social media where Yankee

19:47

Stadium and Georgetown Breiter field are identical

19:50

in dimensions, but the playing surface is

19:52

slightly different. Like it's not. Flat it

19:54

was like one of these things like

19:56

what are you talking about? It's not

19:58

a hundred. It's not a 100% match

20:00

So if you see it says one

20:02

of 30 like wait a second. Why

20:04

is why is Yankee Stadium and George

20:06

Steinbren are considered two different dimensions? It's

20:08

because they are there's a little bit

20:10

of a ground difference as playing into

20:12

playing into that, but that's where it

20:14

was interesting. So I want to see

20:17

more data and that's honestly when I

20:19

look back at everything else I would

20:21

put more credence to the new stadiums

20:23

and the new dimensions in Baltimore impacting

20:25

what we're seeing for home runs right

20:27

now than torpedo bats. That's just that

20:29

that's me because the torpedo bats The

20:31

Yankees have been rather quiet and now

20:33

the weather is cold now we'll see

20:35

what happens as the weather warms up.

20:37

But we don't hear a lot of

20:39

torpedo bat talk anymore. It was it

20:41

was all the rage early on because

20:44

it was new and it was on

20:46

the heels of Stanton having a great

20:48

postseason when he was using a great

20:50

postseason having a great postseason when he

20:52

was using one of those bats. But

20:54

you know, right now it's we mentioned

20:56

Caribbean Paris earlier, he's not using the

20:58

batler, Maybe he won't be, but so

21:00

far he is the probably the best

21:02

hitting story that we're seeing right now,

21:04

because only he and Jazz Chisholm have

21:06

as many as four homers and four

21:09

stolen bases this season. You talked earlier

21:11

about the temperatures and maybe that of

21:13

course they're having an effect on ball

21:15

flight, but from my recollection, colder air

21:17

is denser air, which makes it harder

21:19

for the ball to push through to

21:21

get to a home run. On the

21:23

other hand, the denser error amplifies the

21:25

backspin effect of keeping the ball aloft.

21:27

What's the net? Is there an actual

21:29

net on it? We can see, and

21:31

previous stuff are right, not that I've

21:33

done any of the studies like Dr.

21:36

Allen Nathan or whatnot, but... We know

21:38

if you just look at home run,

21:40

like even just take something that's basically

21:42

is home run to fly ball and

21:44

do it by a monthly split. You

21:46

see it's low, you see it gets

21:48

high in the summer, and then it

21:50

wanes at the end of the season.

21:52

So we know there's some adjustment coming.

21:54

That's why a lot of the times

21:56

you see, oh, the ball is juiced,

21:58

it's gonna be huge because people always

22:01

think this early sample size is too

22:03

small, and there's nothing to put into

22:05

it. I disagree because again that's why

22:07

I write this article every year it

22:09

lines up it gives you a good

22:11

idea it's not an exact science but

22:13

it points you in a good direction

22:15

of what we can expect and that's

22:17

why I like taking a look at

22:19

these at these early sample because you

22:21

want to You and I were talking

22:23

hockey off air before. It's like the

22:25

old Greske quote, you want to go

22:28

to where the pucks are going, not

22:30

where it's at. And that's why I

22:32

always like try to look at these

22:34

particular things to say, okay, where are

22:36

things trending? How can I adjust my

22:38

fantasy team or my expectations on what

22:40

I need to win my league based

22:42

up what we're seeing in the early

22:44

data? You're listening to Baseball HQ Radio

22:46

Patrick Davitt with Jason Collette from Roadowire

22:48

and The Sleeper in the Bus podcast

22:50

and Jason in your Collette calls column

22:53

last week you looked into where have

22:55

all the base hits gone? What prompted

22:57

you to think about that and look

22:59

into it? I believe it was watching

23:01

your Reds play. But we've seen a

23:03

few no-hitter alerts and actually in the

23:05

middle of while I was writing that

23:07

article, Martine Perez was throwing a no-hitter.

23:09

Martin Perez never through one pitch over

23:11

90 miles an hour and then he

23:13

had a love it. Yeah, love it.

23:15

So that's that's kind of where that

23:17

was going but you know we're seeing

23:20

it once again but it felt like

23:22

we were seeing these one-nothing games and

23:24

all this despite all this talk about

23:26

all here there's more home runs of

23:28

Ball's Jews, then I'm like, really? Because

23:30

every time I turn on a game,

23:32

there's no hits, any no geter alerts

23:34

on a daily basis now. And like

23:36

I said earlier, the league wide batting

23:38

average currently is 235. And this goes

23:40

in the face of what we were

23:42

promised with getting rid of the shift.

23:45

And so I believe that the league

23:47

has put a premium. Like I look

23:49

at my own team. Taylor Walls is

23:51

still out there playing great shortstop, even

23:53

though we can't hit anything. can't hit

23:55

at all but he's out there playing

23:57

great shortstop and so the I think

23:59

the league has made some sacrifices on

24:01

things because even the batting average on

24:03

balls in play currently is 282 last

24:05

year this time was 292 and so

24:07

if you're not shifting and they actually

24:09

put even more emphasis on what shifts

24:12

were allowed and which ones weren't now

24:14

leagues are taking and putting premium defenders

24:16

at spots to make up for that

24:18

and that's what we're seeing play out

24:20

and so I don't know how you

24:22

I mean we have better outfield defense.

24:24

And we talked about this was discussed

24:26

last year, you know, fly balls are

24:28

going are falling in for hits, fewer

24:30

and fewer. And so if ground balls

24:32

are getting through, this is where we're

24:34

at. And I don't, I don't know

24:37

what other lever you pull other than

24:39

limiting bullpens. You know, I was mentioning

24:41

this on blue sky yesterday and somebody

24:43

was, uh, somebody said, well, why don't

24:45

we just limit the number of bullpens?

24:47

So starters don't come out there, eats

24:49

into the strategy of the game. And

24:51

that's why I didn't like banning shifts,

24:53

because I like that strategy. If I'm

24:55

willing to give up the other side

24:57

of the field, fine. So the other

24:59

thing is move the mountain back a

25:01

little bit, because velocity, it's been 60

25:04

feet, six inches forever. And guys, you

25:06

know, Walter Johnson was the hardest thrower

25:08

of his era, and Walter Johnson would

25:10

look like Kyle Hendricks in today's era.

25:12

There was Bob feller though. I mean

25:14

a little later on, but there's sure

25:16

sort of visual proof that he was

25:18

bringing it a hundred and one or

25:20

something along those lines quite a while

25:22

back You wrote that Ellie de la

25:24

Cruz of the Reds was quite unlikely

25:26

to his big stolen base season of

25:29

last year is 60 plus I think.

25:31

Why did you think that LED La

25:33

Cruz in an environment of rising stolen

25:35

base totals and a guy who's a

25:37

very successful stolen base guy by success

25:39

rate was going to decline in that

25:41

stat? So I wrote that up because

25:43

I had listened to Rob Silver come

25:45

on the rotor wire podcast with James

25:47

Anderson and he made it. I thought

25:49

it was such a good point that

25:51

they need to be written out for

25:53

people that weren't listening to the podcast.

25:56

He talked about stolen base opportunities, which

25:58

is something that I've leveraged in my

26:00

writing for a while. And I look

26:02

at it and then try to find,

26:04

okay, here's where the league wide, here's

26:06

where the league wide is, and here's

26:08

where your player is, and how you

26:10

look for players that have more opportunities

26:12

to steal because stolen bases are as

26:14

much about manager intent. as they are

26:16

the opportunity as they are the skill.

26:18

There's multiple equations in play there, right?

26:21

And so when I looked at, when

26:23

I took a look after listening to

26:25

what Rob said, it was, Dela Cruz

26:27

had one of the higher opportunity rates

26:29

in history, not just last year, but

26:31

in history. And that was why you

26:33

take a look at like, wow, okay,

26:35

then that's how he got the 64

26:37

steel. So then you have to ask.

26:39

Can he do that again? Is that

26:41

something he can try to do again?

26:43

And that's really where things got into

26:45

you look at it. I went back

26:48

and looked at previous guys and said,

26:50

okay, what did what did Ricky Henderson

26:52

do? What did Timorines do? What did

26:54

Timorines do? What did I went back

26:56

and looked at all these other speedsters?

26:58

And it was like, yeah, I absolutely

27:00

get where Rob's coming from. That said,

27:02

every projection set had illegal cruise for

27:04

50 steals for 50 steals. And so

27:06

that's like, okay, that's still great. 50

27:08

seals would have led the American League

27:10

last year if he was in the

27:13

America League. So that's where it's still

27:15

good but trying to get trying to

27:17

say okay he stole 60 and saying

27:19

okay he's gonna go further this is

27:21

why projection systems regress by nature. It's

27:23

like you'll get something that's like okay

27:25

we take a look at the last

27:27

three and this is why projection systems

27:29

were putting them in the 50s. It

27:31

wasn't because we hate We know he

27:33

likes to run. We know he has

27:35

elite speed. But then we look so

27:37

far this season, he's had seven stolen

27:40

base opportunities. It is attempted three. Now

27:42

last year at that rate, that would

27:44

have been six. That's how often he

27:46

was running last year. But this year,

27:48

he's had all those opportunities and has

27:50

not run. I would compare that to

27:52

somebody like Boboushet. Bobous has had 36

27:54

opportunities to steal a base. He's attempted

27:56

one and was caught. So it's and

27:58

the other piece of the equation with

28:00

with Ellie Della Cruz is new manager.

28:02

Yes, he is Terry Francona. Francona has

28:05

had a history of enjoying the running

28:07

game. But you know, we have Terry

28:09

Francona also had a layoff. He's been

28:11

out of the game for a little

28:13

bit. Now he's coming back. Is he

28:15

the same old Terry? So there was

28:17

those factors and so that's why I'd

28:19

like when Rob made that point. I

28:21

was like, Again, trying to think differently.

28:23

That said, I did take Elliott Cruz

28:25

fourth overall in the aforementioned Road O'ROC.

28:27

He was there. I like the overall

28:29

talent and I took him. So I'm

28:32

not saying, bait him out, run out

28:34

of the first round. Rob was saying

28:36

that out of the first round, Rob

28:38

was saying that out of the first

28:40

round picks, Elliott Cruz is the one

28:42

he feels is most likely to not

28:44

be a first round talent at the

28:46

end of the end of the season.

28:48

And that's a fair art he laid

28:50

out. He laid out. He laid out.

28:52

He laid out. He laid out. He

28:54

laid out. He laid out. He laid

28:57

out. He laid out. He laid out.

28:59

He laid out. He laid out. He

29:01

laid out. He laid out. He laid

29:03

out. He laid out. He laid out.

29:05

He laid out. He laid out. He

29:07

laid out. He laid out. He laid

29:09

out. He laid out. He laid out.

29:11

He laid out. He laid out. He

29:13

laid out. He laid out. He Yeah,

29:15

I think I took him fifth overall

29:17

in a draft. On the Sleeper and

29:19

the Bust pod, you and Justin Mason

29:21

talked about Mike Soroca's bicep strain and

29:24

nobody's that tremendously interested Mike Soroca, but

29:26

you made another point in that you

29:28

said you're going to cut him in

29:30

a league that you're rebuilding in. He's

29:32

on your roster, you can't afford to

29:34

keep my guess. Is two weeks of

29:36

a season enough to make the decision

29:38

to go full rebuild? Are you comfortable?

29:40

And it really depends on different context.

29:42

So like in that case, often when

29:44

Justin and I are talking, we're talking

29:46

about an FBC format because so many

29:49

of our listeners are in that format.

29:51

seven man bench, no reserves. So it's

29:53

like, okay, do I want to carry

29:55

this guy or come? In that context,

29:57

that's where it comes from cutting him.

29:59

But I will say I also have

30:01

him in another league and I've decided

30:03

to, I already mentioned XFL, there's no

30:05

chance, it's rebuild, there's no chance, it's

30:07

a dynasty, I need to play for

30:09

the future. But I would also say,

30:11

this is also a skill that I

30:13

want to work on is like, I

30:16

often will think about the worth carrying

30:18

Mike Soroque on the injured list and

30:20

picking up somebody and trying to find

30:22

somebody or trying to get a couple

30:24

of pictures so I can get, I'll

30:26

pick up a two-star guy this week

30:28

and I'll fab a guy who's on

30:30

a two-star coming up on a two-star

30:32

week and then try to stack things

30:34

that direction with that. So that's another

30:36

thing to consider too and that leads

30:38

to one of the... boons, my pitching

30:41

boom. But that's the concept. It's like

30:43

looking at the next couple of weeks

30:45

rather than saying, I lost this guy,

30:47

who can be this guy for the

30:49

rest of the season? In technology, we

30:51

call, if you have multiple solutions, we

30:53

call it Frankenstein. It's like, how can

30:55

I Franken stack a new Mike Soroca?

30:57

Can I find this guy, that guy,

30:59

that guy, that guy, rather than trying

31:01

to go out and replace him as

31:03

a whole with one person for the

31:05

rest of the rest of the season?

31:08

Yeah. I was thinking when I heard

31:10

you guys talking about it though, Mike

31:12

Soroca is not any kind of all-star

31:14

type pitcher, a guy's gonna win you,

31:16

your fantasy league. If this bicep strain

31:18

had have affected a much better pitcher,

31:20

Zach Wheeler or somebody like that, would

31:22

you still be comfortable cutting him or

31:24

is there a threshold of base talent

31:26

that you're willing to say I'm gonna

31:28

hang on to this guy just because

31:30

he's too good not to. Yeah, that's

31:32

a very valid question. That's a very

31:35

valid question. And yes, if it was

31:37

a better pitcher, then it would have

31:39

been a different story. But Mike Soroko...

31:41

was an end game spec so it's

31:43

easy to do that. You know our

31:45

good friend Corey Schwartz and Mike Siano

31:47

back in the fantasy 401 days used

31:49

to just say take a calendar to

31:51

flip it over right so your 23rd

31:53

round pick give him three weeks if

31:55

he sucks get rid of him your

31:57

first round pick you're pretty much holding

32:00

him unless something drastic happens. So if

32:02

you're looking at performance issues but you

32:04

know with these pitching injuries you also

32:06

you know one of my things is

32:08

I never trust the initial. the initial

32:10

analysis. Oh, this guy's gonna be out

32:12

two weeks. Okay, sure. Historically, I have

32:14

learned that just double that number and

32:16

another two to three weeks like Sean

32:18

Manaya was supposed to be just about

32:20

back now. Well, guess what? He has

32:22

set back. It's another few weeks. So

32:24

I never take that. It's another few

32:27

weeks. So I never take that initial

32:29

projection for when a guy's gonna come

32:31

back. But if we're talking about a

32:33

guy took at the end game and

32:35

he's already showing her, I'm moving. Yeah,

32:37

I've heard that philosophy too. I think

32:39

Phil DeSoe uses it in the MFPC

32:41

main events those last three pitchers are

32:43

deliberately designed to churn and burn because

32:45

you can't fall in love with them

32:47

I mean if you're lucky one of

32:49

them turns out to be you know

32:52

some kind of great player and you

32:54

pat yourself on the back for your

32:56

acumen when in fact it was just

32:58

pure blind luck, but a lot of

33:00

us have to rely on our pure

33:02

blind luck where we can get it

33:04

in a larger sense Jason Jason It's

33:06

very early in this and this and

33:08

that, but how are you managing the

33:10

rebuild using what you can do in

33:12

24 weeks of the remaining season? So

33:14

I would say first off, you have

33:16

to swallow your pride and realize that,

33:19

okay, this is not going to be

33:21

the hardest thing for a lot of

33:23

people. I would say secondly, who cares

33:25

what everybody else thinks? You know, especially

33:27

if it's a dynasty league. You're trying

33:29

to make your team better for the

33:31

future. and it's a dynasty league, it's

33:33

automatically, you're playing for the future and

33:35

no trade should be looked at in

33:37

the vacuum of season. with that and

33:39

I know some leagues have put in

33:41

salary caps and what not to try

33:44

to limit some of that whatever but

33:46

if as long as I'm playing within

33:48

the constraints of those rules I honestly

33:50

don't care what you think about what

33:52

I'm doing about what I'm doing about

33:54

my team like one of my my

33:56

old home league from college one of

33:58

the guy that my old home league

34:00

from college one of the guy that

34:02

ran the commissioner brian he had a

34:04

five-year span where he was either first

34:06

or last and it was beautiful and

34:08

it and it and it He went

34:11

saberhagan metrics one it lost one lost

34:13

one it was beautiful but again you

34:15

have to swallow your pride don't care

34:17

what anybody else thinks and do what's

34:19

bet what you think is best for

34:21

your team for the future and XFL

34:23

I'm 14 you know I'm looking up

34:25

in the standings and I see Jeff

34:27

Erickson didn't think he was going to

34:29

contend and there he is in second

34:31

place and I see that he has

34:33

two points in saves I'm holding Tanner

34:36

Scott Jeff and I need to make

34:38

a deal. So it's like I'm trying

34:40

to look for who I can help

34:42

move in the standings while benefiting my

34:44

team for the long run. But again,

34:46

don't take the feedback as long as

34:48

you're playing within the constraints of your

34:50

league rules. Do what's best for you.

34:52

And if people are bitching about it,

34:54

let them bitch about it. It's a

34:56

keeper league in dynasty. If they don't

34:58

want that, tell them to go to

35:00

a reset league. That's the only way

35:03

to fix this. Yeah, I played in

35:05

a home league where we ran into

35:07

dumping troubles and we basically made a

35:09

rule that said if any player is

35:11

traded in season, he becomes a free

35:13

agent at the end of that season.

35:15

And so there's no there was no

35:17

such thing as dump trading anymore where

35:19

you're swapping your Alex Rodriguez for three

35:21

prospects and you know stuff like that.

35:23

So because everybody went became a free

35:25

agent at the after. But then did

35:28

you see because I've seen this other

35:30

I also see teams become absolute dead

35:32

weight where they're not making lineup or

35:34

not doing anything because they've lost the

35:36

incentive to do anything. Right and so

35:38

that's that even if I'm a 14th

35:40

place team I'm gonna make sure I

35:42

have an active lineup every week I'm

35:44

gonna go out and I'm gonna pick

35:46

up I'm gonna put things in because

35:48

I also like being a disruptor you

35:50

know even I mentioned earlier that I've

35:52

had a little bit of a slump

35:55

and a lot I've changed my line

35:57

of I've made trades I've tried to

35:59

get into categories like okay if I

36:01

can bump up steals then I can

36:03

make a difference and Patrick is trying

36:05

to chase Dave Adler and I can

36:07

I can do something here to make

36:09

a difference to make them sweat it

36:11

out I'm still trying to do that

36:13

and so I'm I'm against anything that

36:15

disincentivizes participating and making a difference. I

36:17

know sometimes there's punitive damages like I'm

36:20

aware of one league where you're paying

36:22

out, you're paying a bigger fine to

36:24

if you finish in the bottom three

36:26

type of situation. I've seen some of

36:28

those things, but I'm all for whatever

36:30

we can do to incentivize every team

36:32

in a league competing from start to

36:34

finish throughout the season because it makes

36:36

a difference. I've seen I've been in

36:38

a league where a guy lost by

36:40

one single strikeout. And if somebody else

36:42

would have had another guy could have

36:44

passed that one strike up wouldn't matter.

36:47

But we've seen I want to leave

36:49

one year where in that one 2011

36:51

2013 whatever the league the year was

36:53

where the White Sox and Twins had

36:55

to play a playing game and another

36:57

game. Somebody got thrown out at home

36:59

that won me the lead because that

37:01

run would have scored would have tied

37:03

us and my half a point lead

37:05

would have been a half a point

37:07

deficit. So these things matter and that's

37:09

why I encourage everybody it always. frustrates

37:12

me when I'm looking to standings and

37:14

seeing teams that haven't made any free

37:16

agent moves, have it made any lineup

37:18

moves or carrying guys with red crosses.

37:20

And it's like, what are you doing?

37:22

I, you know, it means something to

37:24

the rest of us in here. Please

37:26

do something. I think part of the

37:28

problem is that guys are in so

37:30

many leagues that as they get later

37:32

in the season, they say, well, I'm

37:34

11th and this one, I'm going nowhere.

37:36

I'm just not going to devote any

37:39

time to this anymore because I've got

37:41

four teams of my 24 teams that

37:43

I'm running that are competing for top

37:45

spot and I'm going to devote my

37:47

scarce time resources to that and I

37:49

don't think that's fair to anybody else.

37:51

all the leagues where you're not doing

37:53

that and it just seems like a

37:55

thrown off you know what at the

37:57

wall and you see what part of

37:59

it sticks and that those four leagues

38:01

that you're doing well and get the

38:04

good treatment and all the rest of

38:06

them get thrown to the wayside despite

38:08

the impact that it has as you

38:10

quite accurately described as being a negative

38:12

impact on the rest of the league

38:14

and the competitiveness of it and so

38:16

forth. What we did in that home

38:18

league was we instituted we called it

38:20

the lottery and everybody at the start

38:22

of the year through in fifty bucks

38:24

extra over over and above the the

38:26

fee to join and then at the

38:28

end of the year the bottom two

38:31

teams didn't get the money back everybody

38:33

else did and then the hundred bucks

38:35

was lotteryed off to the five through

38:37

12 teams. The point was don't finish

38:39

11th or 12th because you're gonna lose

38:41

that 50 bucks that you put in

38:43

at the start of the year. And

38:45

the other thing we did, and these

38:47

are ideas that anybody can put into

38:49

their league, is we changed the order

38:51

of our farm draft so that fifth

38:53

picked first rather than 12th. We do

38:56

on my leagues too. And then you

38:58

saw five through 12 and then four

39:00

through one. There are ways to create

39:02

that incentive for sure and it's always

39:04

a balancing act. You have to talk

39:06

about it with your league members and

39:08

say last year such and such a

39:10

guy seemed to throw in the towel

39:12

early and if he had kept competing

39:14

it might have affected the race for

39:16

better or for worse for other players.

39:18

And how do we feel about that?

39:20

and sometimes the rest of your league

39:23

mates are going to go that's the

39:25

way it is and we'll play it

39:27

that way and if you don't like

39:29

that then you have to find a

39:31

different league I guess there's lots of

39:33

ways to doing it. You can do

39:35

categorical payouts. You know, I'm in two

39:37

leagues, they do categorical payouts. So if

39:39

you, maybe your last place, but you

39:41

get first place in steals and first

39:43

place in runs, there's, there's some money

39:45

back. Everybody's got a shot at winning

39:48

some money, because I know that sometimes

39:50

it's like, all right, it's sunken cost,

39:52

I've already paid my league fee, I'm

39:54

not going to win any money, why

39:56

should I? argument, but then prioritize your

39:58

leagues that you're doing well in, but

40:00

you can't totally ignore the ones you

40:02

weren't because you made a commitment to

40:04

anywhere from nine to 14 other individuals

40:06

that you are going to be a

40:08

part of this this league and you're

40:10

doing something. So again, I don't care

40:12

if my team's in the last place.

40:15

I am still going in there making

40:17

sure I'm trying to do whatever I

40:19

can to improve my team on a

40:21

week by week basis and make a

40:23

difference in the standings. And that's the

40:25

kind of commitment to something, then find

40:27

another league or reduce your leagues. But

40:29

yeah, there is some strategy behind, okay,

40:31

it's fantasy football season, everybody's focused on

40:33

that. Let me try to make up

40:35

some make up some ground in August.

40:37

Absolutely. It's happened. I've wanted drafting hold

40:40

on that because a couple of teams

40:42

just forgot. Oh, crap. It's September and

40:44

they're all worried about their football. It's

40:46

like, please and thank you. I'll take

40:48

the advantage of that, but I don't

40:50

enjoy leagues where I just see dead.

40:52

dead activity and no activity from people

40:54

that could make a difference in the

40:56

standings. I'm trying to do what I

40:58

can and I'm sitting there looking at

41:00

them just whistling as the season goes

41:02

on. It's like do something. You mentioned

41:04

that sometimes you have to kind of

41:07

keep a stiff upper lip when other

41:09

people in your league are complaining about

41:11

what you're doing to rebuild your team,

41:13

gather draft picks and gather prospects and

41:15

so forth. I was in a league

41:17

once where I made a trade partway

41:19

through the year and the basis of

41:21

the trade was a guy wasn't going

41:23

to get his innings. He was going

41:25

to lose all his points in our

41:27

own ratio. So I traded him three,

41:29

you know, middling starters. It didn't affect

41:32

my position any end. I got back

41:34

a pretty good player who actually didn't

41:36

do anything much done the stretch for

41:38

me anyway, but there was a pretty

41:40

big hue and cry in the league

41:42

and I don't know, I just had

41:44

to suck it up, but I didn't

41:46

like being everybody's enemy, you know what

41:48

I mean? So how do you deal

41:50

with that? There's a couple of ways

41:52

to go around it because you make

41:54

the good argument there. It's like, okay,

41:56

this guy is going to fall well

41:59

short of his innings. offer him volume

42:01

and he realized, okay, like, I need

42:03

to get there. Otherwise, I'm going to

42:05

be completely last and maybe they'll be

42:07

kicks me out. So it's like, I

42:09

need to get to that point. So

42:11

you have, you know, allow people to

42:13

make it argument because the worst thing

42:15

you could do is assume somebody's operating

42:17

a bad faith. That's that's what it

42:19

comes down to. And because again, you've

42:21

decided to join these these other managers

42:23

and you want to make sure it's

42:26

like. you're doing it for camaraderie you're

42:28

doing it for competition but the last

42:30

thing you should do is assuming somebody

42:32

is acting in bad faith with it

42:34

so i've seen some other league rules

42:36

where it's like you have to post

42:38

somebody it's like i and i will

42:40

do this like if i'm gonna rebuild

42:42

somebody's gonna come after me for some

42:44

guys i will tell the league i

42:46

have some competitive offers for a tanner

42:48

Scott I will be making a decision

42:51

in the next 24 to 48 hours.

42:53

If you're interested, reach out. And that's

42:55

that's something I like to do or

42:57

in CBS you can go put on

42:59

the block and say I am considering

43:01

I have a I have a very

43:03

competitive offer for this player. I am

43:05

pulling the trigger in 24 hours unless

43:07

somebody speaks up. You don't have to

43:09

tell them what the offer is just

43:11

say. I'm just that way because a

43:13

lot of the times the reaction to

43:15

these types of moves and leads. is

43:18

jealousy. It's not that the trade was

43:20

bad, it's like, if I would have

43:22

known that guy was available, I would

43:24

have jumped all over that. So that's

43:26

usually the root cause of the argument

43:28

is that I didn't know that guy

43:30

was available, I could have done better.

43:32

Well, all you do is ask. It's

43:34

not your fault that you asked that

43:36

person, hey, I've got a bunch of

43:38

volume, could you give me this and

43:40

I'll give you the guys that'll get

43:43

you to your endings on it. Nobody

43:45

else asked. Sometimes it's as plain as

43:47

that. The league ended up changing the

43:49

innings rule anyway, so it ended up

43:51

not mattering in the fullness of time.

43:53

But things change. You're listening to BaseballHQ

43:55

Radio Patrick Davitt with Jason Collette from

43:57

Rota Wire in the Sleeper in the

43:59

Bus podcast. Recently, you and Justin Mason

44:01

were talking about the Milwaukee rotation, which

44:03

might be in the grimest shape of

44:05

any rotation I've ever seen because of

44:07

all those injuries. last one being Nestor

44:10

Cortez, is there any short or long-term

44:12

fantasy opportunity here with this collapsed rotation?

44:14

I'm not sure and let's let's be

44:16

real it wasn't in great shape before

44:18

the season. Sorry. It was it was

44:20

Freddy Peralta is almost like the old

44:22

Eddie Fainer king in his court it

44:24

was pretty Peralta and a bunch of

44:26

what. And I say this is somebody

44:28

who is always appreciative for Tobias Myers

44:30

because he's what brought Junior Camonero to

44:32

the race. All right so I like

44:35

that are but like you scroll down

44:37

and look at the depth chart. The

44:39

good news is Milwaukee has a six-man

44:41

rotation. The bad news, that's their I.L.

44:43

That's why I think so those guys

44:45

are. And I honestly wasn't counting on

44:47

much from Woodruff this year. I saw

44:49

him getting drafted. I did like Ashby

44:51

on a rebound, but then hers oblique

44:53

very early in spring training. Sabali is

44:55

what he is. That's a hamstring injury.

44:57

So you have to figure that Ashby

44:59

and Sabali at a minimum and Tobias

45:02

Myers. They should be back here by

45:04

the end of the end of the

45:06

end of the month. Hopefully. And so

45:08

that will give some more rotation. But

45:10

I look at this, I saw the

45:12

move that Milwaukee made to get Quinn

45:14

Priester and gave up a competitive pick

45:16

like good for Boston for taking advantage

45:18

of that situation. So I think I

45:20

believe, yeah, Quinn. Priester pitches against Colorado

45:22

in Denver today. And last night's score

45:24

was a big number. Tyler Alexander had

45:27

to wear it. Some middle reliever picked

45:29

up a win last night because I

45:31

was watching that game as I went

45:33

to sleep. It was 10 to in

45:35

the fifth, sixth inning and Jared Koenig

45:37

was pitching at that point. So I

45:39

don't know if there's much opportunity there.

45:41

It's just you have to hope that

45:43

I know Chad Patrick's had had a

45:45

decent, but they've got Arizona coming up

45:47

and that's where he's where he's pitching.

45:49

Basically, the best opportunity is if you

45:51

can get a Savali or a Myers

45:54

or an Ashby, if they happen to

45:56

be dropped in a league, always check

45:58

your free agent, especially in FBC, check

46:00

it and try to get ahead of

46:02

that. If you have the bench depth

46:04

where you can eat an injury for

46:06

a week or two, try to get

46:08

them now. when they're out of mind

46:10

before next week when all of a

46:12

sudden they're on rehab assignments, okay, I'm

46:14

gonna go get them in that same

46:16

podcast Justin Mason mentioned that the Tigers

46:19

broadcasters really liked catcher Dylan Dingler and

46:21

everybody make their boogie nights joke now

46:23

and we'll get on with things. But

46:25

my question is Jason, how much weight

46:27

do you put on player observations that

46:29

are coming from? the announcers in the

46:31

broadcast booth because they're close to the

46:33

team sometimes. They are. They're close to

46:35

the team. You know, they will having

46:37

been in that environment. Now it's been

46:39

10 years since I was in that

46:41

Tampa Bay environment, but the media dining

46:43

room, so there's a there was a

46:46

media dining room that was across the

46:48

concourse on the 200 level of Tropicana

46:50

field, and you could go in there

46:52

and the the Wayne Statz and Brian

46:54

Anderson could be in there sitting next

46:56

to Neil Solon's and Dave Wills and

46:58

Andy. I'm trying to blank free free.

47:00

So everybody is in the. everybody's in

47:02

there and so they're all talking to

47:04

one another so it wouldn't surprise you

47:06

not surprise our beat rider Mark Tompkin

47:08

could be there and right so the

47:11

beat rider saying something all of a

47:13

sudden that proliferates because before the game

47:15

all those folks can go down into

47:17

the into the lockroom and interview players

47:19

and dugout so it's a lot of

47:21

the same conversations and so yeah I

47:23

and that's one of the things I

47:25

enjoy listening to if I'm in the

47:27

car I would just put any game

47:29

on the radio if the raise heart

47:31

and playing and playing I will listen

47:33

to somebody and they'll talk about a

47:35

disguise looking at a new pitch last

47:38

night on the broadcast the race broadcast

47:40

brought up the fact that the angels

47:42

have lowered Kakuchi's arm slot and they

47:44

had a really nice graphic they took

47:46

all the arm the new arm slot

47:48

graphs that are on baseball savant and

47:50

they showed the history on baseball savant

47:52

and they showed the history of Kakuchi's

47:54

arm slot and they showed the history

47:56

of Kakuchi's arm slot and they showed

47:58

the history of Kakuchi's arm slot and

48:00

they showed the history of the game's

48:03

the guy that I identified in my

48:05

bold predictions here is for Detroit, like,

48:07

hey, keep an eye on this guy.

48:09

There's an opportunity there for him, and

48:11

I took him in the XFL draft

48:13

for I think $4 in November when

48:15

we drafted the XFL, and I do

48:17

have him in two other leagues, being

48:19

drafted the XFL, and I do have

48:21

him in two other leagues, and so

48:23

it's like, cool. That's something that's come

48:25

about, and we'll see where that goes,

48:27

but he's being in the I, but

48:30

he's hit in fifth, he's hit in

48:32

fifth at least twice here and that's

48:34

a good thing. We'll do some things sometimes.

48:36

Yeah, no kidding. You're listening to Baseball HQ

48:38

Radio Patrick Daven with Jason Collette from Roadowire

48:41

and The Sleeper in the Bust podcast and

48:43

Jason, as you know, you've been here many

48:45

times. I like to wrap up these discussions

48:47

by looking at some boons and bains. A

48:50

boon is a player, maybe a slow start,

48:52

got a big future ahead of them, by

48:54

low head of them, by low, by low,

48:56

likely to outper, Well, and this guy to

48:59

me is off to a good start. I

49:01

still like him. And it's Ben Rice of

49:03

the Yankees. Ben Rice, and he hasn't. I

49:06

know he was a late sleeper for a

49:08

lot of folks because there was the chatter

49:10

of him being the second catcher. for this

49:12

team and getting some catcher eligibility. He still

49:15

isn't caught, but he's got two games at

49:17

first base and nine games at DH so

49:19

far. But Ben Rice has been hitting the

49:22

ball extremely well. And if that catcher, if

49:24

you're in a one game catcher eligibility, there's

49:26

still that possibility of that happening. And so

49:28

I've liked, I'd like what I saw from

49:31

Ben Rice last year at the plate. He's

49:33

doing well enough again this year off to

49:35

a good start homer yesterday. because as we

49:38

were talking about earlier, the Yankees had one

49:40

good series at home with good weather, it's

49:42

been cold since, and the bats have been

49:44

quiet, but his bat has still been loud.

49:47

And I wanna see where this is going.

49:49

And so that's where I'm gonna go with

49:51

my boot has been rice. I would say

49:54

like the easy one would be Kyrie, Paris,

49:56

but I'm still having a hard time believing

49:58

this. I'm like, he's doing this and it's

50:00

great that he did the, it's great that

50:03

he went and saw Aaron judges hitting coach,

50:05

but look at the numbers that Khmering Paris

50:07

has had previously. Nothing predicted that this was

50:09

even possible. And here he is doing and

50:12

so when something is this improbable, like I

50:14

just can't. I didn't even put him as

50:16

a bane because it feels too obvious. But

50:19

if he ends up being, I mentioned the

50:21

Lawrence Butler thing earlier, because you remember this

50:23

time last year when I came on this

50:25

podcast, I mentioned Lawrence Butler as a boon,

50:28

as I, you know, he, he wasn't hitting,

50:30

but he was walking and walking is hitting.

50:32

And then Lawrence Butler went on to have

50:35

one of the great, it took him, it

50:37

took him a few weeks, but then one

50:39

of the great, it took him a few

50:41

weeks, but then he got going on to

50:44

have one of the great, it, it took

50:46

him, but then it took him, it took

50:48

him, he took him, his, his, he took

50:51

him, his, his, his, his, his, his, his,

50:53

his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his,

50:55

his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his,

50:57

his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his,

51:00

his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his,

51:02

his, his, his, his, So and this is

51:04

what I was talking about earlier when I

51:07

mentioned trying to replace Mike Soroga and Trying

51:09

to think of looking over the next few

51:11

weeks and not over the course of the

51:13

season And if you know if Nick Pollock

51:16

or any picture list person listens to this

51:18

one I say this name you're gonna scream

51:20

because they have a mean called never Trevor

51:22

But Trevor Williams is doing some things this

51:25

year and it intrigues me and the fact

51:27

that Trevor Williams has a pretty soft schedule

51:29

the next couple of weeks like they have

51:32

the pirates the Marlins and the Rockies the

51:34

next few weeks and I know one of

51:36

those starts is the Rockies is at Denver

51:38

but that's still a soft schedule then they

51:41

have the Orioles who weren't exactly hitting the

51:43

cover off the ball so the next couple

51:45

of weeks it's there. Trevor Williams has been

51:48

throwing some more sweepers and getting some results

51:50

and the early results have looked good and

51:52

so in a 15 teen mixed league and

51:54

a NL league It's worth a late fire

51:57

because again the schedule is there. This is

51:59

not somebody I'm saying take Trevor Williams and

52:01

run within the rest of the season. But

52:04

for the next few weeks, if you're looking

52:06

to buy yourself some time for let's say

52:08

one of those Milwaukee pictures coming back at

52:10

the end of the month, this could be

52:13

a good option for you. Over to the

52:15

Baines. players who maybe are off to too

52:17

hot a start and could be sell highs

52:20

or don't buy highs, who's a bane hitter?

52:22

Nolan Aronado, and I say this, like there's

52:24

the name, this is why I didn't put

52:26

Carmine Parish there, because you have Carmine Parish

52:29

and try to trade him right now, nobody's

52:31

gonna believe it. But Nolan Aronado at least

52:33

has the surface number to be like, oh,

52:35

hey, look, he's back, he's hitting. Well, look

52:38

under the look under the hood, and it,

52:40

and it doesn't look under the. So if

52:42

I have Nolan Aronado, I am trying to

52:45

trade him now, because again, the batting average

52:47

is the only thing that's holding up right

52:49

now. He's hitting 310, 420, 452, and he's

52:51

got four extra base hits, but the quality

52:54

of the contact is not where we want

52:56

to, or it should be for him. And

52:58

that's just reinforcing what we saw last year.

53:01

And so for me, I'm trying to trade

53:03

Aronado and his 300 300 batting average right

53:05

now, the name value plus the early results,

53:07

because I don't like what I'm seeing under

53:10

the I think one of the biggest revolutions

53:12

in fantasy baseball has been the availability of

53:14

quality of contact metrics. A thousand percent. It's

53:17

so great to be able to see because

53:19

we often just had to fly blind all

53:21

this guy's doing that and we could sure

53:23

we could look at hit rate and different

53:26

things but now we could look at quality

53:28

of contact and we know how much of

53:30

a correlation there is between quality of contact

53:33

and outcomes and the quality of contact that

53:35

Aronado has been making is. is not good.

53:37

Are you using blasts and square ups? I

53:39

usually stick at the main player profile on

53:42

Saban to look at some of those and

53:44

then I will look at some of that

53:46

data but the the lollipop sliders is where

53:48

I start and then if something raises my

53:51

eyebrow then I go down and dig a

53:53

dick within that but I like that quick

53:55

easy look to be like hmm. Okay, like

53:58

I would encourage people to go look at

54:00

coming in Paris. Go look at where some

54:02

of his contact are and then look at

54:04

like average. There's a odd mix of red

54:07

and blue. And then go look at Ben

54:09

Rice. It's a lot of red. And so

54:11

that's where it is like, if you have

54:14

that mix of red and blue, then that

54:16

digs you, okay, let me look further down

54:18

and see why there's such a discrepancy, why

54:20

the outcomes, the contact, and like, maybe he's

54:23

just getting lucky. Every fly ball he's hitting

54:25

is going out type of situation. So it's

54:27

a great, I'm not saying don't scroll down,

54:30

just, you know, look, lollipops, okay, move on,

54:32

but you know, start there and move your

54:34

way down. And move your way down. on

54:36

baseball savant on those sliders and in the

54:39

in the text red is good. I grew

54:41

up that red was always bad you know.

54:43

Excel conditional formatting baby. Who's a pitcher could

54:45

be a bane? So and this one pains

54:48

because I like the picture but Nick Pavetta

54:50

I am underwhelmed with what I'm seeing so

54:52

far with him being in San Diego. Nick

54:55

Pavetta has long been fantasy kryptonite for me

54:57

and I you know I look at the

54:59

low walk rate and the strikeout rate but

55:01

I'm not liking what I've seen so far

55:04

from him out of San Diego the fastball

55:06

velocity is down one mile an hour so

55:08

far and he really hasn't made any type

55:11

of nominal change to his repertoire you know

55:13

so far he's like kind of cut out

55:15

the the slider is gone and he's throwing

55:17

more sinkers to that type of thing but

55:20

not a nominal change to anything. But the

55:22

slight drop in velocity so far this season's

55:24

a bit concerning and I don't like, I'm

55:27

expecting more. This isn't the Nick Pavetta that

55:29

we saw last year. So I'm a little

55:31

concerned. But right now is ERAs 270 and

55:33

his whip is one and he has one

55:36

and he has eight strikeouts and ten innings.

55:38

So if you agree with me, then you

55:40

can still trade him kind of like Nolan

55:43

Aronado with this, but we've seen where Nick

55:45

Povetta's previous seasons have gone before before he

55:47

finishes. Jason Collette's Boone's Ben Rice of the

55:49

Yankees and a kind of cautious honorable mention

55:52

for Kyrie Paris, Trevor Williams of the Nationals,

55:54

and his Baines, Nolan Aronado of St. Louis,

55:56

and Nick Pavetta of St. San Diego. Jason

55:58

remind our listeners where they can keep up

56:01

with your work. So you can find me

56:03

at Rotowar, the collect calls column that comes

56:05

out every Monday or Tuesday, depending on what's

56:08

happening with things. That's there. I record the

56:10

sleeper in the bus podcast with Justin Mason

56:12

and usually another person now. Sometimes that's Joe

56:14

Areico, but we're trying to pull in some

56:17

more guest as well. And that'll have that.

56:19

records on Sundays and posts on Sundays. Recently

56:21

I have been I was on the ordinary

56:24

effort podcast this past week and ordinary efforts

56:26

an awesome discord community that focuses on Immaculate

56:28

Grid and you know I don't know about

56:30

you but after Immaculate Grid is my morning

56:33

activity. I love doing that and what I

56:35

love about that community is how much I

56:37

learn from other people. I know a lot

56:40

of people like to do wordle and crossword

56:42

puzzles but Immaculate Grid is my mental activity

56:44

to get my brain going in the morning

56:46

and I was I had good time. with

56:49

Josh and Mike on the podcast last night

56:51

and so encourage folks you can go find

56:53

it on YouTube if you want to watch

56:56

that podcast because we actually did a grid

56:58

together and scored a six and I was

57:00

like yes and this is where it comes

57:02

to like don't always trust your gut there

57:05

was one particular grid where I was convinced

57:07

I had the right guy in the last

57:09

second I was like you know what wait

57:11

a second there's I have 2% doubt let's

57:14

not use that guy. And it turned out

57:16

afterwards, we finished, we looked it up, we're

57:18

like, good. I was like 24 points off.

57:21

In my head, I had one Samuel hitting

57:23

300 in one season. No, you had 276.

57:25

But I, in my head, I was like,

57:27

that's the guy, no, wait, hold on, let's

57:30

not go that direction. Let's go another direction.

57:32

And it turned out it was right, because

57:34

that would have been like, Great mental exercise

57:37

for me this morning talking with you. It

57:39

always is. I appreciate you taking the time.

57:41

We'll catch up with you again during the

57:43

year. I hope you have good luck in

57:46

all your leagues, except for a total AL,

57:48

of course, and we'll talk to you soon.

57:50

Yeah, thanks, Patrick. We'll touch base again in

57:53

the summer and see how our teams are

57:55

doing against one another. Jason Collette writes for

57:57

Roadawire and co-hosts the Sleeper and the Sleeper

57:59

and the Bust pod. market watch player news

58:02

reports with Ray Murphy that's next on baseball

58:04

HQ radio. Right now though it's time in

58:06

the show when I get to let you

58:09

know about a couple of items of great

58:11

content that let us say baseball HQ.com is

58:13

the best fantasy baseball website in the

58:15

business. In playing time tomorrow, analyst

58:17

Brian Rudd looks at all

58:19

five teams in the American

58:22

League Central including the Kansas

58:24

City bullpen, the White Sox

58:26

Middle Infield, and Cleveland's unproductive

58:28

outfield. And in the speculator column,

58:30

analyst Ryan Bloomfield makes some

58:32

snap judgments using baseball HQ's

58:35

Q-Bab tool for hitters. There's

58:37

some big gains by Pittsburgh

58:39

third baseman, Cebriyan Hayes and

58:42

Cincinnati utility man Gavin Lux,

58:44

and some losses on the

58:46

Q-Bab downslope, including Milwaukee catcher

58:48

William Contreras. Playing Time Tomorrow

58:51

and The Speculator. Just some

58:53

of the great resources that

58:56

let us say BaseballHQ.com is

58:58

the best fantasy baseball website

59:00

in the business. BaseballHQ

59:02

Radio. Hey welcome back

59:05

to BaseballHQ Radio. I'm

59:07

Patrick Davitt. Time now for our

59:09

weekly news review and update and

59:11

here with the latest is Ray

59:14

Murphy of BaseballHQ.com. Ray, welcome back

59:16

to the show. And happy Friday

59:18

to you. Happy Friday, PD. Let's

59:20

start in Texas. The Rangers placed

59:23

Outfielder Wyatt Langford on the 10-day

59:25

I.L. with what they were calling

59:27

a grade one strain of the

59:29

right oblique. Rod Truz-Dell covered this

59:31

for playing time today. And Matt

59:33

Cederholm, not for the first time

59:35

in this edition of Baseball HQ

59:37

Radio's news report. Matt Cederholm

59:40

in the Big Hurt. What's up with

59:42

Langford. Yeah, a lot of the latest

59:44

in the epidemic of oblique injuries,

59:46

right? I think that if there's

59:48

good news here, it's that the

59:50

grades of the oblique strains run

59:52

in the opposite direction of like

59:55

Deaf Khan, right? Deaf Khan one

59:57

is really a really bad nuclear

59:59

war, but... grade one oblique strain

1:00:01

is considered the wildest strain. So

1:00:03

I guess that's good. So the

1:00:06

Rangers are hoping this will be

1:00:08

like the one that Lankford missed

1:00:10

a chunk of spring training for,

1:00:12

but made it back for opening

1:00:14

day. So they're hoping that the

1:00:16

recovery will be decent. He missed

1:00:18

like a week and a half

1:00:20

or two weeks during the spring

1:00:23

because of that. But our Matt Cedar

1:00:25

home, as you say, our big

1:00:27

hurt author. sort of pumped the

1:00:29

brakes and sounded a little more

1:00:31

of a cautionary note obbeaks or

1:00:33

notorious slow healing injuries. I read

1:00:35

I have read enough of Matt's work over

1:00:37

the years to know that I think the

1:00:40

reason for that is that the lack of

1:00:42

blood flow to that area right so

1:00:44

you know it just takes a while

1:00:46

for the healing process to occur and

1:00:49

there's of course risk of re-injury so

1:00:51

we docked Lankford a chunk of playing

1:00:53

time and really all we could do

1:00:55

is monitor and see if he can hit

1:00:58

that two weekish timeline that

1:01:00

the Rangers are promoting but

1:01:02

mad is a little skeptical

1:01:04

of. Well after we're done this part

1:01:07

of the call Ray going to

1:01:09

have Dr. Jim Ferretti on there

1:01:11

you go on the show he's

1:01:13

of course an injuries analyst at

1:01:16

Baseball HQ contributor there and he

1:01:18

says one of the problems with

1:01:20

all injuries in baseball is that

1:01:22

when you go back to the field and

1:01:24

start playing you immediately start using the muscles

1:01:26

and structures that you were using that got

1:01:29

you heard in the first place so during

1:01:31

batting you're trying to twist really hard and

1:01:33

get those muscles working and maybe that's not

1:01:35

going to you can't just decide not to

1:01:37

do that when you're swinging right right there's

1:01:40

no way not to do it is the

1:01:42

problem yeah so when I heard the news

1:01:44

I thought well this could be good news

1:01:46

for my tout wars team I could use

1:01:48

an Evan Carter call-up what are my chances

1:01:51

Seemed not so good right now, at least

1:01:53

until more dominoes fall. Texas did

1:01:55

of course shuffle their roster in

1:01:57

the wake of the Lankford injury,

1:01:59

but Carter was not one of

1:02:02

the call-ups. They have summoned Ezekiel

1:02:04

Duran and Dustin Harris up to

1:02:06

Arlington. They might scrape together

1:02:09

some playing time. Duran is sort

1:02:11

of a utility guy in Harris.

1:02:13

It's an extra out fielder. Jonathan

1:02:15

Amelis was the other guy sent

1:02:17

down in a two for two

1:02:19

transaction sort of here with Langford

1:02:22

just to give the full picture.

1:02:24

But for now, Rod took Langford's

1:02:26

playing time. debit in the outfield

1:02:28

and spread it out between guys

1:02:30

who are already on the roster,

1:02:32

Leo just of Harris and Kevin

1:02:34

Polar. So not a lot of

1:02:36

not a lot of opportunity even

1:02:38

for Harris or Duran and officially

1:02:40

at least no opportunity for Carter.

1:02:42

Yeah and Carter's off to a

1:02:44

terrible start in AAA as well

1:02:46

so I guess I was

1:02:48

wish casting more than being

1:02:51

a sensible analyst. Speaking of

1:02:53

injuries, Brian Buxton. isn't hurt.

1:02:55

And if he stays that

1:02:57

way, Brandon Cruz reminds us

1:02:59

in his facts and flukes

1:03:01

performance validation column this week,

1:03:03

Brian Buxton can be

1:03:05

a fantasy force. Yeah, that's

1:03:07

absolutely true. You have last year,

1:03:09

48 days on the I.L. plus a

1:03:12

fair amount of downtime, even when

1:03:14

he was active. But when he

1:03:16

was in the lineup, he posted

1:03:18

an 859 OPS, which was his

1:03:21

most productive line since 2021, with

1:03:23

a strong batting average rebound

1:03:25

and mostly good skills

1:03:27

bouncebacks as well, not necessarily

1:03:30

all the way back to

1:03:32

peak Byron Buxton levels, but.

1:03:34

Very playable. In particular, the erosion

1:03:37

in the last couple of years

1:03:39

with Buxton had been contact rate.

1:03:41

2023 in particular, content rate had

1:03:43

trended down, was the lowest of

1:03:45

his career going on the way

1:03:47

back to 2016, but it bounced

1:03:49

back nicely last year. So did

1:03:51

the line drive rate. So did

1:03:53

the hard contact rate. Hey, these

1:03:55

are all good things, right? If

1:03:57

you're hitting more line drives, you're

1:03:59

making more. contact concurrently, you're hitting

1:04:01

the ball hard concurrently, that's gonna lead

1:04:03

to a nice spike in good outcomes.

1:04:06

And sure enough, put all those things

1:04:08

together and his batting average jumped by

1:04:10

72 points from what it was in

1:04:13

2023. So that was well supported too,

1:04:15

as you would expect with those underlying

1:04:17

metrics that I was talking about. is

1:04:20

that those all netted out to the

1:04:22

second highest expected batting average of his

1:04:24

career. So kind of all good news

1:04:27

on the what happens when bat meets

1:04:29

ballfront. But despite that, well, the one

1:04:31

thing that didn't really come back to

1:04:34

his peak levels of 2021 and 22

1:04:36

was the power. But if he stays

1:04:38

healthy again this year, I don't think

1:04:41

we would totally rule that out. Sort

1:04:43

of the biggest gating factor there is

1:04:45

he had. slightly fewer fly balls last

1:04:48

year. Of course, fewer fly balls were

1:04:50

good for that batting average rebound we

1:04:52

were talking about because fly balls that

1:04:55

don't go over the fence very rarely

1:04:57

go for hits. So few or five

1:04:59

fly balls meant more line drives, more

1:05:02

ground balls, more batting average, but we

1:05:04

might like to we might trade off

1:05:06

a little more fly ball tilt and

1:05:09

a little less batting average to get

1:05:11

some of that former pretigious buxed and

1:05:13

power back. The exit velocity is still

1:05:16

there and supports that. You know, it

1:05:18

was an elite 92 miles per hour,

1:05:20

strong barrel rate, 13%. All of those

1:05:23

are indicative, like I said, of good

1:05:25

things happening when ball meets bat and

1:05:27

the one missing element for a power

1:05:30

spike is hitting the ball in the

1:05:32

air more often. But sort of back

1:05:34

to the top here PD, the overarching

1:05:37

theme here is how frequently can he

1:05:39

be in the lineup? So that's, you

1:05:41

know, got to be an open question,

1:05:43

I think. Another question that stays open

1:05:46

is that Buxton used to be an

1:05:48

elite stolen base source. He had 29

1:05:50

stolen bases. In 2017, it's kind of

1:05:53

scaled down from there with all the

1:05:55

injuries, and Brandon Cruz, in fact, some

1:05:57

flukes does not seem too hopeful on

1:06:00

that front. Yeah, it's sort of a

1:06:02

similar story to the power skills that

1:06:04

we were just talking about. The good

1:06:07

news is that the raw skills seem

1:06:09

to still be present. His speed score

1:06:11

remains plus. His stack cast sprint speed

1:06:14

is all the way up in the

1:06:16

97th percentile, and over the last five

1:06:18

years. He's been a very efficient base

1:06:21

base dealer 33 for 37. That's 89%

1:06:23

but this then really comes down to

1:06:25

The Jeff Goldblum question, right? You could

1:06:28

steal more bases, but should you? And

1:06:30

that really gets to the ties back

1:06:32

to the injury question, right? I think

1:06:35

the twins over the last several years

1:06:37

have made a conscious decision that you

1:06:39

know in an effort to keep Buxton

1:06:42

in the lineup, which admittedly has been

1:06:44

only partially successful, that they're willing to

1:06:46

trade off the stolen base part of

1:06:49

his game to do that. And I

1:06:51

think that's what we're seeing here. Where

1:06:53

are we here? So, no, that's right.

1:06:56

So Buxton's 31 years old, and the

1:06:58

story, I think we even talked about

1:07:00

this on the show, Ray, is that

1:07:03

he came into this year fully healthy.

1:07:05

his first off-season in a long time

1:07:07

when he didn't have any surgeries, he

1:07:10

didn't have any rehab, and we were

1:07:12

supposed to be optimistic. Yeah, and even,

1:07:14

I think we were talking about it

1:07:17

early in spring training as well, because

1:07:19

we were talking about the normal off-season

1:07:21

and that sort of thing, and then

1:07:23

in the first week of spring training,

1:07:26

is I remember, Buxton stole like two

1:07:28

or three bases, and we're all like,

1:07:30

oh, here he comes, yeah, I remember.

1:07:33

You're only healthy until you're not, right

1:07:35

until you're not, right. or the bottom

1:07:37

line here is these logged only more

1:07:40

than 400 plate appearances only one slate.

1:07:42

back in 2017 when he was a

1:07:44

23-year-old and whatever you're forecasting for him

1:07:47

this year, you have to start with

1:07:49

assuming that he's gonna spend at least

1:07:51

some time on the I.L. So have

1:07:54

a good backup plan, have a flexible

1:07:56

roster, have a plan B, but... While

1:07:58

he's in the lineup enjoy him because

1:08:01

the skills are still there and he

1:08:03

can do You know he can still

1:08:05

do really exciting things on the baseball

1:08:08

field in a number of different ways

1:08:10

That we talked we've talked about the

1:08:12

power the speed the batting average. He's

1:08:15

got all the tools. He just doesn't

1:08:17

have the durability Moving to American League

1:08:19

pitchers in the Arsenal report at BaseballHQ.com,

1:08:22

analyst Corbin Young deep dives the pitch

1:08:24

mixes of pitchers and there are three

1:08:26

of them in this latest edition including

1:08:29

Kansas City left-hander Chris Bubich and Corbin

1:08:31

says Bubich is maintaining some changes in

1:08:33

his arm angle, changes that he made

1:08:36

last season and they helped him be

1:08:38

much more effective and it seems to

1:08:40

be working again this year. It does

1:08:43

and I before we dive into Bubich

1:08:45

Bubich is... pitch mix here I have

1:08:47

to share an anecdote from this article

1:08:50

on the site which ran earlier this

1:08:52

week and the first comment at the

1:08:54

bottom of the article was something to

1:08:56

the to the tune of great information

1:08:59

would have been great to have been

1:09:01

great to have before our draft day

1:09:03

but you know we're talking about early

1:09:06

season pitch mixes like that would have

1:09:08

only been possible with a time machine

1:09:10

right yeah there are a lot of

1:09:13

things I know today I would have

1:09:15

liked to have known on draft day

1:09:17

yeah no kidding right anyway it just

1:09:20

amused me yeah back to boovich You

1:09:22

know, Corbin Young who wrote this article

1:09:24

pointed out that Boobich was one of

1:09:27

his breakout picks in a couple of

1:09:29

other contexts in preseason coverage. And the

1:09:31

early results, Boobich has added some velocity,

1:09:34

he's changed his arm angle, moving his

1:09:36

release point a little closer to his

1:09:38

body, which I guess is a little

1:09:41

counter what we usually think about, you

1:09:43

know, one of the buzz things with

1:09:45

pictures these days, his extension, right? and

1:09:48

trying to get the ball, you know,

1:09:50

sort of out of your hand as

1:09:52

far away from your body as you

1:09:55

can so that you're essentially max, you

1:09:57

know, you're shortening the distance from picture

1:09:59

to hitter as much as you can.

1:10:02

Even a couple of inches makes your

1:10:04

velocity play up, etc. But in this

1:10:06

case, Buba just brought his arm back

1:10:09

closer into his body with the benefit

1:10:11

of, you know, that arm angle change

1:10:13

is... changing the vertical break and pitch,

1:10:16

you know, generating more movement and therefore

1:10:18

more wiffs. So just another example of,

1:10:20

you know, these pitching labs these days,

1:10:23

there are just so many levers you

1:10:25

can pull and so much, you know,

1:10:27

individualized analysis and tweaking you can do.

1:10:30

It's not a that we call them

1:10:32

pitching labs, not pitching factories, right, because

1:10:34

they're not just doing the same thing

1:10:36

to everybody there. They're really personalizing and

1:10:39

trying to take what a particular picture

1:10:41

does well and do it better or

1:10:43

what they're not good at and fix

1:10:46

it essentially, but it's very bespoke right?

1:10:48

You know differing from everybody who walks

1:10:50

in the door. It is all of

1:10:53

that and I'm not a physicist and

1:10:55

I don't claim to be one, but

1:10:57

I remember high school physics. And one

1:11:00

of the things I remember about that,

1:11:02

and this actually played into something I

1:11:04

was reading about with these torpedo bats,

1:11:07

is if you move the moment of

1:11:09

inertia, they call it, closer to the

1:11:11

axis of rotation, it speeds up. It's

1:11:14

like everybody's seen the figure skaters. They

1:11:16

bring their arms in their rotation. So

1:11:18

I wonder if bringing your arm closer...

1:11:21

to your body while you're spinning your

1:11:23

body speeds up that part of your

1:11:25

arm because it's closer to the center

1:11:28

of the axis of rotation. You know

1:11:30

what I mean? Yeah, that does make

1:11:32

sense. I can see I can see

1:11:35

that. You're right because if you're, you

1:11:37

know, you spin, you see using the

1:11:39

figure skater analogy, you see the skaters

1:11:42

spinning a lot faster with hard. their

1:11:44

arms crossed across their chest as opposed

1:11:46

to you know and nobody can see

1:11:49

what I'm doing. But it's very good

1:11:51

Ray, very demonstrative. This is fantastic content,

1:11:53

yeah, but if you have your arms

1:11:56

straight out and like a T you

1:11:58

can still spin of course figure skaters

1:12:00

do that but they're not rotating as

1:12:03

quickly. in fact figure skater start with

1:12:05

their arms way out and one of

1:12:07

their legs extended as well because they

1:12:10

want to get the momentum from that

1:12:12

and then once they get spinning then

1:12:14

they pull everything in and it goes

1:12:16

faster and the same thing's true of

1:12:19

football quarterbacks when if you watch a

1:12:21

football quarterback his offhand is going to

1:12:23

start out way outside of his body

1:12:26

and it's going to pull in as

1:12:28

he as he rotates forward and tries

1:12:30

to throw pitchers glove glove hand usually

1:12:33

ends up up up close to their

1:12:35

chest all of these kinds of things

1:12:37

and the other aspect of it I

1:12:40

wondered about when I read this report

1:12:42

on Chris Bubich is I wonder if

1:12:44

bringing your elbow closer to your body

1:12:47

improves your control your ability to locate

1:12:49

the pitch because it's it's not as

1:12:51

flingy way out at the end as

1:12:54

it would be if it were a

1:12:56

whip, for instance. You know, I noticed

1:12:58

that Corbin said that Bubich's fastball location

1:13:01

has been a positive change as well.

1:13:03

I think you're on to something there.

1:13:05

Indeed, Bubich has been actually locating the

1:13:08

fastball, not just better, but... differently. He's

1:13:10

been working the fastball more in the

1:13:12

upper third of the strike zone, which

1:13:15

makes it a good complement to his

1:13:17

slider, but especially the change up, which

1:13:19

is emerging is a very effective pitch

1:13:22

against opposite-handed hitters. In Bubit's, the first

1:13:24

outing is change up at a 40%

1:13:26

swing strike rate, eight change up. with

1:13:29

seven of them were those down and

1:13:31

away diving away from right-handed pitters, which

1:13:33

is really, you know, an optimal location

1:13:36

for generating, you know, both those swings

1:13:38

and misses, and we contact from right-handed

1:13:40

batters. So that's kind of the, that

1:13:43

kind of the sweet spot for the

1:13:45

changeup. And then Corbin wraps it up.

1:13:47

up is look at Boobich by saying,

1:13:50

you know, the early performance is interesting,

1:13:52

but the greater long-term interest is kind

1:13:54

of how he's aligning all of these

1:13:56

pitch inputs and still really a work

1:13:59

in progress as he sort of reinvents

1:14:01

himself with this new release point that

1:14:03

kind of, you know, is changing the

1:14:06

shape of all of his pitches, so

1:14:08

we're still sort of piecing together how

1:14:10

to go back to the title of

1:14:13

an article, how all of this comes

1:14:15

together into an arsenal, you know. In

1:14:17

Baltimore, the Orioles placed right-hander Zach Eflin

1:14:20

on the 15-day I.L. with what the

1:14:22

team called a low-grade lat strain. Now

1:14:24

they're not even putting numbers on it,

1:14:27

Ray. Just a high-medium low, I guess,

1:14:29

I don't know. It apparently happened during

1:14:31

his start on Monday. Ryan Williams covered

1:14:34

the story for playing time today, so

1:14:36

what is the story? Yeah, now they're

1:14:38

just confusing me with these grading systems.

1:14:41

It's like you say low grade and

1:14:43

I'm like, oh no, did you get

1:14:45

a D? And is that you know,

1:14:48

and now how does that how does

1:14:50

that map to the numbers, right? You

1:14:52

know, we're all using different scales. I

1:14:55

don't know what to do with all

1:14:57

those stuff. But Ryan Williams covered this

1:14:59

for us in playing time today. Eflin

1:15:02

shut down from throwing for about a

1:15:04

week and then they'll reevaluate reevaluate I

1:15:06

think all the same caveats from the

1:15:09

same caveats for discussion apply here. Depending

1:15:11

on the length of F1's absence, we're

1:15:13

not totally sure what the O's are

1:15:16

gonna do in their rotation. It could

1:15:18

be Kyle Gibson. He had a AAA

1:15:20

rehab start on Thursday this week and

1:15:23

through three and a third innings, only

1:15:25

47 pitches, three hits a run, no

1:15:27

walks and four K's. So reasonably effective,

1:15:29

but 47 pitches I think is probably

1:15:32

not the platform you want before you

1:15:34

throw them back into the big league

1:15:36

rotation, but. The O's may not have

1:15:39

a choice. They may have to call

1:15:41

him up and target 65 pictures in

1:15:43

a bullpen day after that. And just

1:15:46

for everyone's information, Gibson's opposing starter in

1:15:48

that game was Spencer Strider of Atlanta,

1:15:50

whose name is going to come up

1:15:53

a little later on. So what happens

1:15:55

if the O's need a starter before?

1:15:57

for Gibson is actually ready. Yeah, if

1:16:00

they want to give him another outing

1:16:02

or two, it seems like the most

1:16:04

logical replacement would be Brandon Young, who's

1:16:07

off to a great start in AAA,

1:16:09

11 or a third inning, scoreless, 21%

1:16:11

K minus BB. But Baltimore also has

1:16:14

two off days in the next five.

1:16:16

So it's possible that they can skip

1:16:18

the turn all together and maybe not

1:16:21

need that turn until. That would be

1:16:23

like next weekend or maybe even the

1:16:25

Monday, the following week. So that might

1:16:28

be a needle they could thread where

1:16:30

Gibson gets one more start, gets those

1:16:32

60 plus pitches in and then two

1:16:35

starts for now, Gibson's ready to go

1:16:37

80. But that depends on how Gibson's

1:16:39

rehab goes. And as we've said, Brandon

1:16:42

Young is probably the standby option there.

1:16:44

Meanwhile, analyst Stephen Nick Rand also mentioned

1:16:46

Zach Eflin in his starting-picture buyers guide

1:16:49

column. He was looking at some first-week

1:16:51

stories of interest, and he wasn't exactly

1:16:53

laudatory about Zach Eflin. Yeah, Stephen noted

1:16:56

that Eflin had some decent results before

1:16:58

going on the IL here, 375 ERA,

1:17:00

and a sub-one whip in two starts,

1:17:03

but a friendly 23% hit rate was

1:17:05

a... big part of what was protecting

1:17:07

those ratios and was masking a ton

1:17:09

of heart contact. It was three starts,

1:17:12

not two actually, with those 12 innings,

1:17:14

but batters had a 93 biopur hour

1:17:16

average exit velocity against him, which is

1:17:19

just a lot of heart contact. That

1:17:21

was actually the most, the highest level

1:17:23

of heart contact, any starter is allowed

1:17:26

so far this year, and of course

1:17:28

the highest level of Evelyn's career. The

1:17:30

barrel rate against him was 9 percent,

1:17:33

which is middle of the road, 45th

1:17:35

percentile, but also much higher than Eflin's

1:17:37

career average. The strikeout rate was down

1:17:40

to just 11% which is would be

1:17:42

the worst of any of Eflin's years

1:17:44

as a starting picture. These are all

1:17:47

small samples of course so we can't

1:17:49

panic and of course I guess now

1:17:51

we have to ask the question. and

1:17:54

whether the lat was bothering him in

1:17:56

at least one of these outings and

1:17:58

causing some of these poor results. The

1:18:01

F1's control was still intact, only a

1:18:03

1.5% walk rate, which is great, but

1:18:05

put it all together and maybe it's

1:18:08

worth in a couple of weeks if

1:18:10

F1 comes off the IL, keeping him

1:18:12

benched or inactive for his first start

1:18:15

or two if you can, just to

1:18:17

see what we've got there because that.

1:18:19

375 ERA and someone WIP was not

1:18:22

supported by the underlying skills in those

1:18:24

first three it starts before the IL.

1:18:26

Let's move to the National League Ray

1:18:29

and in St. Louis, one of the

1:18:31

big stories of the year so far

1:18:33

for fantasy purposes and for the Cardinals

1:18:36

has been the emergence of catcher Yvonne

1:18:38

Herrera. He was a tout darling in

1:18:40

the off-season, I have to say, and

1:18:43

I targeted him and didn't get him

1:18:45

in any of my drafts. Twenty-four played

1:18:47

appearances so far this year, already four

1:18:49

homers. Eleven RBI, six runs scored, and

1:18:52

a $25 5-by-5 player. Now he has

1:18:54

a bone bruise in his left knee.

1:18:56

Matt Ceterhome looked at this injury in

1:18:59

the big hurt injuries analysis. What's his

1:19:01

diagnosis? Yeah, so Matt covered this initial

1:19:03

injury and then already posted an update

1:19:06

on it and his reaction was similar

1:19:08

to mine. I happen to be watching

1:19:10

this game because Herrera got hurt in

1:19:13

the game here in Boston last weekend.

1:19:15

But Matt pointed out that the weird

1:19:17

thing about this is that the diagnosis

1:19:20

of a bone bruise is a really

1:19:22

odd diagnosis to get from how this

1:19:24

injury happened. Herrera was like running out

1:19:27

was on base and like running out

1:19:29

a pop up and like just running

1:19:31

between third and home with his head

1:19:34

down like you do when like there's

1:19:36

a ball in the air that's gonna

1:19:38

be the third out and suddenly just

1:19:41

came up late but like a bone

1:19:43

bruise implies that's a contact right something's

1:19:45

gotta hit you to cause a bruise

1:19:48

right and you know dearest we could

1:19:50

tell from where they said the injury

1:19:52

happened and that is where the injury

1:19:55

happened because they basically had to help

1:19:57

them off. the field after he was

1:19:59

just running, like, okay, well, how did

1:20:02

you get that bruise? So, you know,

1:20:04

as Matt points out, could be that,

1:20:06

you know, it was a flare-up of

1:20:09

something that happened earlier in the game

1:20:11

or any, something like that. But the

1:20:13

bottom line, regardless of how it happened,

1:20:16

is bone bruise really isn't a great

1:20:18

diagnosis. for Herrera, owners, not like you,

1:20:20

since you didn't get them, for those

1:20:23

who actually did. Because they tend to

1:20:25

heal slowly. The team estimated he's going

1:20:27

to be out at least four weeks,

1:20:29

and that's probably not a very precise

1:20:32

estimate. It depends on the severity of

1:20:34

the bruise, exactly where it is on

1:20:36

the bone, etc. And of course, we

1:20:39

know catching isn't exactly a... low stress

1:20:41

on the knees position. So he doesn't

1:20:43

just have to get healthy, he has

1:20:46

to get catcher healthy, which might be

1:20:48

an even higher bar. So put all

1:20:50

that together. Matt said four to six

1:20:53

weeks for a sort of a baseline

1:20:55

estimate for him to return, which puts

1:20:57

us out to, you know, mid-late May,

1:21:00

and there's more downside than up from

1:21:02

there. It could get worse. Yeah, and

1:21:04

in our second expert interview I mentioned,

1:21:07

I will be talking to Baseball HQ

1:21:09

injuries analyst Dr. Jim Ferretti, and we

1:21:11

talked about bone bruises among many other

1:21:14

injuries, and let me just say this,

1:21:16

the doc says a bone bruise should

1:21:18

really be called a partial fracture. Also,

1:21:21

let me say this, ouch. And speaking

1:21:23

of ouch, my league leading and fifth

1:21:25

place overall earth league team got a

1:21:28

jolt of bad news when the Reds

1:21:30

placed second baseman Matt Mcane on the

1:21:32

aisle. With a hamstring injury, Zach Larson

1:21:35

covering the story for playing time today,

1:21:37

how long is Matt McLean likely to

1:21:39

be out? Yeah, from what Zach reported

1:21:42

here, this injury does not seem tremendously

1:21:44

serious. McLean had been benched for several

1:21:46

days, but was supposedly, you know, in

1:21:49

that available off the bench of needed

1:21:51

state. But Cincinnati is then sort of...

1:21:53

changed their mind and decided to give

1:21:56

him more time to recover. And he'll

1:21:58

be eligible to return on Tuesday next

1:22:00

week, once the 10 days are up.

1:22:02

So this might have been just a

1:22:05

better part of hour. We got, you

1:22:07

know, once you get like four to

1:22:09

three or four days into a potential

1:22:12

10-day injury, you know, it kind of

1:22:14

reminds me of like taking the car

1:22:16

keys away from Tito, Frankota and saying,

1:22:19

yeah, we told you you could use

1:22:21

them for a couple of days and

1:22:23

you didn't. Yeah, the IEL stint, I

1:22:26

don't know, most people know this I

1:22:28

think, but it's worth remembering that an

1:22:30

IEL stint can be backdated to the

1:22:33

day after the last time the player

1:22:35

actually played in the game and that

1:22:37

seems to be what's happened here. And

1:22:40

from Zach's coverage it looks like the

1:22:42

Reds lineup will have a lot of

1:22:44

moving parts moving. Yeah, they... have their

1:22:47

own version of Team Pretzel going on

1:22:49

here where you can sort of bend

1:22:51

the line up in a bunch of

1:22:54

different ways. Gavin Lux. moves from mostly

1:22:56

playing the outfield to sliding into McLean's

1:22:58

second base spot. Noelle Marte who we

1:23:01

remember from a big rookie year two

1:23:03

years ago and then suspension for half

1:23:05

of last season followed by an ignominious

1:23:08

or unproductive at least return. He didn't

1:23:10

make the team coming out of spring

1:23:12

training but he gets to call up

1:23:15

here to replace McLean on the roster.

1:23:17

Marte was off to a good start

1:23:19

at AAA, hitting 353 with a 954

1:23:22

OPS, just 34 at bats, but after

1:23:24

a spring in which he didn't really

1:23:26

do much, it's nice to see him

1:23:29

get the bat going. So he might

1:23:31

get a little bit of playing time

1:23:33

this weekend here. Like we said, this

1:23:36

is a, we think a very short

1:23:38

term opportunity, but they gave Marte the

1:23:40

call. How could they use him if

1:23:42

they want to? He could cut into

1:23:45

the playing time of Heimer Candelario who

1:23:47

plays. sort of both corner spots and

1:23:49

or Christian and international strand who yes

1:23:52

in particular is not not doing much.

1:23:54

He's got a 593 OPS. Candelario has

1:23:56

been much better. He's got a much

1:23:59

worse, excuse me. He's got a 371

1:24:01

OPS. So the Candelario incarnation strand corner

1:24:03

infield law firm has not really been

1:24:06

productive. So maybe Duelave Marte Marte. You

1:24:08

can easily envision a scenario where he

1:24:10

gives each of those guys one day

1:24:13

off this weekend while McLean's out, right?

1:24:15

And, you know, and they, while he's

1:24:17

up, they give him a couple of

1:24:20

swings and maybe he goes to the

1:24:22

other 12 and says, this is my

1:24:24

job, I don't know. And you've got

1:24:27

backup infielder Santiago Espinal, 576 OPS, so

1:24:29

the Reds need some kind of thump

1:24:31

and certainly it doesn't look like like

1:24:34

these guys are providing it. Matt McLean,

1:24:36

of course was and... He'll go right

1:24:38

back in when he gets back, but

1:24:41

it'll be interesting to see how that

1:24:43

cluster of sort of subpar middle infielders

1:24:45

or infielders in general, I guess, works

1:24:48

out. As I recall, we've talked about

1:24:50

the Reds having this pattern of rostering

1:24:52

a lot of multi-position players and then

1:24:55

using them in multi-positions. So what are

1:24:57

the implications outside the Reds infield? Right,

1:24:59

we just spent a couple of minutes

1:25:02

talking about the infield, but I started

1:25:04

that segment by saying they pulled Gavin

1:25:06

Lux from the outfield in the second

1:25:09

base to cover from a plane. So

1:25:11

there are some outfield ripples as well.

1:25:13

We gave a little bump in playing

1:25:16

time to Blake Dunn as he's moved

1:25:18

ahead of Jacob Hurtabees on the sort

1:25:20

of backup outfield or depth chart. Dunn's

1:25:22

produced modest results. He's got 23 played

1:25:25

appearances, a home run, a 704 OPS

1:25:27

so far. He does have a 208

1:25:29

X expected power index, which is not

1:25:32

uninteresting. And some stack has batted ball

1:25:34

metrics that are up in the upper

1:25:36

echelons. If he had more plate appearances,

1:25:39

he'd be a 90% tile in average

1:25:41

exit velocity and barrel percentage. Of course.

1:25:43

We're talking about 23 played appearances. So

1:25:46

if he gets a little more run,

1:25:48

we'll find out if that's real. But

1:25:50

he's also been pretty good in terms

1:25:53

of play patience. Swing and chase metrics

1:25:55

are both pretty good. Will Benson is

1:25:57

down in AAA. I actually saw a

1:26:00

clip the other day of him hitting,

1:26:02

I think a game winning three run

1:26:04

home run and AAA. So he's probably

1:26:07

gonna be back soon as well. Just

1:26:09

to get further. put another name into

1:26:11

this sort of fourth outfielder competition. That

1:26:14

of course is the job that Benson

1:26:16

held most of last year. And then,

1:26:18

don't forget besides McLean coming back in

1:26:21

the next week or so, Austin Hayes

1:26:23

has been on EIL since the start

1:26:25

of the season, but he's also getting

1:26:28

close to being ready, which further muddies

1:26:30

the situation here. So I would think

1:26:32

that both done and her to bees

1:26:35

are probably off the roster at some

1:26:37

point, while Benson and Hayes end up

1:26:39

taking. not only back about fielder jobs,

1:26:42

but there's a, you know, that's going

1:26:44

to force some of the playing time

1:26:46

of guys like Jake Freily too who

1:26:49

are going to turn into more job

1:26:51

shares with Hazen McLean. So yeah, there's

1:26:53

a lot going on in Cincinnati. Over

1:26:56

to the mound, in another jolt of

1:26:58

bad news, for my league-leading fifth-place overall

1:27:00

Earth League team, the Cubs put left-hander

1:27:02

Justin Steele on the 15-day I-L, he

1:27:05

has tendonitis in his left elbow. That's

1:27:07

a problem. Ryan Williams, for playing time

1:27:09

today, what's the story? Yeah, Steele went

1:27:12

to the team and said he had

1:27:14

the dreaded elbow tightness during his start

1:27:16

on Monday this week. And of course,

1:27:19

the Cubs were like, okay, we're shutting

1:27:21

you down because that's really the only

1:27:23

thing you can do. Right. So he

1:27:26

was scheduled for an MRI on Thursday.

1:27:28

I have not seen any news about

1:27:30

that yet, but pending the results, the

1:27:33

team is optimistic that it really is

1:27:35

tendiditis and not structural and that he

1:27:37

can. require a minimum stay on the

1:27:40

I.L. Of course, I would be remiss

1:27:42

if I didn't jump back to the

1:27:44

theme here, PD. This is, I think

1:27:47

the. fourth injury we've talked about in

1:27:49

this show and every team has said

1:27:51

they hope they're good at the player

1:27:54

will only miss the minimum but I

1:27:56

think in reality it's a very small

1:27:58

percentage of I else since that actually

1:28:01

lasts the minimum it's like 120% or

1:28:03

something right so the chances of these

1:28:05

guys all going four for four and

1:28:08

minimum I else since seems pretty unlikely

1:28:10

to me pretty unlikely is right so

1:28:12

assuming steel misses at least the 15

1:28:15

days and maybe more who gets his

1:28:17

spot in the rotation My magic eight

1:28:19

ball says reply hazy ask again later.

1:28:22

It's hard to forecast. Colin Ray is

1:28:24

probably the best option. I think he's.

1:28:26

He was pretty good last year to

1:28:29

be fair in terms of outward results,

1:28:31

but I think we can charitably characterize

1:28:33

him as a journeyman. He's been working

1:28:36

out of the Cubs bullpen so far

1:28:38

this year, but career era of 452,

1:28:40

little worse than that as a starter.

1:28:42

Jordan Wix is not pitching terrifically in

1:28:45

AAA. He's got a 476 ERA and

1:28:47

a 176 whip. He could be considered,

1:28:49

but you would think that. the Cubs

1:28:52

would like to see some better results

1:28:54

from him before they pull that lever

1:28:56

and if the Cubs don't then fantasy

1:28:59

managers should wait and see better results

1:29:01

before they get excited about it. What

1:29:03

the Cubs have done for the short

1:29:06

term is they call them Ethan Roberts

1:29:08

but he's only the sort of middle

1:29:10

reliever until they need a starter so

1:29:13

nothing to get excited about there. And

1:29:15

in Atlanta, the club announced Ronaldo Lopez

1:29:17

has undergone arthroscopic surgery on his ailing

1:29:20

right shoulder. He's going to be shut

1:29:22

down from throwing for about 12 weeks.

1:29:24

And 12 weeks sounds like a minimum.

1:29:27

Phil hurts for playing time today. What's

1:29:29

going to happen in the Atlanta rotation

1:29:31

with Ronaldo Lopez out for three months,

1:29:34

maybe more? Yeah, you know, this sounded

1:29:36

ominous from a couple of a week

1:29:38

or two ago when Phil first reported

1:29:41

this, when this news broke... that they

1:29:43

were doing exploratory orthoscopic surgery to kind

1:29:45

of say to kind of go in

1:29:48

and see what was wrong there and

1:29:50

sure enough that did not end well.

1:29:52

It sounds like Globe has won't throw

1:29:55

until even July at the earliest and

1:29:57

then he'll need at least a few

1:29:59

more weeks to ramp up there to

1:30:02

you know put some more stress on

1:30:04

the arm, make sure it's responding well

1:30:06

and then of course build up. his

1:30:09

build up to whatever role they're going

1:30:11

to give him. We've cut his plane

1:30:13

time projection all the way down the

1:30:15

one and a half percent. That might

1:30:18

be optimistic. I read this story in

1:30:20

my optimistic take. I don't I don't

1:30:22

believe Phil wrote this. but my optimistic

1:30:25

take was the best case scenario here

1:30:27

seems to be that they would bring

1:30:29

him back as a reliever in a

1:30:32

second half. Like if he shows up

1:30:34

post trade deadline as a, you know,

1:30:36

hey, it's just like the Braves traded

1:30:39

for a setup man. But all the

1:30:41

Lopez plugs back into the bullpen that,

1:30:43

you know, he's obviously got a history

1:30:46

as a reliever and that. from just

1:30:48

the scope of this injury, that kind

1:30:50

of sounds like the most you could

1:30:53

ask of him this year. So in

1:30:55

the near term, they're gonna need somebody

1:30:57

to take those innings and in the

1:31:00

long term, maybe as well as you

1:31:02

say, so who benefits? For now it's

1:31:04

AJ Smith Chauver who currently is now

1:31:07

has an 8% point for us, every

1:31:09

percentage point is about 14 innings, so

1:31:11

you can, I'm not. the 14 times

1:31:14

eight math isn't working in my head,

1:31:16

but that's that's over 100 innings now.

1:31:18

So that's a that's a decent start

1:31:21

to work load for shavaries. You know,

1:31:23

there was some hand ringing in the

1:31:25

spring of, oh my goodness, when strider

1:31:28

comes back, how will Smith Shavar stay

1:31:30

in the rotation? The Braves, I'm so

1:31:32

much pitching. We know that for sure.

1:31:35

Now. Ray, when we were talking about

1:31:37

Kyle Gibson earlier in a AAA start,

1:31:39

I mentioned that his opponent was Spencer

1:31:42

Strider, who was absolutely dominant in that

1:31:44

game. Is there any chance Strider steps

1:31:46

back? sooner than later into the Atlanta

1:31:49

rotation, which would really solve a lot

1:31:51

of problems. I mean, that day really

1:31:53

seems to be coming, that outing from

1:31:55

Strider early this week, he was aces,

1:31:58

five and a third innings, one run

1:32:00

allowed, 13 strikeouts, and incredibly efficient, and

1:32:02

you know, you don't usually see, so

1:32:05

he struck out when we do the

1:32:07

math here, he got he got 16

1:32:09

outs and 13 in the whole strikeout,

1:32:12

which is like, you know. That's the

1:32:14

kind of numbers I see in like

1:32:16

my daughter's 13 year old softball league,

1:32:19

right? Not not not immediately baseball. And

1:32:21

he was in fact two strikes into

1:32:23

his 14th strike out when they pulled

1:32:26

him because he had reached the 90

1:32:28

pitch count of that was his hard

1:32:30

ceiling for the outing. They asked Brian

1:32:33

Snicker, a bridge manager about this, and

1:32:35

he said Strider is quote, right where

1:32:37

we want him to be before he

1:32:40

gets here. But he didn't say when

1:32:42

that would be. I look at that

1:32:44