Welcome to Rates and barrels. It is Thursday, February 10th, Derek Van Riper here with Enoseres. It is our first base

preview. We were going to continue the position preview series, taking a look at a position

that tails off quite a bit as you move into the back half of drafts. But that could change this

year in light of one of the less ridiculous things that was said by Commissioner Manfred

earlier in the day on Thursday.

It appears that both sides, the Players Association and the League, have come to a point

where the Universal DH looks like it is very likely to happen in 2022, which is great for us because it takes a lot of

these fourth and fifth tier first baseman among other players and creates playing time

opportunities for them. And without Universal DH, we would have, I would say probably at least

a half dozen or so players that have interesting

enough skills to want to draft them, but not enough playing time to feel good about it.

So a small, small win for a select portion of players at this position.

And just philosophically, like I understand people that like the sanctity of the game

and like the NL version of the game and do enjoy

strategy, I guess there's slightly, there's some, there's a little bit of strategy in terms of

when to pinch hit for your pitcher when he has to hit. Those things are all true.

However, just the reality on the ground in terms of developing young players

and how players play in everywhere from high school to college and all the way up

is that they have DHS.

Most high schools have DHS, most colleges have DHS. Like most of the time, a pitcher

stops swinging the bat in his mid-teens for good. And so then now you're asking them,

you know, six, seven, eight years later to pick up a bat. And that's why pitchers have never been as bad as they've

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