Baseball is Back! (And Spencer Strider is Too)

Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball

The Athletic

Baseball, Sports

4.9 • 746 Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Eno and DVR discuss the Dodgers' season-opening win over the Cubs in Tokyo, which featured five strong frames from Yoshinobu Yamamoto and an excellent showing from the bullpen. They also discuss a great piece from David Adler highlighting Shohei Ohtani's unique contact point as a possible explanation for his excellent all-fields power. Plus, they look at the return of Spencer Strider, who pitched in a game Monday for the first time this spring, Cam Smith's chances of making the Opening Day roster, and big movers from the NFBC Main Event drafts, which Eno recently took part in. Rundown 3:22 Dodgers Win Series Opener in Tokyo 9:57 Freddie Freeman's Reduced Playing Time Ceiling 13:48 Shohei Ohtani's Unique Contact Point (Story from David Adler, MLB.com: https://www.mlb.com/news/shohei-ohtani-contact-point-statcast-analysis) 21:42 Concerns About Mookie Betts' Health Beyond Tokyo? 26:44 Spencer Strider is Back! (Is the ADP Going to the Moon?) 34:34 Cam Smith's Path to the Opening Day Roster in Houston 43:45 David Bednar: Still Hasn't Been Named Pirates' Closer 48:46 Adjusting to Unique Rooms: The NFBC Main Event 55:33 Reframing a 'Necessary' Overpay Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [email protected] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.6	Music Welcome to Rates and Beryl. It's Tuesday, March 18th. Derek and Riper here with
0:45.7	Enosaris on this episode. Baseball is back. We will talk about the season opening
0:51.4	matchup to Dodgers and Cubs. Got it underway early Tuesday morning here.
0:56.1	If you are in the States, if you live in other parts of the world, perhaps it was even
1:00.1	easier for you to watch that game as it happened live.
1:03.9	We've got an interesting piece that was written about Shohei Otani and the unique
1:07.5	contact point he has compared to other top hitters.
1:10.2	So we're just going to bring that into our conversation as well.
1:13.3	Spencer Strider looked like pre-injury Spencer Strider in his first game action of the spring on Monday.
1:21.2	So we're expecting a late frenzy in leagues where people are still building their rosters here in the next 10 days or so.
1:29.1	So we'll talk about the implications of that.
1:31.7	And we've got a bunch of other news items, plus some late ADP movement overall with the main event starting.
1:37.9	Eno did the NFBC main event draft with our buddy J.H.
1:42.3	So we'll talk about Eno's board and some of the things he saw happening there.
1:46.1	Tons of ground to cover and Eno's back from Arizona.
1:48.9	So what's going on, man?
	...

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