Today on Rates and Barrels, we share our bold predictions for the upcoming season and discuss some of the most surprising opening day roster decisions around the league.

Let's go.

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Monday, March 23rd. Derek Ben-Riper here with Enosaris with a brand new look and a refreshed sound. We hope you love it. A lot of hard work went into that behind the scenes. Thanks to all the wonderful folks that are given our show a nice facelift here as the 2026 season rapidly approaches. You know, we've got some big weekend news to get to before we get to our bold predictions.

Another Phillies extension, Christopher Sanchez gets a six-year, $107 million deal.

The Phillies say it's a restructuring of their previous deal, which was a pretty team-friendly

agreement they had come to a few years ago.

Now, the team options that were 14 million for 2028 and 15 million for 2029 are guaranteed.

They'll also get two more years at $30 million each covering 2030 and 2013 and then club options again

somewhere on the end of that. That can also escalate and value based on performance.

So ultimately, for a guy who is still a few years away from free agency on a very team-friendly

deal, getting this extension seems like kind of a win-win situation, but at least a nice

boost for Sanchez coming off a huge season in 2025.

I've got Christopher Sanchez as my fourth ranked pitcher in all of baseball, and he hasn't quit,

you know, this spring keeping the fastball velocity above 95 like he had last year. That was a big

part of why he surged forward last year was an increase in velocity. Now, I, you know, that sort of

thing does make me a little bit nervous, given his body type and, um, given his history, the fact that he gets, you know, an extra

tick or so, you know, at age 29, um, makes me a little bit nervous for his health. But, uh,

you know, he's a, he's a pitcher and that pitcher's break. And maybe that's a big part of why he agreed to his side of this deal is, you know, make sure he locks that down.

Also, as a 29-year-old who, you know, only has three years of service time, he wouldn't have come onto the market at a great time.

He was already under an extension

that was pretty team friendly. And so this just guarantees that he gets the big payday at the

very end. And even if he, you know, we were discussing before the show, like what does

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