Can You Predict the World Series Winner in Early June?
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 874 Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s June 3, which means it’s time for everyone’s favorite game: Four vs. The Field! Today, Eno, Jed, and DVR debate whether the combination of baseball’s four World Series favorites will ultimately take home the trophy, or if the rest of the league is the smarter bet. Then, they discuss whether the Tigers can get revenge for last year’s late-season swoon by tracking down the Guardians in the AL Central. Later, the guys examine the best and worst users of ABS and discuss how teams are adapting to baseball’s challenge system.
Rundown:
0:36 Four vs. The Field: Can You Pick the World Series Winner with Four Teams?
10:25 Banking on Buyers: Trade Deadline Opportunities to Make Strides
14:59 Projected fWAR: A Better Option Than Choosing World Series Probables?
19:04 Chasing Cleveland: Will the Tigers Turn the Tables on the Guardians?
25:38 What’s the Number? Playoff Odds Necessary for Tigers to Buy at Deadline
34:08 ABS Challenges: Who Is Doing Well, Who Is Struggling So Far?
44:42 Strategic Approaches: Is Marlins’ Catcher-Led Volume Approach Ideal?
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @DVR.bsky.social
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
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Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels
Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
With: Jed Lowrie
Editor: Jason Potere
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Rates and Barrels, if we gave you four teams, could you pick one that actually wins this year's World Series? |
| 0:06.6 | And could to the Tigers flip the script on the Guardians and pull the rug out from under them just like the Guardians did last year? |
| 0:13.0 | Plus, we check in on who is doing well in the ABS Challenge system. Let's go. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, Wednesday, June 3rd, Derek |
| 0:30.8 | Benry, Renni, Seris, and Jed Lowry here with you. We are starting today's show with a simple |
| 0:36.8 | and fun exercise, with it being the third day of June. |
| 0:41.0 | If I gave you guys four bites at the Apple, your choice of four teams to win the World Series, could you get it right? |
| 0:49.6 | Have we seen enough baseball that we know enough about this year's teams to make you confident that |
| 0:56.9 | you'd get it across four teams. Because if you look at playoff odds on a day like today and |
| 1:02.4 | World Series odds more specifically, you could gather up the top four teams and come in with a |
| 1:07.9 | number at or above 50% to win the World Series. |
| 1:12.1 | Seems pretty fair, right? |
| 1:13.6 | So, Jed, I'm just curious. |
| 1:16.0 | Do you think this is an appropriate time to say, your choice, four teams or the field? |
| 1:22.6 | And which side of that would you rather be on? |
| 1:24.9 | Would you rather choose four teams? |
| 1:26.7 | Would you rather let someone else choose four and take the 26 leftovers? |
| 1:30.7 | The only thing that, you know, can change outside of injuries, right? |
| 1:37.1 | Which you can't predict anyway is the trade deadline at this point. |
| 1:42.9 | But I think it, I, we talked about this in our production call. Like I think, I think it's fun enough to do. And so I, I think there's enough. I think it's worthy, you know, we have enough information. I would probably take one of the four teams that I wrote down, the field at this point, just because why not? |
| 2:02.9 | You know, it's fun, and we're at a point in the season. We have a lot of information. |
| 2:08.1 | And I, you know, I did go heavy on the run differential for mine. I went Dodgers, Braves, |
| 2:13.6 | Yankees, Brewers. So I picked the four, I'm taking the four teams that have proven early in the season that they have the ability to prevent runs and score a lot of runs. |
... |
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