First-Time All-Stars & An MLBPA Investigation
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
DVR and Britt discuss several first-time All-Stars including four starters in the 2025 Midsummer Classic, superstars on that stage for the first time like Pete Crow-Armstrong and James Wood, and a few veterans getting the nod on the strength of outstanding first-half performances. Plus, they discuss Britt's recent story of an MLBPA investigation into agent Yasser Mendez following allegations of financial misconduct.
Rundown
1:44 Stories of First-Time All-Stars & Starters
7:03 Does Cal Raleigh Pass the "Neighbor Test"?
14:19 Shane Smith: Second Rule 5 Pick to Make ASG in Draft Year
18:11 Kyle Stowers & A Late Breakout
Britt's Story ($) about Stowers' adjustments: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6478490
28:24 MacKenzie Gore and Questions About Patience for the New Front Office in D.C.
42:11 MLBPA Investigating Allegations of Financial Misconduct Against Agent Yasser Mendez
Britt's Story ($) about the allegations: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6478358
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social
Follow Britt on Bluesky: @brittghiroli.bsky.social
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
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Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Britt Ghiroli
Producer: Brian Smith
Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Rates and barrels presented by E-Trade from Morgan Stanley. |
| 0:15.5 | It is Tuesday, July 8th. |
| 0:17.2 | Derek Van Riper here with Britt Truroly. |
| 0:18.8 | Britt is back. |
| 0:19.9 | Eno's in Germany, but Brit is back on the pod. Britt, great to have you on. Thanks. It's good to be back. Good to be talking baseball. I love this time of year. We got All-Star, Draft, Trade Deadline, playoffs, all that stuff going on. So it's good. It's a good time to be a baseball fan. Absolutely. So today we're |
| 0:38.7 | going to focus a lot on All-Star Game rosters. You wrote a story about an MLBPA investigation into an |
| 0:45.2 | agent. We'll talk about that a little bit later on in the show. And I think every year we talk about |
| 0:50.1 | the All-Star festivities, we hit on a couple of things. One, the new format, the head-to-head format of the Home Run Derby in recent years, is a massive success, right? We love that. We know who four of the eight participants are at this point in time. So we have James Wood, we have Byron Buxton, we have Cal Raleigh, and we have Ronald Acuna Jr. |
| 1:11.3 | Right. |
| 1:11.5 | So half the field already set, the other half will know in the next couple of days. |
| 1:15.8 | All of that's good. |
| 1:17.0 | Like with or without Pete Alonzo, the home run derby is exciting. |
| 1:20.1 | The format is good, and it's a huge, huge win to get that sort of interest on the event again. |
| 1:30.3 | What I think is interesting, though, is the All-Star game itself, because I'm not sure what purpose it serves for me, and I'm also not |
| 1:36.8 | sure what purpose it serves for the average viewer. I think it's awesome to just look at the different |
| 1:42.2 | stories in the game and talk about first-time |
| 1:44.9 | All-Stars or first-time starters and kind of dig through the rosters and people get obsessed |
| 1:50.3 | about snubs and I get it. Like there are names that you expect to see on the roster. It's weird that |
| 1:54.6 | Juan Soto didn't make the initial NL All-Star roster this year. There's still time for some of those |
| 2:00.5 | snubs to find their way |
| 2:01.5 | under the roster. So I'm not even that worried about snubs. I think what the game is to me is |
| 2:08.1 | basically a celebration of baseball, a snapshot of the best players right now. At least that's what I |
... |
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