First-Week Takeaways & Weekend Waiver Wire Preview
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
DVR is joined by Jason Collette to discuss the evolution of pre-debut contracts and early takeaways -- including the highly-anticipated return Shane McClanahan -- and the surprising lack of stolen bases from the Rays in their first two series of the season. They also take an early look at waiver-wire targets, highlighting several starting pitchers of interest, a few relievers to consider from bullpens in turmoil, and the fast start for Jordan Walker.
Rundown
1:55 Commissioner’s Corner: Move Weekly Pickups to Thursday Night!
8:37 Context is Key: James Wood Reveals 2025 Injuries
11:34 Checking In on the Rays: Observations Through Two Series
18:59 He’s Back! The Return of Shane McClanahan
23:59 Efficiency FTW: Drew Rasmussen Has a New Changeup
28:15 Early-Season Matchups: What Matters When Considering Pitchers?
34:24 Another Bat Speed Riser: Interest Level in Luisangel Acuña
37:29 Weekend Waiver Preview: Starting Pitchers We’re Considering
41:55 The Roster Bubble Starting Pitchers (40-60% Rostered)
48:23 Digging Deeper (20-40% Rostered)
53:26 Looking for Saves: Assessing Relievers in Flux
56:45 Cautious with Hitting Surprises? Buying Jordan Walker’s Adjustments?
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @DVR.bsky.social
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
Follow Jason on Bluesky: @jasoncollette.bsky.social.
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
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Host: Derek VanRiper
With Guest Co-Host: Jason Collette
Editor: Jason Potere
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Rates and Burials, Jason Collette joins the show for our first Fantasy Friday of the 2026 season. |
| 0:07.0 | We get ready for the Waver Wire pickups coming up on Sunday. |
| 0:10.4 | Let's go. |
| 0:20.6 | Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Friday, April 3rd. Derek Ben Reiper here with a special guest co-host. |
| 0:25.6 | It is Jason Collette. You've heard his voice on the sleeper in the bus. |
| 0:29.0 | He read his work at RotoWire and many other places going as far back as the RotoJunky forums, right? |
| 0:35.0 | Is that where it all started for you, Jason? |
| 0:37.1 | That is where it all started way, way, way back in 1999. |
| 0:41.4 | Woo, 1999. I think that was around one of the first years I played fantasy baseball, |
| 0:46.8 | and it was just Public League on Yahoo, not competitive, but yeah, the very, very beginning |
| 0:52.9 | of my fantasy baseball days. So great to have you with me today. We've got some baseball news folks should know up top. We're going to dig into some of your early observations of the Tampa Bay Rays. Rays Brewers just had a Spider-Man meme sort of series in Milwaukee earlier this week, so we both had our eyes on that. I wanted to figure out what we've learned about this raised team, these first couple of series. A couple good mailbag questions came in, one in particular about what we're using to think about our pitching matchups this time of year, because it's only two series. So I think that's a really pertinent thing people are thinking about right now. And then we'll do a weekend waiver wire preview as we do most Fridays, digging |
| 1:30.2 | at us and the more interesting players. |
| 1:31.5 | People might be thinking about adding and dropping leading into or over the course of the |
| 1:37.2 | weekend. |
| 1:37.8 | Always great when the waiver run falls on a holiday. |
| 1:40.3 | I feel like that's one of my biggest complaints about Sunday waivers is that you have a few different holidays in the spring and summer that usually, I mean, always in the case of Easter, but usually you're dealing with two or three holidays a season, and this is the first big one right away. |
| 1:56.3 | See, I unsuccessfully tried to argue for moving Fab to Thursday night in one of my home |
| 2:02.0 | leagues. |
| 2:02.5 | For that particular reason, you know, weekends get buried up. |
| 2:05.5 | Nothing happens on a Thursday so that, you know, that way you can still get the guy |
| 2:09.2 | and set your weekend lineup. |
| 2:11.0 | And then there's not that. |
... |
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