Welcome to Rates and barrels. It's Friday, March 5th, Derek Ben-Riper,

Bridgerola, Inoceris here with you on this Friday. We have a lot to talk about. We have Jackie Bradley, Jr., joining the Brewers. We'll talk about the implications of that signing. Jake Oteriszie still needs a team. We'll try and find a fit for him. We'll talk about some things we're hoping to see this spring, now that the spring games are completely up and running.

Talk about Aaron Boone and his recovery from surgery to receive a pacemaker.

He's 47.

What's a pacemaker at 47?

That's terrifying for me as someone who's in my late 30s now.

We also got a question about the Nats bullpen and one of many ideas that we received from

our great listeners of how to save baseball. And I think how we could save baseball this week is actually a pretty clever solution because it doesn't cost the owners any money. So it might actually work. Let's get going right away, guys. Let's start with this Jackie Bradley Jr. story. I'm glad you all wanted to talk about it. It wasn't just me saying, let's talk about the Brewers. The Brewers is the most interesting thing in the world. I'm just starting to wonder if the defensive upgrades with both Colton Wong and now Jackie Bradley Jr. are really getting us to a point where some of the Brewers' pitchers might be underrated. The impact that the defense has on that staff as a whole is significant. And those

were massive upgrades with both of those players. Bradley, they have someone who can spell Lorenzo

Kane in center field. He'll also play a ton of right field and kind of make Avicel Garcia more

of a, it's not a fourth outfielder. It's kind of like 3A and 3B, right? It's like Yelich is going to play a lot and the other three guys are going to share two spots and it kind of works because all three of those guys are good defenders. And now if Kane gets hurt, they don't have to play Avi Garcia in center field anymore, which seems like a really good thing because while he seemed to put forth a great effort at that position last year,

that's not the optimal usage of his skills.

So am I right to be very high on the Brewer's defense,

especially as they continue to make moves with Bradley being the latest edition?

What do you think about this, Britt?

I think you are right.

I think the Colton Wong signing kind of went a little

under the radar. And we've talked on this podcast about all these teams that are loading up offensively

and teams like the Mets, the, you know, the nationals, teams that are just getting kind of worse and have

those question marks defensively. So I like what the Brewers are doing here. I think this is the way

the Brewers have to do it. And honestly, what's kind of interesting is they've set themselves up because they didn't make this big splash. They can make a move at the deadline. You know, Ryan Braun can come out of his like semi-retirement and decide to play for a couple months. They can add an addition. We know they're always good with expanded rosters that unless they actually

change those rules, the Brewers seem to rule the final month of the season.

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