Welcome to Rates and barrels to Wednesday, April 2nd, Derek Mineriper, Inoceris, and the new third member of our Wednesday crew, Jed Lauer here to make his Rates and Barrel's season debut. You were here during the winter meetings, Jed. It was great talking to you then, but we're looking forward to having you on throughout this year. Yeah, thanks, guys. Excited to do this and, you know, another exciting baseball season in store. Yeah. What are you up to, aside from doing this pod now that you're playing career is over?

Yeah, a lot. I just got back from Japan. I was able to go for the Tokyo series and be a part of that ambassador group through the commissioner's office and getting to do a lot of fun stuff.

Coaching the kids, spring baseball and softball starting up here, trying to be a good dad and husband

and stay involved in the game.

Make up for all those years that you were gone.

I don't know what you're talking about.

The baseball life is pretty straightforward.

Yeah, you probably have bedtime duty until the kids move out at this point.

Yeah, literally walking them, walking them to school in the mornings and, you know, trying to squeeze in some golf every once in a while too.

So, yeah, just, you know, going back to civilian life.

All right.

Well, join the Discord.

If you haven't done so already, we have the link in the show description for everybody out there who wants to jump in there. We got one big news I'd been to talk about before we dive into some of the takeaways from Jed's trip to Japan, plus a lot of bat talk. That's going to be the theme throughout the week. We warned you on Monday because that's just the direction the game is going right now. How about this though? Jackson Merrill signs a nine-year extension with the Padres. It's hard to think about anything nine years into the future. And the Padres future might be one of the most complicated in all of Major League Baseball right now. They've got several long-term deals already. A lot of questions, of course, about what ownership will do following the passing of Peter Seidler, whether the appetite for spending will

still be there.

But, you know, I think you have to look at this.

And the snap reaction is based on what Jackson Merrill's done so far in his big league career.

This seems like it could be a great deal for the Padres.

Yeah, it's a little too close to that Ronald Acuna contract where Acuna Jr. fired his agent after it. I'm just a little bit

worried about this one for Jackson. The nice thing is, though, he gets a $10 million signing bonus.

He's set for life. And I just think he has all the skills that you need from a young player, 11,

112 mile arm max TVs, barrel rates, a nice tiny strikeout rate.

I think he'll walk a little bit more as he comes into his own.

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