Missing on Adolis García & Mostly Pleasantly Surprising Hitters of 2023
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2023
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno and DVR discuss the upcoming World Series matchup between the Diamondbacks and Rangers, and how they drastically underestimated Adolis García when he broke through as a regular for Texas two years ago. Plus, they examine several hitters that were pleasant surprises in 2023 (and one disappointment thanks to lofty expectations).
Rundown
1:26 Assessing the D-backs-Rangers World Series Matchup
9:09 Brandon Pfaadt's Postseason Surge; 2024 Outlook
13:25 Why We Underestimated Adolis García
20:02 Chas McCormick's Breakout
27:17 Buying Lane Thomas' Career Year as Repeatable?
33:56 Spencer Steer's Future Outlook
41:57 Attempting to Make Sense of Cody Bellinger's Bounceback
48:03 Does Vlad Jr. Still Offer an Elite Ceiling?
56:40 Would You Rather Have Triston Casas than Vlad Jr.? (No....at least, probably not.)
Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris
Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@theathletic.com
Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels
Subscribe to The Athletic at $1.99/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Rates and Beryls. It's Wednesday, October 25th, recording midweek this week, did a 3-0 show earlier in the week. |
| 0:21.8 | Derek Van Riper here at the Enosaris. |
| 0:23.9 | On this episode, we focus on unusual hitter seasons from 2023, |
| 0:29.1 | and it is impossible to fit them all into one episode. |
| 0:32.1 | So the good news is if you submitted some names that are not discussed on today's pod, |
| 0:36.7 | there are review and preview opportunities for those players to be covered. |
| 0:40.4 | So if they don't get covered today, don't sweat it. |
| 0:42.6 | We'll cover them at some point between now and the peak of draft season when that rolls |
| 0:47.5 | around again. |
| 0:48.9 | Before we get to some unusual hitter seasons, we should take a moment to acknowledge it's a Rangers. No, it's not Rangers, Phillies. Why didn't I write Phillies? Rangers Diamondbacks. Because we just assumed we all just had the Phillies in there. I didn't even do that. I didn't even make that assumption. I'm just that tired. Rangers Diamondbacks, Game 1 on Friday, World Series getting underway here in just a couple of days. Good thing I can rest up by then. |
| 1:12.1 | Yeah, I'm going to edit that out of the video. That never happened. No, it's funny. I didn't pre-make it. The rundown says D-Backs Rangers World Series. I, for some reason, just brain farted because that's what I do. It's a fun matchup, right? It's an elite offense in the Rangers going up against |
| 1:27.8 | a young team that probably got to this point a year ahead of schedule, which is bothering |
| 1:33.9 | some folks on the internet, but frankly, this is a good team that's played well at a very |
| 1:38.1 | important time of the year. And I think this is a great matchup. I don't know if Major League |
| 1:43.9 | Baseball is happy from a ratings perspective, |
| 1:46.2 | but I don't really care about Major League Baseball from a ratings perspective. |
| 1:50.0 | It's not my job to worry about that. |
| 1:51.4 | It's my job to enjoy the baseball and talk about the matchup that we do have. |
| 1:55.5 | I think this is a very good one. |
| 1:57.1 | Yeah, I think they're actually sort of well-matched. |
| 2:01.5 | The difference in the pitching staffs between Arizona and Texas, which I was tasked to preview for the athletic written, I couldn't really pick because I think that if you're looking at, you know, the top two, they both have really solid top twos. |
| 2:22.6 | The third in each case, Max Scherzer and Brandon Fott, have very different track records, very different stages of their careers, and very different recent track records |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Athletic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Athletic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.