News Roundup and Position Battles
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2023
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno and Al discuss the latest news items, including some positive developments for Kyle Wright and Byron Buxton, and they look at several position battles that are still looming with opening day less than two weeks away. Eno also identifies several pitchers who are Stuff+ laggards.
Rundown
1:08 News updates: Edwin Díaz, Kyle Wright, Byron Buxton, Mitch Haniger, David Villar, Eric Haase, Jackson Jobe
20:12 Position battles - hitters: NYM 3B, LAD CF, MIA OF, CHC OF/DH, KC OF, OAK CF
37:03 Position battles - rotations: OAK, ATL, ARI, TB, CIN
49:06 Stuff+ laggards
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to rates and barrels, everybody. I'm Al Melchior. I am here with Inoceris on a fine Friday. |
| 0:20.5 | And a good time as any for us to check in on |
| 0:23.9 | some spring training position battles. We'll be looking at a bunch of those. We'll catch you up on |
| 0:28.1 | some of the latest news from the last 24 hours or so. And time permitting, we'll get into some of the |
| 0:34.8 | stuff plus standouts. If we don't get to that today, I'm sure we will |
| 0:37.8 | get to that sooner rather than later. So before we get to all that, just a reminder that now |
| 0:44.1 | is as good a time as any to subscribe to the athletic. If you haven't done so already, it's just |
| 0:49.2 | $2 a month for your first year. That that rate gets you in the door to check out everything |
| 0:56.3 | that's in the draft kit, everything that's still to come in the draft kit, and of course, |
| 0:59.3 | everything that is on the athletic. Just go to theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. |
| 1:06.7 | So let's pick up sort of where we left off yesterday. |
| 1:10.8 | You know, Edwin Diaz, at the time that we recorded on 30s, So let's pick up sort of where we left off yesterday. |
| 1:17.4 | You know, Edwin Diaz, at the time that we recorded on Thursday, we didn't know specifically what the injury was. |
| 1:18.3 | We didn't know as a result of that. |
| 1:20.3 | Didn't know how long he would be out. |
| 1:22.7 | He has had surgery to repair a ripe, Petteller tendon tear and is expected to miss the entire season. |
| 1:30.7 | And just one other wrinkle that I'd like to raise, you know, is that Zach Britton has been named as a potential replacement. |
| 1:38.5 | He's been doing showcases. |
| 1:40.9 | Does that change anything from Thursday's analysis where it seemed like you were pretty big on David Robertson to pick up saves? |
| 1:49.5 | Yeah, I don't think it changes much. |
| 1:52.1 | Now we have a diagnosis, but even then, everyone is different. |
| 1:57.5 | Zach Eflin came back within a sort of a six-month time frame from a similar injury, but others missed full seasons. |
... |
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