Pitcher Risers & Fallers
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 874 Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2026
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Commissioner Rob Manfred says MLB's luxury tax is a failure, Aaron Judge's injury situation is getting more serious, and George Kirby's strikeouts are missing. Eno, Trevor, and DVR discuss those topics, and dig into a few risers and fallers in K-BB% between March/April and May, before taking a look at a surprising surge in homers and runs across all minor-league levels below Triple-A.
Rundown:
0:38 Commissioner Manfred Calls Luxury-Tax System a Failure
3:42 A Shocker: Franchise Valuations Are Key for Owners
10:29 ‘Fairness’ Is the Message: Is That *Really* The Goal?
12:36 Aaron Judge’s Rib Injury
18:31 George Kirby’s K’s: Where Did They Go, Can We Find Them?
31:19 K-BB% Risers & Fallers: Biggest Movers Between April and May
52:15 The Ball Beat: How Do Teams Model Differences?
1:00:33 Offense Up in Minor Leagues
Evan Drellich: 'Commissioner Rob Manfred, who once touted MLB’s parity, says luxury-tax system has failed'
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7331800
Eno Sarris & Britt Ghiroli: 'Some MLB organizations are more injury-prone than others. Is that bad luck or a system issue?'
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7330754
J.J. Cooper: 'Home Runs Are Exploding Across The Minor Leagues—And No One Knows Why'
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @DVR.bsky.social
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
Follow Trevor on Bluesky: @iamtrevormay.bsky.social
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
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Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
With: Trevor May
Editor: Jason Potere
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Rates and Barrels, we take a look at Aaron Judge's rib injury and we try to figure out where George Kirby's strikeouts have gone. |
| 0:07.5 | And speaking of figuring things out, why are home runs exploding in the low miners? |
| 0:12.6 | What's going on with the minor league ball? |
| 0:14.5 | What's going on with the major league ball? |
| 0:16.5 | Ball beat is always such a drag. |
| 0:18.7 | Let's go. |
| 0:29.1 | Music Balby is always such a drag. Let's go. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. |
| 0:30.7 | It's June 4th. |
| 0:32.1 | Derek Van Riper, Enoceris, Trevor May here. |
| 0:35.5 | Huge news from Commissioner Rob Manfred, Trevor. |
| 0:38.7 | Did you know that Major League Baseball's luxury tax system is a failure? |
| 0:43.9 | I appreciate the alley-oop right out of the gate. |
| 0:46.9 | Surprise! |
| 0:48.0 | Breaking news. |
| 0:49.7 | The luxury cap system that was never built to prevent anybody from spending any money is |
| 0:57.9 | didn't work uh didn't work for competitive balance because it never was going to work for competitive |
| 1:03.7 | balance that's that's not why it was there it was there so that uh the rickets could just not pay one |
| 1:08.7 | dollar over the first level and have an excuse to not do so. |
| 1:11.4 | And then the teams that actually did want to spend, they had a little bit of a little bit of a disincentred to do so, but then they could just blow past it. |
| 1:20.5 | And then all the other teams could say, well, there's a cap. |
| 1:23.2 | We can't get up there. |
| 1:24.2 | So it did that pretty well. |
... |
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