Pitchers Primed to Exceed Expectations | Opening Day is Here!
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno, Trevor, and DVR celebrate Opening Day with a draft -- focusing on pitchers they believe are primed to exceed expectations this season. Plus, they discuss a rough first night for Logan Webb against the Yankees, Netflix's baseball debut, and what they're looking for as the first series of the season unfolds over the course of the weekend.
Rundown
0:28 Happy Opening Day!
2:00 Jackson Chourio to the IL with Fractured Hand
3:50 Logan Webb’s Tough Outing & Overall 2026 Expectations
9:45 The San Francisco Opener: Netflix’s MLB Debut, Throwing a Big Party
17:06 Mic’d Up Players in Games That Count
21:40 Silver Linings for Giants
24:12 Plus-Minus Draft: Which Pitchers Will Exceed Projections in 2026?
53:53 What Are We Watching For in First Series?
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @DVR.bsky.social
Follow Trevor on Bluesky: @iamtrevormay.bsky.social
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe
Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels
Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
With: Trevor May
Editor: Jason Potere
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Happy opening day. Today on Rates and Barrels, we discuss pitchers that will beat their projections in 2026. |
| 0:06.1 | Let's go. |
| 0:16.5 | Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Thursday, March 26th. Derek Van Riper, Enoceris, Trevor May |
| 0:22.0 | here with you on this episode. We dig into an exciting opener in San Francisco in the sense |
| 0:27.9 | that there was pomp and circumstance around that game. Thanks to the good folks at Netflix. |
| 0:32.1 | We'll talk about all the happenings of Yankees Giants, dig into some other early opening day |
| 0:37.2 | action. We get some news and notes to get to. Andes Giants, dig into some other early opening day action. |
| 0:37.8 | We get some news and notes to get to. |
| 0:39.5 | And we're going to dig into pitchers that we think are going to beat their projections in |
| 0:44.9 | 26 with our plus minus pitcher draft. |
| 0:49.5 | Trevor, how's your opening day going so far? |
| 0:51.6 | It's great. |
| 0:53.0 | We've already, I've already walked into the office and got surprised by Paul Skeens. |
| 0:57.6 | But it's just been a couple, what has it, been 18 hours of the studs, realizing that |
| 1:05.4 | it's the regular season. |
| 1:07.1 | Interesting happens, but it wasn't expecting that one. |
| 1:09.5 | Did not have that on my bingo card. |
| 1:11.2 | You know who's surprised that baseball matters right now is O'Neill Cruz, apparently. |
| 1:16.8 | He made two pretty horrific plays in a row that sort of chased Paul Skeens out of that game. |
| 1:23.2 | But he was not a good outfielder by the advanced metrics last year, and he's back in center |
| 1:29.1 | field, and now with Marcel Azuna at DH, it's kind of a little thing that I don't know if I |
| 1:37.7 | accounted for correctly in my pitcher rankings for the pirates. Their home park is so nice, |
... |
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