Projections Are a Liar Sometimes!
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno, Jed, and DVR discuss a few spring news items including Gerrit Cole's return to game action with his first outing for the spring, plus updates on Seiya Suzuki, José Ramírez, and Zach Neto.
Plus, they host their ever 'Plus-Minus Draft', selecting their favorite hitters primed to exceed their projections during the upcoming season.
Rundown
2:31 Gerrit Cole Makes Spring Debut
5:41 Seiya Suzuki: PCL Strain; Opening Day Status TBD
9:50 Updates: José Ramírez & Zach Neto
10:33 The 2026 Hitter Projections Draft
13:02 DVR Takes Acuña at 1.1; Was That a Mistake?
28:04 Jed’s Case for Wyatt Langford Being Underprojected
31:52 Mike Trout?! In This Economy?
40:15 Banking Heavily on Youth
43:51 Andy Pages & Jed’s Emphasis on Defensive Value
46:02 Eno Targets Evan Carter & Matt McLain
48:11 Surprised that Jed Added Rafael Devers?
49:53 James Wood & Colton Cowser to DVR
53:37 Have We Underrated Colson Montgomery’s Debut?
56:13 Shopping in the Low WAR Projection Bin: Cam Smith
1:04:29 Notable Omissions From This Draft
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @DVR.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: Jed Lowrie
Editor: Jason Potere
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Rates and barrels. It is Thursday, March 19th. |
| 0:16.5 | Derek Van Riper, Enoceris, Jed Lowry here with you on this episode. |
| 0:21.8 | Projections are a liar sometimes. |
| 0:24.4 | We are going to have our first ever projections draft. |
| 0:28.8 | We're calling it a plus minus draft. |
| 0:30.8 | That is a working title, but it's a good title so far. |
| 0:33.9 | We'll explain what that is here in just a few minutes. |
| 0:36.4 | Ultimately, we're trying to accrue as many wins above the projected war as we possibly can over the course of that draft. |
| 0:44.2 | Got some baseball news you should know getting us started here and some really interesting stories on the Athletic, |
| 0:50.0 | both about the Washington Nationals, Spent and Newsbaum joined the Athletic this week, |
| 0:54.9 | and has some stories with the new tech in D.C. |
| 0:57.1 | Seems like they have made a lot of progress and not a lot of time could make that |
| 1:01.3 | Nat's team a lot more interesting here in 2026. |
| 1:05.5 | Jed, how's it going for you on this Thursday? |
| 1:07.6 | Great. Thanks. Good to be back. |
| 1:10.4 | Got to go down to Miami and watch the |
| 1:12.7 | World Baseball Classic. So that was what an electric atmosphere and, you know, just a lot of fun to |
| 1:20.2 | watch and absorb the baseball energy. I'm jealous. Yeah. Did you have any weird hot dogs? No, no weird hot dogs. I, uh, I, I, I, I can honestly say I don't remember the last time I had a hot dog. Okay. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I, it's just, I, I, I don't feel good after eating them at this point. Yeah, I must be getting old. |
| 1:46.3 | We can leave it at that, you know, last time you had a hot dog? |
| 1:51.5 | Wait, wrong answer. |
| 1:52.9 | Wrong answer. |
| 1:53.5 | Six months ago? |
... |
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