Welcome to Rates and barrels. It's Monday, June 27th, Derek Van Riper here with Enosaurus, back on the schedule, at least until the holiday next week, of course, July 4th, one week from today. So we probably are recording an episode that day. Maybe we'll do one before then. That will be gritty. Release it that day. And drinking beer. Seems like a good plan. I have to jump in on that with you.

The focus today is going to be on a few different things, replacing stars in the wake of Bryce Harper's injury over the weekend.

We're going to talk about Alejandro Kirk and a case for not really fitting the mold.

Alejandro Kirk has been really good so far this year.

And there's some regrets on my part because I have him in exactly zero leagues this season.

We're going to talk about the absence of second half league, something that has existed in the past, but does not seem to exist anymore.

And we've got a few mailbag questions we're going to try and get to as well.

So the first question today, if you are someone who has Bryce Harper on your team,

or if you've been in a situation in the last few weeks where you've lost one of the other very good or star-level players that has been taken down by injury,

Muki Betts, probably another good example based on what he has been doing.

What is your best path to replace that player?

Obviously, in some leagues, a lot of leagues you can go out and try and make a trade.

And even if you can't get a similarly projected player, you can at least get a better upgrade than you can from the waiver wire.

But there's sort of two different problems here.

There's the, sure, you can trade, go down that path problem.

And then there's the, oh, you can't trade.

You're playing an NFBC or you're in a league where people just are difficult to trade with.

How do you try and survive a very lengthy absence from one of the very best hitters in the player pool.

Yeah, it's a really difficult one because if you're like me and you've been using a little

bit of your free agency auction money, you know, every week, you don't have the big hammer.

So if there is a big new player that comes up, you won't have the $200, $300 you need to do to drop on to get one of those guys, the big new call-up.

And in fact, to be honest, like looking around, I feel like there might be one guy that's Corbyn Carroll.

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