Welcome to Rates and barrels, presented by E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.

It is Thursday, July 17th.

Derek Van Riper here with Stephen Nesbit for our second half preview. At least that's what we're calling it. We're going to take a look at a bunch of the storylines and things that are intriguing to us as we've now moved past the All-Star break. That includes the directions of two teams that hooked up on a trade, which feels like it was several months ago. The Giants and Red Sox trade, that was Father's Day. That was barely over a month

ago, Stephen. Time doesn't have any meaning for me anymore. What is happening? Time is such a strange

construct, especially when you have young kids. I'm just coming off of parental leave. I was out for

three months. I'm basically just checking back in for the second half here, and it's all brand new to me.

But yeah, Father's Day, it's like I was, this is years ago at this point. Devere's a Red Sock ever? I don't know. Yeah, I don't remember anything about him being in Boston. Who would have thought, right? But coming out of All-Star Week, you know, a lot of interesting things happening. a futures game with the draft, the home run derby, which Cal Raleigh won the home run derby.

And Cal Raleigh is doing stuff that every time we check in, it's getting to sort of an errand judge level, but on a shorter timeline of, I can't believe this is still happening.

And I know it was about a month or so ago now, roughly, that Trevor May on this very

program said, hey, Cal, don't be in the home run derby.

Like, take the break, take the rest.

And I don't think it's because any of us believes that the home run derby specifically

causes this extreme fatigue that then craters the rest of your season.

But it's more of, hey, you're a catcher and there's a lot of wear and tear on your body

playing that position. And sure enough, he goes out there, he does it and he wins it. And good for

him. Because I do think, you know, beyond fantasy baseball circles,

you know, beyond Seattle, this is a guy who's star probably should be brighter based on how

well he has played going back a few seasons now, but especially over the past calendar year.

I'm always interested in watching at what point does a guy hit the star level where he

crosses over into like even the casual viewer knows who Cal Raleigh is. He has not been at that

point. One of my brothers reached out a few days before the All Star Break and it was like,

who's this Cal Raleigh guy who's approaching Barry Bonds in the home run, you know, before the All Star Break home run record. And I was like, who's this Cal Raleigh guy who's approaching Barry Bonds in the home run,

...