Swapping Pitchers for Hitters, Re-Thinking Saves + Holds, and KC Optimism
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2021
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno & DVR discuss the balance of trading pitching for hitting in real baseball -- and in long-term league formats -- before taking a closer look at a few pitchers of interest from the mailbag, a softening stance on Saves + Holds as a category thanks to Ron Shandler's article in the Baseball Forecaster, whether max Exit Velocity can help us see players in decline, and a few reasons for optimism about the Royals in 2022.
Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris
Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@theathletic.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Rates and barrels. |
| 0:16.7 | It is Monday, December 13th, Derek Van Riper here with Ino Seris. |
| 0:21.3 | We've got four more episodes counting this one before the end of the 2021 calendar year. |
| 0:29.5 | So hard to believe we made it through a big year. |
| 0:31.5 | It was slightly better than 2020, I guess. |
| 0:33.9 | Yeah, it was a step forward from 2020. |
| 0:37.3 | 2020, one of the most awful years in existence. |
| 0:41.1 | It was not the leap we were all hoping for. |
| 0:43.3 | I think if at the end of 2020, someone had said, |
| 0:46.0 | here's what 2021 is going to be like. |
| 0:47.6 | You're like, well, I guess I'll take that. |
| 0:50.2 | I was hoping for more partying. |
| 0:52.7 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 0:54.0 | So here we are. But, yeah, four episodes to go. Lots of mailbag questions to get to on this episode. And keep sending those rates and barrels at theathletic.com is the easiest way to send a long question. Twitter is fine too. At, you know, Saris, at Derek Van Riper, at Britt underscore Droli. Just let us know if those questions are actually, you know, for the podcast, not just |
| 1:14.5 | general questions that you would like answered faster. |
| 1:17.5 | Oh, and just so that people kind of have an idea of the schedule, we'll have two this week, |
| 1:23.1 | Monday and Wednesday, and then we're going to have the Mondays going forward. |
| 1:29.6 | Case of the Mondays. |
| 1:30.7 | So if you're looking for new content, it'll come on Mondays after this next Wednesday. |
| 1:34.9 | Yeah, just one per week, each of the next two weeks with the holiday season and travel. |
| 1:39.6 | We've got families too. |
| 1:41.5 | We do. |
... |
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