Welcome to Rates and barrels, it's Wednesday, June 12th.

Derek and Riper here with Keith Law.

Keith, of course, is a senior writer covering baseball at The Athletic. Keith, thank you so much for joining me. Your name rings a bell. Have we talked before? Yeah, it's almost like we used to do a show on Fridays. That show still exists. Steven Nesbitt's the pilot these days, but... He's okay. Yeah, he seems good guy. Yeah, yeah. I guess it's been a minute. Listen to the windup.

Steven Nesbit, Chad Jennings, lots of guests rotating through on Fridays. But it's been a minute since we had a chance to catch up, Keith. And it's been a fun season so far. A lot of unique twists. And I think the biggest one for me is the run environment being so challenging.

And I think that creates some misconceptions perhaps about the rookies in particular.

So we're going to talk about rookie pitchers who are having success, some rookie bats who have struggled early on,

talk about some prospect movers from your latest prospect rankings update and a few prospects coming up in the MLB draft,

which is just about a month away now. It's coming up quick. It is less than five weeks, right?

So I'm working on my next mock and yeah, it's coming quick. And I mean, I think I speak for a lot of us in the industry where it can't really come quick enough. Like this draft class is not great.

I think I'm already hearing a lot of fatigue from folks who've been on the road.

And I share it too where it's like, let's get this one done and look at next year.

Next year, next year can't be worse.

I think it's better.

But this year is really, I mean, we can talk about it more.

This year is just, it ain't good. Especially if you have to get past the first few names, it does. I guess people can't see. But yeah, it doesn't nose dive pretty quickly. Heck, let's do it. Let's start with the draft. Why not? Sure. I think every class has quality big leaguers in it. It's just a question of depth many times, right?

And the question is, how do you find quality big leaguers in it. It's a question of depth many times, right?

And the question is, how do you find quality big leaguers in a thin class?

We'll start at the very top.

It sounds like it's a one-two toss-up for some folks.

Charlie Condon versus Travis Bazana.

Which direction would you go if you had the pick and which direction do you think the

guardians are actually going to go since they have that spot?

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