Which Hitters Should Be More Aggressive at the Plate?
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 874 Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno, Jed, and DVR discuss a bizarre mistake from C.B. Bucknor in Milwaukee on Tuesday night, and Jed's favorite umpire still in rotation before digging into Shohei Ohtani's first start of 2026 -- which featured significantly increased usage of his curveball -- before looking at early bat-speed risers, and breaking down a few hitters they believe could benefit from a more aggressive approach at the plate.
Rundown
0:48 Umpire Love: Jed’s Favorite Ump Still in Circulation
2:00 The Opposite of Umpire Love: C.B. Buckner’s Laughably Bad Call
3:50 Make a Mistake? Own It! Mark Wegner Owns Up to Missed Strikeout
10:10 Sho and Tell: Shohei Ohtani Increases Curveball Usage in First Start of 2026
15:33 Other News & Notes: DeLauter’s Scare, Eflin’s Exit & deGrom’s Velo
18:09 Early Bat Speed Risers: Why Does It Matter in Small Samples?
25:57 Does High Bat Speed Lead to Injuries?
34:00 Swing Decisions: Who Should Be More Aggressive?
50:58 Show and Tell: A Few of Our Random Favorites
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @DVR.bsky.social
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
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Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
With: Jed Lowrie
Editor: Jason Potere
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Rates and Burials, C.B. Buckner wraps up worst call of the year on the last day of March, |
| 0:05.4 | and we discuss hitters we'd like to see take a more aggressive approach at the plate. Let's go. |
| 0:22.1 | Welcome to Rates and Burles. |
| 0:24.1 | It is Wednesday, April 1st. |
| 0:25.3 | April Fool's Day. |
| 0:32.5 | So be on the lookout for suspicious tweets, suspicious user interface changes. |
| 0:34.6 | Some of those might actually be real, though. You guys open up a site and the design is completely different on April 1st. And your first thought is, is this a joke? And it's not a joke. I feel bad for the person that designed it. Lots to talk about today, guys. Jed, I had to ask you a question of the umpires still in circulation, still actively calling games that you had during |
| 0:57.8 | your career. Who is your favorite umpire? Who is the umpire you actually liked having, either |
| 1:04.3 | running a crew or behind the plate that you just thought was generally really good at their job. |
| 1:08.6 | I really like Mark Wagner. He's no nonsense. He's going to, |
| 1:12.9 | he's going to tell you the way he sees it, but he's honest. And, you know, he'll tell you if he |
| 1:18.2 | get it wrong. And so I always had a good, I always had a good relationship with Mark. I remember |
| 1:24.3 | early, he was a young umpire when I was a young player. And think we both knew that we'd uh well at least he knew he would be around for a long time and I was hoping I would be around for a long time. |
| 1:36.7 | He's at the center of a little bit of a kerfuffle. |
| 1:40.8 | Is he? |
| 1:41.3 | Yeah. |
| 1:41.8 | He's on the rundown today. |
| 1:43.3 | Is he? |
| 1:43.7 | Perfect. |
| 1:44.6 | That's right. Umpires shouldn't's on the rundown today. Is he? Perfect. That's right. |
| 1:45.4 | Umpires shouldn't be on the rundown, generally speaking, unless they are at the hotel |
| 1:51.1 | and, you know, save someone at the pool from drowning or do something heroic. |
... |
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