Welcome to Rates and barrels. It's Wednesday, January 3rd.

Derek Van Riper here with Todd Zola, one of my best friends in this industry. We worked together for a long time at Roto Wire. Todd runs Masters Ball, still works at Roto Wire. You hear him every Friday on that weekly pod that I used to do with him. It's Clay Link, I think, in that main chair most weeks now and get XM shows that you're a part of, Todd. But thank you so much for joining me. You know what? Talking to your DVR, this is so far, this is the best day of the year. It's early. It's only the third day of the year. Well, I mean, that means it's better than two. Better than the college football playoffs, which were pretty good, actually. So I'm honored. I'm glad

I'm glad I've reached that level. I'm no long, never, college football was never my huge thing,

but I am not, not a fan, not a fan of the college football. So the bar hasn't been set all that

high as far as that goes. But I wasn't hung over.

I mean, I haven't been hung over years. So it's not what one of the days isn't ruled out for that. But anyway, it's always good to talk to you. Looking forward to catching up on some ball. And what's Eno out filling him another commercial or something? He should be doing another commercial. It'd be great for him if he is. but I know he's actually got some vacation that he's using,

so I think he's in Hawaii.

So I'm pretty jealous.

All right. He should be doing another commercial. It'd be great for him if he is, but I know he's actually got some vacation that he's using.

So I think he's in Hawaii. So I'm pretty jealous. All right. Okay. Okay. He's having another great day. Good. All right. That's usually how it goes for Eno. A lot has happened since we last recorded a pot. Our last episode was back on the 20th of December. So we're going to catch everybody up on everything that's been going on while you may

have been away at various holiday functions, New Year's parties, whatever it may have been.

And a shocker, the Dodgers kept spending while people may have been away.

Yoshinobi Yamamoto gets a 12-year $325 million deal.

And it's interesting because Eno wrote a piece a few weeks ago for The Athletic

breaking down his arsenal using Stuff Plus.

And I think this is one of those instances where Stuff Plus is particularly useful in that I feel like right now,

comparing leagues, foreign leagues to major league baseball and trying to compare them to the broken minor leagues right now with all the different rule changes and automated balls and strikes.

The old ways of projecting players coming into major league baseball seem like they might not work as effectively, but having more granular data, how hard does he throw, how much spin and movement do his pitches have, how much

induced vertical break, all those factors can give you a little more of an apples to apples

comparison of what a guy brings to the table.

We also had international competition recently, so we've seen Yamamoto in the World Baseball

Classic. All this is a long way to say. If you didn't read Eno's article, here's the summary. By the raw numbers, Yamamoto projects to have a top 24 seam fastball, the best splitter in Major League Baseball, an elite curveball, a below average cutter, can't have it all, and elite command, which if you just go off

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