THESE Cleveland Guardians Hitters Have IMPRESSED This Spring & Why Most Praise is EYEWASH

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Everything is hunky-dory in spring training, everyone's playing well, everyone's healthy.

I'm not here to spill your milk of rain on your parade, but we need to have a conversation

about what is I washing, what actually matters in spring training, and how do we do that

in spring training?

With Guardians hitters, that starts now.

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writer and editor.

On today's show, we're going to dig into who is actually taking advantage of their time

in spring training, being impressive or improving, and what is just eye wash that you need

to just wash away and not listen to anyone here at the other.

We'll take a look at our top 100 MLB list and decide which relievers we would take over

Kate Smith.

It's not that many, but it didn't go that way.

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Guardians related outcome.

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The spring training is the time where everyone has helped.

We all feel good.

Guys aren't tired yet.

They're not sore.

First of all, I don't know if they're enjoying it unless you've got Tommy John or whatever

else is going on, right?

And if you listen to Steven Votes comments, this is not a knock on Steven Vote or a knock

at anybody because it's just the way it goes.

But if you ask him about who is a player, how is X player doing in camp?

What is he doing?

And of course, he's going to say all positive things.

He's not going to go on the record to anybody during spring training or most times here anyway

and say, oh yeah, well, so and so has got to work on this.

I don't know if he's saying like someone's trying to battle back from injury, like Hunter

Gattis or Chase the Law or whatever it is.

How is X doing on this thing in spring training?

Oh, it's great.

Really impressed us.

It looks great and this is going good and yeah, he's going to point out all the positives.

If you are dealing with like, I don't want to say co-worker because not co-workers.

But if you are in the same industry or in adjacent industry with somebody you are equating

to it.

You have friends, but you've worked in the same industry adjacent for a while.

You've built some sort of relationship that's worked only for the most part.

And you say, hey, how are your kids, how are your family doing?

Right?

They're going to say, yeah, they're great.

Everything's going good.

They're not going to say, yeah, my family sucks, my kids suck and they're going to tell

you about all the things that are bad about them.

No, they're going to say, they're not going to say publicly either.

They're going to say, everything's great.

Yeah, they're good.

You're not going to get anything more out of that.

That's why some of these press conferences are absolutely meaningless.

And it's always again, pay attention to what they do, not what they say.

And that's the hard thing to do in spring training because there's not a lot of doing

to follow.

Just because they option a certain guy at a camp doesn't really mean a lot because a lot

of guys that are optioned down, you know, they're not going to make the team anyway,

right?

But like, I'm just not putting a whole lot of stock into words in general.

But definitely not in spring training words at all.

And, you know, we've talked before.

I know Jeff did a show last week talking about Kings of Spring and how certain guys have

good springs.

You know, we got to calm down about what's a good spring training?

What's not?

And the things I wanted to look at here to go back a little bit of prefaces.

So the things that generally hold up the best are contract, I'm sorry, contact and discipline

metrics.

So that's things like chase rate.

Spray count rate.

Those are going to give you signals sooner than like power, you know, any average or

OPS like, and even 15 to 25 plate appearances in spring training, none of that's really

meaningful.

Anyway, there's no reliability in that threshold.

You know, I cousin Russell Carlton who writes for baseball perspective just once did a study

and this got misinterpreted years ago, tried to cite that 60% of plate appearances, you

know, were a good threshold to see strikeout rate stabilize or certain rates to stabilize.

And he didn't mean, he didn't mean it in the way of like future predictions.

He meant it more in a way of like historically, like, historically when you see that that

is when that true skill starts to be there.

So there's no single point at which a staff becomes reliable or stable.

Reliability tends to be like a spectrum.

It's not a single point when you get to 60, okay, that's always going to be.

No, it's not like that.

There are things like that speed that that makes stabilize faster than exit velocity because

it's a measure of swing and physical skill and outcome.

That's not for sure.

But like there are things like exit velocity and barrel rate that when you get to like 50

balls and play that becomes more meaningful data.

The other noise, everything else is noise, average OPS, slugging OBP that goes into that

absolutely noise.

Chase rate with rate can be useful in small samples if it's a very extreme trend.

But you can't like go and say, okay, 30 play appearances, this is a meaningful change.

This is still random variation.

But I did want to look at some numbers anyway and try to look at what they are doing versus

what Stephen vote is saying so we can kind of get a line in here on what really makes the

most sense.

And the player I want to start with right now is Robbie Velasquez and if you're watching

on YouTube, I'm going to show his prospects to vent chart and it is a, there's going to

say it's a very sexy chart.

Now again, it is 14 played appearances.

So there is nothing meaningful about this data.

This data cannot be taken seriously at all.

But it's fun to look at, right?

Look, all the rates here are good, okay, exit velocity, fantastic, not tracks what we've

heard, barrel rate, hard hit rate are all up there, 83% tile, 66% tile, 77% tile and

pulled error rate, which means he's pulling his fly balls.

You like that?

Strike out rates good.

81% tile, with rate, 87% tile, swing strike rate, 5.6%.

These are all good numbers.

Now, they're too small to me and anything, but at least it goes along with, with the Stephen

vote saying that they've really been impressed by Ralphie Velasquez and maybe those things

do work.

The other one, and I want to point out too, Ralphie Velasquez, if you look at baseball

reference, again, they have the opponent quality score where the level of their performance

opponent, how far they've been up in the league.

And it's on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is basically a hit or pitching and 10 is NLB.

Ralphie has faced an equivalent of 6.1, which is about between AA and high A, so he's in

AA.

So not really a surprise there.

So those, again, those are all things you want to take into account when you're looking

at this stuff.

I'm not saying stats.

Again, this is signal and not noise.

The next way I want to go into though is this.

I want to go into guides who have data from last year that we can see is meaningful if

there's changes.

And that first guy I want to look at in terms of changes is Khalil Watson.

I can just find the data and go through it.

Okay, so Khalil Watson, this spring, 6.3 opponent quality face.

So that, again, is between high A and AA, which, again, Khalil Watson is in played in

AAA last year.

So, you know, I mean, that's, it's a little lower than where he's been at.

Last year in AAA, Khalil Watson had some very concerning data.

His chase rate was in the 26 percentile, at 32 percent, his whiff rate was in the 16 percentile

at 35 percent.

His zone contact rate was bad, 77 percent in the zone, that was 25 percentile.

Now, is he doing better this spring?

Yes.

The barrel rate and the hard hit rate is good.

Those were both good last season at AAA.

The whiff rate is only 20 percent this spring as opposed to 35 percent in 2025.

The zone contact rate is 93 percent this spring.

That's 80 percentile.

That's a major shift.

Chase rate is in the 70 percentile, 20 percent.

Last year, it was, again, 26 percent.

16 played appearances, though.

And again, I reference his opponent quality score at 6.3.

So it's below the level he faced a year ago.

So it stands the reason these numbers should be better than they were a year ago.

And that's not to say the numbers tell the story or everything, right?

But it's what we have to go on because A, we can't see all the games in person.

You don't know what the picture is working on and we're looking at the opponent quality,

all that kind of stuff.

And Watson's done good in center field.

What we can't see in the games is that Watson has done a good job in center field.

He has made some tough plays on some tough live balls because the Arizona sun, the wind

is a very crazy environment.

He's had to make adjustments center field defense that has taken a step forward.

He's always had a good arm too.

So those are things that may be a more stable.

So the praise for Watson is good.

And I guess the data backs that up if you want to look at the underlying data, but it's

again, not enough of a meaningful sample size and the opponent quality there just doesn't

back that up.

So of course, they're going to say, yeah, things are great.

He's really impressed us.

Maybe he has.

And they're not looking at these things.

But again, these are just things we want to look at to establish that baseline.

All right, we'll keep looking at some players.

We'll do some data comparisons from spring 2025 and what Stephen voted in his staff are

saying.

And we're going to look at how many relievers we would take over Cade Smith.

We're going to look at our MLB top 100 list at lockdown presented by MLB, the show.

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All right, let's keep talking about some hitters and comparisons from spring training in

last year.

You know, Travis Posano, I don't want to go too deep here.

This is nine played appearances, but the one thing I did love early on and I'm going

to be biased here and talk about this is the hard hit rate, all the exit velocities,

way better this spring.

And again, nine played appearances versus 120.

You know, it's more stable.

And Posano, I know for sure, was not facing the best quality of competition in spring

training before he left for the World Baseball class.

Again, it was 6.3.

So it was between double A and high A and he was in triple A last year and he definitely

has graduated along that level.

But all the hard hit rates, 86 percentile, barrel rate was 96 percentile.

And I'm afraid it was good, 90 percentile chase rate, 96 percentile zone contact, 91 percent.

So like all those indicators were good.

All those indicators were up over triple A in 2025.

Let's look at somebody who's not.

We have one here we can really look at from spring training that might be a little more

meaningful.

And one, we've heard a lot about it was Gabel Arias.

So Stephen Voters talked about how St. Gabel Arias' approach has been better this spring.

So he's at 20 played appearances as well in last year.

Not really a shock and this has been his career.

Chase rate for Gabel Arias last year was in the 6 percentile.

That's awful.

38 percent.

Not can't do a whole lot with that when you chase.

And his with rate was in the first percentile, 40 percent.

So Jeff talked a few weeks ago about what buckets of players work.

If you strike out a lot, if you whiff a lot, it's okay.

As long as you hit the ball hard, same with chase rate.

You've got to be able to hit the ball hard.

Gabel Arias hits the ball hard, but he also whiffs and chases.

So he's not chasing quality pitch.

That's why he's signing out like Rees Hoskins because typically Rees Hoskins doesn't chase,

but he does whiff in the zone, but he makes contact yet to hard.

That profile can stand up if you hit the ball hard.

Gabel Arias this spring, 7.8, opponent quality score.

That is between double and triple A.

So it's not quite MLB level, but it's higher than the other guys we talked about.

Arias this spring does have a chase rate at 18 percent.

And again, you're comparing that to 38 percent last year.

That's a 20 point drop.

That's a huge drop.

Zone contact rate, still not great, 63 percent.

That wasn't good for him a year ago either.

The whiff rate this spring is 44 percent.

It's 14 percentile.

That's still higher than it was a year ago.

So yeah, maybe he's chasing less.

He's still swinging and missing a lot.

But again, if he manages to hit the ball in the zone, it hits the ball hard enough.

It's a profile it could work out, like that could work for him.

But he's walking a little more this spring, again, 20 played appearances,

but we'll see if those things come to fruition.

So he's chasing a little bit less.

That's a good thing.

I don't think it's necessarily going to give him a whole lot of room

or it's going to mean a whole lot when it comes to the regular season.

But we'll see.

Let's look at chase the water now.

Because chase the water, I want to see how these things are holding up to

because the water has obviously missed some time and has gotten a few

pieces of praise and spring training.

Everything on his data right now looks fantastic.

Actually, it all looks the same compared to what it was in 2025.

Things are very consistent across the board.

He's got a very high percentile in with rate across the board,

barrel rate, exit velocity measures.

He is at a 7.1 quality score this spring.

So that's a guy whose data has been consistent.

Again, only 17 played appearances because of injuries.

So that's one of them.

I was going to look at Valera.

I don't know if maybe we can look at Valera and see.

Because he's an interesting one as well.

I think I saw some inconsistencies in his data from last year to this year.

And that's a guy too who's gotten a lot of praise.

And you know what?

He's gotten more played appearances than a lot of people this spring

because he's actually been on the field, right?

That's that's a good thing for him.

So Valera this spring, pull air ball, pulling his fly ball,

7.3%.

That's 87% tile.

If you look at last year, he wasn't,

he was that's not the same as what he was doing a year ago.

This chase rate last year was 24% in AAA.

This year in the spring training, it's 26%.

So it's up a little bit.

Zone contact is 79% this spring.

His zone contact last year was 82.

So those are pretty consistent across the board.

He's at 27 played appearances.

The exit velocity data is good.

He hit the ball, particularly hard in the majors last year.

You know, had some success barely with barrels a little bit,

but didn't have great exit below data.

Chase rate was not good, strike out rate was not good.

So he's doing a little better this spring with some things.

And he is at a 7.7 and opponent quality score.

So he's bordering on AA and AAA.

Let's catch one more in this comparison.

So let's take a cow man's art.

As we've seen, we've heard a lot about Manzardo this spring.

So this will be an easy one to compare

because he's got major league data.

We can actually go off of that's got time and consistency.

And he's one that has to take a big step this year

and they asked him at the weight room

and due to some different things.

And he's come to camp.

Remember, the whole best shape was life thing.

He's bulked up.

So Manzardo this spring, a lot of the same

from a year ago.

So he barreled the ball pretty well last year.

11.8% barrel rate, that means 11.8%

of his battered balls last year were barreled,

which is a good combination of exit velocity

and the right launch angle.

Exe velocity was just so, so Chase rate was middle of the pack

and his whiff rate was below average.

Whiff rate this spring actually 30% last year.

It was 27 so that's pretty consistent.

Barrel rate 10.5%.

So he's barreling the ball the same this spring

as he did pretty much last year.

The Chase rate is 35% last year, it was 27.

So he's chasing a little more this spring

and 31 played appearance.

So that's up a little bit.

And again, I want to say like these samples are not big enough

for you to sit there and say there's something big going on

here.

Nolan Jones, just as you want to get one more in here.

Nolan Jones, not good.

It's not good.

He is sitting the crap out of the ball.

Exe velocity is a great.

Barrel's great, hard hits rate.

You know what, he did that a year ago in the majors too.

As Chase rate was 26%.

This spring, as Chase rate is 31%.

He's chasing a lot more this spring.

He's actually walking last because of he's chasing more.

And the whiff rate is 45%.

It was 27%.

So it's not going good for Nolan Jones this spring.

So let me know what you think of the data,

how you feel about that versus what's

Stephen Voters saying about the players.

So we can kind of get a comparison of like,

OK, what's this guy really doing versus what

is Stephen Voters saying?

Because he said good things about Watson and Halpin

and Valera and all those other guys.

He now and Jones and Arias.

The Arias one proved to be a little bit

interesting, I thought.

So let me know what you think about those

and how much you're buying until that.

All right, we got to talk about which releaders

we would take over Kate Smith next.

It shouldn't be a lot.

And we also got to talk about some funny world baseball

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Plenty of ways for you to keep up with the show

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is listening to a podcast at the gym.

Let's look at our MLB top 100 list.

And we've talked about how Jose came in eighth, right?

We talked about how Stephen Kwan came in 70th.

Jeff and I both had Kate Smith ranked ahead of Stephen

Kwan, Kate Smith did not make the list.

He finished 111.

The relievers ahead of Kate Smith on the top 100 list

are Mason Miller at 57.

And that's not unfair because Mason Miller is really good.

He strikes a lot of guys out.

His ERA is exceptionally low.

His fit is close.

He has pitch significantly less games

and less endings than Kate Smith.

But I don't have an issue with that one.

Johan Doran is number 98.

He is the only other reliever that made the list.

Top 100 at 98.

Over the last two years, Kate Smith

has thrown 20 more games, about 25 more endings.

He's got an ERA that's 0.30 lower.

His fit is almost a run lower.

His fan graphs war is a full 2.1 wins higher.

It's because of the saves.

It's all it is.

Kate Smith has 17 saves.

He wasn't a closer until late last year in a menor cross

egg got put on disciplinary paid leave

for the gambling investigation.

Johan Doran has 55 saves over the last two years.

Mason Miller has 50.

It's simply the saves.

And that is such a short-sighted way to rank players,

especially when it comes to relievers.

And I understand when we're ranking two relievers,

I really do.

I have no issue with Mason Miller making the list.

I feel like I'd probably put Mason Miller

ahead of Kate Smith because Mason Miller's got filthy, filthy

stuff.

Even though Kate Smith has a whole fan

graphs went above him.

It's 5.4 over the last two years to Mason Miller's 4.4.

ERA is lower, the fit is lower again.

More endings, more games, 45 more games to be exact.

Kate Smith has been more durable.

He's allowed less runs.

He's walked less.

Mason Miller's stuff is filthy.

And he's saved 50 games.

I get that.

I have no problem there.

But the saved bias here is ridiculous.

Saves are the old, it's a stat that's

like so dumb to rank by.

Because you can go in, give up two runs, and get it saved.

It may not be the highest leverage point of the game.

Let's actually look at leverage points

over the last two years.

We can do that on fan graphs.

We can look at high leverage.

Win probability added for your team.

And that is simply about how much you're contributing

to your team's win.

That's coming in as a reliever at the highest leverage points

in the game and shutting it down.

Manor Classe last two years, 7.04 win probability

add, the highest reliever in baseball.

Mason Miller was second.

Case Smith is ninth at five.

Johan Duran doesn't even appear until 28.

28th at win probability added.

Now, how about what we qualify as shutdowns?

Now, this is a shutdown inning where you thwart a rally.

This is tracked by fan graphs as well.

Case Smith is fourth.

It's 73 out of the last two years.

Fourth and shutdown innings at 73.

Johan Duran, 68.

Meltdowns.

Case Smith, this is where you come into a high leverage

situation and you allow runs and doesn't go well.

Case Smith is 18 of those over the last two years.

Johan Duran, 21.

So he's got quite a bit of those.

Mason Miller's only got 11.

So there you go.

And then I also like to see what the game leverage index

is when a pitcher comes in versus when he leaves.

So when Case Smith comes into a game,

the leverage actually doesn't appear in the top 30.

I don't believe Johan Duran does come in at 1.73 with leverage.

So he comes in with a high leverage point.

And that's usually because he's closing.

And then exiting the game with a leverage point, again,

that's going to go mostly to closers as well.

So Case Smith doesn't qualify there.

But the highest leverage point in the game

is not always the same.

The most important part of the game,

sometimes is the 7th or the 8th or the 6th.

That's why Case Smith and Andrew Miller

had those roles in the past.

But rates that's across the board.

I mean, again, ERA, I don't like care for reliever

fit, as I said.

But he's better than Johan Duran.

He has struck out, OK, strike out rates.

Look at the strike out rate just by itself.

And strike out, so don't tell the whole story

if you're a good reliever or not.

But Johan Duran is not even in the top 30.

It's not even in the top 30.

For strike out rate, Case Smith is 7th.

Walk rate, lowest walk rates among relievers.

Case Smith 20.

Again, Johan Duran, not even in the top 30,

which is why his fit is higher.

Mason Miller deserved to be on there.

Case Smith deserved to be on there

if Johan Duran is big miss by us at the network.

And here's the back of the list, too,

like this is where I was looking.

I was like, would you take Case Smith over a Drake Ball

win?

Would you take him over Nicodolo?

Would you take him over A. E. H. H. Swarris?

How about Alejandro Kirk?

How about Kyle Stowers?

That was kind of the back half of the list there.

I was like, I think I'd take Case Smith over all those guys.

Those are guys that were related on the list.

I probably wouldn't take him over Brent Rooker or Sayas,

Zuki, or Austin Riley.

But I take him over Drake Ball, but I take him over Duran.

I take him over the guys that finished close off the list

there that were above him.

Let me know what you think.

How many relievers, how many players on our top 100 list

would you rather have Case Smith over?

Let's quickly get out of here on this note

talking about the World Baseball Classic.

How funny was that Mark Taroza thing?

I don't think Mark Taroza miscalculated.

I don't think he mis-spoke when he said,

oh, we've already advanced, but this game still means a lot to us.

We've already got our ticket punched.

I don't think he was wrong.

I don't think he said, I don't think he was saying he got it wrong.

I think he was assuming that Team USA

was going to roll out of bed and beat Italy.

And Italy right now is thrashing Team Mexico at the end

as in recording this.

So Italy is the real deal.

And they took him too lightly.

I think that's what it was.

I think Taroza just assumed.

And that's why the lineup is the way it is, right?

The lineup had a bunch of guys getting the day off

and he was going to warm up Clayton Kershaw

late in the game to get a platitude

or whatever you want to call it, a little celebration performance.

And then someone told him, hey, run differential matters

in this tournament.

So if Kershaw goes out there and gets absolutely destroyed,

we could find ourselves out.

Now Italy is crushing Mexico.

So Italy saved Team USA, Salami.

But I don't think Mark Taroza knew what was going on.

I think he just assumed they were going to beat Italy

and that was going to be that.

They had their ticket punched.

I don't know.

Let me know what you think he was going through his head.

Team Canada is going on.

They're moving out of full play for the first time

in World Baseball Classic history.

They did it the hard way.

They lost a Panama.

And they had to beat Cuba in Puerto Rico.

Not an easy task to do that.

I'm sorry, they had to beat Puerto Rico in Panama.

So they did it the hard way at the end here.

They won their pool.

They're moving out as the winners of the pool.

Italy's moving on.

USA's moving on.

Japan's moving on.

Venezuela and Dominican Republic are currently

duking it out to see who gets to face Japan

and who gets to not face Japan next round.

So that means Bo Naylor and Tugboat

will be pitching for Team Canada in the next games

in the quarter final.

We're playing for Team Canada.

So I don't think that's been determined who they're playing yet.

Let's take a look and see.

Maybe that is not set up yet.

So we'll see who they're playing.

And then for Italy, because they're moving on,

that keeps Matt Festa and Dylan Delusia with Team Italy.

So those guys will be out of camp for at least another four days.

Yeah, March, I'm sorry, the quarter final is March 13.

So that's two days, so at least two more days.

I don't know, I don't think Team Italy is going

to wind up beating Venezuela.

But we'll see.

We'll see what happens.

All right, that's it for this episode.

I said I was going to get some fantasy rankings

for Guardians players.

If you are playing fantasy baseball,

I can get to that next week.

Maybe I'll do as an extra bonus video at some point.

But I'll have that.

And then yeah, I'll send out the invites

to the fantasy baseball league on Thursday or Friday.

So you can get that.

I'll go to our insiders now every day or so.

Those leads will be first come first serve

where as many as we can get.

I've got your emails if you've already been in the league

or you gave them to me through our texting.

So I'll have those as well.

All right.

Let me know what you think of the data comparisons

and spring training versus Stephen votes

a fusive praise of everybody.

Because everything is sunny and happy and rainbows

and marshmallows.

Let me know what you feel about Kate Smith and the rankings.

And let me know how you're enjoying

the World Baseball Classic and some of these headlines.

How about the radio Rosa Rayna and Cal Raleigh beef headline?

That was interesting too.

So we've got some soap opera stuff going on

in the World Baseball Classic as well as good games.

I'm enjoying that hope you are too.

Watch a lot of baseball this weekend.

And we'll get back to you.

I know Jeff will be back with a mock draft on Friday as well.

So yeah, that's look forward to make sure you tune in there

and make sure you rate review, download daily,

all that good stuff that really helps us out.

Appreciate all of you and go, go guardians, go.

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