Is that all that's going on here, though?

though?I mean, there's a couple things I see.

The home run rate has never been better.

.81 homers per nine is the best of Eduardo Rodriguez's long career.

It's spent over, you know, 10 years in three different parks.

I think a lefty in Fenway is gonna have trouble with some homers.

I think being in Comerica for a couple of seasons kind of helped him, and being in Arizona is a little bit of a mixed bag if that park is less hitter friendly than it used to be.

So Dylan Cease, meaningful skill change that could continue into next season? Or just a pitcher who kind of fluctuates from year to year, and maybe we should avoid him next year coming off that up season?

What are you looking for from those guys who might not have utility for you the rest of the season here, but we're trying to level set on those guys for 2027? What do you wanna see from a Jackson Jobe, a Corbin Burnes down the stretch here?

Yeah, for a guy like Jobe, I think it's just consistently going five innings per start the rest of the way, building up as much of a rest of season workload as possible.

What happens when he can get to the lineup and turn it over a third time? Does he have enough, uh, variation in his mix? Does he have good enough command to actually get through? You know, i- is he gonna be someone that is a 2027 breakout, or is he gonna be on a lot of breakout lists and still be a year or two away? Because even in the return we've seen up to this point from Jackson Jobe, the strikeout rate's right above 20%.

It's not quite that top shelf elite strikeout rate you'd expect for someone with the prospect pedigree that Jobe has, but he's young and he's missed a lot of time with injuries, not only in the major leagues with the Tommy John surgery, but also during his time coming through the Tigers system.

So I do think there is a possibility he could still take large steps forward at some point, but I'm really watching to see how deep is that arsenal, how much does he trust everything in it.

With someone like Burnes or Pivetta, I think it's really more of a question of where is the stuff at? I think Burnes was down a little bit with the cutter velocity in particular compared to where he was pre-TJ.

It was the first start back.

[laughs]

Here's maybe five electric innings, uh, but we're not gonna extend the innings load out too much." What, what do you make of how they may handle Henderson from here?

Yeah.

I think because of the time he's missed already, they can be a little more aggressive with Henderson.

In the start against the Padres on Monday night, they pushed him a little bit harder in part because they had a very short number of bullpen options available, and they're entering this stretch on the road where they have seven consecutive games before a day off.

So I think they wanted to be a little careful with some of their relievers.

Uh, with Henderson, you know, I think he can pitch deeper into games consistently.

He added a cutter this year, which is pretty big for him.

Um, what did you make of his first start back? And given where the prospect pedigree was pre-injury, how interesting a guy does this become when we start to look ahead to 2027 drafts?

Do you, did you or did we like kind of royally, um, plan for that enough and do we need, you know, is this a special class or do we need to maybe shift our risk profile when it comes to young guys in future years, given how a lot of these guys have been able to hit the ground running?

I think we undervalued this class in particular, and that's not something that happens in fantasy draft seasons very often.

I think about where J.J. Weatherholt was being drafted, where Kevin McGonigal was being drafted.

I think they were pretty consistently outside the top 200 overall in a lot of drafts.

So pretty late round picks.

Definitely not the typical higher end guys that get jumped up into the top 100 as you get to those drafts closer to opening day.

Uh, I think some of the uncertainty around when the Pirates were going to debut Connor Griffin kind of kept his price in check for most of the spring.

Was there anyone that you guys discussed that when you're looking at, you know, prospect keeper slots or, or dynasty leagues or anything like that, that, you know, that chat with Keith or his latest updates really moved the needle on for you?

Yeah

... that situation is a little more complicated.

Whereas with Crews, I think this Nats front office needs to see what he actually has.

Like give him 100 games in the big leagues this year.

See if you have better swing decisions.

See if you have more consistent ability to pull the ball in the air.

Uh, there's a lot of ways Dylan Crews can be good.

Mm-hmm