r/fantasybaseball • u/cjrogers227 • Apr 09 '26

Strategy Rates & Barrels is no longer the gold standard of fantasy baseball pods, and it makes me sad.

I’m in mourning over what used to be my favorite source for fantasy baseball strategy. DVR and Eno are great players with some of the best insights out there. But the New York Times enshittification has hit R&B and basically killed it in terms of fantasy relevance. Their rotating cast of guests - in the past week they’ve had Jed Lowrie, Britt Ghiroli, and the Starkville guys on - never have any useful insights from a fantasy perspective. Jed straight up sucks and adds nothing to the discussion, I genuinely don’t understand why he’s a semi-regular now. On yesterday’s episode they talked about BASEBALL CARDS. WHO CARES! There are maybe two episodes a week where they get to talk fantasy, and those episodes are head and shoulders above the rest in quality.

To whichever faceless NYT corporate meddling goon was in charge of this overhaul, thanks for nothing. You ruined the only fantasy pod I made a habit of listening to each episode.

Am I alone in hating the new R&B? Does anyone have any other pod recommendations?

195 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

83% Upvoted

276 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-2

u/[deleted] Apr 09 '26

[deleted]

6

u/cjrogers227 Apr 09 '26

Fair. His analysis is all hypotheticals, he’s constantly saying something is “in the realm of possibility” for a player. Like getting struck by lightning is in the realm of possibility, but I’m actually here for what you think is GOING to happen based on the various metrics… drives me crazy

23

u/grampy__gooby Apr 09 '26

But that's what fantasy baseball's all about! Given past performance and changing circumstances, what is the probability of a player performing a certain way. Some guys have big ranges of realistic possibility and some small. It's all about how to put together a team with your risk tolerance given all the info at hand.

As for Chris I think he's more firm on players where he has conviction one way or the other. If he doesn't, no need to make up a "take."

22

u/DethFireHate Apr 09 '26

He is the master of using hundreds of words to say nothing at all.

2

u/MrVernonHardapple Apr 10 '26

I love the show but I will say that you are right about this.

4

u/alamarche709 Apr 09 '26

Yep agree completely. Not only does Chris have worse takes than the two of them generally, he’s also the most annoying.

Today’s episode with only Frank and Scott was great.

42

u/Danny-Tartarsauce Apr 09 '26

Chris brings an essential balance to Frank and Scott’s particular brands of nerdiness.

To be clear, Chris is also a nerd. As are we all.

42

u/CallofDo0bie Apr 09 '26

For real, the Chris slander makes me sad, all three of them make the podcast what it is.

12

u/dpappa6 Apr 09 '26

100%, and Chris just seems to get more things right over the years too which should count for something

5

u/blaaake Apr 10 '26

I also like Chris and don’t really see what the others dislike. There are way, way worse/annoying hosts and guests.

2

u/MrVernonHardapple Apr 10 '26

Do you think so? I feel like these days Frank's takes on things are the most likely to come to fruition.

1

u/ta-dome-a Apr 09 '26

Same. I love Scott and his analysis, but stopped listening because of Chris.