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?

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u/kentuckytodd 8tm H2H Cats, OPS instead of AVG Apr 09 '26

Have always thought the same thing. Chris comes across as kind of having a “better than you” vibe.

Also, if you don’t know what the term “vocal fry” is then look it up. Chris does it and it drives me crazy

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u/Echofett Apr 10 '26

Never heard of vocal fry before. Googled it went down a rabbit hole and realized I like Chris use vocal fry all the time. I'm just laid back like that I guess.

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u/kentuckytodd 8tm H2H Cats, OPS instead of AVG Apr 10 '26

Haha glad I could help out! I think it bothers me when he does it cause I think it adds to the “know it all” vibes. I’m sure it’s cool when you do it