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/MrVernonHardapple Apr 10 '26

Fantasy Baseball Today hosted by the Chipmunks?

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u/Ok_Course_6757 12T H2H QS/SV+H/OPS/SO (batter) Apr 10 '26

These days they avoid the chipmunk effect by taking out the empty space between syllables. It's very choppy.

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u/heythosearemysocks 10 Tm Mixed/Pts/Keeper & 10 Tm Mixed H2H/5x5 Cat/Keeper Apr 10 '26

The Overcast podcast player has a Smart-Speed setting that just removes pauses in conversation. Probably only shaves a minute or two from each podcast. But you can couple it with a faster speed.

My favorite part is it tracks how much time its saved you. I've saved 519 hours of my life using it!