Nine five miles an hour, riding too his head. He hopped down first
with the lumpbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second face with gretest speed. He wasn't born, he had the bad Yes.
Well, well, well it is nice to be back in all your
muddy ears. Welcome back to Prospect B Sides. I'm your host, Nate
Andy. Apologies for getting this show all set up, getting in your ear
last off season just to have the season start, and for me too disappear.
Life happens, things happened unforeseen, and podcasting just wasn't in the cards
for me. And to be honest, I thought maybe it was just done
done. But then someone walked into my life, someone who I thought,
Hey, maybe we should fire this thing back up. And it's early in
our relationship, so I don't want to ruin things. And I mean this
in the most heterosexual of ways, but he might be the one. He
might be my b siding soulmate. So introducing to you, well, what
do you want to call yourself? I'll just let you introduce yourself. Oh
those are kind words, Nate. I'm Matt here. Some of you might
know me from some of the things that I've written over the past year or
so. Matt at bat twenty two and I'm new I'm the rookie here,
so we might be the sort of the rookie in the vet. I don't
know. We can workshop our b side names here. But I'm a longtime
baseball fanatic from as many of us watching games as a kid, playing growing
up. And I ended up having the fortune to play in college against and
with some pretty good players, and my baseball career ended. But I kept
playing fantasy baseball casually for quite a long time. But circumstances and life circumstances
changed recently, and this was a hobby that I chose to just dive into.
And you know they say about hobbies, you should have one to keep
you fit, one to keep you creative, and one to make your money.
Well, fantasy baseball might be all three of those for me, just
with how much I've dived into it. And it's been a real fun return
to the game in a different way than I was used to, being able
to write a little bit about it, get a little creative, and have
long conversations with Nate about all of our gritty under the radar super deep cut
players, and I've been in a couple of deep Dynasty leagues for the past
couple of years and found Nate's old podcasts and listen to I think everything that
you did for the past couple of years, just because you had written some
stuff that really I was like, Oh, he thinks about prospects and a
way that a lot of other people don't. And I just really dig your
vibe. So the love goes both ways, Nate, and I'm really happy
to be joining you on B sides. Yeah, I've been looking forward to
this for I don't know, several weeks now, but thank you. Thank
you for the kind words. And you know, it's it's a bit iffy
when you have this like little corner niche podcast and then you like steal your
one listener away to be on the show. So we'll see, we'll see
how this goes. You know. It's one of these things where I want
nothing but the success for you and the pod and everything, but I also
don't want any of my league mates ever to hear this, and it's just
gonna be like they're gonna know how I'm thinking about it, and I got
to let that competitiveness drop a little bit, and that is a little bit
of a thing. Lucky, luckily, in my case, most of my
league mates know me and have known me long enough to know that I'm like
kind of dumb, and they're not jumping all over the guys that I want
all the time, so to speak. So yeah, this was an size.
Yeah. Every once in a while one of those one of those jackasses
will steal one of my players and it's a bummer. But whatever, it's
all the long game, right, you know, you hit on enough of
these, there's plenty to go around. Yeah, well, that's interesting that
you that you you mentioned that because you know, as somebody who digs around,
I primarily watch players that are free, so to speak. Spend a
lot of hours and a lot of fruitless hours watching pitchers and hitters that are
available in my you know, thirty team leagues, you know, those kinds
of leagues. It very much matters your format. I think a lot of
what we do will work best in leagues where you know, prospect pickups during
the season is a thing. One of those leagues of mine, thirty teen
points League WGM. Little case study here, and you know it's this isn't
like Ooh, look at me, I'm so smart and good. This is
just the case study that I know about because I was doing it. But
started this league four years ago, a little bit of a different league.
You pay for four years at a time, right, it stretched the five
because of COVID whatever first year initial draft. I kind of just went for
it right out the gates, Right, let's see how how good I can
do immediately. Didn't care too much about years down the road. That first
season, I think I think I had the best regular season record in a
shortened sixty game season, lost right away in the playoffs. Next year starts
off, and it just it wasn't good. So kind of hit a reset
button. But I didn't. I don't condone. I don't believe in the
total gotta get to be the worst team in the league to get to be
the best sort of thing. So I started tracking. I've tracked every transaction
I've made in this league, right, and so this year, fast forward
a few years, I made the playoffs again, I don't know, arguably
second third best team in the National League, and I lost right away in
the playoffs. So again this isn't like, ooh, look at me,
I won championships because I'm there, been there. Yeah, but uh,
check out this team, Okay, on the season it scored and eighteen points,
right, I would say eleven hundred of those points. A little bit
more came from assets. I'd say that I paid a premium on high draft
pick an expensive vet that I traded for whatever. Right, that's about twenty
four percent of the points scored. The other seventy five seventy five percent of
the points thirty six hundred plus, I would say all came from b siding.
All came from free pickups, trading those free pickups or very cheap pickups.
And some of that gets a little hairy, right you trade a that
that and you throw some of these, you know, free prospects that you
had that became more popular, and so I had to kind of estimate.
But I would say that my destination was on the on the lower side,
if you will. So that's I don't know. To me, that just
reinforced me that, yeah, you know what, maybe this isn't a complete
waste of time to dig into these zero one, two three percent prospects and
either hang on to them if you like them, some of them. That
was the case. Large majority were used at the trade table for other more
established assets I was into, So I don't know, maybe we're onto something
here. And I think that that last point is one that really resonated with
me, because, like you, when I start a dynasty league, I
am going for it, make no bones about it. Give me all the
old guys, give me all of the established studs. In my last two
dynasty startups over the past couple of years, I think I went twenty five
rounds before I took the first my first minor leaguer, because I'm like,
look, either I'm going for it and this lead might not make it,
or I'm going to pick up these gritty b siders that will then turn into
something. And sometimes that might be a guy that ends up making your roster,
but more often than that, it's like, now that person has some
helium, they're on a couple of public lists, and you start floating that
name, and it might be an added throw in to get you an upgrade
at a key position. And I've similar to you. This longer running dynasty
league that I've been in, I went for it right away. Was a
top two, top three team out of thirty. The first couple of years.
Was the number one team last year in our third year, I think,
and lost in the second round of playoffs. You know, just roll
of the dice. But I've got a decent minor league system along with this
pretty good, you know, veteran focused roster, and these b sides are
so much of what got into that roster is like you hold a guy for
six months and all of a sudden he's starting to make some noise on a
public list and you get interest from the rebuilding teams or the teams that want
to get a little younger, and they're super useful. Yeah, I agree,
And that's why, you know, as being a commissioner of some large
leagues, it's always tricky. You know, I want this to last.
I don't want turnover. I want the long play. I mean, that's
why I play dynasty is to get guys careers, invest in their careers and
not just right now. Is you know, That's what NFBC and waiver wire
leagues are for in my opinion. So that's why I'll just like cringe sometimes
when folks just want to move so far back and sell everything for draft picks
and highbrow prospects in leagues where you have a giant pool of unwanted players or
not room for them, so I don't know. I prefer to dig around
in that mud and try to try to, you know, turn some into
ten dollars. I think we have a lot to get into here. But
let's do a let's do a little b side draft. Now, let's do
it. Matt and I have been spending a lot of time several weeks now,
digging in the mud, getting dirty. I don't know what your demographic
has been, but primarily the players that I have been looking at are not
created yet in fan tracks to I don't know. I probably won't draft anyone
here that's over three percent. I think I only have one or two that
are over zero percent, and it gets a little tricky this time of year.
Fan tracks roster rates are not I don't know. I think they're all
zero right now. But I did probably mid September, just downloaded the whole
just scrape the whole player pool, and just so if I share any roster
percentages, that's from mid September, and if that changes a little bit,
whatever, so be it. The whole point is, Matt and I might
have some some unknown names that we want to talk about. So that's priority
number one with all of this, and I wanted to have a little bit
of a competition. Let's see what the rookie's got here. I kind of
imagine that Matt might crush me in the hitters. But if Matt's on a
guy at this level a hitter, I am definitely paying attention to it.
I've seen enough from that that I very much, very much trust that he
knows a few things about hitting. And so I want us, though,
to draft in accordance to whose career do you want a piece of the most
part of the B siding two is like kind of a game within the game,
right, Hey, this guy, you know, he had ten home
runs this year, but he's got a lot of power. What have you?
I could see him hitting twenty five home runs next year, thirty home
runs next year at a higher level, and that's going to get some attention.
Maybe that turns into a nice trade piece, But really I'm not super
into him. Like I've pretty much made my thirty B side selection. At
sixty B sides elections for the season, the large majority of them are not
guys that I'm like that I want to marry. But there are a few,
so I want us to draft in that accordance. But we will measure
the success of this draft, and I hope we'll hang on to this and
look back several years down the road as well. But in about a year
from now, we'll see what the roster of percentages are of these players,
and we'll just kind of call the year one winner whoever, whoever has gained
the most percentage points from their little I think we're going to try to do
nine hitter nine hitter roster. Does that work? Matt? Did? I
did? I set that up? Well? You nailed it. And I
think for the listeners. For me, I came at a lot of these
hitters with a specific format in mind, and I'll try and talk about that
and say, you know, this hitter might fit for your roto or your
categories format. This might be a points league guy, because I play in
all sorts of different leagues. And as Nate said at the outset, if
you don't know your format in sided out, this information is just useless to
you. So you know that we'll we'll try and highlight those things. I
did pull the fan tracks roster percentages about the same time as Nate, So
when I reference it. It's probably from about mid September before they did their
update. And yeah, again, I think I've got like two guys on
my lists that are above two percent and most of them are zero or one.
So all right, right, hopefully these are deep for you guys.
Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. Like I like when there's a few
guys that will hit me up that are playing like really deep leagues and like,
hey, you got to listen names for me or something, and you
know a lot of times these will be zero percent guys or close too,
and they're like, yeah, well seventy five percent of those guys are taken,
but thanks for the guys who aren't. So when I'm kind of hitting
those guys's level, that's when I feel like, all right, I've blunked
deep enough here. That's that's who I want to try to get some nuggets
out of too. Yeah. And I also ran this list by the deepest
leagues that I play in, and if somebody is rostered in that league,
I took them off my board with with like I think two exceptions. So
again, these are these are deep, and these are ones that I might
be going after in my next year. This offseasons fypds. Nice. Yeah,
and you had mentioned, you know, maybe doing a pod on some
deep first year player draft guys and you know, maybe we'll get into that.
I think that's a great idea. But I was like, hey,
let's let's do this first, because I think there's some crossover and I know
on my short list here for this draft, there's there's some first year player
guys. So maybe we'll touch on that a little bit here. But yeah,
and Matt and I did not share any notes. Is who he's been
watching. I don't know my pitchure list. I started with like fifteen hundred
arms and I just slowly whittled my way down. I didn't watch film of
all of them. That's another thing too for me and Matt. I don't
know if you did this, but for me, these are all guys who
have played full season ball and there was some video on Yeah, same same
here. There there were a few younger guys that I was really interested in,
and maybe we'll take some time to note those at another time. But
yeah, these are all guys that I got eyes on in one way or
another. Okay, sweet nice? Uh? Yeah, And I think maybe
down the road here some future pods. I think we might just go division
by division and get into some of our other findings. But let's get into
the draft. I get Mad the choice, we're gonna do a picture draft
as well, and a probably later I gave him the choice, do you
want to go first in the hitter of picture draft? And he chose Picture,
so on the board my number one pick. This feels a little bit
like cheating Matt. I'm not gonna lie, but I want to get him
because he's not really a traditional B side in a sense. He was a
second round draft pick in the twenty twenty two draft, but he meets the
parameters. He was at two percent ownership, and that's Ryan Curmac, outfielder
at Bay Rays. Nice one, Nice one. Now they're his. I
don't know. In my opinion, his pro career just hasn't really gotten started
yet. Like I said, drafted last year out of Illinois State, and
he didn't get started until what July end of July this year. And you
know, you look at the surface numbers, there's nothing too crazy. There's
nothing super alarming either, I don't think. But what he got in one
hundred and seventy five played appearances this year, hit six home runs. I
know that he was a somewhat popular first year player draft guy, maybe like
a deeper first year player, kind of sleeper for some guys that I appreciate
their opinion of. I don't know what the injury was, though, Matt,
do you know what his injury was this year? I didn't really find
it. I didn't find it. I did note that he had missed some
time, but no, I wasn't sure what it was. But his production
was final slash two sixty five, three forty five, four fifty two eight
seven ISO, stole eight bags. Like I said, six home runs,
strikeout percentage eighteen percent, walked ten percent, whatever. But after he came
back from injury in August to the end of the season, he slashed three
h five three seventy seven five sixteen. There aren't really any glaring red flags
from what I can see. Splits were fine, but you know, more
or less, I think this is just kind of a b side that's falling
into our laps from owner's lack of patients. More than anything, he has
power. He's more of a pool side hitter that is not always the type
that I'm after, but the power from college is fairly famous. He can
play center field. The first game that I put on of him right after
I had read Ba's little draft rite up on him talking about he's famous for
his diving plays in center field or whatever. But the first game of is
that I picked on, I just randomly clicked in a spot and it was
him making a diving catch like two minutes after I read nice. So that
was kind of funny. You know, there's there's some case stuff there,
but there's a lot of easy calm in his swing. It's hard to not
like that a guy dropping out of folks lists and things. I don't even
think he's on like top thirties anymore. But I think the group of folks
that I had players that I have just the overall skill set, defense,
hit power. I think it's I think it's my top choice. So Ryan
Curmac raise, I like it. I Cermac came up on my list and
I watched some video of him as well. He wasn't didn't make my top
tier list, and I think it was the k's at the level for me,
you know, like he had some good looks at Illinois State when he
was there, but I thought the K potential you know, he's twenty two,
twenty three, turning twenty three, I think, and he's still a
low A and some of that's the injury, but that was why I ended
up bumping him down my list. But I did like what I saw quiet
right right, you know, right throw, right swing, the kind of
really polished college hitter that sometimes flies under the radar, and that actually kind
of takes me to my first pick. My pick here number two overall,
who I feel shares a lot in common with Sirmac. He's a right right
mid major guy who's done nothing but perform, but might not have a carrying
tool. He might not quite be most well renowned. But I'm gonna go
with the Dodgers infield, we'll call him because he plays all around but shortstop,
third base, second base prospect Austin Gotthier. That's Gothier who I'm going.
So he made it up to double A this year. He's on a
little bit the older side for you know, sort of traditional prospect towns,
and he hasn't dominated. I'd say, you know, he had a really
great stretch earlier this year and at HIA and I think he ran a one
WRC plus on the back of just an absolute crap ton of line drives,
hit some homers, stole a couple of bags. He's I mean, he's
got a good eye. He has one of the best strikeout to walk ratios
in the miners. And it's not because he's being super aggressive about it.
He's being selective. He doesn't have a high swinging strike rate, and he's
just one of those guys that kind of does everything pretty well, and because
of that he gets overlooked a little bit. This is a profile that I
really like, and you know this, He's might be a role player for
the Dodgers down the line. I could see Gothier slotting in at third,
at second. He's probably not a short stop in my looks. It's harder
to get a gauge on the defense side of things, but I don't think
he's gonna stick it short. But especially with the way the Dodgers play,
I think he could play some second base. I think he could play some
third base, you know, kind of a Miguel Vargas light who he's just
done nothing but perform. Might slot around at some different positions. They might
try him in left field, kind of like Chris Taylor esque, you know,
he might be a utility guy, but there's something about the combination of
he doesn't strike out very much, he has some power, and he really
knows how to hit. You know, he makes good swing decisions, he
doesn't swing through. I saw him hit really difficult sliders down in a way
and just stay on them and go the other way into the gap. I
saw him hit mistake pitches and put him out, and I saw him battle
for walks. One of the notes that I had in my as I was
kind of really trying to chop up the list of real fine. One reason
why I decided to go gothier first was seeing him. I think it was
against I can't remember what picture was. It was one of the really good
like top Hunter, like Job or somebody, and he went down oh two
on like a fastball, take first pitch, slider, swinging miss second pitch,
and then he spat on a slider just off the plate that most guys
swing at, and he took it, worked account back to three. You
too, ended up taking a walk out of it, and I was just
like, that is such a professional at bat. You can't really fake that,
and that kind of skill and just sort of competence across the board.
I think is one that he's He's worth a he's worth a look in your
in your drafts. I think this is a big league regular. He might
take a couple of years to get there, but this is someone who I
think is going to play in the big leagues. And I'm also kind of
gaming our game here because he was at two percent when I looked. I
think that the Dodgers are going to give him a shot soon, and as
soon as he makes the the league, I think his roster ownership is going
to go up. I love it. I love it. He was definitely
on my short list of Dodgers. I like that pick all right too,
I'm gonna go with I'm excited about this guy. I'm gonna go with Trevor
Werner, third basement from Texas A and M drafted by the Royals in the
seventh round of this last I love it. That's a great pick. Yeah,
I was debate. I wasn't sure if you were going to be on
him or not. So I want to get him early here, so you
know, drafted this year, you get a small sample size. He got
in one hundred and fifty one played appearances, few and rookie ball, but
mostly Columbia single a hit nine home runs, ten stole mass with a super
gaudy three fifty two four fifty seven oh three slash. Now, he did
strike out like twenty five percent of the time, but he had a fifteen
percent walk rate five sixteen wOBA, two oh seven WRC WRC plus a three
fifty two ISO. I mean, so all that's you know, that's just
video game type stuff. But uh, and he hit the ball on the
ground. Uh, you know, probably at a higher percentage. But he's
got a nineteen percent line drive rate. But more than all of that number
weighing stuff was just a video he was a hitting He was just hitting everything
hard. It seemed like every game that I would put on lots of hard
line drives. And and he's the type of guy I think you would call
him a lot drive hitter. But he hits some hard enough that they just
happen to go out. And that is the kind of home run hitter that
I that I like that I'm drawing to. Now help me out with this,
Matt, you can articulate this better than I. But he's a guy
who swing the trunk, the base, the body, seems to stay the
same regardless of the location of the ball and where the bat's going. Looks
like you can get the bat on multiple locations and depths while just having the
same start to his swings, especially north south. Now I don't know if
I'm just you know, talking about things that I don't know, but I've
heard people talk about hitter swings like this before, particularly Wander Franco. But
he just there's he just looked. There's a different look to him the most
guys. The balance, the balance is fantastic, and you know it's hard.
We're looking, we're getting looks from center field. But from what I
what I can gather, perhaps he doesn't have the quickest swing in the world,
doesn't seem to like have this off the charts like sort of energy transfer
from the lower half that you might see, but he's getting good wood on
all sorts of locations and depths you hit him out the other way. He
produced an equally impressive level versus both right e's and lefties. I didn't watch
them on defense. I just didn't have time for that. But I dare
say, if you didn't know any of the higher first round picks, college
guys from this season and you watch them all side by side, I bet
you you wouldn't pick Werner out as the seventh rounder amongst those guys. At
least I don't think I would. But my bet is that there's you know,
you got an SEC guy that's in a ball. But I'm betting that's
it's more than just a guy beating up on perhaps lower competition. I mean,
not all SEC guys come in and do what he just did. And
the tier prospect that we're that we're on, I like my chances that he
asserts himself as a legit offensive prospect in their system with the combo hit at
the park and as a first year player got I'm anxious to see when I
feel like I might have to grab him some of my dress because I'm definitely
going to try. Uh, there's definitely some bigger names that I would pass
on for Werner in first year players and uh, you know, we've seen
some seventh rounders from a Texas college win MVPs before. Do you know who
that might be? At seventh rounder Texas College, I'm blanking gold Schmidt,
Goldie. Yeah, that's a state. I'm pretty sure he's a seventh rounder
yeah, I don't know, later than that, but you might be right.
What's that? I thought he was later than the but you might be
right. I think maybe it was. But just two quick sense on on
Werner, he was right near the top of my list. I kind of
pulled him out from my serious consideration just because he's an FYPD guy and I
think we might talk more in depth about them. But I actually saw him
in college and was really impressed with the approach and and my notes on him
are like, this guy is gonna mash, He's gonna hit tanks, and
I've got a couple of leagues that are very power focused points leagues, and
I'm hoping to snag him this offseason. Sweet, And I think I think
it was safe to call him a B side. I imagine his roster percentage
isn't gonna get super high being that late of a pick. Nope, Yeah,
all right, you're on the clock, Bud. What do you got?
I don't know the way I'm looking at it. I think I'm I
think I'm winning so far, but we'll see. You might you might be,
you might be. But I think the second pick is gonna kinda tip
things back in my favor. All right, this is the guy I'm gonna
go the This is the highest percentage I'll go he's When I checked, he
was at four percent fan tracks ownership, so a little bit higher than most
of the guys that we're going to talk about. He's one that might get
scooped up. I have seen him ranked, you know, pretty far down
prospectiks. But I've seen him ranked in a couple of spots. But I'm
gonna snag Troy Johnston. Troy Johnson is a corner guy. He's played all
around the outfield, left field, right field, but mostly has been a
first baseman of late. He's out a Gonzaga, so you know, I
never played against him. We missed each other by a good decade or two.
But he's from my neck of the woods, so a little bit of
love for the Tacoma boy. I think he's from Tacoma, not far from
where I went to high school. He's a classic late bloomer for me.
I think he wasn't that good in college, like nothing earth shattering. I
think that the pitching in the West Coast Conference is a little bit better,
little bit more ahead of the hitting. But he has really come around and
I think is the kind of He's got some power. It's not elite,
but he gets to a lot of it because he pulls his flyballs. He's
got a really solid lefty stroke. I mean, you see him hit and
he's on balance for balls away. He can hit the down and in breakers
that try and kind of cut underneath the leftist bat. He stays on the
ball. It's kind of tough to strike out now. Again, he's improved
his contact rates throughout his career and I think he could be in the big
leagues right now and perform. You know, he doesn't have the exit velos
of Josh Bell, but his swing decisions might be better. I think he
hits the ball in the air more often. He's athletic. He's swiped a
bunch of bags this year. I think he's just this kind of guy who
matured and developed into a really solid all round player with someone that will provide
you kind of across the board production if he makes it up, whether you're
talking about a roto league or a points league, this is just a super
safe bat. I think a lot like my first selection, just you know,
there's a lot to like here. If one part of the profile doesn't
work out, like if his power ticks down, I still think he's gonna
be speedy. I still think he's gonna get hits. If the ks tick
up, I mean, he's gonna have enough power to play. I just
think this is a guy who belongs in the big leagues. And with the
Marlins, their corner spots really aren't solved. They've got Josh Bell, I
think on I think they have an option on him next year, so maybe
they'll have a new spot for a first baseman and they give him some run.
But either way, he's close to the big leagues. He's pretty low
ownership for the level of production that he's put out. I'm a fan.
I love this pick, Matt. This is fantastic. I wasn't sure.
He kind of came on to my map a little bit later in the process,
and I didn't have his roster percentages, so I kind of stuck him
on the bottom of my list here. But I love that you took him.
He's had three pro seasons, right, he was drafted in nineteen and
then there was covid Uh and I think this was definitely his breakout year.
So people are gonna look at him and say oh, twenty six. But
I mean, but three three minor league seasons and he should be I imagine
he's getting added to the forty man, right, I would think so.
I mean, he's Rule five eligible this year. So again, I was
gonna mention that if they don't add him to the forty man, he's got
to be near the top of Rule five lefts like I would think, guy,
yeah, I would think somebody, Yeah, I think, I think.
I think so. Uh. And it's just like the production didn't dip
at all at Triple A and it's not. So. He started off Triple
A on a sixteen game hitting streak where where he hit over four hundred and
slugged over seven hundred. That was his first taste in Triple A. Yeah,
and he's not a one thirty three WRC plus guy, like he wrote
a higher babbit to get that, you know, but there's still he's a
smart base runner. Like I watched a couple of his games where he was
swiping bags and he was taking him either without a throw or was way ahead
of the throw. And he's got good speed, but it's not great,
but he's he's a smart player. Yeah, I'm I'm, I'm into it.
I think the I think the biggest hang up with him is going to
just be a positioned right. I think he only played first base in DH
this year. He's just kind of even like an odd he's just kind of
an odd odd fit kind of all the way around. But I don't think
there's any doubt that he can swing a bat. I like it. I
like it all right back to you. Now, this is tough. This
is where it gets a little a little blurrier for me. But uh,
I think we're gonna dip into the first year player pool again. I'm gonna
go with Ethan O'Donnell, centerfielder, Red System first year player. Like I
said, twenty two year old. He was a six round draft pick out
of Virginia. He transferred from Northwestern and then showed out last year and then
he I don't know if I don't know if Jeff talked about him, but
I think he had a pretty good cape then as well. But potential power
speed combo here that could get Dynasty appealing. Seems to be a true center
field prospect. We're talking the very small sample size of what I was able
to watch. There was only one hundred and eleven plate appearances, and then
there was a Glean's forty seven played appearances tracked to be a backdoor savant.
Stuff showed an average gv of ninety two a max of one oh four.
He slash three twenty six four to twenty three five thirty seven with four um
runs and four bags in that span. Strikeouts were twenty one percent eleven percent
walk iso over too, another guy who just was lacing a lot of line
drives. His line drive percentage was like thirty percent according to fangrafts. I
like that hits the ball to all fields. I think his batter ball splits
were like thirty eight thirty two, thirty one percent a left You didn't do
nearly as much damage versus lefties. But we're only talking there was only like
thirteen played appearances versus lefties. But I wonder about his splits. Moving forward,
we're talking to minischool five game archive of video that I was able to
watch when he played at Saint Lucie his last series of the season. He
hit two hole there. I watch all those and he sure looked like a
guy a level above the competition, very controlled at the plate, hit a
ball one hundred plus when he was choked up with two strikes inside, outed
some hardline drives, pulled some dismissiles, two strike stuff. He was very
comfortable, didn't chase velo spin off speed didn't seem to phase him at all.
You get a week of a hitter doing what he wanted to with the
baseball at a very high clip. There's this little theory out there too,
that the Cavaliers make better pros than amateurs. We'll see if that narrative pops
up here. But there wasn't anything I saw that made me dislike with Donald
at the plate. Seemed very technically quite sound, and I love all fields
guys who can hit the ball hard like that. So I'll take a gamble
on with Donald here. Interesting, this is the first one that we've talked
about that I I wasn't on at all. So you went, you went
deep with this one. I love it. Yeah, we'll see, Oh
right, my turn, let's go. Oh yeah, all right. I'm
I'm a Braves fan. I think you you know, Braves and Mariners are
my team's okay, South. I didn't know that about the Braves Mariners,
Okay, yeah, I was. I was born in the South and so
all growing up was my they were my boys, and obviously the nineties two
thousands Braves were an easy team to love. You know, I was in
the backyard always pretending to be Greg Maddox or Tom Glavin or Chipper. You
know. It was good times, good times for him. So I keep
that deep abiding love for the Braves and then moving out to the Northwest later
on in life picked up the Mariners. Was my al team. I'm decked
out in Mariners gear right now, ri ip both of their seasons. But
that's now the hearing or there. But I'm gonna go go to my Braves
roots here and I'm I'm taking Drake bald Win again. Like maybe a little
cheating on this one, because I think he's on the BA top fifteen or
something. I think he might be. He's on their lists and like they've
been going, I have not seen anybody else talk about Drake Baldwin. And
as I was going through and finding guys, he jumped off the page.
To me, a lot of this is like I start from, you know,
some of the statistical markers, like who's who's hitting well, who's got
some power he's got that he's you know, slugged above four hundred at every
stop except for three ninety six at double A for fourteen games near the end
of this year. He walks a ton, you know, above ten percent
at every level. Seems like a good receiver because I watched a bunch of
Braves pitchers too, and I thought that he really was smooth back there.
He's a lefty catcher. He really He's one of those guys that got has
been overshadowed, I think in the Brave system because they've been so pitcher heavy
and so many of them have hit recently, and the Brave system is sort
of down. You know, you got Grissom, you got Nacho as some
you know, lighter hitting but pretty good professional hitters. And I think Drake
Baldwin belongs in that conversation. I mean, he's I think going to catch
like I don't think he's moving off the position. He was kind of a
pop up guy at Missouri State. He wasn't anything his first two years and
then had an incredible junior year hit nineteen homers. This was in twenty twenty
two. Walked as much as he struck out, I mean, just laid
waste to the Missouri Valley Conference and Baldwin, I think has just not missed
a step in Pro Bowl. You know, didn't play a lot last year,
just obviously on the back of a long season and being a catcher,
giving him some rest. But he went from high all the way up to
Triple A this year and hit at every stop. He did not look overmatched,
even in his short four game sample at the end of the year.
I think he's going to go back to Triple A. Maybe they stick him
at Mississippi for a little bit, but I think in Triple A for the
Braves all of next year, and looking at the Braves roster, yeah,
they got Murphy there for a while, and catchers as a as a dynasty
asset, like, yeah, they're risky and they'll pop up and the playing
time is often tough. But I think this guy has it, Like I
think he's a real, real good hitter. And that's my pick. Drake
Baldwin, big big fan of what he's what he's done so far. I
love it. I love it. He's Wisconsin boy. It's from Madison's right.
Yeah. I cut up a little you know, like hype piece video
of my thirty B side bat selections and mister Baldwin starts that off nice with
a monster shot that he hit. I think it was a walk off hit,
this monster walkoff in triple at the end of Oh I think I saw
that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So I love it.
That's yeah, I'm in, I'm in, all right? So what
is this the fourth round? Now? Is that right? Yep? All
right? This is gonna be I've written about this guy and thoughts about him
enough, but I think I gotta I think I gotta go with Wilfredo Laura.
Here he was sitting at only one percent still and this is a Maddy
Backpack special. He hit me up about Laura. I think he was like
two games into his season at Saint Lucy, but uh he was just like,
hey, I think this might be a dude, and I'm like,
yeah, I think he might be. So he came in a month late
in the season and what I think he ended up like top five or six
and home runs. I watched a lot of him. Actually, he was
kind of a guy that in season I was just kind of following and I'm
not like totally in love with everything, but a guy who I think packs
a pretty good punch, especially for his size. I think he's he doesn't
sell himself short, but he but he also I think has a fairly decent
approach. Like I don't think he's out of control. Interestingly, too,
I didn't. I didn't really realize this, but he actually he's a righty
who hit righties better than the lefties. Slightly, but he had. He
had fourteen home runs and four hundred and nine played appearances in that league.
Is nothing too, Uh, I don't know. I feel like that's a
pretty decent accomplishment. I see some especially now, when we get some of
the evs on balls in that league and match it up to some video and
see these guys just lay stuff like well over one hundred and it hits the
warning track. You know, it's not an easy place to hit home runs.
But I don't know. Like I said, I've written about him,
I won't get too much into him. He was at one percent position I'm
not totally sure about. Played. I think mostly corner outfield, played some
third base, he played some center field, he played some middle infield.
I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign. I didn't
watch a ton of defense, but uh, yeah, I'll take Laura here
and this ba. I think the robos out guys like dropped a little piece
on him, I think recently, so I think I think increasing from one
percent is definitely on the table this upcoming season. Yeah, I think that's
a great pick. Nate, he was on my short list. I think
he was probably going to be my Mets beside pick. When we went and
did it. You know, I got another one that I liked too.
But I think that's a great pick. I agree with you. This guy
hits the ball consistently hard. I think the evs are are not quite elite,
but he's still nineteen and I think he's just got enough of a plus
played approach. He's fast, athletic. I think that's a great pick.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm definitely curious to see how I think he's
one of the guys you know when you just think about, you know,
how folks like stay ceiling like. I think there's some of that there.
I like it. Who am I going to pick? All right, I'm
going this guy's pretty deep. This is a deep cut and a little a
little bit of a departure from I'm in between two guys, but I'm gonna
go with this one. All right, we're gonna go with Joiner Fajardo.
I think is how you say it, Twins, right, yeah, Twins,
Yeah, yeah, Twins, Double A. He's Rule five eligible this
year, and I think that's why he was in Double A. Is they
wanted to give him a run and have other orgs take a look at him
and themselves to h to look at him. I think he was a minor
league free agent the last offseason. I think they I'm trying to look it
up right now. He was in another organ and they let him go and
the Twins picked him up. Yeah, Pittsburgh. He was in pitt for
up until last year, and then Minnesota scooped him, and I kind of
think they they kind of let him loose. It looks like I think he
got He's actually a little more of a Nate guy than he is a Matt
guy. I think he's a little more aggressive with his swings. You know,
he still walks a decent amount, but he doesn't cay very much.
I think he's got. He swings out of the zone and just makes decent
contact. I saw a bunch of games where he was swinging at curveballs below
of the zone and flipping them the other way. He has kind of a
funky little swing. It's not picture perfect by any means, but there's a
little bit of power there. He swiped fifty bags. You know, he
got caught thirteen times, but still ceiling fifty bags as impressive. And I
don't know, he's just a good little player. I think probably not a
center fielder, so you know, a little bit more pressure on the bat.
But I just watching him play, I thought that he's just one of
those fun guys to root for too, and with the speed I think he
might play in roto leagues. He's not going to hurt you on the batting
average side of things. I don't think he's ever going to hit a ton
of homers, but he hit nine in the full season last year at Double
A, which was fifty percent more than he'd hit at any level ever before
that, So maybe it's a little bit of late blooming power. You know,
he's twenty four at double A. We'll see if he goes selected in
the Rule five or or if he sticks around. But I think as a
little speedy guy who has some other tools, he's interesting and worth look in
those deeper roto or deeper category leagues. I like it. I like it.
I'atched. I watched like probably i'd say a decent amount of Wichita this
year, And yeah, he was. He kept showing up like mostly when
I just try to get to in a bat of somebody that I wanted to
watch, he would be before or after and he I would stick around and
watch. I think what he was. He was definitely on my list a
little bit, but I think I just I kind of like, just crossed
him off early for I think really a stupid reason, just because he was
let go by another team. But I kind of caring about Stone Garrett after
that happened, and then he ended up making the big leagues and being probably
a really solid B side type of guy. That's probably kind of stupid to
me to eliminate him so early, but so many players sometimes you just find
an excuse to not watch one more closely. Yep. And you gotta make
your cuts nice. I like that. I like that. All right,
I'm gonna go with my guy here. I like this guy a lot,
just from just from a fan perspective, but I'm gonna go with Cardinals corner
olefielder. He played some center field Alex Edisernia, so let's say at five
ten. I don't know. I kind of want to take the over on
both of those. He's kind of a thick guy, I mean in a
good way. Though. He just turned twenty three, I think, just
a couple of days ago. He was a twenty twenty two seventh round pick
out of Elon. He split the season between fifty two A games with Palm
Beach in sixty two games with Peoria and High A. I had gotten into
him fairly early in the season, just kind of filtering for some guys who
may be doing damage going the other way. This was fairly early in the
season, so there wasn't hardly anything to watch with him. But then he
got promoted, and I've watched more of him than a lot of guys that
I was getting into for this exercise here. But he ended up with nine
home runs down down in Palm Beach, which is which, like you know,
that's impressive for that league in my opinion. His max EV according to
some stuff, was one hundred and eleven averaged eighty seven, so there's some
juice in there. The highest slash line leaves much to be desired. But
he still had like a two h two ISO on the whole season. He
added nine more home runs in Peoria. He strikes me as a fairly aggressive
hitter, which you know I like without being a huge chase guy. Struck
out twenty one percent of the time eleven percent walks. A lefty that hit
right. He's better, you know, shocking, but a guy who was
heating up at the end. He went three thirteen four to sixty six six
twenty seven with five home runs over his lif eighty eight plate appearances, hitting
a lot of three hole for Peoria. He can run some stole twenty five
bags. Seventeen of those were in High A, so you started running more
as he moved up. From the looks we get. I like the look
of a lot of his swings. He's pretty efficient looking, has a build
with a lot of strength in the lower half. He's got some classic lefty
attributes, can really turn and rip on inside and down stuff. It's got
the ability to hit piss missiles. APO gap forty one percent, fly ball
nineteen percent line drive rate according to Fangrafts. But what I like most about
him falls into Matt what you would call the WPA realm of things. Had
some big hits in big moments, just does some things, putting swings on
certain pitches you don't see every day in a ball may have had the most
badass moment I saw this year, to be honest. They're sitting in the
bottom it was either the bottom of the ninth or the bottom of the tenth,
and they are down two runs with runners on the corner, and I
believe there was two strikes or two outs and two strikes, and he just
turns on one and just crushes one down the right field line out and the
ump calls it foul. And Peoria's bullpen is right over there in that corner,
and they all just start losing their minds. Their manager comes out,
loses his mind, and then the next pitch he takes a change up opposite
field for the three run game winner. As he comes around home plate,
I would love to know what he said to the home play umpire because he
said something that's awesome. But I think there's some offensive stuff to hope on
here. I want to, you know, obviously, you want to see
you guys be more consistent. And then that's a lot of this b side
and stuff. You see some glimpses you see some stretches. Don't know if
that's just a hot streak or if that's, you know, sign of more
to come. But he kind of feels like a classic Cards guy in the
sense he's just kind of a gamer, just a real solid skill set baseball
player. You know, we've We've seen plenty of guys in that system do
some things in the major leagues like that. Yeah. I ended up not
watching film with him, but he popped up on a couple of my leader
boards this year. How is the speed? I was I was wondering if
there if it might be sort of a smarter base runner over over a burner.
That might be. I wouldn't call him a burner. He's not.
Yeah, I don't think he's going to steal sixty bags or whatever kind of
on the fence. I can't figure out if he's just kind of smarter.
But sometimes I think that he looks kind of fast. So I'm not sure.
I'm not totally true, but I don't think he's slow. It's a
good pick. Alex E Dycernia, So how you say? I was like
I was saying, aya discernia, aya I A D I s E r
N I A and I think that's how the broadcasts were saying it. But
those guys don't get it right either all the time. All right back over
to me, I think I'm also gonna go with an outfielder here. And
some of this might be because he's just got the best first name, you
know, that might be part of what drew me in. Some of it
might be a little bit of an underdog story because this guy has had a
pretty circuitous path to where he is. I'm gonna go with Matt Krouhn,
triple a centerfielder utility man for the Phillies Org. He played at four three
different colleges. I think. Yeah. He started his career at Oregon in
the Pac twelve, wasn't very good, didn't play a ton, transferred to
Central Arizona College junior college down there in Arizona, and then ended his career
in college at Oklahoma State, where he had a really good year, you
know, solid power, speed year, with some with concerns, which is
that's the guy that he was early on in his U in his minor league
career. But so he got drafted in twenty eighteen. Obviously didn't play a
lot the rest of that year, wasn't that good. The first couple of
years in the major or in the minor league, struck out too much,
you know, strikeout rates twenty six percent, thirty percent, twenty seven percent
at low AA and high A UH in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. Obviously
lost the year as all the minor leaguers did in twenty twenty, and then
was kind of the same guy in twenty twenty one, you know, pretty
aggressive, didn't walk, struck out even more as he as he went up
levels, wasn't showing the power or the speed. I think probably yeah,
he had an okay slash at double A, but nothing about it was was
super exciting in twenty twenty one. Then twenty twenty twos happens. Tears is
ACL a couple games into this season out for the whole year, and that
I think might have been his rule five year. I think it was went
unselected and stuck around with the Phillies through the rehab and everything, and came
back this year seemingly a completely different player. And I actually went back and
looked, and I think his swing is a little different. I think there's
a swing change here, whether it's the rehab or he just got smarter on
the basis he swiped way more bags this year than he had I think in
all of his previous twelve stops along the way. So you know, he
swiped twenty six bags this year, popped eleven homers in again, not a
full year. He had three hundred and fifty or so plate appearances this year,
so far from a I guess just over four hundred plate appearances this year,
so far from a full compliment. But his strikeouts came down. At
both Double A and Triple A. He was below twenty percent, which I
love to see, and he walked more. He was almost at ten percent
walk right nine point six at Double A fourteen point five. And again that's
smaller sample, only fifteen games at Triple A. But I think this guy
can really play, and they played him at a bunch of different spots.
He played some center field, a lot of left field. I think he
even played some infield. I think he played some third base. Two.
So another guy that's sort of knocking on the door here. I think he's
going to play somewhere. Whether it's with the Phillies, I don't know.
Again, he's sort of running out of options. I'm not sure how many
he has remaining, probably at least two. I don't know. I don't
have that up, but I think there's a swing change here. I think
he is athletic enough to play multiple positions, and that's a commonly overlooked profile.
And I do think that the improvements look like they're they're going to stick.
And it's just sort of like a great underdog story. You know,
the guy wiped out multiple seasons of his minor league career due to injury and
COVID and then to bounce back like this and put up the season that he
did is super impressive. And I think that that's the that's the kind of
b sider guy that he's just covered in mud nate and we're gonna we gotta
find him and pull him out of the mud. Yeah. I like it.
He's getting Uh, he's getting some rundown in the AFL right now too.
I want to say I saw that I hadn't seen how he's doing,
but I saw he was on the roster. Yeah, I think, don't
quote me one hundred percent. I think he hit a home run the other
day down there. Did something love looking over the black scores for our little
silly league all right, all right? What are wed? What round are
we in here? Six? I mean this is gonna be a little bit
boring again because I've written about this guy. But I'm gonna go with Diego
of Alasquez. I think he was up. I think it's September. I
think he was at three percent, so it's and a little higher. But
another guy that I just watched a lot of this year. I get he
might not be a guy who hits the ball the hardest, at least right
now. How old is he? Yeah, so nineteen year old. He
was a twenty twenty one international free agent from Venezuela. He's a guy who
what they got him listed sixty one one fifty and that's probably right. I
think he's heavier than that. But he's a decent sized guy, decent height.
I think. I think he's a real middle infield prospect. He played
all short stop and second base this yere. I think he won the Cal
League batting title, right he did, like two ninety nine or something like
that. He's a switch hitter. I think he's definitely better lefty, at
least right now, but he's got some pop from both sides. I don't
know. I think He's just a really solid, solid B side here.
I think big league chance is nice at this juncture in his career. He's
he's got some years to move up the system. I was kind of surprised
that he didn't get promoted at all. But we've seen the Giants kind of
do this with some guys in A ball before. I mean they slow played
Schmidt and a ball and then moved him real fast in the uppers. I
don't know if that all came out the way that, at least I wanted
to. But yeah, I don't know dig of alaskas solid. Salid looking
swing to me in control, puts the bat on the ball at a high
clip. Yeah, I don't know. What do you think of Alaska's I
saw a good amount of him when I was first diving into some of these
A ball guys, and you know, watched a lot of him, and
I think there were a couple of series there where I was really into watching
the Giants when they were playing the Nuts, and I like him as a
hitter. I also am wondering why they didn't promote him up to Eugene,
Like I kind of want to see him at high A because some of the
things that he did better this year. I want to see those stick at
a higher level, like cut the k R awesome. I think he has
good bat to ball, but does the impact stay if he's not in the
Cow League, And I think it'll be interesting for him. You know,
Eugene plays a little bit tougher than some of those cal ballparks do. But
yeah, no, I think he's I think he's a good hitter. And
it looked like he could play some middle infield, which is it's super important
for the young guy. Yeah, I think what is k percentage with sixteen
percent? Is that right? Yeah? It's good. Yeah. And what
I like about him too is he strikes me as a guy who he's trying
to hit up there. He's not just trying to get on base, He's
trying to do some damage. I liked his ability to hit Paula. I
like his ability to hit the other way too, which is a big thing
to me. I don't know if I've just watched too many too much of
like Jose Bray in my day or whatever, but I just I love guys
who hit the Appo gap and just wear that out. I think that's a
good sign, a good step to be becoming a productive and sustainable hitter.
And you know, switch hitters are interesting, especially at that level. You
know, you got you got two swings to develop. Maybe that played into
being an A ball more I don't know, could be, could be,
And you could have some rapport with the A ball hitting coach down there too.
You know that there's a bazillion reasons and we never know any of them.
Yep. Well that that feels like a real Nate handy B side.
I mean, you throw me through a loop with some of these Nate taking
guys with pull power and walk. You hate that profile. It's it's you
know, well, you know, B siding isn't always uh it's hard enough
even with the with like the higher brow prospects to find one that's like,
oh yeah, this is my guy. You when we get down here is
it's like okay, this could work. Yeah, that's that can't be said
enough with some of these guys, even even at the top of the B
side range. Like if these guys make the bigs, they're that's probably a
win, you know, the deepest of deep Oh yeah, definitely pass over
really good prospects to be like ah that one's owned too much at four percent,
you know, right, right? And that's I wanted to mention this
in the intro, but I kind of forgot I. So, you know,
there's been like three seasons now of like some you know, official like
B side stuff, right, like stuff that I've written or whatever, and
I'm tracking all this to seem is this worthwhile? Am I wasting my time
or whatever? But I think it's safe to say right now that we're on
about a thirty three percent clip B sides making the bigs. And I don't
know if that's good, we're bad. I have nothing to compare it to,
but that's kind of where we're at. And you know, we're talking
this sort of percentage one in three guys at least hit the bigs. That's
thirty teen relevant. I don't know. It's something, yeah, and what
it's it's an only like fifty percent of first round July June July draft picks
produce in the major leagues or something, right like, it's it's a low
hit rate, even first rounders. And if you're doing thirty three percent at
zero percent ownership, like none of these guys were first rounders, you know,
yeah, yeah, And you know, I think Tovar has probably been
the best player so far. And you know, no, this isn't really
like superstar hunting. If it happens, cool, awesome, But you know,
I think we're more just trying to find some guys whose careers is going
to end up hopefully being sustained in the in the majors. All right.
I think my turn for a sixth rounder and going to a little bit of
a departure from some of the guys that I've taken so far, a lot
of like balanced profiles so far. This is the first guy who probably has
an eighty tool Like it's it's seventy or eighty hit on this guy. And
when I looked, he was at one percent ownership. And it's because he's
tiny. He's five foot six. They list him at one eighty five,
and I it's like, I don't know, you know, he's got some
muscle to him, but it's not I don't think it's five to six five.
But he's kind he's kind of got that fire hydrant build to him a
little bit, you know, a little bit like Bliss or even Jet Williams,
you know, some other smaller, kind of stockier athletes, but I'm
going with Kleb Durbin. Caleb Durbin, Yankees farm hand. He was a
fourteenth round pick by the Braves actually back in twenty twenty one. Again,
even as someone who follows the Braves pretty closely, nobody talked about Durban after
the draft, and I think he was in one of their reliever trades a
couple of years ago. I forget which what Lucas luke Gee might have been
might have been that trade. This sounds right, but the guy has done
absolutely nothing but just hit the baseball ran and just a wild slash line this
year four point six k rate, four point six percent k rate in forty
seven games at double A like that is wild. Two guys had a lower
k rate in the major leagues, and both of them are like the best
contact hitters we've ever seen. I mean, Quan and our eyes and it's
like you make that much contact over that kind of a sample and it's there's
real, that's real skill. He does spray it around a little bit.
He pulls the ball more. It's kind of a funny profile, like he's
a righty. He pulls the ball in the ground a lot, but gets
a lot of hits, but his babbitb isn't even super high. But when
you never strike out, those turn into hits, even like his babbit at
double A was two ninety. Like for a guy this fast and that makes
this much contact, especially on the ground, you would kind of expect him
to run a three thirty babbit and not be that surprised. So it's a
funky profile. He's got speed. I think he's swiped thirty six bags this
year, only caught eight times, so you know, decent enough percentage.
And he's definitely got some quickness to him. But the reason nobody talks about
him is he's tiny and he doesn't really have pop. He had four home
runs across two hundred and fifty almost almost three hundred plate appearances this year,
and so that's the big knock on him. I don't This isn't a guy
like Jet Williams who doesn't have great power, but he gets to a lot
of it. This is not that. His swing is definitely geared towards ground
balls, and even his high effort swings like you see him and he think
he gets into one and it's like ah, it's off the wall or up
that's fly out to center field. Definitely saw some of those in doing the
video review. But if you're a guy at double A and you're making this
much contact, that provides some value and as an aesthetic, I want to
see more of the kwans that arises in the big leagues, and when those
guys get run with the right league, they're valuable, especially in a points
league, especially in a league where k I'm in a couple of leagues where
k's are very, very heavily penalized, and a guy like this is he
would be gold in that league if he made the BIGS. So he's listed
as a third baseman. I didn't get a ton of look at his defense,
but maybe he sticks on the dirt as a second baseman. But you
have that kind of hit tool at this level with one percent ownership, that's
someone worth looking at. And I'd take a long look in your in your
points leagues. I like it. I was definitely, I was definitely looking
at him. Some are you familiar with Ishmael Mangua in the Giants system?
No, I'm like he was like my Giants B side selection a few years
ago. Then he was like hurt all of last year and didn't play.
But they strike me as kind of similar guys. I think Manga might have
like I don't want to say power, but might you might run into a
few more home runs with him. But he was this crazy guy who was
doing similar type stuff in twenty twenty one. I think, And what how
M like this crazy run to finish the year, hitting like over five hundred
for like a month and a half or something. Yeah, I don't think
we've seen that. I don't think we've seen that kind of run yet from
Durban. And so I'm wondering if he goes on a run where he's,
you know, striking out five percent of the time but running a three eighty
bab ib, it's gonna look nutty, Like his line is gonna look pretty
ridiculous. So I agree, I like it all right. Round seven,
I believe mm hmm, all right, Well you drafted a twin, right,
Yeah, Twins do some things with some bats. I'm gonna go with
twenty twenty two fifth round pick out of Division two Notre Dame College in Ohio,
Ben Ross, who mostly play well. He played corner infield, shortstop,
and some outfield this year. So let's say at six six foot onet
eighty I think that's that's probably close. I would guess athletic. It looks
like an athletic middle infield type type guy, maybe a little bit thinner,
but have some bat speed. So this season, one hundred and three games
at High A and then he got like two weeks in Double A. At
the very end, the two thirty nine three twenty four thirty nine slash line
with a twenty five percent krate probably probably doesn't wow you, right, but
you know, you can consider he had like a two to eighty four babbit
and he had a two hundred ice toe and the level that he came from,
I mean he jumped from Division two in his first full pro season.
He went from essentially Division two to Double A at the end, maybe and
from the video, I don't know, I don't know. Sometimes those numbers
just don't really don't really match up to what to what you're seeing. Watch
a decent amount of him during the season, just kind of here and there.
Wasn't sure if he would necessarily be a selection of mine this offseason,
but watching him, I got a little bit more into him. Into the
archives, you know, maybe he gets a little bit more acclimated to this
level of pitching. Some of that surface stuff gets juice here, but a
nice twenty line drive rate forty seven percent fly ball fly ball rate despite not
having like huge power numbers as an amateur or a huge frame, I feel
like he's geared towards hitting more balls out of the park. I like that
he's with the Twins. I feel like he has the look of some of
these guys that the Twins have gotten a lot out of their bats. He
likes to get out in front and pull the ball. That's not always my
tight but I did see him put some nice swings, hitting the ball hard,
going to Appo gap like I like, and the correct kind of swings
if you will, Matt, I know we've talked about that a little bit.
I don't suspect a lot of home runs will go like opposite field,
but he's a writy who produced better versus righties. It's hitting at the top
of their order at the end of the seedar Rapids run and it's pretty good.
I'm intrigued they spent a fifth round pick on him. To me,
the top five rounds like that's there's juice in those picks. There's there's reasons
why those guys are getting taken so high. I think he gleans nice athleticism
despite just nine stolen bases. I feel like he I feel like he's faster
than that stolen base total might seem. I saw him try and stretch out
some hits and the extra bases that like slow guys don't try to do or
even in between guys don't try. Sometimes he was successful, sometimes he wasn't.
But you know, maybe maybe a guy who could butt into a utility
type play multiple spots. I think pretty well. He was kind of streaky
hot and cold, but I mean, you know, it's your first pro
season. I think that's just kind of hard for the course. But overall,
I think a successful season for him. I'm kind of hoping he starts
off next season in double A. But a guy who who I think his
minor league production has not met up with the skill set just yet. That's
an interesting one. He hadn't popped up on my on my feed, so
I'm gonna drop that one down. Check him out, all right, Ah,
there's so many fun guys still to go, all right, I think
I gotta go this one. He's this kind of circles back to the kinds
of picks that I was taking a little bit earlier on. He's already in
Triple A. Unlike the other guys, He's not terribly old for the level
or anything. He's still a legit prospect, but not a lot out there
on him. He's you know, Ba's got him twenty seventh in the ORG
there is a rite up on Fangrafts and those are definitely worth reading, both
those publications, but I'm gonna go Urso or Neellis Tyirso or Nellus. He
is an outfielder with San Diego and Ornelli's is when I pulled it at three
percent fan tracks ownership again, one of only two guys that I had over
two percent on my list, and that's probably because he's been around for a
while. He had some prospect Helium, I think a couple of years ago,
but it's it's faded. I mean, neither the BA or Fangrafts right
ups were glowing, but I'm pretty intrigued. Spent about half the year at
Double A, about half year at Triple A. This year sub twenty percent
k rate at both stops again, nearly ten fourteen percent walk rate at at
Double A, almost ten percent at Triple a and he's got a funny swing,
but he hits the ball really hard. His average EV is like right
at the big league average, so he's he's hitting sort of big league average
power already. Top end is way up there. I mean, the max
that they have published on Fangrafts and on Baseball Savant is one hundred and fourteen.
And that's up there as far as top evs. You know, it's
not quite the seventy and eighty grade tier of Judge and Stanton and Ellie and
Acunya, but it's up there. You know. That shows some real high
end power. He kind of gets to it in such a funny way.
I have seen him just flick homers to the left field. He's a he's
a left handed hitter, but he just flicks the ball out and it just
keeps carrying and carrying and caring and kind of Nate and I have talked about
this before, but that swing where you can take a pitch the other way
and keep swinging through the plane that the ball ends up going, it gets
that true back spin and less of the side spin. And so even some
of those balls, like he had some opposite field homers that didn't have great
evs on them, but they got out because he really did backspin them.
And the PCL played into some of this as well. But I think that
he's a guy that his swing is sort of constantly tinkering, you know.
I think they've tried to change the swing. I went back and looked at
some of his swings from twenty twenty one and it looks a little bit different.
So I think he's consciously trying to make that adjustment and doing that and
cutting his k rate and raising his walk rate while still getting to some power.
I think it pretends good things in the future. He's still probably a
tweak away. I didn't think he was a great fielder. I saw him
play some outfield and it was okay, you know, he didn't look smooth
out there, and that is something that the big league teams care quite a
bit about. There's real power here, like it's actually plus power, and
for somebody that has three percent ownership on fan tracks, that's not often you
don't you don't see that very often, and I don't think it's gotten.
He hasn't gotten that full production yet in games, and I think that that's
the other reason why you might be able to get him at a discount before,
you know, if there's an injury in the outfield in San Diego,
or you know, like maybe it's two years from now and they don't re
sign Soto and they need somebody to play left field. Maybe he's that guy.
I don't know. There's a lot of places that he can go,
but the kind of skills that he has, the fact that he's trying to
actively tweak the swing so that he can get to more of that that pull
power, I think that's what he's missing. He does pull the ball a
lot, but it's on the ground, and it's he's hitting for his power
up the middle and to the opposite field, which is backwards, right,
Like, that's not what you want to do. But he's still having some
success even with not quite an optimal swing. And Yeah, if that ground
ball rate starts to even come down to like forty percent and his fly ball
rates like at thirty, I think he's going to hit twenty five homers,
no problem. That starts to look real interesting for a big league team.
So Tirso or Nellis is my seventh rounder here. Again, he's got some
got some real flaws, and I've talked about this before. But it's really
hard to change your swing. It's really really hard. You've done this thousands
and thousands of times, and even small changes are very difficult. So sure,
I wish him luck, and if he does change it, this is
like, this is a guy with the capital G. If he doesn't,
he's probably quadity guy. Turso was my my B side selection for them a
few seasons ago, so look at that. And you were in way before
me, so I'm familiar. I've kept an eye on him, and I've
kind of kept waiting for folks to catch up a little bit. But back
then, I don't remember exactly what I said or wrote about him, but
I remember a lot of the same same stuff that you just said there.
I think the story was then it's like, this is a guy, a
strong guy as a fast bat. Hit the ball on the ground a lot,
hit the ball the other way a lot, which is what drew me
to him initially, and it was just kind of like, yeah, but
doesn't hit home runs. But then he started to there was some power that
I mean, I think we were talking about a guy who maybe don't quote
me, but a think guy like one or two home runs the year that
I picked him, So yeah, I think there has been progression in the
way that we have wanted to in some ways the last couple of years.
But I don't know if it's quite gotten there. But I think he's a
super solid B side still and he's he's at the doorstep. He's almost in
the bigs now. But yeah, it's tantalizing. Like you watch him swing
and he'll have a swing You're like, that's the swing you want to see.
You know, he'll go down to get a ball at the bottom of
the zone and it looks you know, he gets that nice uppercut finish.
He gets extended and can hit the ball out a long way, but he
most of the contact ends up being kind of pulled off or if it's out
away from him, he'll get his arms extended. And I don't know's it's
a hard thing because you look at like his ground ball rates throughout his career
and it's it's it's not pretty. It's all like forty percent and above.
Flyball rate is never above forty percent, and that's the you know, like
you might want to learn to swing differently than Nate. And I've talked a
little bit about that. The progression for how you learn to be a good
hitter, but you want to be an optimal hitter. You hit the ball
in the air and you pull it and you hit it hard and and so
you know the guys that are the most productive in the major leagues, like
you look at the profile of a Matt Olsen and Austin Riley, even a
Jordan Alvarez who hit has a little more all fields to him. Like those
guys ton of fly balls and they pull them and they hit them hard.
You know, That's that's where you want to get to, especially if you
got the kind of power like Ornellis has. All right, so we're on
round eight. I think, yes, sir, ooh, all right,
I got I have a lot of guys that I want to talk about.
I might get I might get kind of weird here though, I'm gonna get
a little weird. Love it. This was completely unfamiliar until I started watching.
And this is another first year player draft guy who got my attention.
In the Pirates system. They have a guy who they drafted in the well.
He'll be twenty one when the season starts. They drafted him in the
thirteenth round this last draft out of San Jose State. And that's Charles McAdoo.
They played Nate love it really nice, nice cool. I'm interested here
what you got to say. He's listed at six two two ten. He's
a strong dude, without a doubt. Solid. Now, I don't know.
I didn't I didn't spend time watching defense. He played left field and
second base in a ball out of college. I don't know what you want
to make of that. And this is another just very small sample size,
only one hundred and fourteen played appearances in Bradenton, and even a smaller sample
of video to watch, only thirteen games worth of archives. But the looks,
paired with some of the backdoor savant stuff, has me really intrigued.
According to that stuff, he had one hundred and seven max EV which was
a home run to center field that was on video. EV was averaged eighty
eight. He had an insane thirty two percent line drive rate, ten percent
barrel rate. Wasn't hitting the ball on the ground at an alarming rate thirty
seven percent. I'd love to know his ninetieth percentile evs. With all this,
and he had just games where he was just stacking hard hit balls.
One hundred plus evs Like I said, he's very strong looking with fast hands.
He watched fifteen percent of the time, struck out nineteen percent of the
time, had a twenty two point seven percent home run the fly ball rate
in that league. He had five home runs in five weeks. I mean
that sort of rate down there, I mean that's he played a whole season.
That's that's a home run title in the Florida State League. There three
four or five slash over that small sample. Don't see there wasn't any like
glaring differences in production and his right he left, he splits. I saw
the ability to hit the ball hard the other way spite it. I don't
know, Maybe you could speak more on this map, but I don't know
if he's really a guy that I call having the greatest technique at the plate
or the greatest mechanics. Strikes me as a guy who's better at hitting it
out in front. But you know, don't he hits the ball the other
way? The percentages or what was he at thirty one and a half percent,
but a lot of those weren't I think the greatest, most well struck
apple hits. I saw him destroy off speed and velocity, very still looking
guy at the plate though, he picks the toe up slightly, sets it
down real quick, and puts in one hundred mile prior charges. I wouldn't
be surprised if if a swing guy like maybe yourself said, he didn't transfer
from his lower half all that well. Swing seems a little bit like heavy
upper body, but he's really strong. I don't know about the defense.
Stolen bases haven't been a real big thing for him as an amateur. He
was five out of seven in a ball whatever. But an intriguing looking guy
to me at the dish enough to it would probably be my Pirates official B
side selection this year. That's a great pick. Would have been my Pirates
B side as well. I wasn't going to pick him in this draft,
but he just he's like in my just missed Yeah. I got turned onto
him first from a college coach buddy of mine who had seen him in college
and was super impressed. Was like, this is a guy, you know,
mid major guy, so maybe a little bit under the radar, but
has the physicality like you noted, he's athletic and very strong. He does
have a goofy ass swing and he kind of steps in the bucket so his
legs are a little bit open at swing. He has some I think mechanical
similarities to Marcelo Zuna actually, like a little bit of a bucket step and
a little bit of kind of a funky arm path. And Ozuna famously he
hits the ball really hard but has sidespin, so he's underperformed his stat cast
expected waited on base I think every year that that's been tracked, and largely
I think that's because of kind of his swing. He puts a little more
of that side spin on the ball even when he pulls it. And Ozuna
is a real fringe case, but he's someone that popped into my head as
sort of a swing comp for Macadoo. I'm a big fan though. I
think that, like you said, he hits a lot of line drives that
turn into homers. I think there's the potential to be a pretty complete hitter
here, you know, not seeing the strikeout rate tick up at all going
from a mid major conference to a ball especially in the Florida State League,
like that's impressive that it is a hard place to hit. He did come
out of the gates absolutely scorching, like he couldn't miss, and so some
of the whole season line. I think was propped up by that a little
bit. And it'll be interesting to see as things go up, because I
think there is going to be some pressure on the bat to hit some more
homers. He's not going to bring a ton of value on the basis,
I don't think, and he's probably not a second baseman a couple of scouting
reports that I did see, so I think the pressure is gonna end up
being on the bat a little bit. But fully co signed, he's for
sure the pirates b side for me too. I'm gonna have to do find
somebody else since you already get in on it. But yeah, that's a
good one. Nice that was. I like that. I like that you
were familiar. Thanks for that prospect besides magic there. In my opinion,
I'm glad you're not share. I was, this is funny, Like I
as I was going through guys, you know, I really wanted to talk
with Nate about him, and we agreed that we weren't going to share ahead
of this, and so I didn't share any of my like finds that I
had, and I ended up sharing with another friend of ours Beck. I
shared Macadoo with him. I was like, you need to look at this
guy close as you're ranking, Like, I think he's under ranked for first
year player drafts, and I think he's he's a legit guy. And what's
kind of fun about those those college guys that are like early day three or
whatever, Like they can be some fun b side hunting grounds because a lot
of the times it's like, all right, go play, prove it.
Let's go, and they can move quick and if they prove it, there
you go, and no one was really picking them in their first year player
drafts. So nice. I like it. Yeah, dude, strong man.
Strong guys love it. He is he is, and I think again,
if if a good hitting coach works with them on it, Like there's
enough of the building blocks there that are really good, and I think there's
even more to be unlocked. So like you were saying, you know,
some good average evs and some good top end, but there's more to be
had there. Like, he's a guy who I think there might be a
little bit to be unlocked or at least get to it more consistently with a
yeah, a little bit, a little bit of a swing change. So
yeah, great pick. Charles mcadeo big fan. Okay, I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna go with a an FYPD guy. Nate took a couple of
my under the radar ones that I really liked, So I got to get
down on this guy and plant my flag a little bit. This guy is
one that has gotten a little bit of run I think he got. I
think Chris klagg our buddy who runs the Dynasty, dugout he's a CJ.
Cafus, CJ Caphus. With my eighth pick here, it was an acc
guy Miami played it played at Miami. Pretty good. Little ride up on
him on Baseball America's like preseason or pre draft right up. He went in
the third round this year to the Guardians pick ninety three overall, got a
little bit of an underslot bonus. I think maybe maybe I was right around
slot seven hundred. K. I'm just on this guy. I think he's
the less six foot one ninety so you know he's not going to stand out
in the batter's box and coming off the bus or anything. We haven't found
Fabio with CJ. Caphus, but what I think we have found is a
guy that can really rake my looks at him he's a left handed hitter,
plays first base. I think he played first base mostly in college, along
with some outfield. And he's fast, though, like actual athletically fast,
like kind of in the Bellinger camp of like he could play left field.
I think pretty comfortably. Maybe not quite as athletically gifted as Bellinger is,
but he is not slow. I think I got him at like three nine
five down the line on a ground ball, which is like that is really
good even for a lefty. That's a plus run time. He swiped a
few bags in college, you know, five to seven this year in a
ball. But again it's thirteen games or seventeen games, but he swiped a
few in college. I wonder if they give him the green light more because
just I do think there's some athleticism there. He hit a couple of absolute
tanks on video, and I love that, you know, like so that
you kind of search out the good and the bad when you're reviewing guys.
And he hit one. I wish I remember which game this was, but
he just turns on this inside fastball and annihilates it over like this was in
the Carolina League. So I don't have any access to the stat cast on
it, but it was tanked and you see this little guy just lightning fast
hands and that ball gets deposited. It looked like you know, Basalo or
somebody hit it. Yeah, that's how how it was, even like someone
you know much more naive than you. There are times when you see a
swing, even on video from like center field or whatever, and you're like,
oh, that that's different. That is different. Who is this guy?
You know? Yeah? And that was that was this guy for me,
Like he I hadn't heard anything about him. I was kind of going
through some statistical performers, especially some guys that were maybe a little under the
radar. But the line that he put out in the Carolina League again,
seventeen games, so anything can happen over you know, eighty play appearances or
whatever it was. But he hit four homers, stole five bags, caught
twice, nineteen point five percent walk rate, fifteen point six percent k rate,
two seventy babbit, Like the guy underperformed what you would sort of expect
his babbeb to be and put up a one seventy one WRC plus. Like,
yeah, he's a three year college guy who was a pretty decent performer,
you know, not that he wasn't the top prospect coming out of Miami
or anything, but I think is one of the guys that is most criminally
underrated in the in the FYPDS, Like he's someone that after like the top
after like so there's a clear kind of first tier, a next tier of
like the the young high school guys that are pretty good and some of the
better college performers. I'm putting Kphus in that third tier, like he's blow
the you know Emerson and that, but he's in the tier kind of right
after that for me, and I'm fascinated to see how he does. Like
I don't think in one of my dynasty leagues, we have a namesake pick,
so you own your first round or whatever pick you want from the team
that you are, and the guy that has the Cleveland team, there's no
chance that he is taking Cafus and so he's going to be available, and
I might be my first pick in our upcoming FYPDA just because I think there's
he was the guy that I watched and was the most excited about, but
I waited till eight to take him because he's zero percent. Nobody's talking about
him. I thought he'd fall. That's awesome. Would you so? Would
you take you more interested in him than Werner? Would you say? I
think so. Warner's in that same kind of class For me, I think
Warner might have more power, but I do think there might be a little
bit of swing and miss with Werner as he climbs the ladder. And I
think Cafus just like the short lever, the like he you know, he's
a lefty, so it's not quite the same, but he's got a little
bit of fragmant to him to me, like short levers short swing. He
pulls the ball in the air and has a really good idea of the strike
zone. Like so he kind of to me feels that like little bit undersize.
Little he's not. I'm betting his evs aren't going to be super impressive,
But the rest of the the build, to me, it's like,
this is a real this is a major league quality hitter. Like that's cowet
right nice. I like it, all right? So last round, right,
in the last round, all right, last round nine, I might
as well might as well throw a little bit of a hail Mary maybe uh
maybe some wish casting like day like they say or all right, So last
round, I'll pull a little bit of a No Mary, if you will,
but I'm gonna go with Roseman. Verdugo middle infielder Padres system is zero
percent fan trax listed at six foot one. I think I'll take the under
on that, to be honest, someone I just saw recently some tweet like
five to eleven doesn't exist anymore. Like I don't think he's six feet tall,
but he's still gonna be. I think he's still gonna be just eighteen
years old when this season starts, when twenty twenty four starts, twenty twenty
one international free agent out of Mexico. Now, surface level stuff, there's
not anything real wowing. It's probably kind of ugly, but throw all those
out. I don't care. To me and my video. This is a
good looking eighteen year old at the plate in a ball. He logged the
whole season there, He had four hundred and seventy two played appearances, and
there was kind of two Verdugos to me free his hot streak and post his
hot streak. But from June fourth to August fifth, so a couple months,
one hundred and ninety one played appearances, he did slash two eighty seven,
three seventy four thirty seven, hit three home runs. Only one of
his home runs is on video, but he crushed a ball to center field,
dead center. Nice looking swing on. I think it was an off
speed pitch too. During this streak, during these few months, you know,
he looks super solid to me. I like the technique. He's putting
the good part of the bat on the ball at a high clip. Then
the rest of the season it's just we won't lie. It's just kind of
ugly. I mean, a lot of balls on the handle, a lot
of stuff off the end of the bat. But you know, he's eighteen
years old. He was just signed in twenty one. So maybe some wishful
thinking that that hot streak is what he's going to turn into. But I
think he's a strong kid. Bat speed. I don't think he struck out
well. He struck out twenty six percent. I mean, that's see some
teenagers come up like this much worse than that. He took some walks.
He had a three to zh four babbit on a bad average. We'll see
kind of see how splits go. But just a guy, you know,
we take some blind swings on DSL guys and what have you. Here's one
that feels a little less blind to me, but at zero percent ninth round,
perhaps the potential for a big percentage point boost here at the end of
my draft. All right, I did watch a little bit of Rosman in
my colleague stylings, and I this is one I disagree with you on.
I don't think he's got it. I think that the k's are going to
be a bit too much, and especially I didn't think he really impacted the
ball. And again, you know, he's eighteen and was a pretty young
eighteen throughout this whole year, and I think he'll turn nineteen right around the
start of next year. Okay, what did you I know some of those
Kale leagues we do get some sad news of swings. Did you get any
of those? I don't recall any on him, And mostly I wasn't watching
him. I think I was watching some of the other guys, but I've
seen his name pop up a couple of times. But yeah, I think
that this is one. You know, I like the swing from a zero
percenter and those some of those A ball guys are going to go nuts next
year, like they go up to hi a like I think that whole Nuts
Modesta Nuts team is just going to be They're all going to be an Everett.
They're all going to hit, and people are gonna go nuts over those
teams, over those young guys at the bandbox. It is Everett, which
I played at, by the way, but I don't I don't see it
for this guy. So you know, we have to disagree on some guys,
fair enough, no problem. I can't wait till he rakes next year.
You'll shove it right back in my face, I hope. But like
I said, I was taking a big swing. I'm going with another good
story for my last one. Again. He's a little on the higher own
side, but it's because he's like I think he's almost twenty seven, so
you know he's he's old. He's in Triple A. We're going with Blaine
Krim. You know, he's a first base only guy for Texas. But
I love the story. He is a senior sign out of a D two
school in Mississippi and he's just done nothing but hit. Like, there's nothing
to really dislike in the profile other than like he had a cup of coffee
thirteen games at Triple A last year as a twenty five year old, and
he stopped walking and struck out as much as he has in his whole career.
And it wasn't it wasn't very good. Like he didn't hit me homers
or anything. So other than that, like little cup of coffee in triple
A last year, the guy has hit every stop. Nobody was on him.
What was he a nineteenth round pick in twenty nineteen, lost the twenty
twenty season, and then just hit the ground running in high A in twenty
twenty one with a one forty four WRC plus. He's actually your kind of
guy. He's a little in the aggressive side for me. He's he has
learned to walk this year. I think that's why he really popped for me.
I'm comping him to ty France, Like he looks like ty France to
me, you know, not big. He's six foot two hundred, you
know, kind of like he's well built, but has that same kind of
swing where he's not going to punch out a lot. Eighteen percent this year
and walked twelve percent of the time. Like that is very good. Even
in the PCL. That is really good. Popped twenty two homers and some
of these were absolute monster shots, Like he has real power. It's average
two above I think again, you know, twenty two homers and five hundred
and eighty played appearances like that's that's especially in the PCL, Like maybe you
round down a little bit, but that's it's real. His max EV was
one thirteen, his average was ninety one. He just gets to it a
lot of the time. Like those are good numbers even in the BIGS.
His first base only, so he's going to have to hit for him ever
to play. And you know, I don't think he's gonna get a lot
of shots with Texas. You know, Nathaniel Lowe is there, and his
teammate, Justin Foscue was even better than he was both in the contact,
power and speed department, so FOSCU. But he's like a top one hundred
guy for a lot of people. So this is an under the redar guy.
It's probably not going to get a shot with Texas. But he's someone
that I think gets popped in the Rule five probably this year. I think
he's Rule five eligible. Someone's going to take a shot at him. He's
not unathletic, he doesn't steal bases. Most ever, is four at Double
A last year. He stole just one last most recent season at Round Rock.
But I just think he's good. Like you watch him swing. He
takes huge hacks, but he doesn't miss a lot. His big swings result
in foul balls rather than whiffs. It seems he does have kind of a
swing is gear maybe a little bit more for contact than it needs to be,
Like he does kind of stay flat and on plane a little more rather
than kind of the scoop or the kind of vertical attack angle of the barrel
that is going to result in lots of fly balls. But he does that
and it means he cays less and is he's going to run some seasons where
he runs a really high line drive rate. Last year he had a couple
of stops where his line drive rate was above I guess in twenty twenty one
at Double A he had a line drive rate above thirty one percent. His
line drive rate across all stops is like above twenty five percent. That is
very high. That's unusual. And he puts balls in the air. You
know, he definitely is I think trying to do that again. His swing
finishes maybe a little bit flatter and because he is so good with burial manipulation.
I feel like maybe he sells out for that even a little more and
he could be a thirty home run bat instead of like a fifteen to twenty
homer bat. But to me, this just feels like a solid all around
offensive profile. You know, one fourteen WRC plus in the PCL. Like,
sure, discount some of it because it's the PCL, but this is
the guy that can hit. And you know, if he finds himself on
a roster for a team that isn't great, like maybe he looks like Ryan
Noda did this year where he gets roll five picked and then has a full
run and has a good a good NOA. Was like a legit guy in
a couple of my points leagues. And I think that we might see the
same thing from from Blaine Kram And it's just a cool story too, you
know, like love a senior sign mid major. Nobody cares, Nobody even
thought this guy was going to be anything. He's just done nothing but hit
his way up to the major leagues or to the doorstep anyway. That's what
that's what we love around here. We love those guys. Blane, fantastic,
Matt. We did it our first ever B side hit or draft two
hours flew by. Yeah, it's gonna be fun to track this and see
how these folks do. There's definitely there's definitely a lot more guys that I
want to talk about too, but we'll say that for for future episodes,
future discussions. Yeah, definitely. I have a long list of other guys
that I was like, there, man, like a couple of these guys
too. I can't wait to talk about when we do B sides and ye
yeah, some some really good ones. A couple of other fypds that I
feel like are under the radar a little here. Yeah, Matthew, that
was a good one. Nice, I like tell you like that. I
can't wait to talk about pictures next. I got some pictures. Is fun
for those of you that that don't know, I was a hitter and so
like all these this picture evaluations, so much of it, I was like,
I could hit that guy, which of course is not true. Was
never true, but it's definitely not true. Now I have a little meanier
when I talk about pictures. I wanted to ask you to put you on
the spot a little bit here. You know, you don't have to answer
this if you don't want to, but uh, you take it. You
take anybody yard or do anything against anybody with the with a bigger name,
maybe a big leaguer or anything. This is your Bundy moment. Leiguers.
I don't think any I don't think I took any of like the notable big
leaguers deep. But I I Trevor Bauer never got me out. I like
he one for one and two walks and a couple of steals against him.
Gott Trevor Bauer. That's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, I had a good
series that that series against U C l A. That team was so good.
Though, did you get did you get the other one? That dude
Cole? Did you get him? Yeah? I one for three, but
he punched me out twice. He was he was really good. Did you
hit You hit three thirty three against Garrett Cole? That's amazing. Yeah,
yeah, trying to think. There was a guy named John Stilson who I
thought was gonna make the bigs as a as a reliever. He hit over
one hundred pretty routinely. He was at Texas Tech. I think, but
I hit an oppo homer off of him. That I was That was probably
the coolest homer. I hit nice, nice, I love it. A
couple of the Arkansas guys I was pretty good against. I hit Drew Smiley
pretty well. I hit Dallas Kykeel pretty well, Dallas Kykeele. I think
that was in I guess this is our series. That wasn't a regional against
him, But yeah, I was two for four against him, but the
two outs were both One was a basis loaded laser to right center and their
right fielder made an incredible catch. I was so pissed. But yeah,
pretty good against those guys. That's awesome, Matt. All right, well,
so yeah, let's wrap this up. We've been talking for a few
hours. I don't know if this will turn into one or two episodes or
what, but we'll figure that part out. This is a lot of fun
and I'm looking forward to future discussions, Matt. You bet, Nate.
This was a real pleasure, a ton of fun, both doing the research
and then finally talking about these guys like I gotta I gotta tell you,
I would do this for another two hours just going down this list here.
There's there's so many more fun names to talk about, you know, pick
them apart. But we'll save it and we'll uh yeah, yeah, do
you wanna do you wanna share share Hitters? Now? At this juncture?
Do you want to just keep keep saving it? Oh, we've got our
B sides to go through. I know we talked a little bit about a
couple of the guys, but yeah, okay, fair enough, we got
some B sides still, Okay, fair enough. That sounds good to me.
All right, Well, get your pitching specs on. I'm gonna I'm
gonna get you in the picture draft. Well, I know you're you're you're
feeling confident. That's why I went with first pick on that one. I've
got a couple that I feel pretty good about. And then it kind of
drops off pretty precipitously. So well, it's it's funny because like even if
you last year was the first year that I picked out like thirty arms,
and like, you know, a success there is very different than the success
with Hitters. You know, a lot of a lot of these guys were
worse than the year prior. A lot of them barely pitched because of injury.
And then like the few that I would say were a success, like
Aguar and Montero, maybe Michael Dominguez to some extent you're talking about. They
went from like zero one percent to like three or four. You know,
a hitter takes off, they're gonna get up, you know, twenty thirty
percent or whatever. All right, well, the rest of you, thank
you for joining us. This was episode I think we will be nine of
the Prospect B Side Podcast, this time with a friend and this time so
much better. So be well and we'll talk to you next an hour.
Riding to his head, he hopped down first with the lumpbonies face, and
on the very next pitch he up in stole second face with gretest be he
wasn't born. He had a dirty Yes uniform