Ninety five miles an hour, riding to his head. He hopped down the
first with the lump on his face, and on the very next pitch he
up and stole second face with greatst He wasn't born that he had a day.
Yes, boy howdy, Welcome to episode three Prospect B Sides Podcast.
This is the voice of Nate Handy. Thanks for joining me again. This
week, we're gonna get into the al West, do little cram session,
get caught up on the B side history there and who we got eyes on
this season. But before all that, it's a long standing tradition that we
start off the show with a little Q and A. But this week I
want to flip the script a little bit. I'm gonna be the que and
you're gonna be the all. To mention my Twitter handle last week it's at
Pitching Specs, So if you want to respond to my question that I'll be
setting up here do so. There. I went back and forth in my
head if I even wanted to bring this up, but in the end I
felt it was just too pertinent to some of the things that we were talking
about the last couple weeks, specifically valuing a prospect in relation to what it
is we are seeking. The Welsh and some others have i think in a
complimentary way, referred to me or said statements like when it comes to valuing
prospects, Nate beats to his own drum. And I found myself sitting at
a draft table, so to speak, thinking about a lot of different things,
ADPs and ranks and goals I had with this team, and you know,
evaluation process and all these all these different things. A good Fantasy Baseball
IL prospect and friend Dan Greenberg, I think kind of talked Jeff Ponts and
his RAS thirty crew of letting me take over a team in that league,
which which was flattering. Now they made me take over the Cubs, which
is a tough pill for me to swallow. But I found myself with an
interesting choice, and I kept going back and forth in my head of sharing
this because I don't want this to be like, hey, look at me,
I'm cool, look at me. I'm I'm planning a flag on a
guy. You know, I want this to be my guy, or I'm
smarter than everybody else or none of that. It's not even really about the
player that I'm going to talk about. It's more about when we have to
decide if certain tools are useful to us or not. So this league,
it's thirty teams, right, it's not like a true true dynasty league.
It's it's more of a large keeper league. You keep twenty five guys total,
Minor leagues, majors twenty five total. So this draft that's still going
on right now, his first year players and unknowned minor leaguers. The team
I took over is not young. Had a pretty good offense, maybe starting
pitching that I can get by with, but the average age was like thirty
three thirty four years old. I'm not one that's convinced that pitching is significantly
more risky than hitters when it comes to prospects, right wrong, In different
whatever, I've identified that getting some young arms is the first thing that I
want to try to do with. This team made a trade for a young
arm. But in this draft, first pick, nineteenth pick is my second
chance to try to work towards that goal. Gets to me at nineteen.
There's been one pitcher taken. Cooper shirt Bay identified that the unknowned prospect I
value the most is Mike Burrows, who I actually end up getting later in
the draft, which was cool, But I'm looking at first year player pitchers,
who am I going to take? I try to be smart. I've
trade back a couple of picks for an extra pick and explored trying to do
that again and all this stuff because I've identified the player that has the traits
that I'm looking for the most, and ADP and ranks tell me it's probably
far too early to take him, which is great. Thank you for people
who do those things, do that research, do that great work. It
was very helpful to me in that moment. But regardless, trading back wasn't
really an option. I could have moved back like twenty twenty four picks.
Right, this is a thirty team guys coming back to you as a different
story. It's a way bigger role of the dice. And again, I
don't want This isn't really about the player or me being cool or anything like
that, or me trying to be the guy first on somebody or something,
you know, silly like that. And I'm no amateur first year MLB draft
afficionado, but I am competitive, and I am a nerd, and I
do do homework and watch guys to say that I have as much knowledge about
all of the pictures from the two twenty two draft as others would be absolutely
false. But I want to spend highly shooting for the moon, so to
speak. I want an arm that is both power or stuff and command execution,
both ends of the spectrum coming together. My homework. My evaluation is
that Adam Maser is that guy, and not that I've looked at a ton
of them, but I'm not sure he's hitting top fifty first year player draft
ranks anywhere. I might be completely wrong, but when it comes to valuing
guys in relation to what I want, what I'm seeking, he's number one.
I was listening to sports talk radio one day and I think it might
have been but I think it was the GM of the Nuggets made a statement
that, like, the best thing that they can do is when it comes
to evaluating players and drafting players, signing players, the best thing they can
do is make informed mistakes. And if you make a mistake, let it
be your mistake, because it's a lot harder to learn from other mistakes.
Like is it justifiable to go I don't know, forty picks or whatever it
might be above the ranks or adp my answer to that as hell, yeah,
fuck yeah, and put one of those hash browns at the end,
you know, like hash Brown Team Cobra Kai or something, and then set
it to the internet. But now maybe there's some opportunity to profit though,
Right, Maybe I take the guy on top of the ranks. I don't
know, maybe it was cade Horton. Maybe I take him. Wait to
see if Adam Maser comes back to me or gets drafted by somebody else,
swap get my guy and get a cherry on top or something. Right,
maybe that would have been the smart thing to do. But maybe that would
have been too cute too. I mean, all it really took is one
out of twenty nine other guys to have similar the same line of thinking as
me, and that's not going to happen, right, So I didn't want
to risk that, and I just took my guy. Was that absurd?
Was that ridiculous? Well? How much of a difference in talent is there
really from a Cade Horton to an Adam Maser, to a first round pick
to a second round pick. My inclination is that it's not nearly as much
as we lead on in rinks and such. Never Mind, this particular class
of arms, college arms in particular, where a year before the draft it
was an entirely different conversation about who the top college arms would be. And
Cade Horton was a guy who came back from Tommy John and had a good
like half of a season, made himself like what four or five million dollars.
Maser was a guy who could have very well been a first round pick,
had a little back thing or something. And sometimes I don't think dynasty
owners maybe remember or think about, you know, guys taken in the second
round of the draft. I'd bet you most of them have first round grades
by the team that takes them. I tend to think the real life gms
have a much wider variance, a much broader opinion about who is better than
who than us dynasty folks. And don't get me around, this is just
a hypothetical conversation I'm essentially just having with myself. But um no, no
one like, no one was like calling me out about it or any anything
of that nature. You know, I hang out in the Prospect one room
and we talk about first year players stuff quite often, and you see everyone
and their mother putting out their ranks and they work hard on those and do
their homework and put that out there for ridicule, and those all get read,
and this thing called called consensus comes together and that birds a thing called
chalk, And all in all, I think it does a pretty dang good
job of, in a general sense, identifying what player may have more to
offer for our Dungeons and Dragons baseball we like to play. But none of
those lists were catered to a guy playing in a thirty team rodo with an
old squad and the number one goal being getting the pitcher that may have the
best combination of stuff and finesse. Additionally, there is a huge variance between
the consensus first year player draft ranks and how that pans out. Again,
not knocking anyone, it is extremely hard, but history has shown me that
the consensus evaluation is not the most imposing foe valuing Debtmer's more than Asa Lacey
was crazy wanting to draft Nick York before Austin Hendrick Nuts who was drafting Spencer
Stryder really early. And now that these were you know, my thoughts are
what I did, or my opinions, just conversations and things and examples.
But you see the group think on these matters just get tighter and tighter as
the offseason, draft season approaches just kind of perpetuates itself, and playing in
redraft leagues or NFBC, where tons of very smart and capable people build different
tools to maximize their drafts and production. They can get and crunch all these
numbers and get into tons of minutia. And maybe my nusia is not the
right word I want to use. I'm not trying to devalue it. But
in a sense to me, that's putting on your suit and tie and your
top hat and your fancy pants, getting real classy and sophisticated, because that's
what it takes to win there. It's glittera and it's glad, and it's
fabulous. Really, it's just not the right style. Style. You're gonna
talk to me about style. You can't even dust yourself. Look at the
bow time I've been talking about about time. Sometimes I just wonder if we
take that mentality wear those clothes into the prospecting world when it's much dirtier and
muddy there, when you've whittled down the mean outcome of hundreds of players in
smart ways, then I think things like chalk are much more applicable. But
when we carry that stuff into the prospecting world, it seems feels a little
bit to me like trying to decide what color drapes we should hang in the
house while we're trying to pour the concrete for the foundation. Or maybe I've
got this all backwards and the reality is I'm just too dumb. So my
question to you in my off my Rocker was that choice egregiously awful. Hit
me up on Twitter at pitching specs if you want to answer that anyway.
It's enough of that rambled on far too long. Sorry. I might not
even include that they don't fuck up the bass to Night Chuck because we're on
a CD. Here, just a little bit of housekeeping. I was extremely
rude the first couple of episodes, and I never thanked my guy, Michael
Packard for doing the show logo. The show B side Prospect b siad's logo.
A couple of you might already know this, but if anyone can tell
me what that image is loosely based off of, I'll sign them a baseball
card of their favorite player, something from a song from a video I believe
nineteen nineties band with a fantastic bass player. Moving on to the Angels,
original selection was Jose Bonilla. I'm not even sure how that came to be.
I don't know. I don't remember if it was recommendation by the writer
of that list or what it was. The Angels tend to just kind of
have a bunch of athletic guys, especially the young guys, or at least
that's how it was a few years back. Just a bunch of athletic,
kind of national guys. Don't really know how skilled of hitters they were.
But there's obviously some sort of interest in Bania because he was getting a shot
at full season ball at a pretty young age. But I don't want to
waste too much time talking about Bania. It's not been good and he strikes
out forty percent of the time, hits like one fifty. Not been impressed.
So going into the last season, you know, this is a you
know Sharon stuff like this is one of the tough things. Is like how
we talked about Luis Valdez having only watched two winnings of him, Like how
interested in a guy can I get from only seeing a very small sample our
selection last season, Edgar Quiro really paid off in this regard. There was
only I think maybe a week's worth of games from twenty twenty one to watch,
but that was enough to get me pretty impressed. And pairing that with
the reports of him being, you know, a pretty outstanding defensive catcher at
a young age, kind of made an easy selection. And then of course
this year he's gotten a lot more notarized. He was at two percent when
he came onto the list, is at fifteen now. I think he's going
to be a top one hundred prospect at some point this season. I was
on Jesse Severe's podcast Dynasy sports Life last season and again, just hard to
be confident when you haven't seen a ton of a guy. But I have
kind of wandered out loud, and if you missed out on a young catcher
like Harry Ford in your first year player draft, and it's a supplemental sort
of deal, like just go with Edgar Quero, you might be all right.
Maybe one of the few examples of me saying something semi smart, but
I think I've already used a few Quero chips in a trade. So this
season we need a new Angels B side hitter and We're just gonna stick with
Yadiel Sanchez, who was actually the Phillies B side selection to start last season
and still remains a big unknown to me. He was traded to the Angels
this last season in the Noah Syndergard trade. He and Moniac. The biggest
attraction to me is this guy just kind of looks the part. Physical looking
six to two hundred pounds. Maybe he was a twenty nineteen twelfth round draft
pick out of Puerto Rico, like prep school, decent signing bonus of three
hundred K. He's a switch hitter, he's got a cannon from the outfield,
seems to be a little bit better hitter from the last side. But
all this stuff is really hard to tell because the guy hasn't been in one
place for I don't even think thirty games yet. There's injuries last season,
some injuries this year, a trade, A physically imposing athlete who, from
what little looks I get it seems to have a nice swing and you know,
a decent approach, and just a guy that really is just still kind
of a mystery. He's twenty one, he's still quite young. I guess
one will probably see him in high A this year, so they Adio Sanchez
is our Angels B side, and then for the Angels pitcher, I went
with Ryan Costeau I think, is how you say it, who's currently four
percent owned. It's a little bit on the higher end, but he was
one of the bazillion pitchers that the Angels drafted in twenty twenty one. Sec
guy pitched at Arkansas. It's probably about six foot, solid, two hundred
pounds or so. Major publication gave him the best changeup in the Angel system
from what I could tell, I believe he's got a four pitch mix fastball,
it gets up to the mid nineties, it's got a curveball. It
looks pretty good. I don't know if anything well. I mean, the
changeup must be pretty good, but just kind of all around the guy who
just looks really I don't know, solid and quality command and sequencing and pitch
quality. At sixty eight innings at High A with a three forty two R
struck out over ten per nine, walked under three per nine. I've probably
watched I don't know three outings of his, and again, just a guy
who just seems really solid, had some pretty dominant outings. So a guy
that I just kind of want to see more of the Angels using just kind
of an insect approach with some pitching, just getting a lot of guys and
and hoping a few pop through. Twenty twenty three will be Custo's twenty two
year old season, and he could very well be pitching in the uppers.
Moving on to the Mariners. The initial list Andy Patton had did the Mariners
top fifty. He was my manager at Pitcher List. Helped me out tremendously
when I first started writing. Shout out to Andy. Great guy, but
I think we had talked a little bit about this election, didn't really have
a ton of great ideas, so we kind of just took a stab at
a guy who was getting some talk and I believe the DSL and that was
Milcar Perez, and something happened because February of two twenty two, he was
seven percent owned, so he had already graduated off of the list. I
think the story was a guy who had pretty advanced contact skills. I don't
think he's he still has a hit more than a couple of home runs.
I don't think in his pro career. It's a young switch hitter he's twenty
one now five eleven, two hundred pounds. Well, he played a ball
last year, and honestly, it was not very impressive looking. Not that
I watched a bunch, but you know, just looking at his numbers,
his first month was a little rough, but then he seemed to get get
going, and then he got hurt came back. I mean, his numbers
were really quite awful. I think he slugged under two hundred. That's marvelous.
But the guy who's on the Nickaragua WBC team not really high on my
watch list. But maybe the latted contact skills come out and lead to some
production this season. Studering last year, Robert Press Junior was our choice who
was one percent owned at the time. He's now up to six percent.
And I imagine some of that might have to do with the AFL this last
season, where he was like the home run derby champ I think, or
a participant. I think it was a champ. I don't Sometimes you really
like a player, perhaps more than his organization does. Two twenty one in
Modesto Robert Perez, who is Hedbert Perez's brother, older brother. I believe
he's twenty two, will be twenty three. This year, I really called
my eye as kind of a RBI power. Well, I should back up.
He first called my eye because dude is built like a brick shit house.
I asked Welsh if he had the biggest biceps in the AFL this year,
and I think he said definitely top three or two or something. But
a guy who I mean, he can hit four hundred and fifty foot home
runs easily. But what impressed me was that he wasn't just like all slugger.
He would slow it down with two strikes or two outs with a guy
on second or something like that, and you know, kind of happily lace
a line drive over the second baseman's heading. And I had actually talked to
James Anderson about him that season, you know, just asking his opinion.
And I was wondering if because he had this little stint of triple A when
he was like nineteen and actually you know, wasn't overmatched there hit a couple
of home runs and whatnot, and I was wondering out loud if this was
a guy who would jump up the double A boy. I was sure wrong
about that, because he ended up repeating or starting off low A again.
This year. I don't really get why, but I think he's obviously starting
to get noticed a little bit. You know. He finally got up to
High A this year and he was actually produced, had a much higher clip
than he was at Low A. In one hundred and fifty three High A
played appearances, he slashed three forty two, four seventy seven, five eighty
three with seven home runs, and you know, and then he went on
to the AFL. He didn't like light the world on fire there, but
again the kind of the run producing stuff showed up a little bit. At
fourteen RBIs in nineteen games, there were three home runs. And I don't
know, maybe this is a guy who just you know, the ceiling,
so to speak, is playing in Asian League. But I'm definitely not done
watching Robert Press junior. And then I had a hard time really getting inspired
by anyone to choose for the Mariners this season. I went with Spencer Packard,
who was only old than one percent leagues in November. Now he's an
older guy, twenty five, who's twenty five, played twenty four playing playing
in HIGHA, which is, you know, like a year and a half
old. But he was an older you know, Coles guy coming out of
Campbell in the twenty twenty one draft. I don't I don't want to get
two in it. But he I mean, he's a left handed hitter who
can legitimately mash right handed hitting. I don't have any outlandish, crazy,
wild dreams with Packard, but a guy who I don't think it's far fetched
to see him make the bigs, you know, maybe being a strong side
platoon type or something like that. But you know, the Mariners are pretty
talented and popular. Because it was tough to find some prospects not owned that
much, the picture I went with was one Mercedes, who is three percent
owned this month. First my attention pitching in Triple A. When I was
trying to watch Corey Lee of the Astros so on that bad versus Mercedes,
Mercedes threw up. I think it was four sliders, none of them really
particularly well located and just kind of meatballs, and Lee couldn't touch any of
them. It's kind of a combination of I think, bad pitching and even
worse hitting. But I don't know, I'm just speculating here, but it
seemed like Mercedes was maybe you know, going to be a relief pitcher in
the uppers, or he was just filling in for a little while or something
like that, and there's some backdoor savant stuff from his outings in Triple A
and it looked like fastball slider. And then all of a sudden he had
an outing where he threw three more offerings or something like that, and they
sent him back down to A or it looks like there might be a little
bit of an experiment going him starting. In no way do I think this
is a guy that, you know, we need to own and leads or
anything like that. But I'm interested. I think there's enough stuff there to
maybe remember him. And let's check out this Mariner's pitching development. They get
a lot of credit for developing, you know, rightfully so form higher end
investments. Maybe Mercedes offers a good little case study of how they may develop
more of a project. That's why Mercedes a good sized righty, still pretty
young. I don't know, it was the best I could do, all
right. The Oakland Athletics a wide open wild west of most likely a shit
storm of baseball, but also perhaps a fantastic B side hunting ground. These
days, seems to me there might be Major League opportunity going around in spades
the initial list, I've got another guy. I'm not really sure how he
got on it, what the thinking was, who's thought it was necessarily I
mean, ultimately it was my article, but a Cuban signee who I think
had done some stuff in rookie ball in twenty nineteen. Again, this was
coming out of twenty twenty. There were some fairly blind dart throws being thrown
around, not much different than speculating on some international signe prospects and first year
player drafts and such like that. But Lester Madden was the first choice,
and we can pour one out on that dream because he was released by the
A's in July after an unimpressive run. I'm sorry, I was whack.
I was whack. I was whack. But year two, the A's B
side was Jordan Diaz, who who was a little bit of a cheap because
he was at six percent at the time. But I just as I still
do value him higher than most he's up to while he was thirty nine percent
in November, I imagine that's crept up as some others are taking him in,
you know, even redraft bench spots and stuff like that. Speculating that
he will get quite a bit of run this season with the A's Nonetheless a
I think successful B side selection. I'm excited to see his season this year.
I think that's a guy who can really swing a bat. I think
it's fair to question how much he might slug in the major leagues if the
contact will consistently be quality. I'm betting that will be. I've seen the
guy hit some monster opposite field shots. I don't think it's out of the
question that he could have some more power protection. But nonetheless, he has
long graduated and so this season, so it was time for a new choice,
and Brett Harris continues to be one of my favorite guys on the new
list. He's a defensive stud third base, second base, could probably even
play a short stop. I don't know if you want him every day,
but could fill in. In November, he was owned in one percent of
leagues. He's twenty four years old, right handed hitter, good sized guy
like six three, two hundred I don't know, twenty maybe maybe a little
less. He played High A in Double A last year. He was a
twenty twenty one seventh round pick out of Gonzaga. I'm not a huge signing
one hundred and twenty K. He got a lot of attention his senior year
in college because he put up some big numbers, but offensive potential was the
big question. But I'm wondering if he sort of came into his own down
the stretch last season his last one hundred and sixty two played appearances in Double
A, he slashed three fifteen, three sixty seven, four fifty nine,
four home runs, and eight stolen bases. He's got like an average walk
rate, a great seven point nine percent swings strike rate, and he's up
there looking to do some damage. He seems to have some fast hands,
like an react velocity inside, which leads to like some real plate coverage potential
corner infielder who may not you know hit for power. Isn't the most sought
after profile in the draft, but he ended up hitting seventeen home runs this
last season in total. And I was reading the article about him and his
Double A coach was speaking about how his power surge had nothing to do with
any sort of change at the plate. Those sort of swing change whom I
think often we see a spike and something like that, and we think something
must have been different, but his coach were just saying, he's being better
at finding the barrels, better at what he was doing. Really like the
look of him from a technical aspect at the plate, and sure he might,
you know, be a little bit older than what you might be looking
for. But with the defense and some budding offense, I mean, I
think we have a legit, potential, everyday prospect that no one owns right
now. Are very few people so Brett Harris Oakland A's very much into it.
The A's have also kind of been into some of the same prospects that
I have been the last couple of years, as they have traded for two
what I'd maybe call it three B sides over the last two off seasons.
Go hard, go fast, Go your lovely bastards. Rubial Angelis when they
got from the Padre I mean, he wasn't a B side with Joe.
Yes, this was very much a B side ass pitcher that I was into,
got him from the Braves, and now this offseason they just traded for
Darryl hernaz Um from the Orioles. English was owned in zero percent of leagues
in July of two thousand and twenty one when he came onto the list.
He impressed the heck out of me in the Cow League twenty and twenty one,
and he really he put up some some big number. I think he
had like three close to three seventy or something like that, and he was
getting noticed in the Dynasty world. He popped up to ten percent by February
of twenty twenty two. But man, in low way, this he was
in a lot of ways is kind of like a man amongst boys. Now
he's not he's not a big guy, but you would see him, you
know, big moments late in games when his team is down. You know,
he might be sitting on two strikes, but he's he's up there laughing
and joking around with the catcher and and boom, there's uh, there's the
game winning double in the gap. I think it's safe to, you know,
wonder if there'll ever be a whole lot of power. But the ability
to hit, the ability to put the bat on the ball was really one
of the best bats in that league. And that was a loaded league.
And he got traded. He went over to Oakland and Hia not nearly the
same sort of success. And I'm not going to pretend like I watched a
ton of him last season. His ownership rates have dropped back down to four
percent, but way too skilled of a contact hitter for me to close the
book on your rebial Ungliz. And then heading into last year, Darryl Hernaz
was my ORIOL selection. He was owning two percent of leagues and then as
of November he was up to ten percent. I think it's safe to say
that's a B side win to some extent, but it was hard to get
too excited with him in that system and all the talents and all the high
investment prospects that they have in front of him. But then this trade,
it has definitely revitalized my personal interest. Twenty one right handed hitter six one
one ninety list and played high end a little bit of double a last year
fifth round pick in twenty nineteen out of Texas prep hitter. Now he's listed
at six one ninety but I don't know. He doesn't really seem that big,
but I think the end result of what he could be offensively is fantasy
appealing. And man, apparently the A's might be thinking the same thing because
they traded probably their best starting pitcher another pitching prospect for just him, and
he had a nice season, but it isn't like he was lighting the world
on fire statistically. But I think her NAIs is trying to be a legit
power hitter slutter, which is pretty interesting for a guy who I think can
play up the middle. I'm not a scholar on his defense. He's played
shortstop, second base, third base. He swings the bat hard, but
he doesn't get out of control, and he doesn't strike out a time.
Seventeen percent k in high A jumped up to twenty seven percent in his very
small double A stint, but I watched some there and he I would say
it was it was some pretty dang good pitchers that were getting him. So
I'm not really gonna ding him too much for admittedly not really the kind or
type of hitter than I'm drawn to, but I'm trying to open my mind
a little bit more too. I was not the highest guy in the world
on Julio Rodriguez, and that was obviously not the greatest call. Now his
splits aren't super encouraging, much better versus lefties. Again, he's a righty.
He went three seventy eight four thirty four. It's like six hundred versus
right ees, no excuse me, versus lefties versus rieties. He was two
forty four three fourteen three ninety two, but he produced home runs versus both
rities and lefties. But he's on the map some again, A guy who
I think if if it all goes well and he becomes who I think he's
trying to be at the plate, it could get pretty exciting. If he
had a big home run season coming up here, I would not be surprised
he had twelve this season. I'm sorry, I was across three levels,
I said too, but regardless, he said, well worth watching. Still
there are a's pitcher that I went with. I don't want to talk too
much about him, but it's Jorge One first called my eye win In twenty
twenty one, he was added to the forty man roster and not watched a
lick of him up until then. And what was interesting was he hadn't and
still hasn't, really logged a lot of minor league innings. And then he
was taken off of the forty man DFA or whatever after I believe an injury.
He was released and resigned with the last season, he only logged twenty
twenty innings. He's twenty one years old. No, that's not right,
he's twenty three years old. Guy at six eight, two hundred pounds looks
like a lively two pitch combo of fastball and a slider. Really enhing more
than a guy that I just kind of wanted to see again, and was
obviously valued enough at one point to be put on the forty man roster.
Let's get into the Rangers. Admittedly so not the most successful organization for us
here. I did the Rangers top fifty back in twenty twenty one, and
my selection was Zion Banister. I had never seen him play baseball, and
here we are few years down the road and I have barely seen him play
baseball. Researching him two years ago. He was a prep player in Maryland,
I believe, originally from the Bahamas, and he moved back to the
Bahamas so that he could sign as an international free agent in twenty nineteen.
I believe that's how the story went. You know, the Rangers have gone
outside of the box, so to speak, in recent history. I think
had some success with that, so I was intrigued. I think Welsh has
probably seen more of Zion Banister hanging around the complex, and he's been down
there with some of their bigger signings and bigger names. But at this point
we're only talking about eighty pro games over the course of two seasons. Now,
he did get up to high A this year, none of the production
is anything remarkable. This power of speed combo stuff that I had was hearing
about has not come to be. I think he's barely stolen a handful of
bases, and I think he's maybe hit two home runs. You know,
twenty one switch hitter, good size, but Zion Banister not really much of
a priority watch for me at this juncture. Then, heading into last year,
I chose Miguel Operisio, who was two percent own is now down to
one percent own. But back in twenty fifteen, if I remember correctly,
I think he was one of their more highly touted international free agents from Venezuela.
But in twenty twenty one, we'll caught my eye. Was a left
handed hitter who hit lefties significantly better than righties, albeit you know, obviously
a smaller sample size, but he slugged five sixty seven with twelve home runs.
Now, the k percentage was like at a twenty seven percent, but
when I was watching him down the stretch, he got up to double a
little bit. I don't know, the swing choices and the swing of miss
didn't seem all that horrible to me, so you know, I was thinking,
interesting profile, maybe the maybe the pedigree was starting to catch up.
The last season was kind of a lost season. Early April he was put
on the I L. He didn't get his season started until late in July
rookie ball some high A, and then finally got back up to double A,
where it wasn't really a great twenty three games, but again only twenty
three games. Then now we're also talking about a twenty three will be twenty
four where year old with very little upper levels experience. I don't know,
maybe we watch him, maybe we doubt, but I moved on to a
different B side for this season, and that's Ian Moehler. He caught my
attention when he took Dryland Susannah's fastball and sent it my little four hundred and
sixty feet or something like that. This last season, he's not without some
interesting I don't know history, pedigree or something. But he was a twenty
twenty one fourth round draft pick, maybe twenty years old this season. Good
sized right hand catcher, six foot two hundred pounds or something like that,
very strong. He hasn't really blown up the stat sheet yet, but he's
from Dubuque, Iowa, not a place where he played a ton of high
school ball, and he really shot up draft boards kind of later in the
process, if I'm not mistaken, because of just some massive power potential and
a very athletic catcher. He can scoot. He gets around the bases faster
than Matt Vogel's mom, ladies and gentlemen. We got him. He was
kind of a I don't know, maybe like a semi regular player in a
ball this year for a large part of the season. But then you know,
he slugged. He slugged almost six hundred in August, granted smaller sample
size. He stole eighteen bags on the season. So I'm just wondering,
you know, Northern guy, maybe it just takes a little bit longer.
You know, the Rangers invested seven hundred k on him. You can definitely
handle velocity and you know, power for days. So we'll be checking in
on Ian Mohler. Then my picture selection was Ryan Garcia, who was a
second round pick out of UCLA in twenty nineteen. The Rangers, man,
they just seem kind of jaded, and maybe they've taken some questionable profiles,
especially like on the pitching side and stuff like that. But here they are
in twenty nineteen. They take Ryan Garcia, who is considered one of the
safest pitching prospects, most likely to me, you know, very likely to
make the major leagues in some level, and unfortunately his career has just been
kind of riddled with injuries. He's currently four percent own. I think he
was coming back from Tommy John. He didn't pitch a ton of innings this
year. He's like a strong, six foot righty. I don't know,
even out of college. I don't know if it. I don't think the
story was like a bunch of overpowering stuff, but just a guy who could
like really pitch and locate. Watching a few outings this year, he would
start his velocity would start off like high eighties first inning, but he I
saw him get up to like ninety three ninety four by the end of some
outings. So you know, maybe some of that's just like kind of working
back, but you know, maybe he's healthy this year, regains that you
know, second round form. He can pitch, Sure, seems like he
can pitch. It's a pretty easy looking delivery, you know, almost looks
like he's thrown batting practice, but the balls getting up there. You know,
maybe he gets his career back going in twenty twenty three and puts himself
back on the map. All right, let's get into some Houston astros.
I don't know what the story is. Perhaps the organization that is real life
b sides. In a lot of ways, they're kind of how I want
to win my dynasty league. Homegrown d smell like out dumb, a lot
of guys undervalued by others. Sure there's a couple of high dollar studs in
there, like Bregman and Kyle Tucker, but we're talking about the best rotation
in baseball, one World Series, the best pitching staff in baseball. Now,
the bullpen was a couple of homegrown guys, and yeah they had Verlander.
The I don't know, obviously, the cy young winner McCullers was a
first round draft pick who had some pedigree. He may have been around a
top fifty prospect at one point, but the rest of that, wrote Titian
Frmberveldez, Luis Garcia, Christian Navier, Jose or Keaty. We're never top
one hundred prospects. I believe Garcia might have been, you know, their
top prospect one year, but it wasn't enough to crack the top one hundred.
Go back and read some of the scouting reports on the current Astros starting
rotation. And this isn't knocking anyone who wrote those or anything of that nature.
It's tough, it's a hard thing to do, and the Astros continue
to be a riddle for the prospecting world. But some of their reports.
Luis Garcia, you know, if things go well, he could be a
nice bullpen piece, and darn near all of those guys not getting graded very
well in their breaking balls. And that doesn't so much jive these days,
does it. And now Hunter Brown, their current bigger name pitching prospect,
is getting you know, rank love and all that stuff. But even he
was a fifth round draft pick out of Wayne State, starting center fielder,
was a twenty first round draft pick of Theirs back in twenty seventeen. Chas
McCormick very much a B side type coming up. David Hensley, I mean
he was slept on up until he was in the bigs doing some things.
He was an eighteenth round draft No. Twenty sixth round draft pick. It's
an organization that has produced more major league players than any other organization over the
last I don't know, a decade or so. Their draft picks have produced
more war than any other organization over that same timeframe, and it's not even
particularly close. Jeremy Paanya, the runner up to the al Rookie of the
Year World Series MVP, was still very much undervalued coming into this last season,
and yet year and year out. It's an organization, but the prospecting
World, fantasy and real life alike perpetually ranked in the bottom third by people
who do the organizational ranked type stuff. So what's the disconnect? Now,
that's a bit rhetorical. I'm not going to pretend I have the answer to
that, So down there, cowboy O, I'm got any answers only questions.
But I have some suspicions that might play into it. One is stat
sheet scouting. I've heard a lot of statements like why do the Astros continuously
get players that outperform in the majors compared to their minor league production? Well,
maybe minor league production isn't the end goal. Maybe developing good major league
players is the goal. Within that, there's also ballpark stuff, disregarding what
happens in Asheville because it's a small stadium and it's a hitters league with other
small parks, discounting what happens in the PCL. Conversely with that, maybe
some pitching numbers aren't as attractive looking. I often wonder folks who like to
dig into minor league numbers make projections from such things. The way the Astros
developed their starting pitchers could throw a monkey wrench into whatever that system is of
theirs. They like to run a piggyback system. Guy goes three innings,
Guy piggybacks and goes three after him. It's kind of their m O developing
starting pitchers. Somebody glancing at a guy's season stats might say, might see,
I don't know, thirty games, fifteen starts. That doesn't mean he's
a relief pitcher or being groomed to be a relief pitcher. And just a
little aside to that, something I've been noticing more as I've been watching more.
If you're thinking, how can a guy develop into a starting pitcher only
going through a lineup once. Well, I've kind of noticed that some of
their guys will pitch differently outing to outing, So maybe they are pitching through
a lineup differently the second time through. It's just it's going to be four
or five days later. On the hitting side of things, it almost seems
like they've got like two different kinds of profiles that they're loading up on.
Really athletic. I don't know, phone and say toolsy, but I guess
toolsy guys who just might not have very great contact skills. Or they've got
guys who technically mechanically just do things very well swing wise and they have to
play wise. And like I like to think I'm trying to do in Dynasty,
is they cast a very large net. Perhaps because they are or were
at least at the forefront of doing a lot of video scouting compared to other
organizations, perhaps they can see more get more eyes on guys, but they
will take guys from small colleges. And on the pitching side, I mean,
they're just they're spin factory. They know how to coach breaking balls.
And there's other organizations like the Rays and the Braves and I don't know,
Mariners. Maybe not to take anything away from those organizations. They get lauded
as great pitching organizations, but when you want to talk about developing guys that
you have not invested a lot of money in or or high draft dround picks,
I mean, I don't think anyone can really touch the Astros. And
I'm not really totally sure why I am a little bit passionate on this subject
because I hate the Astros, But here I am Jesus man, could you
change the channel? Come on, I had a rough night the Eagles,
man. My point being, this is primo B siding territory. It's hard
to see who's gonna pop because I feel like there's a lot of possibilities.
On top of that in their lowers Their High A team doesn't broadcast. A
lot of teams in that league don't broadcast. Fayetteville's got a goofy camera angle
they're Low A team, and some other teams in that league don't broadcast.
But I very much pay attention to what the Astros do and who they're investing
in, who they're playing, etc. Back in two thousand and one,
I did the top fifty list at pitcher List. My B side selection was
a kid by the name of Kennedy Corona, be lying if I said I
knew much about him at the time. The Astros made a trade Jake Morizinac.
I think it's who they traded to the Mets, and I think they
got two players in return. One of them was Kennedy Corona, guy who
was signed in April of twenty nineteen. Mets pushed him through three levels that
season where you got a couple of games in an A ball towards the end
of the season twenty nineteen. That's all that I ever saw of him,
I believe, if I remember correctly, he was playing in the Venezuelan League
or something like that. Always curious about what the Astros are doing, why
they traded for this kid. A little bit of really poor looks. I
think it was mostly just press box stuff, but there seemed to be maybe
a speed power potential here that was enough to be my B side selection.
Obviously, twenty twenty happened. Twenty twenty one, He's the A ball did
not go very well. I watched a little bit. It wasn't pretty.
Put him on the developmental list. I don't know. I don't even know
what that is, totally all about going back to the complex to work on
some things. I guess came back towards the end of the year for a
little bit. Twenty twenty two he seemed to be a bit of a breakout.
I wanted to get him back on the list, but he was owned
just a little bit too much. But still going to talk about him for
a quick second, So I don't know. Maybe twenty twenty wasn't the greatest
for Corona, but he seems to have caught up a little bit here.
He's twenty two. I'll turn twenty three early this season. Less he was
low A and high A p some of that power of speed, and I
know small park in high A. But he hit nineteen home runs and stole
twenty eight bases, two hundred and seventy nine played appearances and high A ten
home runs, twenty bags, hit two ninety three, seventy three, select
four ninety eight. Twenty two point six percent strikeout right. The Astros have
some guys who high contact. Lack of k's doesn't seem to be the highest
priority for them, but twenty two point six percent isn't horrible, and it
was last one hundred and seventy one played appearances, he went three oh seven,
three seventy four, five forty nine with six home runs eleven stolen bases.
Now Corona is right handed, and he's significantly better versus lefties four thirty
seven, four eighty seven, six ninety as opposed to two forty five,
three thirty seven, four fifty four versus rights. Long story short, Corona
may have revitalized his development here they wrote me off, I ain't right back
though. That's the problem. All right, right back, let's go.
There's still some bad swings. Don't think he's anywhere close to the big leagues
or anything like that, with plenty to prove, but a guy who kind
of put himself back on the B side map. When it took Corona off
the list, I went with Emmanuel Valdez, who, after leading their system
in home runs in twenty twenty one, was still only owned one percent of
leagues in February of twenty twenty two. He's obviously gained some more popularity.
He was traded to Boston at least early this offseason. Some murmurs that he
may play some second base for them this year. We'll talk more about him
when we get to Boston. Now, last season. I was pretty certain
that Joey la Profito would be my B side selection, Astro's B side selection
for this season, and I should have just done it, but he was.
He was owned at three percent. But regardless of I want to talk
about him a little bit. Twenty three year old, he'll be. He'll
during twenty four this season, nice size lefty six to four, A twenty
twenty one seventh round pick, had a duke, not a big signing bonus.
He played lowe and HIGHA. This year. He had twelve home runs
and stole thirty two basses, even before I had started digging into some of
his stats last year. I think he first caught my eye. We really
got my attention. I don't know. I think maybe it was June.
I was watching Stephen Cruz, a nice looking young pitcher for the Brewers,
and he had nowty where he was. He was dealing taking care of Lafayette's
line up, no problem, except for la Profito, who took him deep
to two run home runs in a walk, and I started paying a little
bit more attention to him. It's really l look of him at the plate,
nice left handed stroke, stays nice and balanced. I know you might
think like, oh, big college guy playing a ball. That's fine.
I understand that, But again, I don't want to overdo the age thing.
Versus older pitchers. He went three forty eight four twenty seven, five
forty one. Versus younger pitchers, he went two eighty nine, three ninety
one, four fifty six home runs versus each Now, I don't want to
make too much of that, but let's bring that up if you're, you
know, stickler for the age thing. For the most part, I think
pitchers are a little older than hitters for the level. What I like about
him is he can hit lefties much smaller sample size versus lefties, but he
went three eighty six four forty two, four seventy one, no home runs
res Versus righties he went three oh one, four one, four ninety seven
with all twelve of his home run. But again, stats and all that
stuff aside, I just like the look of him at the plate, hitting
different locations, hitting different speed, staying nice and balance, and not getting
fold too much to prove some stuff against upper level pitching. But a lat
Pafito could very well be, you know, one of these kind of patented
astros outfielders that not very heralded, but find themselves in the bigs, probably
get traded. Astros are good at that, but alat Pafito definitely on the
b side radar here he's a little too owned. So I guess my official
choice. I went with Quincy Hamilton, who I liked the look of tuning
in a little bit last year twenty twenty one, fifth round pick. Another
smaller college guy out of right state, so obviously gotta have questions about level
of competition, but another lefty, strong guy, thick bass, kind of
a bowling ball of a dude at across three levels last year a high a
double A. He hit seventeen home runs, stole twenty seven bases, and
his splits actually might be slightly reversed, might be a little bit better against
lefties. He's got some power to all fields. He slept over seven hundred
as a senior in college. It doesn't really seem to get full too often,
doesn't strike out, it seems aggressive, looking to do damage. I'm
sure the narrative will be potential fourth outfielder type, and you know, the
level of competition stuff. He might be just starting to answer some of that.
So we'll be keeping an eye on Hamilton this year, at least early
on in the season. Again, not a guy that I'm super excited about,
but I want to pay attention to nonetheless, and then our Astros B
side pitcher selection is kind of one of my more favorites on the list,
and that's a Denson Batista, twenty year old who pitched in Low A last
season. He did get a couple of High A starts in I reviewed him
for Prospect Picture List and Review listen at six two eighty five variety. He's
pretty dominant versus right hand hitters. Fastball slider curveball into fastball is about mid
nineties. There's a change up in there. I wouldn't say it's really any
good right now, but it's pretty early in this guy's development. In ninety
three and a third single A innings, he had a two RA one point
zero nine three whip, ten point nine k per nine, four point one
walks per nine. I would say there's definitely a lot of polish needed here,
but the two breaking balls in the Houston Spin Factory probably would intrigue me
the most. He's got a harder slider and he's got a slower you know,
kind of loopier curveball, more traditionally shaped curveball. Both, at least
from video, seemed to have quite a been a movement. There lies a
little bit of you know, the high walks and some higher pitch counts and
stuff like that. You know, again, twenty years old, we've seen
the astros helpe a guy tighten the screws on breaking balls consistently for many years
now. I have a few speculative Batista shares in some of my deeper league
just in case I think he's a little bit sharper at twenty years old than
some of the studs in their rotation were at that time. But very much,
you know, I had only three percent owned very much a Houston side
interest to me. All right, so you survived the aos B side cram
session. Hopefully that wasn't too painful for you. But I'm want to stop
talking at you. Don't hesitate to get at me pitching specs on Twitter or
the it L group me rooms again, if you're not a member of the
Army. IM not going to tell you how to live your life, but
you should consider it. Go to in this league dot com, check out
Patreon. Next week we'll get into the NL Central. That's got a good
chunk of exciting B side hitters for us to watch the season. Thanks for
listening. Let's Chicago Farmer take us out here, be well, and I'll
talk to you Monday. Down first with the lump boniest face, and on
the very next pitch he up and stole second face. He wasn't born,
he had already as uniful