Ninety five miles an hour riding to his head. He hopped down first with
the plump bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second phase with gretested he wasn't born, he had Yes, uniforn. Welcome
to episode twenty eight of the Prospect B Sides podcast, And man, this
is already the best episode yet because we are finally in season. When I
thought about doing a podcast, the whole idea was to watch what was going
on in the minor leagues and share some observations and report. And twenty seven
episodes have taken place out of season and finally we get into it. But
I enjoined as always by B side. Rookie of the Year, Rookie Matt
is what he's going by today, Rookie map ball? How are you,
my friend? Our real minor league baseball is back. Let's go. Yes.
As you know, this was a bit of a holiday in my household,
and you saw my setup where I was legitimately watching eight different baseball games
at once on Friday. I did, and I was very jealous. Yeah,
I mean I couldn't get enough. I was just trying to soak up
all of the different games, see the guys that I was really curious to
watch, try and see if there's anybody knew that caught my attention while still
paying attention to the major leagues. And I'll tell you what, you can't
really watch eight baseball games at a time as much as you want to.
It's pretty hard. Yes, I had to show my wife your setup,
and I was like, look at this. The cool kids aren't going to
talk to me anymore if I don't get an upgrade from my stupid little laptop.
But I do everything on so thanks for that. I did even up
the setup, the home setup recently with swivel my arm, so now I
can I can swivel some monitor over and watch from my little office couch that
I have here too. So I really want to lay back and get comfortable.
I can't. So yeah, I highly recommend that last episode we did
like a minor league preview, right and as we were talking about and clear
about, there were some assignments and things that we were just guessing on,
and there was definitely some assignments that did not take place like we had thought.
But Matt, we got a huge treat, did we not. The
Florida State League like we were complaining about not being able to watch very much
of it, and in very classic Major League style, they did not market
this until last minute or let people know this, But Dunedin, Clearwater,
Fort Myers, and Lakeland are all now broadcasting in the Florida State League,
bringing that up to six stadiums, which is awesome. And then also stocked
in out in the Cal League is broadcasting. So that was a nice treat,
was it, Matt? Absolutely, getting that many more broadcasts is huge,
and especially that many more in the Florida State League. As we talked
about the ability to combine the stat cast data that we get all the way
up to the major leagues, along with the visual looks at players, is
that's the best. That is the gold standard between Mi Nerdy Scout the stat
line point of view and Nates let me see what this dude's girlfriend looks like
point of view, you know, like that's somewhere between the two. We
make it work. But now in the Florida State League we get both.
Yes, sir, that was a lot of fun, and the Florida State
League, I think, at least for me, has shaped up to be
the most interesting league. Early in the season, and I think the first
weekend bear that out for me. Matt. There were two pitchers that I
watched Saturday and then Sunday that was probably, I don't know, this early
weekend b siding mutting the most exciting new new players to me. I watched
George Classen on Saturday when he was a sixth round pick out of the University
of Minnesota of the Phillies. Again, I'm just super intrigued by the Phillies
draft this last year. And then I watched Jonah Thong, a Mets prospect
on Sunday, who was what a prep arm that they fucked I don't know,
fifth round or something like that. I think two drafts ago, a
Canadian kid who went down to Georgia and may have sold his soul for the
ability to spin the baseball. Yeah, who needs to fiddle in this day
and age. But if you can, if you can spin the baseball,
sign me up right. I'm far from the only other person, only other
Dynasty player out there who was interested in these two arms. I think Classen
may have stole the show. He was picked up in all of my leagues
that he was eligible to be picked up on plenty of Twitter chatter about him
and the like I threw some bids down, but I didn't come close.
Man. There was some very aggressive dynasty owners getting on Classen, and I
don't blame them. Let's get to a start. So the story with Classon
is going to be velocity. Right. This dude hit ninety nine point eight
ft forcing fastball averaged ninety seven point six miles per hour. And you know
that Matt and I are not like, we're not huge velocity drulers, right,
But I do have to say that on top of the velocity, I
thought there was some interesting movement on the fastball. Now we got a good
angle in Bradenton. But of course eyeballs can't analyze a pitch like maybe a
stuff plus model can and other metrics. But on top of that, I
also thought that his execution of the fastball. I didn't hate it. It
wasn't kirbyesque or something like that, but I did not hate his ability to
locate it fairly consistently. He threw also what statcast is calling a cutter,
probably more like slutterish to me. Let's see, he threw the four seam
sixty four percent of the time through this cutter thirty one percent of the time
and then tossed in a couple of curve balls. But I would be willing
to guess and imagine that the slutter in a vacuum is probably not I don't
know, probably wouldn't grade out the best in pitch plus type models in the
like right, But off of that fastball and off of that velocity, it
might very well work well. He got a fifty six percent with rate on
that, a forty four percent with rate on the four seamer, CSW of
forty nine percent on the four seam and forty eight percent on the cutter.
He's a bit of He's not like the he's out little but like kind of
a little bit more on the slender frame, not a huge frame. This
was the first time I've ever seen him, and I have to say that
it was you know, we talk about like get on the edge of your
seat sort of moments when you see somebody for the first time like that.
That's definitely what happened here. It sounds like that's what happened to our buddy
upper back too. I mean, he had some glowing things to say about
mister Classen and his stuff. So what what was it? I mean it
was it just the velo at the level or was it the shape of the
pitches? What really stuck out for you? Just you got a guy throwing
this hard and like I said, with some interesting looking movement on the fastball,
with his ability to I think, you know, execute it fairly well
for a guy down in a ball. That's the biggest draw to me.
He didn't log a lot of innings at Minnesota. He's got like a total
of sixty college innings and most of that was his last year. I don't
know about injury history, you know, I think I had mentioned him like
wow, that was like the most impressive first look at a guy I've seen
since I saw him in the you know, on the same screen. Now,
I'm not nearly as interested in class And as I was Titan at the
time because on top of his lefty fastball, he could really spin it.
I don't think Classen's game is going to be like spin. But nonetheless,
given the velocity, the strikeout potential at this level, pitchability wise, not
the worst I've ever seen. I like, that wasn't a big downer to
me. I think he was pretty much a no brainer. Spec you pick
this guy up. I think you're gonna have a interesting trade piece down the
road here relatively short. So in a nutshell, I think I think that's
what Whether he proves to be or a really good picture or not, I
think it's kind of irrelevant. I think you just play the game within the
game, and you grab him if you can. Yeah, that makes a
lot of sense. And you know what, I looked him up after everyone
was so hyped about this start. I haven't had the chance to watch it
yet, but looking at his numbers from college, it's pretty clear why we
weren't interested really coming out at the draft and why he got no mention from
us. He walked forty five and struck out forty five for fifty and two
thirds innings at Minnesota, and so, like the Big Tens decent at baseball,
and there are some fairly good schools in the Big Ten these days,
but Minnesota's not a powerhouse for sure. That kind of line across the Big
Ten and the schedule that Minnesota plays that's like bad. I mean, that's
just frankly barely even should register when you're looking at that kind of a stat
line. Terrible walk rate, not even striking that many guys out. So
it's not like he's a good power pitcher but just doesn't know where it's going.
I'll let some of the Iowa boys this is like, I don't know
where it's going. And I also don't really strike anybody out. So his
six point two Era one seven six whip in college seems like it was earned.
Now that said, getting popped by the Phillies in the sixth round is
impressive given that, So I think they they're interested in the arm talent exactly.
I think, you know, again not having seen him, and maybe
this is just a refrain that I'm going to keep saying, is that I
want to see more, Like, yes, pop on this kind of guy,
and as you said, play the game within the game always, but
as far as like long term viability, that's still a lot of innings showing
that you don't really know how to pitch, and I want to I want
to see more. So I'm excited to throw some tape on and and see
his next start. This is the kind of guy that I'm like, that's
a huge jump in skills, command or both. Like that's very surprising,
right, Hue, up right, you know dann Well the guy who's touching
one hundred is striking out this many, that's gonna get dynasty folks excited,
definitely. He went five innings, he gave up one hit, no walks,
and struck out nine. As far as like his I don't know what
do you want to call it, commands, strike, throwing, execution,
what have you? I kind of noticed, like I don't know if violence
is the right word, but it's not like the easiest looking velocity, if
you will, you know, if I had Tom House here, I would
ask him some questions about some of his mechanics, some things that my eyes
were drawn to, my amateur eyes were drawn to. But like I wouldn't
say he was like pinpoint, you know, but when he was trying to
hit a spot in the zone, he was like in the neighborhood, and
consistently like in the neighborhood. So and there may be were a few that
kind of got away from him or whatever, but for the most part,
like you know, a lot of times you see a guy throwing this hard
in the lowers and it's it's really nilly right, it's pretty loose, But
I wouldn't call classing that at least this out so I was pretty I was
pretty dang impressed. And I will say as a you know, just kind
of a pitching nerd like this one got me excited. On Saturday, I
was getting jazzed up. And maybe some of that's just the beginning of the
season and the first guy and a ball that got me excited, I don't
know, but he's stepped. Definitely a hot ticket right now. He was
picked up. Let's see, he went from like zero percent to three percent
over last night. So definitely some folks interested. But then Matt awesome.
Then I think I was even more impressed on Sunday with the guy that I
caught. I had done his search after all the games were over. So
the strikeout you get to go again. You get to go again. I
don't get to go, get you get to go. I just want to
do these two together because okay, it's an interesting comparison, and then I'll
shoot it over to you. So, just filtering about the day's strikeout numbers,
I noticed Jonah Thong struck out eleven. Song was a guy during our
b side process mat that I had tagged as just hey, try to get
eyes on him. I think there were three full season innings broadcast last year
for him, so I turned this one on. He didn't start the game,
but he came in before the first was even over. Somebody was doing
making like a rehab started getting some rehab innings or pitches in next cranic or
something like that. But he ended up going four and a third. He
gave up two hits, he walked to and struck out eleven. I believe
he struck out nine of the last ten hitters he faced, or eight of
the last nine, something like that. I actually made some plays and picked
up tongue in a few spots because I think I was a little bit more
interested in him than than class. And even he is a Canadian kid.
This was probably his first full pro season pitching, you know, full season.
Man, his his bill, he's got interested talk about some tree trunks.
Man. He has got a super strong, solid bass, and you
know, I kind of like that when a pitcher has that, or any
baseball player has that, and some strength in the lower half, good balance.
Talking about butts again, I know, right, and he's got a
very over the top delivery, but stays, you know, stays calm through
it. Now, early on I would say, you know, he was
working through something, trying to find the field, trying to find release point
a little bit. But man, once he did, he really took off.
And you could tell before you even looked at any of the stat casts
or any of that stuff, that he was spinning his four seamer that Cass
has his four steamer averaging ninety two point two. But watching the game,
there were some cutters that were getting labeled which were slower. His cutter was
coming in at eighty six miles per hour, and there were some cutters that
were getting labeled four seamer, So that average velo is a little bit lower
than I think it really was on the fur seamer. But you could see
that thing Man just taking off up in the zone. This was a Saint
Lucy broadcast, so it's not straight on. You get a little it's off
to the side a little, so you don't get to see you know,
in some ways it's nice to see you see a different profile on a fastball,
but in other ways, you know, location and stuff is that ideal.
And he could also very much spin what was it, a seventy five
mile per hour twelve six curveball. He threw that nineteen teen percent of the
time the cutter, like I mentioned, which is probably I don't know what
I want to see that pitch some more. I don't know. I don't
know how much you know, if it's a slutter more of a true cutter,
what have you. And then he did toss in a couple of change
ups. Now the changeup is interesting that because my man's throwing like a true
like vulcan change up. That thing is is sat deep in. I saw
that, Yeah, yeah, in between his ring and middle finger, and
he definitely just threw a couple of those just right into the dirt. But
that pitch, that grip is very interesting to me, always has been,
especially somebody over the top like that. The last guy who with a couple
of guys who use that as their changeup and yeah, a fairly effective grip
for them. Yeah. The last guy that that I remember watching a lot
of that used that and when he was going really good was Cody Morris.
Didn't get a couple of whiffs on those and did land a couple of the
eight that or the sixth that he threw and when he did that was disgusting.
Tom definitely got my attention. I'm excited to watch him some more and
see how this all looks. But a very interesting repertoire when we like talk
about different looks, maybe a little bit of a different arsenal here. I
can see him continuing to put up some numbers and get in withs at fifty
percent rates and stuff and outings and crazy CSW numbers with this Arsenal and the
Lowers. So those two guys really got my juices going and got me excited
this first weekend. Nice. Well, some names to follow and see what
we can see from some of them. Well, that's sort of a philosophical
question, is what are you looking for this early in the season. And
I know for me, maybe there's some component of confirmation bias for me that
I'm looking to see, like how was my evaluation over the offseason, and
a lot of things that go into that. But I think it ends up
being that I watch a lot of the guys that I've been thinking about or
watching their twenty twenty three film early in this year, and so I I
have almost no notes from guys that I hadn't already gotten eyes on last year.
You know, I wanted to start my the B side guys that I'm
most excited to see, and so I watched Joander Suarez on Friday night and
Suarez I text you after this, I was like, he's as good as
I remember. You know, we don't have stack cast for Bighamton. I
don't know if he's going to be there that long. I get the sense
that the Mets are going to graduate quite a few of their arms in Triple
A. Christian Scott and Mike Basil. I think both are going to be
in the bigs before too too long. I wonder if Suarez is one of
the ones that gets up to triple A, and I'd love that to see
some of the stat cast data underlying his his performance, which was again really
good. He went five innings and after having I think it was a walk
and a hit in the first inning, he settled down and went clean.
After that, ended up throwing five, struck out six. They had one
other additional walk, but he looked really good. The fastball was the same
as I remembered it, peppering the top part of the zone with a flat
approach angle. His slider was working really well. I also thought he employed
his change up well. He doesn't. He's not a big round ball pitcher.
I would say, but when he did have traffic, it looked like
he was trying to go to the change up at the bottom of the zone
to induce grounders then, and there wasn't a whole lot of traffic. Matt
he well, he started off, he walked, the guy walked, the
leadoff guy, gave up a soft single, and then he retired what like
thirteen in a row or something like that. Yeah, yep, yep.
And it looked it looked earned too, like it wasn't he was getting lucky
on the calls, you know, he did. There were two two that
I noted, both on kind of hung sliders. One of them might have
been his curveball. I get the feeling either his slider is a little inconsistent
in its shape or it he does manipulate it. I'm not sure which.
But one of them looked like a hung curve in sort of the middle of
the plate and flew out to the warning track on a pretty good swing to
a riety. And then another one was very similar later on the game,
I think in the fourth inning where he misplaced a slider it spun a little
bit, and that one got hit hard for an out, both of which
were sort of bad execution pitches, but he mostly executed really well. When
he was keeping his slider down and away, these guys were not touching it.
He got a bunch of swings and misses, and overall the outing was
like, Yeah, this is the guy that I remember another shutout for him,
Like he's I think he gave up maybe one run at double A in
his stretch to end the year there last year, so he's still just given
up like one, maybe two runs at double A and it's starting to build
into a not insignificant sample. So I was pumped to see this. I'm
still such a huge fan of his, excited to see what else we get
as he progresses along, because where he's going to face some good lineups there
in the Eastern League, a lot of potential in this arm. I'm I'm
still a big believer. It's going to be an exciting one to follow.
My biggest question with him, Matt and I think we discussed this some when
we first were doing the B sides, and I don't think how we remember,
but we've never really gotten a really good straight on angle of him.
Correct. No, most of the angles are pretty tilted off to the side,
and I think the Eastern League still has not great cameras. Like I
know Binghamton's is when he gets to Hartford. When he gets to Hartford,
that'll be the Yeah, yeah, it will be good. Ere he is
pretty straight as well, so it's pretty good. I mean, I think
that'll be good too, especially for evaluating the breaking ball, like is it
a slider, is it is it a gyrow that's more down or does he
sweep it as well? Right, because my biggest question with him is,
you know, and even just you can gather things from that a great angle
as well, but the particularly the spin, the breaking ball. Is he
execute doing that on a level that I feel good about as he moves up,
as he's a potential major leader, he has some walk history, and
he hasn't. He hasn't last year historically, hasn't been the guy that he's
been the last What doesen starts or whatever it's been for him. Is this
a guy who's just like succeeding in double A with that great execution of breaking
balls or not? I don't know, but that's what I'm most interesting.
That's the question. And I would say, you know, this first test,
it doesn't mean a lot it's just another little data point for us.
But it looked this sight, it looked like he was continuing from where he
left off at the end of last year, which is encouraging for a guy
that was someone of a pop up arm. So that that to me,
Like, as I messaged you, I was like, he's the same guy
as the end of the last year, and I think that's what we're looking
for. If he sustains that kind of performance, then this is a legit
like workhorse, you know, three pitch major league quality arm. And if
he can keep showing it, man and he's he's gonna rock it up these
lists, like we've talked about many times, Matt, to me, like
especially pitching, it's more of a mode thing to me than a mean thing.
Like how many times are you going to stack these kinds of good looking
outings? Right? I like game logs more than I do metrics. Mm
hmm. To put another way, and like you're saying, just this is
just another good outing, just reinforcing what we think he might be able to
do. So once you stack enough piles, enough pile of that, then
you know you make your choice, you in or you out. And getting
more in on you wander the more I watch them, So that's that's good,
that's what you want. Yeah, absolutely, you know a couple of
the other arms, just to mention on the B side. Obviously, the
arm on Saturday that I was most excited to watch was Fred Van Scooter.
He was the Saturday guy for Arkansas Marines's Double A affiliate, and he had
an okay outing, I would say, got bit a little bit by some
questionable defense behind him, as well as a couple of ground balls that found
holes line drives that dropped in. So he ended up giving up a few
hits in the outing and they turned into runs. I think only one of
which was really a well hit ball, I'd say. I think he gave
up a loud double left on left pulled down the right field line that brought
in either one or two runs. That kind of marred his outing, and
he did walk a guy, which is unusual for him. Again, this
is someone that I've seen a lot of, so not much is going to
change for me based on one outing. But he did get hit a little
more. He was still getting whiffs even though his fastball again reportedly was the
low nineties topping out and that's I think for our purposes, Okay, what
I want to see is cand his quote unquote stuff play at this level.
So Double A is a significant jump from the competition at High A. And
while he's moved to a better league as far as pitching goes like it's a
pit more pitching friendly league than the Northwest League is, it's still a fairly
substantial jump in quality of competition. So seeing how he navigates the lineups in
the or sorry, in the Texas League, is going to be pretty interesting.
Like there's some really good teams, some pretty stacked Double A lineups in
the Texas League. RBS has his work cut out for him, but it's
it's those kinds of tests that I think are going to be interesting. And
we didn't learn a ton from this particular outing, I don't think, especially
when they start letting him get stretched out to go then whatever it was like
sixty some pitches, that'll be even more italient because as we've noted before,
he's someone that often gets stronger as his outings progress, as he's learned the
tendencies of the opposing lineup, and that kind of thing I think is increasingly
going to be in demand for major League clubs too. Yeah, I did
not watch any of RBS because I knew you would, so thanks for sharing.
But there were some fantastic quality outings this weekend. Salt Lake had a
couple Kenny Rosenberg Andrew Wantz. I can't say I know much about those older
Triple A arms. Broman had a couple Own Murphy and Drew Hackenberg. Both
had really good first outings. I watched quite a bit of the Murphy start,
and it was really impressive. His fastball looked like they couldn't handle it,
like it wasn't close, Like he was getting six inch wiffs on the
fastball, which doesn't often happen, and it really looked like he was pounding
the top of the zone. It was impressive execution, and that's the thing
that I was most excited to see from Murphy because the couple of looks that
I had gotten in spring training, I could see some of the stuff there,
but the execution was a little bit lacking. And this was night and
day different, Like he was pumping it right where he wanted to and letting
the stuff play. Yeah, I was kind of surprised that they let him
go eighty five pitches the first out in the year. He went six and
two thirds seventy two percent strikes. Bird went six and seventy pitches seventy three
percent strikes. That I think is by design. I don't know if you've
heard, but the Braves have had some challenges with their starting rotation. Boy
Spencer, Streider might be might be unfortunately done for the year. And I
have the sense that with Murphy, with Hackenberg, and it would have been
with Richie had he not gotten hurt too. But these are guys that they
want to challenge, like they challenged ajass and and even Strider the year before.
That they want to see if they can handle a full workload and if
they can contribute potentially to the major league rotation. So Murphy's a guy I've
looked at, even in like a little shallower leagues, to see if I
can acquire or trade for him, just because that seems to be a potential
need and the skills really do seem there. So that one was more encouraging,
I think after seeing him struggle a little bit in the like he struggled
in the Spring Breakouts game, and I watched a couple of his other outings
in spring. They were just Okay, So, yeah, Murphy looks great.
I did not want Hackenberg though. Did you check out his No?
But we have a long season. I'll definitely be checking out. I mean
I watched a little bit of him from last season. But yeah, Tyler
Wolsner with BILOXI had nephew. I can't say I know much about him,
but he keeps up, keeps putting lines up like this. I will know
about him. I'll watch him. But he went six, gave up two
hits, struck out eight no walks, seventy three percent strikes. Cam Schlider
with the Yankees, Hia Hudson Valley had an fo put up a really nice
line and then our hey, look at this. Matt, a Rockies pitching
prospect. Has the early season high water mark for strikeouts in an outing Sean
Sullivan thirteen k's and six innings for Cocaine and I think that was That was
Saturday. Now that wasn't broadcast, so I couldn't watch that. But Sullivan
in that funky left hand another not a flame thrower, but he's got a
good fastball that it's going to be really interesting to watch and see how he
progresses. That's a fascinating one. I mean, the Rockies do have some
really interesting arms, as we've noted before, and if they can turn Sullivan
into something as well, Like that's just a long list of pretty interesting arms
for the Rockies now unfortunate home ballpark when they make it to the major leagues.
But still, then I was Jonathan Diaz, who has spent some time
in the bigs with the Angels, who's now what the Mariners scooped him up
and have him in Tacoma. I was intrigued because his first two outings of
the year, Matt He's thrown eleven innings, hasn't given up a run,
a whip of point eighty two, struck out fifteen, hasn't walked anyone like.
So I was like, what is going on here? I got to
take a look. He's a softer toss and lefty guy, throws more sliders
than anything else. Someone in the discord was like, man, he's just
like a quadruple layer, you know, spot start if you need and I'm
like, yeah, that's that's that's true, probably true, But I want
to I want to see. So I dug around, I watched, and
man, I don't I don't think there's really anything different here going on.
I think it's I think it's just a good run. I was pulling up
that cast from last year, these two outings, it all looks very similar.
I don't think this is a case where the Mariners grab somebody and you
know, taught them something wicked or anything like that. I think it's just
a good run to start. Yeah, And I think that's that's a good
thing to highlight, right both that you got to investigate these things what is
different and one of the answers might be nothing is different. This is a
hot run, even even someone for whom their arsenal might be a little bit
different. Again, it might be different and better for some period of time.
But I'm still expecting quite a bit of regression from Jonathan Diaz. I'm
still expecting regression from Ronald Blanco, who again turned in another really solid start
following up is no hitter from last week, but it's still you got to
show me more than two starts to be to really move that needle, you
know what I mean. And I think it's important to highlight that even when
there is a little bit of a change, like be skeptical of that change
for a bit. Yeah, there's a couple of guys a couple starts that
I was definitely you know, we're on my priority watch list that I got
into. I mentioned last episode I wanted to watch yarri Ol Rodriguez, the
Blue Jays Cuban Signy who's like twenty six year old, was pitching professionally in
Cuba for a minute. But I'd never really watched so I checked him out.
And I don't know, Matt, have you watched him at all?
I haven't watched any of his games. I've seen a couple of the highlight
reels, but I have not watched him live. Yeah, I know.
So he's like a four scene splitter with a slider, tosses in a curveball.
The steel strikes from time to time. Fastballs seem to have a little
natural cut to it. I thought from my eyeballs, but the stat cast
data wasn't really agreeing with my with my eyeballs there, I don't think the
execution this outing was like, yeah, it was, it was good,
but like he mixes his pitches really well. You can tell that he's been
pitching professionally for a minute. If he knows what hitters are trying to do
against him. I'm curious to see how it goes. He's interesting. I
don't know if he's going to be a starter or a reliever. But like,
yeah, I don't know. I checked him out and okay, all
right, I don't know. I don't have any strong feelings either way about
him. I don't think I think we talked a little. Did we talk
about Joe Rack a little bit? I watched his album too, Yeah,
we talked about him. He was a guy that I really liked when I
was taking into the Rocky system, and I could remember if we talked about
this particular starter. Not last week. I don't think we did. Did
we No, I don't think we did. That slider is was gnarly,
you know, per usual folks can't square that pitch up. The fastball isn't
gonna wow. I don't think the damage that was done is always, in
my looks, seems to always be done off of the fastball. So I
don't know. I mean, I still don't know looks. Last year I
thought the fastball looked like it could play both because just you know, he's
a super tall guy, gangly, and looked like the slot was maybe a
little bit lower than you might expect from someone so tall. So I thought
that maybe the fastball had some other characteristics that made it potentially interesting, just
beyond the velocity, which was okay. No, I think it's about average
for a lefty. Yeah, he's pretty much a forcing slider fifty to fifty
to. He throws in a change up, I think from time to time,
but to right he's been you know, it was an interesting trade.
I still don't really get why. I mean, it wasn't interesting but in
a good way to me. But I don't get why they traded, you
know, an interesting arm for a guy who strikes out forty percent of the
time, Like they need more of those. But I imagine the rays we'll
find some sort of use for Joe rack here. I finally got around two.
Well, I think this was Christian Scott's first start, so I got
into this one. Scott is a guy who I this isn't like Victory Lapping.
But I was in on very early, picked him up like every where.
Obviously he's become a popular pitching prospect, is you know, knocking on
the big league door. But I'm kind of at the point now. I
was like, all right, do I want to sign up for the long
haul or not. Some of this was planted in my head, some of
it was my own questioning watching Scott last year. But a quality of his
breaking balls, how well he can spin it or not, is a big
question to me, So I was watching this start with that in mind.
I don't know if the rail Riders, I feel like they were had a
scouting report and had a plan against Scott at least early in the game,
because they really seemed to be spitting on all the fastballs the first inning and
only swinging and hunting breaking balls, which I thought was was interesting. You
don't see that all the time like early and I started. I think he
tried to change up like once he missed badly with it, and it was
mostly just like kind of fastball slider sweeper game. It seemed on points,
you know, as usual. The thing that drew me to Scott initially is
I was just trying to find efficient pitchers, efficient pitchers that were getting strikeouts.
I don't think there's much of a question that his his forcing fastball is
of high quality and he uses it well, so I think his spin.
I think his breaking ball is in a vacuum probably won't grade out all that
well, I don't think, but I wonder if the way that he kind
of adds in some tracks makes it all play up because he throws a I
think what they label a cutter and a sweeper, but he definitely manipulates,
which I think helps them big time. He got really aggressive with the fastball
with like the first two ridies. He struggled a bit to kind of like
kill some hitters early on with two strikes trying to use the breaking ball.
He did get chased on like one breaking ball that I saw early in the
starts. I felt like in the third inning kind of like his execution got
a little loose. He left a sweeper up and then Groshans ripped a double
on a middle middle fastball. I think there is a quality that's hard to
quantify. You know, when you get base runners on, you know,
how do you respond to that? And the Scott's always struck me as a
guy who kind of rises to that challenge a little bit and got out of
some stuff with some nice sequencing, good execute. Had a really nice three
pitch k slider, slider, sweeper versus Greg Allen, a lefty all three
of those pitches were just yeah, dying spotted really well. Your boy Caleb
Durban got him on like a fifth pitch line drive up the middle on a
well placed slider. Durbin's off to a hot start. Yeah, yeah,
I want to talk about Durbin when we talk about some hitters. But Durbin
I also think walked in his first play appearance against him. Yeah, yeah,
I think that's right. And the fourth inning he hung a slider.
Everson Pereira took him deep, had a real battle with Louise Torrens nine pitches
and finally got him the wiff on a hanging slider. Wasn't a good pitch.
Then Jeter Downs took him yard on a two to zero center cut slider,
then ended his day with like a ten pitch battle, finally getting the
k on a fastball. So again, the slider said, when we get
to the major leagues, it's gonna be I mean, I know this is
for his first start of the year. And don't get me wrong, like
I love Scott, this has been a big rate of return, Like this
has been excellent. But yeah, I don't know, man, there are
times when when I think you have to responsibly ask how good is his breaking
ball game gonna work in the big league? So I don't know. I
mean, these are all small samples, so it's tough to say, right,
sure, you're right, this is a small sample. This is one
outing, but it's reiterating last year questions. Yeah, I'm not sure.
I have those same questions. My memory of I didn't watch this start other
than a couple at bats here and there, But my memory of Scott was
that his sweeper actually was quite good like that. That was in my mind,
one of the things that sort of unlocked his year last year, and
that he got quite a few strikeouts on a sweeper. And even in this
game, he got five swings on that sweeper, three of a miss.
That's a sixty percent with rate picked up a called strike as well. And
you know his CSW across all his offerings thirty five percent for the fastball,
which is elite, and then above twenty five percent for the slider and the
change up, and then above thirty five percent thirty six percent for the sweeper.
So I mean, I think that what might happen is they mix in
more sweepers because he threw twice as many sliders the slider cutter, you know,
the slightly firmer pitch than he threw sweepers. But the sweeper might be
the more effective one that plays off of his fastball. So I wonder if
that mix might change a bit as things go. Yeah, he's gonna be
interesting for me, you know, like the game within the game sort of
thing. Whenever his debut comes or is getting close, Like I'm gonna,
I'm gonna have to make a decision. I think if I want to sign
up for the ride or cash in. I don't know what I'm gonna do
yet. Well i'll tell you I kinda I think made my bed. I'm
gonna I'm gonna stick it for the Ride. I had a pretty compelling offer
for Seth Lugo, who's you know, having a great start of the year
was great, and the rotation last year, and I kind of buy that
he's going to be a quality, kind of mid tier starter. And this
is in a thirty teamer daily head to head league, and I lost both
of the outings at which that Lugo would have pitched for my team if I'd
accepted this trade. That's still sitting in my inbox. To the conversation,
we had with your buddy Matt before. Like, this guy sent me a
trade offer. He still really wants Christian Scott and wants to send me logo
for him, and I've passed up to this point because like, while I
like Lugo, I would have won two additional matchups if I'd had Lugo on
my team, and I keep saying no because I really like Scott. I
think that Scott is going to be a very very good Dynasty arm for a
long time. So thus far I've held off, and I think that's telling
me. What my gut is saying is that I think that this guy is
for real. I mean, I'm going to sell him for cheap, I'll
tell you that. Yeah, so maybe that's just too cheap and I should
ask for I keep trying to get him to take one of my other long
list of pretty good prospects, but he really wants Christian Scott. Matt.
Did you see that Jackson job walked three guys in like three innings or something
like that. I didn't. I didn't watch the outing, but I saw
the line. I didn't watch it. Yeah, yeah, but I mean
that's that's insane. A talk about guy who didn't walk anybody, like literally
nobody later and starts, so maybe knocking off a little early season Russ there
for job, and then we talked a little bit about lighter. Now.
I didn't go back and watch the whole start like I wanted to, but
I did watch some bits and pieces, and he did make another I think
he's made his second outing already, right. I do think there's improvements in
the little looks that I saw from that start. As far as his execution,
I mean, I think he was just straight up bad when I've seen
him. But I'm still very much questioning like his strike throwing ability, his
ability to be crisp enough to start in the major leagues. I'm not gonna
like. I'm just looking at his strike percentages so far this year. They're
still not great. So I don't know that interesting. I don't know if
I'm all like, yeah, okay, he's figured it all out here,
like some folks might be hoping. I don't know, I need to watch
some more. Yeah. No, he's someone I want to get eyes on
too, just because it has been a tumultuous ride for him so far.
You know, Yeah, all right, Matt, your Mariners logan Evans.
Any thoughts from his debut this year. Yeah, he's going to be a
puzzle for me. I really want to like him, both because you like
him and because he's a Mariner's pitching prospect, and I think we need all
the help we can get since the owners are too cheap to pay for major
league starters. I get some of the hype around him, but I think
this outing was somewhat similar to what we saw in spring training too, tantalizing
quality mixed in with like shaky command and walks, and he's just he's going
to be I think a bit of an enigma for me. Like it's seems
as though the slider command really can go, Like he just will throw one
and it buries it and it's like not even close. But he's exciting.
I'm still I guess I'm still not sold. It's funny how this stuff can
work. Matt right, Like, watch like a dozen innings of them or
whatever it was, and you know, we picked him as a B sider.
It was like, hey, here's a guy, keep an eye on
him, whatever, maybe a guy who gets more popular. And then like
he has just really blown up. Right, someone you know mentioned to me
like well, Nate, you didn't see this coming. Like his stuff improved
quite a bit over the off season, and it's like, well, what
is that really? I don't really know what that means. I was just
saying, hey, keep an eye out. This guy might be good.
I don't know he impressed me, his stuff did impress me? Did his
stuff get better? Like? Yeah, reportedly? And I think eyeballs are
you know backing that up too? But like I'm not like Logan Evans,
you know, hype trained conductor here, Like I have a top questions and
I don't know how much I like him yet. And in parts like we
have talked about a lot in that like there are foundational skills right there are.
There's like a core of a guy's abilities that we might be more attracted
to than you know, other prospectors. Part of that for me is like,
cause everyone's stuff is liable to get better in my opinion, darn hear.
Everybody's stuff going to add some more bite on a slider, can add
a few ticks or whatever it is. And like all of those b side
guys arms that we have talked about, or at least what I talked about,
mine was have that sort of like parenthetical involved. Now, did I
see Logan Evans becoming a top one hundred prospect for some folks at the beginning
of April? Like no, of course, now why I had no reason
to think that, right, But that's why I like these guys to show
that they can execute stuff, because I think it's more likely that a tick
is added or breaking ball is rounded more into form, et cetera. And
I think that's what has happened here with Evans, and for probably smart good
reasons, A lot of people are all about it. I'm just like,
I want to see more. I didn't. I didn't draft him in our
draft, right like that, So what was it? Like a great call
mate, like a great call would have been drafting him in our B side
draft. So I don't know. I don't know about mister Evans. Here
we shall see. It was nice to see some B siders getting on the
bump. Matt. I have been waiting at then some Batista's return from injury.
He threw a nice four innings. I still really interested to see how
his breaking ball develops as he moves up. He's still only twenty one years
old. Ryan Jennings seems to have a nice outing. I did not watch
it. I know Chenway Lane Lynn had got some attention because I think he
like hit one hundred, and then I was really pumped to watch some Adam
Mayer. Finally he was a first year player, draft pick of mind,
just been waiting for his debut. And I don't know if did you watch
any of that. I watched some of the Twitter highlights. Somebody posted a
mashroom yeah, or maybe you did. Somebody, let's put some I watched
that. He went four, gave up five hits, two earned runs,
walked one, struck out five on sixty pitches, a strike percentage of sixty
eight percent, which is nice. I felt in the beginning he got hit
around a little bit, but I thought he kind of settled in nicely that
he can spin it the east west. The slider is the stuff is still
super interesting to me, but more so than the stuff in and of itself
being interested in me, it's his ability to use it is what got my
attention. In a little bit that I saw of him in college. There
wasn't a lot of him in college. The reports that like you know,
Jeff Ponts and others from Cape really intrigued me, and I'm just kind of
excited to see his season go and see how good he can get that slider
working. Matt, This is fun, rhet. Lauder made his pro debut,
right he did, and he looked really solid, you know, for
the a lot of folks talking about how his you know, shut down last
year because the injury. He wasn't as good in college as people had really
you know, talked about him as a one to one candidate at times going
into the draft year last year. But he looked really good. I thought
the two scene played, he threw strikes, got some nice swing and miss
on his slider two. It looked like a really nice east west, bottom
of the zone attack, and I was impressed, Like I liked the outing,
but I like the guy that he was opposite even better. My big
killa from Oakland, James Gonzalez, outdueled him handily. James Gonzalez, I
think ladder went four, gave up like three hits, two walks, and
five k's I think was his line, and James Gonzalez was like, what's
what's that? Like, I don't know what giving up walks is. He
only gave one hit and struck out six and James Gonzalez. You know,
he's big fella on the mound, lefty. He was throwing his fastball flat
at the top of the zone, getting cold strikes with a slower breaking ball,
looked like a curveball, but also could spin a little tighter breaking ball
too, and he was making it all work. Got a bunch of soft
ground balls. Nobody was hitting anything hard off of Gonzales, and I really
liked it. You know, he did that, he could have kept going.
Yeah, he looked great, and he's repeating high a. He's older
again. Both of these things I think are reasons why others might be out
on him. And you know, Oakland's not the greatest development organization these days.
But Gonzales three right, twenty three, Yeah, and I think he's
going to move pretty quickly up the ladder. I mentioned this when somebody was
asking for a deeper shout in a dynasty league, and he had a really
solid year last year. I just don't think there's a lot of pitching in
between Gonzales and the Oakland or sorry, the Athletics wherever the hell they play,
rotation of guys in the minor leagues ahead of him. You got Robert
Salinis. I'm not sure who else in the minor leagues I feel sure is
ahead of him on the depth chart. Am I missing somebody? Abaso?
Yeah, Louis Morales, I guess probably ahead of him too, but is
also with him in hi A. So I don't know, Like there's just
not There aren't that many guys that I would say definitely are ahead of him
outside of the guys that have gotten major league starts already, you know,
in ESTs and Boil and all of them. I mean to be fair,
you weren't like over the moon about mister Gonzalez here when when you picked him.
But a guy, a guy to watch, and you're damn sure whenever
a B side arm Outduel's a pretty boy arm like Red Louder, we're gonna
talk about it. Yeah, definitely, definitely, And you're right like this
is this is not some like you gotta you gotta roster this guy. But
it was a really solid start and indicative of some of the better performances that
I saw last year too. So he's got all attention up there pretty quickly.
Yeah, yep, for sure. So many more things that I saw
on the arm side, so many that I didn't see that I wanted to,
but we have a long season. Definitely going to be talking some more
pitching. Do you want to mention any other arms or should we move on
to some hitters? Now, let's get to the let's get to the good
stuff. Let's get to the hitters. Oh yeah, yeah, all right,
go for it, mister hitter. Well, I would be remiss if
I didn't shout out my boy Caleb Durban to start. There might be no
hitter outside of the Norfolk top half of their lineup who has been hotter to
start a season than Caleb Durban eight games in in Triple A, which is
his first time at Triple A. You know, he's a college guy,
so he's a little older now twenty four, but still young for the level
generally, and he's just I think this is through yesterday hitting four sixty eight,
five seventy nine, seven eight six slug good for a cool thirteen sixty
five ops and for a little guy with no power, not a top thousand
prospect and is on nobody's radar. That's a nice announcement of Triple A debut.
Seven watched seven on Stolen Bags, seven for seven on Bags and he's
going a lot like that's yeah, he's actually I was watching one of his
games. This is on Friday. Maybe he had another bag stolen, but
the guy struck out to end the inning behind him, so he didn't get
that, but it was like he swiped that one for sure. So the
speed it's continuing to play, he's doing what I said he does like he
just pulls the ball. And we talked about that swing he had in spring
training where he just they were talking nice things about him and then he just
slowed the hands down, which feels weird to say, but he did it
so that he could barrel the ball and pull it right down the line.
He's done that a couple of times. He hit a homer over the weekend
too, which was a high exit velocity homer. I think it was like
exactly one hundred miles an hour. But he hit a liner over the leftfield
fence and counts the same as if you hit it four hundred and fifty feet.
So got a triple on the year, four doubles already to go along
with his seven singles. Again, all of this is just to highlight like
he's having a hot start. This is not exactly who he is, he
does remain very difficult to strike out. I think he's got a five percent
strikeout rate and over twenty percent walk rate, again showcasing his preternatural feel for
the zone. And I think that those things matter in real life, maybe
more than in most fantasy contexts. But yeah, our buddy Caleb Durban,
little short man, he's off to a great start at a Triple A.
He is a big leader, I think, so you know who. I've
got these two side by side, just because I was pairing their early season
stats. But I have been a Brett Wisely cheese ball for a few years
now. I think he's got a chance. And of course, his first
major league taste last year, he's still prospect technically, so what he got
less than one hundred and thirty AB's, but it did not go real well.
He struck out thirty one percent of the time, didn't really do much
at the plate right But he is off to maybe an interesting start in TRIPLEA.
That strikeout rate, which in the minors and the uppers was like twenty
to twenty five percent spike to thirty one or whatever I said, is down
to five point nine percent right now, and that's Kale Durbin territory, and
his swinging strike strike rate, according to Fangrass, is even less than Caleb
Durbin. Now, this is a guy who he can run, he can
throw, he can play a lot of different positions. And I know it's
it's PCL, and it's a few games, it's eight games, but slash
in three eighty five, five point fifteen, seven thirty one. He's hit
a home run three three on basis on stolen bases. Maybe maybe a signal
that Wisely has cleaned up some things at the plate, or learned some lessons
or whatnot. But it has been an interesting watch for me early this year.
Another guy for me that nice to see him off to a pretty good
start Jimmy Herron. You know, we talked about him in Colorado, and
I think a few of those guys in Colorado are off to good starts.
But he's hitting three thirty three, four forty four, seven thirty three to
open the year. Again, small samples, but come out of the gates
pretty hot. Matt Krouhon also in Triple A. He's not playing every day,
which I find to be a bit of a bummer, But when he's
playing, he's smoking the ball. He was top of the stat cast Exit
Villa leader board the other day. Has been pretty solid in his limited playing
time so far, you know, walking fourteen percent of the time, striking
out fourteen percent of the time. I'm really rooting for him. And again
we might have mentioned this, but there's I think going to be an opening
in the Philadelphia outfield, and Krune might be a guy who gets a look
at it. Now. They'll probably give Pachet or somebody another look to start
as they're already on the forty and I don't think Krune is I don't think
Pache can hit any more than Rojas can hit. So maybe Matt krun gets
a look there. So in your deeper leagues where every appat matters, I
think Kroun might be a guy who earned some and could perform pretty well.
Matt, did you see the little video I shared of Ajav's two home run
night? Yeah? I did. Yeah, that's a nice little, nice
swing you put on the Snelling breaking ball and pulled that and hit that weg
with what was that a one to two count? I think or two was
two strikes? Yeah, two strike yep, I'm sure Snelling wanted to probably
get that breaking ball a little deeper, but it wasn't. The poorly located
pitch. AJV was dropping the head on that like a like a lefty does
variety down and end, and then he had a well I think it wasn't
two count again, two strikes, I'm up and the way fastball. That
was kind of a little excuse me, home run to opposite opposite field,
Folks, he's in Amarillo, right, And folks will talk about, like,
you know, park factors, right, And we talked a lot about
park factors now that we're like watching some games and stuff like, yes,
that that opposite field home run is probably not a home run in a lot
of stadiums, right, But I think what gets missed sometimes or what I
have a hard time like equating and working out and lining up, is like
just sometimes I feel like the park factor stuff, that's an analysis of stats
and not an analysis of the player's performance, right, Like you, well,
that swing by AJAV good swing or a bad swinging right good swing on
the level of like quality of a swing, quality of a pitch. Stadiums
parks don't swing a bat, they don't make a pitch. The outcome is
on some kind of irrelevant, is it not, like you put a good
swing on the ball and you line out or that turns into a double because
just the guy was positioned differently, or the air was a little lighter,
or the winner or whatever, like in the vacuum of your swing quality,
it's the same, right, you can't control what all the other environment environmental
stuff is. You make a good pitch. You can make a good pitch
and it turns into a home run. You can make a good pitch and
it turns into a strikeout, right, Like, It's like, I don't
care if Ajv's that swing was a double or single or an out or home
run. It was a good sort of defensive O two swing. That was
like kind of an excuse me home run. And I love when you see
you guys surprise themselves by hitting a home run, which I think he totally
did. I love that stuff. But you know, in that is sometimes
you get you know, unlikely outcomes because of other work and things that you've
put in. Like AJV has very much worked on hitting opposite field through his
pro career. I've watched a lot of them. I don't know, So
sometimes I just have a hard time when I when I see certain things dismissed,
perhaps because someone plays in a small park, or you can make a
bad pitch in a bad pitching park, right, you can be a good
hitter in a good hitting park. Like it doesn't Yeah, I don't.
I don't think that as I get what you're saying. I don't think it
is a dismissal so much as its additional context. So like, yeah,
that was a hair's park and he hit a home run, additional context way
to a player's statistical performance, Right, I don't. I don't think it's
always a great tool to analyze a guy's skill. Yeah, But I think
that that's the thing is that a lot of the time we don't have the
perfect information to analyze a player's skill. One look at a swing or breaking
down a video that can help. It can help provide some analysis about a
player's skill or areas for improvement, but the ultimate thing that matters is performance,
and absent some of the underlying metrics that we get from the stat cast
systems, it's my opinion, really hard to make those kinds of judgments to
say a guy is good because he did a thing, and that sort of
performance base is all we really have for a lot of these guys. And
so someone hitting great at Ashville like, okay, yeah, they probably should
right like that. It's just it's a thing to note and to say,
like, yes, that particular swing was great, that particular outcome was great.
He's done a lot of that lately. But you might want to exercise
skepticism that it's going to keep happening if you're just seeing these kinds of performances
at particular ballparks, Like that's how I view that kind of information, not
like anything against their skill per se, It's just what's it going to tell
you about how it's going to translate to the next level When you watch a
lot there's just sometimes the more popular narrative of stuff, doesn't you know,
I agree with with your eyeballs and not saying I'm right or they're wrong or
anything like that, but you know, sometimes you watch a guy in a
hitter's park put four really good swings on a ball and get to doubles in
a triple and what have you, and then you know someone made the remark,
well, he's in a hitter's park because I do that was that was
deserved? Like yeah, there's nothing undeserved by that. You know, there's
all sorts of examples that you can you can make with that. But I
was just thinking about that when I was watching that AJV opposite field home run.
And I don't care that it was a home run or not, like
that was just a that was just good hitting. Anyone else jump out for
you this this weekend, especially for some of the younger guys that we haven't
gotten eyes on yet. It's a lot tougher with hitters. You see three
games or one weekend of hitting. You know, you only get to see
one swing like right RIGHTJ. You watch a picture, you get, you
know, potentially eighty times of him doing his thing right. So I don't
know if anything like super jumped out at me, but there was. It
was nice to see some guy, you know, get good eyes on.
The first guy that I really wanted to see was of course TJ. TJ.
Walton. He only got in on Saturday's game. He let off d
h In. He was ohero for four with four strikeouts. But Matt,
I will say, if you're gonna go oh for four with four strikeouts,
you might as well throw two walks in there to help your day out a
little bit, which you did. But man, my only takeaway from him
was this dude was not gonna sell himself short if he made contacts. I
mean, he was swinging the bat and missing by a large amount sometimes too,
So we'll see how that goes. I don't think that sort of approach
at the plate is really going to do it for you. But but uh,
you know, we shall see the juxtaposition of watching some Randia Rose Arena
that weekend. Like, he doesn't sell himself short either, so we'll see
definitely not as impressed of as witt A Wolt was. My lord, my
lord, I know you want to swing this weekend. Yeah, I don't
know what's the right phrase, man amongst boys, or he's just he's above
that level of competition, I think is safe to say. Well all of
that, I mean, that's why I thought he would start a high a
and I was going to get to see him down here in Hillsboro. But
the unfortunate thing is that they wanted to keep that Modesta crew together, and
that Modessa crew just keeps raking like what they average, like ten runs this
weekend. I was very much looking forward to getting eyes on Neo mar Ochoa.
I don't know if you watched any Favville, but he had a real
nice game. He had a real nice game Saturday night. I don't know.
I think he had a couple of knocks of stolen base, very intriguing
potential power speed. Need to see more, but you know, there might
be some some real juicy skills there. We'll see how that all plays out.
Of of course, I was watching some Aiden Miller when I was tuning
in. He still looks good to me. I'm excited about him. He
had a couple of hits on the series, nothing too loud, Sultavan'm excited
about he. He's looked a little bit, a little bit uncomfortable. I
think up there right now, we're gonna be watching a lot of clear water
this year. And then, did you see Matt my guy that you you
you kind of pooed on during our hitters draft, mister roseman verdugo uh went
yard. He looks Yeah, he looks a lot strong, stronger rounder,
not not rounder in a bad way, but much more fire hydrant esque than
last year. So we'll see how that goes there. Trevor Warner, not
off to the greatest start, had a little bit of a rough weekend series
I saw too, Matt. I don't know why this is, but and
maybe I've got the wrong Pedro Ramirez, but I see some chatter and some
pickups of Pedro Ramirez of the Cubs might be said that for them going on.
I don't know what the what the hype is there, what the news
is? Got some eyes on Charles McAdoo. Did you watch any f M
I did. I think I mentioned same old goofy swing that he has.
He's, yeah, you know, walking and and limiting K's on on the
weekend series and slapped a few singles around, so goofy swing, and I
was kind of hoping they might try and tweak it a bit, just because,
like you don't see many guys that swing like that have a lot of
success. So I still think he's a talent himself, and we'll see if
it gets exposed as he gets because he won't be in in the Florest State
League for too long, I don't think. So he's in Greensboro. He's
in Greensboro, that's right, he isn't that they did push high. I
forgot that yet he was getting on base and not an easy out. This
weekend. I saw my guy Alex I had Assernia had three doubles yesterday.
That was nice to see Maxwell Romero Junior hit a home run. I thought,
now this is I'm very sure it is just some noise. But Jeremy
Reave, a shortstop prospect the Cardinals, who's a real slick defender. Weak
that, but they keep throwing them up there. You know, they were
throwing them out there and spring training what have you. He was getting some
knacks this weekend. His first double A taste. I think it was his
first double A taste. See Brooks Baldwin hit a home run he actually got.
Yeah, he's he's actually been quite good to start the year, and
he had a really solid spring training too. He was actually any better performers
for the White Sox. And originally, like last week, we had mentioned
that he would look like he was going to be in High A. But
he's in Double A in Birmingham. Double up there. He's a he's an
interesting utility guy, and shoot, freaking White Sox are going to need every
live body they can get with Robert and Eloy both on the shelf for what
seems like going to be extended period of time. You know, Nata seemed
like Natcho in his first double a weekend. I don't know if you watched
any Mississippi. I did watch a little bit. I caught a couple of
his abs, but I didn't think I saw him do anything spectacular. So
if you if you're batting four seventeen and fourteen played appearances, how many hits
is that? What was it? His average is four to seventeen. Well,
I guess I don't have that bats I got played appearances, but fourteen
played appearances, he's hitting four seventeen probably five hits. Yeah, Augustine Ramirez,
he's got He had three home runs over the weekend. And you know,
during the spring breakout, I kind of mentioned I wasn't quite sure if
I loved the swing very much, that there was something weird there. But
yeah, man, if you're going to hit home runs like this, and
we know that his batted ball shape is very conducive to hitting home runs like
off to a pretty good double a start. Yeah, and that's something that
he's been working on. As Ramirez He's in an interview after one of the
games this weekend. He said that his focus for the last year has been
onlifting the ball more and it seems like that has paid off both. You
know, the batter ball at the end of last year was really good.
I mentioned one of the reasons I really liked him was that he hit fly
balls and had good exit blows, and that seems to be carrying over this
year. He's off to a great start. A lot of catching prospects for
the Yankees. It's gonna be interesting to see how that shakes out. Yeah,
so, yeah, those were some guys that kind of caught my eye,
and I looked in on a couple of the other ones that are off
to fairly hot starts but are a little red flaggy about, Like Alex Ramirez
is off to a really good start, but he's still striking out over thirty
percent of the time at double A. You know, still young for the
level, and it might have just been he had a hot weekend, but
still the strikeouts are concerning to me. People were excited about Kim Collier.
He left the yard and is still very young. He's at high A for
Cincinnati, but he didn't take a walk over thirteen plate appearances this weekend and
struck out thirty zero point eight percent of the time. That's again like,
yeah, hot start, but there's gonna be a lot of pressure on his
bat I think as not a plus defender and not a lot of speed there.
So he's one that I'm a little bit I've been skeptical about for a
bit. Roderick Aris, Like he hit a big home run this weekend,
but he's also struck out in more than half of his plate appearances. And
that's what I'm watching closely, because he's at a fairly like he'd had shown
some strikeouts in the past and then put together a pretty good run, like
like in the DSL he was pretty bad for such a big signing and then
had a really good run on the complex, And so I'm gonna be watching
him closely in a ball But yeah, the strikeouts already looking like it might
be a concern, so just wanted to keep an eye on. I mean,
it's those sorts of things for me that like, yes, it's exciting
to see guys hit home runs like zee here Hope that was super cool.
Hit a bunch of homers and they looked like actually impressive power, good swing,
But if it comes with a bunch of strikeouts, like I'm a little
more concerned. So I'm less likely to get hyped about home runner two this
early and more likely to be watching the walk and strikeout numbers while we wait
for the you know, the batted ball data to chill out and fluctuate less
man. I got a list of some prospects that the roster percentage seems to
be trending up. Well, do Telltead. At the top of the list
the fan tracks list here. He obviously is hitting what he's hit twenty seven
home runs already this year or whatever? Think? Oh, I think so
yeah, Logan Evans next to We've talked about Brett Wick Krowsky, the Brewers
pitching prospect who we talked about, touched on during the breakout game, George
Klassen who we talked about, Kyle Stowers. I don't know he still is
he still a prospect technically, I don't know, but he's He's not be
based on like days on the roster because they carried him for a while last
year. I thought, funny how this works. Matt Zayer, Hope is
getting more popular, getting picked up. Part of the what was Hope and
Ferris went to the Dodgers for who again? Bush? Oh yeah, Bush
that to me not surprising that, Like, I don't know, Hope's good
too, Like maybe that is really what they were after over Farris. Yeah,
yep. Christian Scott's up two percent, Nelson Rodo's up two percent.
A young guy in double a run with the Angels right, probably getting some
attention. My Tiger's sat arm jaden Ham is up two percent. You'll Free
Rodriguez up a percent, and that's probably something to do with like the youngest
DSL to full season guy out there, La Braffedo doing something triple A.
He's up a percent. Adam Maser's up a percent. I don't know.
I didn't watch much of Maser's start, but man, it seems like he's
just grooving strikes down the middle again. Well, I mean, he gave
up that home run when we were talking about it, but the rest of
the start he looked solid, like he's a good picture. I think,
like, yeah, I just think he could be better. I know,
I agree with that, like that he's he lives too much in the middle
of his own but he's so consistent there and his stuff is good that I
don't know, it seems like they don't want to tweak him too much,
but I always come away from his starts like being like, oh man,
if he just tweaked one little thing and would like shadow zone a few more
balls rather than go for like seventy five percent strikes, he might be better.
We shall see there. Jordan Beck, he's got three home runs still
I think striking out and swinging and missing more more than you want to see.
But you know I'm still doing damage. Carson Wizzen, Hunt Up,
Jess Way Bersanio, Justin Rubleski, and Barrett Kent. So that to some
guys that are getting getting picked up in some leagues, anything you're looking forward
to watching this week? Man. To be honest, I haven't looked at
the upcoming schedule very much. I think there's probably a few more arms that
are yet to debut, so there should be some interesting ones coming up in
the first half of this week, and then a lot of the guys that
have already debuted, but I want to see more of. Quinn Matthews is
one we haven't touched on yet, but he was one of my few arms
that I was looking at in this last FYPD, and it sounds like he's
got a velocity uptick, which paired with what was already a pretty deep arsenal,
could be pretty interesting. If you'll recall, he's the lefty from Stanford
that threw like one hundred and eighty pitches in their Super Regional game against Texas
to win and looked great doing it. Punched out like fourteen or something in
that outing. He's struck out a bunch in this outing. Today he walked
a lot, which wasn't really part of his game, So I wonder if
he's reaching back for more, whether he's losing a little bit of his control.
So I'm excited to watch him some more. He's one that stuck out
to me, and then I haven't. I didn't watch Jose Flurri's Double A
debut, the Astros right hander, who's my B side. He's someone that
I'm looking for. It was an okay start, it wasn't great, but
I'm excited to see him in the future at Double A and see how he
does. But I went through and I pegged just a couple pegs some series
from every league that might put my eyes on Florida State League. We got
Fort Myers at Clearwater. I want to check out the Clearwater broadcast, see
what that looks like, yeah, Jenkins versus down As being sort of the
headliner there. It looks like Jenkins is on the shelf. In the Carolina
League, Charleston at Fayetteville, I still want to watch some of those woodpeckers
more at Shoa. And then you know, Charleston's got some names that I'm
not necessarily like. I don't think I'm fond of, but let's let's see
in like Adrian Santana, Trey Morgan, you know, Carlos Colemanirez is there
Elson or at Modesto in the cal League. Check out some more Vidugo and
some head versus your nuts and that's the best angle in the in the league.
Probably I want to I want to watch Isaiah Low in the Sale League
Ashville at Brooklyn, probably get a Brandon Sprout to debut. Actually, I
think he is scheduled to go tomorrow or today. Yeah, I think that's
right. Listening to this good interesting Ashville lineup, Dnson Bautista, your guy
Dombrowski will be going at some point this week. In the Midwest League,
I want a two fun teams, two fun lineups going at it. Dayton
and Cedar Rapids Man Dayton. Dayton's lineup is fun. Probably get a C.
J. Culpepper debut, Gaby Gonzalez Keishall. Northwest League Hillsboro at Vancouver.
It's the only real broadcast of the week, so not a lot of
options there, but Hillsboro Hillsborough's lineup is fun. Get another Ryan Jennings.
Look, Vancouver has some other interesting arms. There's kind of just curious arms
up and down the Blue Jays system. I think in the Eastern League.
Booie at Hartford, so we know Hartford's got a good angle to watch pitching.
Get some eyes on your guy Bright fam some fun bats at Hartford.
Southern League Biloxi at Mississippi. Get some Natcho versus Missowski action. That could
be fun. Let's see what this Wolfsner cat does after his FQO. Maybe
I'll look in there. Texas League Arkansas at Tulsa, matt we got RVs
versus Doafiera. Dude, you'll be fun. Yeah. You know, Gothier's
not off to the greatest start in his first weekend, but we had mentioned
a little bit of surprise that he was back in double A given he had
such a good year last year. So I wonder if he's going to be
in Double A long for the Dodgers. But Gofier versus RBS two of my
faves, yep, and there'll be a good challenge some bats there for RBS
and Evans to go up against rushing Cartaya Ramos. International League's just probably gonna
to be Caleb Durban right now. But Scranton's at Norfolk, so that'll be
a fun series. You get plenty of offense from Norfolk and see what Durbin
does against those guys. And then I don't know, pcl admittedly not super
interesting to me right now, but Il Passo at Sacramento, continue to keep
an eye on Wisely Matos is there, Luciano Ishmael Magua, your boy Brooks
Schmidt. It's a fun lineup for Sacramento. They got some pictures in black
and Wizz and the Hunt and then you know we got Terso on the other
side. But I mean, Ol Passo team isn't like super excited. Randy
Vasquez is there, but know those were just kind of kind of the matchups
that I highlighted for this upcoming week. Nice you you putting those matchups to
highlight out on the Twister yes, should I put these ones out too?
Not? Probably? I mean, yeah, pretty good it saying who are
these interesting cats to watch? So hella, sometimes I need to like who's
playing which these teams is actually interesting? So we'll throw that up on Twitter.
I'll throw it out there at at pitching specs on Twitter if you if
you want to check it out. But yeah, I don't know, man,
got anything else. I'm just this is just excited. I'm excited too,
and and so is everybody else. And I think that's leading to like
a lot of hot takes. And and this guy's great, this guy's not.
I mean even in dynasty leagues. It's just wild to me, the
value fluctuations, like setting aside the injury epidemics, especially amongst pictures, but
people are like Lindor's awful because he's you know, one for forty to start
the year or whatever it is, Like, he's not awful, He's gonna
be fine, you know, these guys just like he should I trade my
superstar for this package of potentially interesting prospects, Like no, unless you're doing
it to me, in which case, great, please do so. All
all the folks in the show and WGM, let's go you can. You
can trade me your slumping superstars for my interesting prospects, rook on the big
boys side. On the major league side, how about Bradford doing his thing
again going into the eighth inning? Dude, what about I'm seeing him getting
picked up in like shallow twelve team mix leagues, like yeah, love it,
you keep it going, Feldner going six k in course, and in
Rocky's fashion, they don't get him to w Yeah. Yeah, I had
a couple of major league beside arms that are doing all right. Man,
I can't complain about that. And we'll see, we'll see. You think
you think Bradford? I mean, if he keeps pitching this well, it's
gonna be hard to boot him out of that rotation, don't you think.
But I mean that's a big if. I think. Also it I mean
it's an if he's not he's not quite this good, I don't think it's
gonna regress a bit. But also, they're gonna need a crapload of innings,
Like I just don't see when it when who's the next guy back?
Molly? And like that may maybe I just I think they're gonna need the
innings. And it's funny Rosster resource List Cody Bradford SP two for the your
Texas range. I think that's just where it's turning the rotation is. But
yeah, yeah, it's kind of fun to see right on. Well,
that'll do it, I think. For episode twenty eight of the Prospect B
Sides podcast, a couple of guys watching some minor league baseball, sharing some
thoughts, trying to shed some light on some guys that you might be worth
paying attention to in your shallow or deep deep oor shallow dynasty leagues. And
we're gonna have a lot of fun this year, Matt, thanks for joining
me in the mud. Yeah, we're kinda finally getting to the good stuff.
I feel like, absolutely, man, we'll let Chicago farmer take us
out be well, and we'll touch you next week. By riding to his
head, you have them down first with the lom bonus face, and on
the very next pitch he up and stole second phase with greatst bean. He
wasn't born. He had the dirty Yes uniform.