Not five miles an hour riding to his head. You have it down first
with the lump bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and
stole second face with greatest be He wasn't born, he had yes uniform.
All right. Welcome to episode twenty one of the Prospect. Besides podcast,
I am Nate Handy joining me is the rook a room? How are you,
my friend? I am great, Nate. How are you good?
It's good to talk to you, man. I feel like it hasn't been
that long, but it feels like it's been a minute since I've, you
know, chatted with you. I was thinking the same thing, and maybe
it was partly because we got to talk less since we had Chris on last
week and we took a couple of extra days this week. But I was
when I was sitting down to log in, I was like, oh,
man, it's been a while. I was like, it's just last week.
We talked about some good stuff. But yeah, I have to ask
at the outset, is my mic better? Today? I realized like my
computer picked up the wrong mic and I sounded like shit the whole time.
And you can hear my loud family in the other room it was bad.
I didn't I didn't get any complaints, so a few few at least the
content was okay, even if even if my end sounded shitty. We're getting
like called up a little bit here, Matt. We're getting all to the
show. We're gonna do some mutting, some B siding MLB style. Wow.
Yeah, see how this goes sort of the idea a few years ago.
It was a little bit of an experiment put together a top one hundred
list, an alternative to a top one hundred prospect list. Now, what
I learned is that hundred of these types of players that we're going to talk
about is far too too many. But the idea is was in dynasty leagues
trying to value evaluate sort of I don't know, you might call them post
hype or sort of unexpected players getting MLB chances something like that. Right,
the demographic is sort of post prospect to like, for a hitter less than
seven hundred MLB played appearances for a picture. I don't know what I said
at that three hundred, four hundred innings or something like that, because I
think often, especially if you're like a rebuilding dynasty squad, I think there
can be a lot of value with these types of players. We'll talk about
some things and try to give some perspective on that and some examples some young
MLB bats that I think might still be on the up and up and have
some major league opportunity in front of them. Does that make sense, Matt?
Does that sound good to you? Does it sounds like an interesting challenge?
I know when we talked about this initially, I wasn't quite sure just
how deep to go. So I do have a couple of kind of they
sort of fit this bill, I'll say, but guys that I'm excited about
and think should be maybe closer to top of mind as people are going into
their redrafts, especially in deeper formats, or even a target in a deeper
league as a throw in that we think might have some extra skills that are
going underappreciated. And then and then of course I got my mutters on.
I went I went deep. Some of these guys that you hear their names
and they give you that visceral shudder because they burned you three years ago and
they're still kicking around and you're like, I couldn't possibly roster them again.
Well, I found a couple of those guys that maybe maybe you should just
reconsider. So it's a it's an interesting different take on our b siding exercise.
My guy Aaron over in IL, I saw him a couple of days
ago, and then I brought up a really good point. It's like the
day of the sleeper. I don't want to say that it's like over,
but it's it's different now, like I think, and he had said,
it's more about like avoiding in redraft leagues, avoiding the early round. Now
it's more about avoiding the early round pick that doesn't return its value as opposed
to finding that quote sleeper. You know, yeah, dynasty players, fantasy
players. I think, like we said, we're getting smarter and there's more
coverage. And felt like for many years in redraft especially there'd be a ti
Oscar Hernandez I'd come across. I don't know, Dominic Smith was a big
sort of fine for me for one year someone like that. But those guys
aren't getting I think tougher to find year to year. More people are valuing
them. But nevertheless, dynasty redraft, I got some young major league players
I want to talk about here. I wanted to just touch briefly, matt
On Jose Miranda. He's much more popular rostered in many more leagues than the
other bats that I'm going to talk about. I looked at NFBC ADP for
all these players. Man. I don't know if you pick up on this
or notice this, but there is a big difference between ADP and ADP rank,
and I don't think that gets communicated really well sometimes, like you know,
go get player X or whatever is ady. He's not going drafted in
NFBC leagues. He's his ADP is four to twenty or whatever or what does
it go up to four fifties? ADP is like four to seventy five,
And okay, yeah, that's true, that's his average draft position, but
he's ranked like three hundred and twenty five as far as a he is getting
drafted, like you can't necessarily just wait for the last round to pick him
up. I much prefer to look at ADP rank than actual ADP. That's
a good point. I haven't thought about it like that, but you make
a compelling argument. And so all these bats that I'm gonna talk about are
ADP ranked outside of four point fifty, which I think in NFBC. They're
like standard fifteen team Roto is outside of draft range or something like that.
But Jose Miranda, he is outside of that. He's not getting drafted very
highly and interested in your opinion on him. He's rostered in thirty eight percent
of fan tracks leagues. Take that for what it's worth. We got to
figure out. I don't have no idea how many of that, how much
of that is redraft to dynasty with some perspective at the same rate as Chase
excuse me, Chase Dolander, Roderick, Arius, Justin Crawford, Jacob Marci,
Diego, Kartaiya Dalton, Russian, Nick York. And he's rostered less
than to Kale Roby, your boy, JDP, Christian Scott, Chase,
Petty Brock, Wilkin, Tommy Troy Brock, Porter, Kyle Hurton, Keaton
Win. That's kind of interesting to me. I don't know about you,
Matt, but dynasty wise, I'd much rather have a share of Miranda than
some of those guys at this juncture. Why why is that? You?
You know, certainly some of those names are fades for me, but a
lot of them are pretty interesting on the dynasty side, and one consideration that
I think we'll touch on a few times in this conversation is once a prospect
or a player exhausts their prospect eligibility, it can be tougher to justify rostering
them for a significant period of time. And our boy Miranda here is of
course well over that with six hundred and thirty five played appearances already in the
Major League. So why does Miranda still hold some value for you and interest
even though he's maybe falling in the graces of the wider community, just kind
of comparing some other young mlbers that might be kind of in the same boat
as Miranda as far as just maybe not producing the way that you wanted to.
I do feel like dynasty owners, Miranda owners are sticking with it more
so than that. And you're right, and you bring up a great point,
very format dependent, right, You're in a you know, RAS thirty.
I can't keep a bunch of bench mlbers that aren't going to produce for
me right off the bat. Other leagues I can, right, other leagues
that I can, so, of course, yeah, and that obviously plays
into the raster percentages. But Miranda, overall, I just still think there's
a combo of hit and power, and I'm that sold can't work really well
in the bigs. Digging around on him some I couldn't find anything obvious pointing
towards him getting like pitched differently, or struggling with specific pitches or locations or
things like trying to answer the question like it did MLB pitching figure him out
sort of thing. Yeah, I was on Savot looking at all the zone
stuff, and not that I'm some great scholar at all that, but to
me, I couldn't find anything pointing to anything like that. I think last
year he just he didn't smash good pitches like he historically has. I think
it just seemed like, and I watched a good bit of Miranda, just
seemed like he wasn't squaring the ball up as well, not hitting it as
hard as he has in the past. I'm on the like he wasn't physically
well in twenty twenty three train or perhaps he was struggling a little bit and
then the physical stuff just really impeded him later on. I know the Twins
might have kind of a crowded infield. Got a little bit less crowded with
your voice now, Yeah, but early August of twenty twenty one. Now,
Miranda wasn't like an official B side selection, but he very much was
a B side type in twenty twenty one, and I had gotten a bit
vocal about him and watched three hundred of his plate appearances and shared some video
and kept notes and all the bats and all that stuff, right, blah
blah blah. But I thought this was kind of fun, Matt, if
you don't mind appeasing me. But you know, after you write that piece
and all people are going to want to know, well, where do you
rank him? Right? So I offered this up. Tell me what you
think today. Two and a half years later. At that time, there
was a lot of talk about like Jordan Walker, right, how good is
Jordan Walker? He was just getting his pro career going. Would I rather
have a share of Miranda over Jordan Walker? I would take the risk of
missing out on super elite Fantasy upside, which is very rare for a four
category player to achieve. Anyways, and happened to the Miranda time machine.
If Walker got to where Miranda is right now, we'd feel pretty good about
that. So why not speed up the process? Is it close? Yes?
What I advise it probably not, would I do it? Probably would
I rather Miranda over Rushman, Spencer Toorklsin, Marco Luciano, Bobby Witt or
Jasin Dominguez. No way, I'm not that crazy. Would I rather him
over Justin Fascu, Pedro Leone, Tristan Cassis, Herbert Perez, Josh Young,
Jordan Grossens, Nick Gonzales, Josh Lowe, Helio Ramis, Ramos,
Nick Prato, Michael Bush, Hunter, Bishop yep Am. I nervous about
saying so with a few of these guys yet, but only a few.
Would I rather him over John Kenzie, Noel Or Elvis Martinez, Gabriel Moreno,
without a doubt over Riley Green. No, but I would admire anyone
with the intestinal fortitude to do so over Tyler Saderstrom, Zach Vien, Robert
Hassel, Francisco Alvarez. I said, come on, how people can compare
these things? Could mind you? These were guys just coming out of high
school or teenagers at the time. It's beyond my brain. But I'll say
a few of them. I was really nervous when I wrote that, Matt,
because this was the first time that I ever like we talked about a
few episodes was kind of thing thinking that this guy way outside of the top
one hundred was a better gamble than a lot of top one hundreds written now,
I think some of those I'd much rather have Miranda over some of them
I might have missed a little bit, like Gabriel Moreno or Tristan Cassas.
But I wanted to say I wanted to bring that up because it falls in
line a little bit with their conversation from a few weeks ago. And I
think it gives some perspective too, with some of these players that were going
to talk about how do you evaluate how do you value a guy who's in
the bigs getting an opportunity versus the top one hundred prospect, Like a lot
of those names aren't really doing much for us two and a half years later
and have fallen way out of favor. Right, Maybe a lot of those
names are though I would say either currently performing or the now fantasy studs.
Right. You know, this is in the same context of Bobby Witt Junior
and even Jordan Walker, who started the comparison with Jordan Roker just had his
rookie year and it was better than Miranda's best season. He's backed up.
I think some of that performance too. So I would say, like a
lot of the guys that you listed, even in that second section of ones
that you would definitely take him over, or or that you wouldn't recommend it,
but you probably personally would would try to make that bet. That's a
set of players that I think was pretty solid, Like there's quite quite a
lot of guys that still have a lot of dynasty value in there. Right
Well, the guy the guys that I said that I would take him over
were Fascu, Pedro, Leon, Tristan Cassas. That's a mess. I
don't like that one. Hebberd Perez. So you know, Fascu Leone Perez.
I'm fine with Miranda over him right now. Josh On Nah, not
a good call. Jordan Gross gross hands, Yeah, I'm not interested.
Nick Gonzalez, not interested. Josh Low, We'll see Helio Ramos, No
thanks, Nick Prato, no thanks, Michael Bush, we'll see Hunter Bishop
No, John Kenzie Noel Yeah, yeah, Brelds Martinez na Mareno. That
was a bad call my part. But so it's like maybe half of that
list who were to your point, those were hot names in twenty twenty one
is a top one hundred, top fifty guys, right right, which one
speaks to I think we should have a little bit of humility even when we
talk about the top guys, like we aren't sure who's gonna like be an
actual performer for fantasy teams. Again, separating that from your true on field
talent where defense matters and all of that stuff. That's still a pretty good
hit rate of like about half of those guys. I think you could say
Miranda has already returned more value than some of those are ever likely to.
And I think you know, the part that I'm interested in is like what
is it that you still see? Because I also have some opinions about Miranda,
But I'm curious what it is you still see in kind of backing your
your horse still a couple of years down the line. I just I've watched
a lot of Miranda, So this isn't like I don't have like number weighing
stuff. Well, he doesn't strike out a lot, he makes a lot
of contact. He makes a lot of good contact. I mean, I'm
just talking about his career. I'm not talking about twenty twenty three per se.
He's got power into all fields, just a very quality bet. I
think there's a combination of hit and contact and power that you don't see every
day. If you look at his rookie year, Like I was pretty happy
with his rookie year. He didn't start off blazing, but had he had
a really hot six weeks from like August or like halfway through July to end
of August or something of that. Then he tailed off a little bit.
You look at his rookie year numbers. I don't think there's any any problems
with that. I think a fairly popular, you know, sort of corner
infield gamble, bench bat and redraft after last year. But of course it
didn't go didn't go well in twenty twenty three. But like I was saying,
I think that's I'm calling it just kind of a waste year. I
think injury was a big part of that. Like I said, I tried
to dig around and find, you know, some things that pitchers may have
adjusted towards him, and I couldn't really come up with anything. All in
all, I think it was just he just didn't hit the ball as hard.
He didn't make his quality of contact. Even I did break down and
look at like you know, meatballs in the middle of the zone. He's
a fantastic first ball fastball hitter. If you're pitching against him, you don't
you don't want to miss on a fastball the first pitch, because he will
destroy it more times than that. And he wasn't last year. So I
don't know how to explain that. I can't explain that I'd be buying Miranda
if I could, if I didn't already have him everywhere. But of course
your format matters. But what do you what do you got in mat What
are your Miranda opinions? He's the kind of bat that I generally am drawn
to, both for some of the reasons that you said, Like he doesn't
strike out very often, hits the ball reasonably hard, and has the sort
of profile that I think sometimes can get under valued, sort of like Ty
France before he became a popular breakout pick or Mark Canna, you know,
without the without the smidge of speed, and not quite as good an OBP,
but similar in that a little bit undervalued for what he does, which
is make contact well, hit the ball pretty hard. And the other thing
that I like is that he's generally a pretty good his spray his launch angles
are good, like he does a pretty good job keeping the ball off the
ground, hitting line drives like he's an over twenty percent guy at every stop
I think that he's ever been at and he'll hit some fly balls, and
I like that both aesthetically. I think that kind of hitter is fun to
watch. It was certainly the kind of hitter that I aspired to be when
I played, And I like that. And I'm with you that a lot
of his performance last year was you can chalk it up to injury, a
rough year that compounded on itself. My concern is that his path to playing
time is going to be hard. Yeah, they just got rid of Polanco,
but he's not suiting up at second base. He's first base, third
base only probably. I think at third base they've got some guy named Royce
Lewis who decided that he's going to make good on his prospect pedigree last year,
and I'm not sure that there's going to be a ton of at bats
to go around here now. Also, I think the upside here is a
little bit limited. He hits the ball pretty hard, but it's not an
exit velocity monster who's just playing time away from popping thirty homers like his upside,
you know, really good year is probably going to be a twenty homer
bat and at the corners like that's tough to stomach. I think I take
the over well, I mean, health was standing. I think you can
pop more home runs than twenty. I don't know. I mean the only
time that he had that kind of pace was in twenty twenty one, and
looking kind of under the hood, his homer to flyball ratio was astronomical,
something like that. Only someone like Aaron Judge could actually sixteen or Shoheo Tani
who both hits the ball really freaking hard and hits the ball in the air.
That's not Miranda. Most of the time, his home run to flyball
ratio is below ten percent, So I think even ten percent is probably generous
for him. And so you just do some math and like, he's got
to hit a lot of fly balls, more than he ever has. What
was his fall his rookie year eleven percent? What was it the year before?
Thirty percent? Okay, that's a lot, so I mean, and
he also had some babeb fortune in his rookie year. Again, I think
he probably earned some of that certainly not to the extent that he had.
He was running like three sixty three seventy babbups in his twenty twenty one year
at double A and HI, so those are like pretty high and you obviously
should progress those. And he was only a little bit on the positive side
of the babet monster for his rookie year and then was obviously way on the
other side last year. But it also came with his highest ground ball rates
ever. So I think that actually points to what you were saying, that
maybe he is or was injured and that was impacting him and so something about
his swing change in twenty twenty three. So I expect a bounce back personally,
Like I'm with you on that. I just think the bounce back looks
like a one oh five ish WRC plus at maybe third, maybe some first
in limited playing time. And that's that's hard for me to be like really
excited about it. With the caveat that, if say Roy Lewis gets hurt,
do they play Miranda there? Do they decide brooks Lee is ready?
But I've also got Kyle Farmer who can play decent defense, and I don't
know what they decide to do as far as giving at bats, so he's
not like an injury away from four hundred plate appearances in the second latter two
thirds of the year. So that's the other part. That's like a lot
of these guys that we you know, shared some names, like they're fun
ones that if an injury happens in front of him, maybe something happens.
But this is one that's like, I'm not sure the upside on it,
you know. Yeah, that's frir, Like I understand his NFBC ADP,
Like that makes sense, you know. I got to my guy, Luke
plays a lot of that format, and I always ask him about the ends
of his drafts. He's told me, like his last pick, like take
someone who just might be, you know, someone who gets hot in camp
or might get some run right away, because you want somebody that you're gonna
drop in something like that for me, or if you are in a thirty
team or and like I think Miranda is a fantastic bench bat. But moving
on from him, let's let's get let's get into some maybe even more questionable
folks. What do you got? Man came about this a little bit differently
at least to start with, But I have a one, and I think
might be an interesting segue from talking about Miranda, because this is just,
I think one of the most fascinating players in all of baseball, and his
NFBC Average Draft Physician rank is just eight seven picks behind Miranda's. It's the
Big Masher Joey g mister Gallo newly of your Washington Nationals, and Joey Gallo
has been a fascinating case for me four years. The three true outcome poster
boy. The man strikes out, walks, or hits a home run in
basically every bat that he does. He has, I believe, on multiple
occasions, hit more home runs than he's hit singles in a year. One
two oh three years he has had more home runs than he's had singles,
and two other years he was off by two. So the man is just
a monster. His eggs and velos are through the roof. He has probably
the highest raw and game power that you can give in a game because he
sells out for fly balls and he just absolutely scalds the ball when he makes
contact. But one part of the three true outcomes is strikeouts, and our
boy Joey is the strikeout king. It also walks a lot he's got a
pretty good eye. His problems run from being able to make contact. It's
not like he's chasing a ton. Even in his bad years, he's still
walking thirteen percent of the time, just a hair under. And in his
good years he put up some crazy walk rates, like in the Juan Soto
level eighteen percent, seventeen and a half percent, sixteen point seven percent,
and even last year when even I couldn't really defend the season that he had
very well, he walked fourteen point five percent of the time. So there's
a compelling eye here and incredible power that he gets to, which like I'm
a big preacher of that, Like have you smoked the but you hit it
into the ground? I kind of don't care, Like, all right,
that's it doesn't do much for you unless you have something else to bring to
the table. But Gallo is sort of the platonic ideal of the new analytic
driven OBP and power is the way to go in the game. But he
clearly he shows why it's hard to make this work at the very very tail
end of the bad part of the strikeout spectrum, because ah Man, the
last four years have not been very good, starting in twenty twenty, he
ran an eighty four WRC plus. That's not that good for corner outfield or
he plays decent defense, but for our sake, like if you're hitting one
eighty one, that's not going to play in an NFBC format. His next
year, twenty twenty one, he had that half of a season that was
great for Texas, and then he got traded to the Yankees and was bad
for the rest of that the way. He then was with the Yankees again
for the first half of twenty twenty two and an eighty six WRC plush again
with a one sixty batting average, and then last year it was barely better
at a one seventy seven batting average. So batting average just sink terrible.
But I like picks like this late in a draft because it is bankable power.
You want sort of high variants late in a draft like this so that
ross we can make some moves. If your team had an injury to one
of your studs that you like, you're an Austin Riley gets hurt and he
was going to be your path to forty homers out of your corner slot or
your third base slot, and he's hurt for part of the year, you're
missing that production that you kind of banked and you've built your team around.
So having guys at the ends of the drafts that index towards a particular skill
is undervalued, I think in a lot of these ways. And Joey Gallo,
like at picks average draft pick ranks six ZHO four. That's a guy
that you know you're gonna be able to plug in at your util slot or
in favorable matchups and make up the at least some of the home runs that
you might have expected to deal with in losing an Austin Riley. Gallo definitely
not a prospect, not even a post type sleeper at this point. He's
years removed from the promise that he showed early on. He's probably not getting
the full playing time in Washington, but I think he's going to play kind
of a lot and that should lead to some gaudy home run in RBI totals,
just know that it's going to come with a batting average sink. So
Joey Gallo, I think is one that he's still a little bit I can't
personally quit him, Like I keep coming back to this as a guy that
I want on my bench in a deeper league, a guy that I might
play in a power focus league and just wear the striker. He's it.
I think he's a great if you're in a daily league, A great bench
guy, right, yep. He always playing today. It gets me a
home run. I mean that can go a long way, and that's a
lot like the next guy that I was going to talk about it think it
could be similar. But before we move on, have you ever had the
pleasure of owning Joey Gallo? I don't believe so, No, Yeah,
it is. It is a I have four years, like I just he's
always like a last pick in the draft, like I'm going to shore up
my homers because you know, runs, homers, and RBI are the highest
correlated of the Rodo categories. And so I like that and some balls or
something like that. I think it's the best balls I've taken them. Yeah,
which I think he's nice for that format. Yeah, for sure.
And a couple of the leagues that I plan really reward power. Even in
his crappy years, he's still an above replacement level guy. But I don't
know. I'm super curious to see how it goes in Washington. It's not
like Minnesota is a bad place for him. I don't think, like it's
not like the park is really dependent on him, But it's more about playing
time and can he rain in the strikeouts down to like thirty six percent instead
of forty one percent. I don't know, we'll see. I love him,
I wish nothing the best, And I just as a side note,
I really appreciated his honest answers and thoughtful self assessment of his time in New
York, Like he owned up that it sucked getting booed and he hated the
feeling of not being able to perform for the Yankees, and I just I
appreciate that about a guy that'll he'll admit the challenges and own up to him
and show some emotion about it. I've sort of rooted for an extra since
then. And also I think I've had him on a team for like six
years. So yeah, this guy, this next guy I want to talk
about. There's there's some similarity in that, Like Emmanuel Valdez is like a
he's like a home run specialist. But he was our twenty twenty two Going
into twenty twenty two, Astros B side selection obviously he's with the Red Sox
now also right in the same range, like in between Miranda and Gallo Is
and Memmo. ADP rank for mine is just this last month. I don't
know if you're looking at total, just this last month, he's ADP is
six eighty seven with a minpick of four thirty eight and a max pick of
seven forty one. And he's rostered in nineteen percent of fan tracks. Leagues
rostered less than Joel Incespides, DJ Hers, Jefferson, Rojas, Bedel Bruhan,
Gen Carlos, Laura Connor, Prilot, Eric Brown, Lonnie White,
and then future White Sox superstar Jacob Gonzales. By the way, did you
see how dirty the White Sox did Jacob Gonzalez? Oh yeah, dude,
what is what was that was so bad? Like I think he's for the
trolling. I don't know. Somebody must have gone rogue because they had to
have known how bad that looked. Yeah, that was brutal. It's almost
it's almost like they want to feed the hate. If you're listening, you
haven't seen it. The White Sox Twitter account posted like the future is coming
or like all this stuff, and then Jacob gonzeal and like his horrible stats
from from last year and and a video of him grounding out to second.
Yeah, like, yeah, that was the well, it was an RBI.
It was an RBI, Matt. But AnyWho, So and Manuel Valdez,
he debuted last year. He got in one hundred and forty nine played
appearances, so he just barely graduated prospect status. The role for this year
is up in the air, right but I would say he's probably the way
that it sits right now. I think at worst, he's probably their tenth
bat. Von Grissom, another B sider back in the day, is gonna
probably play second. I think Valdez could be a great DH. He'll probably
slot Yoshida in a DHA fair amount too, So that means Whiler a Bray
you the other astra that came over in that trade is gonna play it.
We'll see doll back maybe. I think they'll probably rotate that that slot.
But I do think Valdez gets a bunch of those at bats for sure.
Yeah, I think there's some PLAYD appearances coming for bell Does this year.
One hundred and forty nine played appearances. Last year, he had six home
runs and he's still five bases last year, Like coming up in the minors,
he was never a big base stealer. Five or six on a year
was was probably his max. He doesn't walk too much five point four percent.
He strike struck out twenty five percent of the time, which I think
that was pretty close to his minor league strikeout. Right. Yeah, he
was like twenty to twenty two percent in the uppers, which is fine,
especially if you're going to specialize in hitting home runs like our guy does here.
I mean he was he was above average MLB production one o two WRC
plus. Now that this is wild to me, and this is a great
example of how there could be lies and stats and metrics. What do you
think Bell does? His average exit velocity was last year? Last year?
I'm gonna say eighty seven eighty seven and a half, oh, which is
pretty yes, which is yeah, pretty good? Guess which is U twenty
eighth percentile? Right? Not great? Not great? What do you think
is max CD was one thirteen one oh seven point one ninth percentile? Now,
what do you think is flyball exivelocity? Was your tone makes me think
it's lower one o two flyball exivelocity was ninety one point eight, which is
ninety one, which is ninety one percentile. Then so he goes, yeah,
his average is twenty eighth percentile, his max is ninth percentile. But
when he hits it in the air, he hits it harder than ninety one
percent of hitters. It's interesting, right, I don't know if any other
hitters to do that. I tried to look for some, but I didn't
really see anything comparable to that. Interesting what the minor leagues. He came
to be the mL or the Astros B side because he led their leather organization
in home runs, and you know classic Astros farm system, they didn't have
any good prospects. Right. He hit twenty seven home runs between high and
Double A in twenty twenty one. He hits the ball really hard when he
hits it in the air, right, But of course, bit of the
bugaboo is that he hit the ball on the ground too much, But that
historically hasn't really been the case for him. In the uppers, it was
like thirty two to thirty five percent ground ball, right, which is great.
He could probably pull the ball a bit more, at least according to
his Triple A and Double a numbers, but end of the day, Emmanuel
Veldez, I think there's still a lot to like about him offensively, of
course, defensively having a home getting full run very much in question. But
this sort of tier of player, this demographic, this lack of popularity,
Like, I think there's still some meat on the bone here, I think,
And like I said, I think it's super interesting. Like daily player.
Imagine he'd be cheap in dfs or whatever, which I want to play
more of, but I just don't have don't have the time. I have
never never been able to get into dfs personally. I do like this pick.
I've been in this fan as well, might be because of you,
like originally highlighting him in the astrosystem. He I do think last year was
a bit of an anomaly on his batted ball profile in his first taste of
MLB, and he still was a league average bat. I think there's a
little more upside in there. It's not crazy to see him getting a fair
amount of playing time this year, whether he goes on a heater and they
plug him into DH more often, an injury in their outfield and maybe they
shuffle around some of those guys in Yoshida goes back to playing more left field.
I could see that happening. There's the thing I like about this one
is that I think there are a lot of paths to seeing three hundred,
four hundred, five hundred played appearances here, and especially if the Red Sox
really as they kind of seem to be the worst team in the AL East,
maybe things start to go south for them and they do want to see
what all their young guys have as they sell off the like Trevor Story or
somebody else, you know, like the previous adminished tration brought in. So
I like this one a lot. I think that this is a sneaky upside
play is pretty hard to find this late in a draft. Just some of
the batted ball stuff. There's a lot more to like than to dislike.
Solid contact percentage, He's ninety first percentile barrel percentage, she was sixty ninth
percentile. It's funny. I always kind of thought found him to be kind
of aggressive watching him coming up in the miners, and his swing percentage is
below twenty eight percentile below MLB average. Doesn't swing out of the zone too
much thirty one point two percent. I don't know there's nothing here that like
glares to me red flags that like other than the you know, hit the
ball on the ground too much, which, like we said, hasn't been
historically. So yeah, and still and again that's something that we've talked about
before, but that is a pretty sticky skill. So when you see one
season that is out of alignment of what he's done at every stop before that,
I mean, what was his grundball rate last year, like ten percent
higher than it had been at basically any stop before that, that's weird.
Like that doesn't happen, and very often so when it does, like you
might mentally adjust back and say, like I think maybe he's a thirty nine
percent thirty eight percent ground ball guy, and with the kind of power that
he does display, especially on fly balls, like you could dream on the
twenty five homers if he had full playing time. So I love this one.
This is a great pick. And like, I don't know if you
know much about this metric, Matt, but I'm trying to learn a little
bit more. But ideal plate appearance. What an ideal plate appearance is,
yeah, Matt, So an ideal plate appearance is barrels plus solid solid contact
plus flares and burners divided by total pas. I'd be lying of as I
totally wrap my head around that. But he was eightieth percentile in his small
well sample size, so at point being that that's from his major league sample.
Yeah, yeah, oh interesting, Okay, this is a guy who's
not a prospect anymore, was never a very popular prospect, but I think
MLB opportunity there for him and some fantasy appeal. I like it. Well,
it just so happens. I didn't even look at the ADP the NFBC
ADP sheet when I first was doing this exercise, but it just so happens
that this is another guy that is right in this same range, just a
few picks down from in my mal Valdez is my next guy that I wanted
to talk about. Twenty twenty one, I was just starting to get into
the deep dynasty leagues. I had played keeper leagues for years and redraft leagues
for years, but it was my first foray into a deep dynasty league,
and one of my main rivals that year in this startup league that we did
happened to draft a guy that at the time I had never heard of.
I don't think he was ever on any prospect lists of note, nobody was
really that intrigued. He played for a team that wasn't on the up and
up, especially at the time right after the coronavirus pandemic had wiped out a
bunch of the minor league seasons at twenty twenty and delayed in twenty one.
This guy just kind of came out of nowhere to me, appeared and then
was my nemesis. Like he just kept performing and kept pushing my dynasty team
for my main rival in my division. His name's a Kiel Badou. That
twenty twenty one season, his rookie year was really phenomenal. Hit two fifty
nine, three thirty four, thirty six good for a one ow eight WRC
plus that again came out of nowhere for Detroit, hit thirteen homers and had
eighteen steals. The reason that this particularly galled me was this is the kind
of production that I love. My favorite builds for roto leagues is to have
most of your guys be pretty good at everything, So like your twenty homer
ten steel bats, that's like my whole rosters usually because those balanced category productions
a provide you a good floor in all of the categories and you can see
whose performance over and under who's over and under performing, and then you can
plug in later in the season the sort of specialist bats like Joey Gallop like
I talked about before, and bad was doing that. He was doing providing
like second round value and if you pro rated it out to a full season
instead of his four hundred and sixty one played appearances that year. So I
was like, this guy's magic. I need him, I want him,
I gotta have him. So I drafted him in a like shallow keeper league
that I'd had the next year, thinking he was gonna be a late round
play that was gonna he wasn't probably gonna be quite as good as he was
before, and it all credited. He went from a one o eight WRC
plus all the way down to sixty four, two oh four, two eighty
nine, two sixty nine. The power dried up, he got caught a
lot more on the bases, and it was just not pretty top to bottom.
And then last year was a lot of the same. They still gave
him quite a bit of run and he was better, but he was still
significantly below average, to the tune of eleven homers. And fourteen steels still
some value, balanced categorical value, but not that magic flash in the pan
of his rookie year. And I'm here to tell you I'm not giving up.
I know the outfield situation in Detroit is a little bit crowded, and
I think he's not even projected to be on their opening day twenty five man
roster. He still has options, and he's in the minor leagues. Obviously
has blown past his prospect eligibility, but he's still just twenty five this coming
season. I still believe there's balanced category production in here when he plays,
and he's a good defender too, so I don't think they would hesitate to
bring him up to plug a hole for injury, whether that's Riley Green or
Parker Meadows. He can play center field still carry Carpenter Mark Can, I
think is their everyday left fielder right now. And Mark is a really versatile
player, so he can move around as well. So I see a world
where maybe the second half of the year comes and do gets called up to
play center field, because maybe Parker Meadows doesn't adjust the way that people are
sort of expecting and Badoo is crushing it in the minors after settling back down
into what I think is a really really talented player. So I love Badoo
at this draft cost for both the fact that, like he's a guy that
if there's an injury ahead of him, he might see all of the at
back. It's unlikely that Detroit's going to go out and like spend a bunch
of prospect capital to plug a hole in their outfield when they've got Badu sitting
there, who has performed before. Looking at his production, like the projection
systems are maybe a little bit down on the batting average, but the speed
is still there. There's still power there, And I don't think it's crazy
to buy Zips, who's the high man on the Badoo production this year,
and say that in two thirds playing time he could have eleven homers, fifteen
or sixteen steals and two forty three three twenty three, three ninety nine.
I'm triple slash, which for free basically the very last pick, even in
a really deep redraft. That's that's pretty nice. So I'm rooting for him
to recapture that flash in the pan. I think he still has the skills
there, the opportunity, even though it's a not great ballpark to hit in.
I think that bad could seize it. Doesn't he have just like awful
splits. I thought I saw that once or something. I think they aren't
great, but it's still I don't know, it's still probably too small a
sample to just like rite it up as as terrible. Yeah, that's I
think that he's okay at both. That's that that's my recollection. But again
I don't have that right in front of me. He was a Rule five
selection, right, yeah, from the Twins. Yeah, yeah, he
was pretty he was. He came out smoking. But you're still you're still
believe, you're still bullish. All right, I'm gonna go with my next
guy. Former another former B side selection twenty twenty one Giant selection, Casey
Schmidt. Nice Well, of course, debuted last year, got a decent
run, had two hundred and seventy seven plate appearances in started off pretty hot,
but it did not last. He hit two oh six with a two
point fifty five on base percentage and slugged three twenty four for a WRC plus
of fifty nine. Not great, Bob, but he's yeah, he's not
getting drafted in NFBC. He's rostered in twenty percent of fan tracks leagues.
Now, Mat, I get how in some formats what have you, But
there's some things here that are just just wrong. Man. He's rostered lesson
Eduardo Quintaro. Who is Eduardo Quintaro, some seventeen sixteen year old Dominican nine
Dodgers prospect. I mean, yeah, oh well, then he's gotta be
he's really good. He's rostered less than Forrest Whitley, Martirollaike. He's rostered
lesson Natro Orbitt, Vivas, Ricardo Cabrera, Christian Hernandez of the Cubs.
Your guy, Griff McGary, you, Maddox Bruns, Reese Hines, some
pop up cub dude, who Hayden mcgeary, Jackson, Rutledge, Cole Wilcox.
I'm not with that. Matt Casey Schmidt is like, so up my
alley as a hitter what I like to see. But now it's time to
mature a little bit, Casey. We've got to chase pitches less. Very
ultra aggressive type of hitter, right, You love that kind of guy though
ultra aggressive and doesn't strike out too much. He just chases too much and
doesn't make quite hard enough of contact yet s K percentage last year was twenty
three and a half percent. That's fine, walked four point seven percent.
He hits it in the air sixty second percentile. Ground balls average forty eight
percentile. He pulls it forty one point four percent of the time. He
could stand to pull that a little bit more. But tons of opposite field
eighty five percent tile. He definitely pulled the ball more in the uppers.
In the miners is out of the zone. Swing percentage was forty one percent.
That is not great. MLB average is thirty one percent. He's got
decent contact skills. Just he's ninety fifth percentile swing percentage. You know who
else is ninety fifth percentile swing percentage in the majors like Corey Sear is the
really Yeah, his swing percentage was fifty five point one percent. Wow,
that surprises me. I guess he's very aggressive in the zone. That's his
calling card, right right, that's the difference the right. He doesn't swing
out of the zone, right right. You know, we're talking about sort
of my prototype, the an ultimate, and he hits the ball way harder
than than Schmidt. But my point is this sort of approach the hitting can
can definitely can work. You know, Seedar is one of the best hitters
in baseball if you don't chase right, but you get And it's not that
it's not that it led to an overwhelming amount of strikeouts for Schmidt. It's
just that it led to a lot of bad contact. Hm. I'm not
going to write off Schmidt yet after two hundred and some plate appearances. If
you can get a bit more disciplined, I think. I think there's a
decent amount of pop and average here. We know that he's fantastic defensively,
shouldn't have problem getting every day run if he can settle down on the chase.
Like Scar strikes out sixteen percent of the time, Schmid was twenty four
percent of the time. Yeah, it's an interesting profile, and like you
said, the glove should help provide at least some floor and I think he's
going to keep getting some opportunities for sure. You just know, I've got
some skepticism about the ultra aggressive kind of hitters and major leaguer pitchers are just
so good like they can they can exploit that. So it's and that's a
tough thing to change. That chase at the major league level is a tough
ask of any young hitter. It's true, but Secar got better from when
he was younger too. And I'm not like Schmidt is the next Seger.
It's just Nate just said Schmidt is the next Cory Seeger. He chases less
with two strikes, which is nice, but it's still like sixteenth percentile.
But you know, we talked about like, well, he's twenty four years
old and twenty seven. The magical twenty seven year old season slash seven hundred
to eight hundred plate appearances is probably kind of when we can say, all
right, this is this is definitely who he is. Right, We're not
close to that. So I'm on board with Schmidt for at least one more
season. All Right, all right, I can see it, dude,
Segars ninety fifth percentile home run, the fly ball, right, that guy's
goody good. That's the to me that that's that's my kind of hitter.
Matt. I'm going to see his strike and I'm going to hit it hard.
I don't I don't care what the count is. He's a freak.
Yeah, he's so good, Schmidt, Like, are you skilled enough to
be that good? Like you're you're gonna find out. It's like just like
the bull approach to hitting. Yeah, he's he's so fun to watch too,
Like just I'm gonna rarely swing out of the zone. When it's in
the zone, I'm definitely gonna swing and I'm just gonna make a crapload of
contact. That's that's awesome. Yep. Cory Seger good. That's the hard
hitting b side analysis that people come to work for. I think, Yeah,
Corey Seeger top three shortstop in all of baseball. He's pretty good good,
Like like, in comparison Schmid's home run, the fly ball rates seven
point one percent. Yeah, and like some of that, some of that
you can chalk up to ballpark. Some of that is noise always like it's
a noisy stat. But it's still Corey Seeger is is. Uh, he's
earned the benefit of the doubt. He's pretty good at that. They hit
the ball in the air of the same exact amount last year percentage was.
Cory Seeger is one of those ones that, like I keep citing to some
of the prospecting folks and I'm like, you want to see what a good
batted ball profile looks like. For some of that's relatively aggressive it should look
something like this one to one ground battle fly ball ratio. Like that's the
good stuff. And four out of the last five years that is exactly what
Corey Seeger has done. Matt zip's projections. How come they always have everyone's
like play it appearances and games way more than everybody else. So the way
that ZIP says that, and I actually think this is a really useful thing
to know and a really useful barometer. So what zip's baseline is doing is
saying, irrespective of team context, irrespective of any other considerations, how often
should this player be playing? So that's why, like if you look at
the ZIPS teams pages or if you're just looking on their zip's projection, what
you're seeing is what dan Zeborski's computer says, this player, in a neutral
environment, neutral team, where there's no playing time competition, this is the
optimal rate for this player to play next year. Gotcha? And so then
if you look at the ZIPS depth charts, that's using zips's ratios sort of
the underlying numbers and then applying the playing time consideration. So what roster resource
case Martinez and people who put that together what they think the share or the
apportionment of at bats to go around for that particular team. Zip says Schmidt
for one hundred and twenty three games this year, ten home runs, not
great ratios, Zip says Manuel vel does Zips likes him anue abouez. I
think one hundred and fourteen games, sixteen home runs, six stolen bases,
that's pretty bullish. I think two fifty three, three, twenty two,
four thirty six. Yeah, Zips isn't super confident in Schmidt going forward either,
Like sometimes you see a kind of downer projection for this upcoming year,
especially for a young guy just breaking in, but there's real upside down the
line, and I don't think Zips is seeing that. He thinks that is
kind of who he is. To have him as a league average hitter in
one on one WRC plus, Yeah, and I think that might be peak
because in two years they're twenty twenty six. Projections that just came out have
him as a seventy seven WRC plus player, one hundred and forty seventh on
their projected shortstops in yah, Zip Zip your lips man. Well, since
we're talking about the Zips sort of future forecasting, I'm gonna take a foray
out of the kind of B side territory and talk just briefly about a guy
that kind of broke out last year, but I think is worth highlighting for
this tool. So Danziborsi, every year after he finishes the team by team
zips breaks down releases and he's the only one to do this to the public.
He releases his three year projections so you can scroll through on fan tracks
what his projection system thinks players are going to do next year twenty four,
twenty twenty five, and twenty twenty six. And I really like doing this
to see who of these young guys that maybe aren't prospects anymore, or often
are prospects, who are the ones that the computer is really buying and projects
to keep getting better Because so much of the other projecting systems you see a
snapshot, you see one year, and then even the folks that say they
do multi year projections, like I think they're buying large less rigorous than what
the Zimborsi does. And so it's an awesome tool to look at, like,
maybe this guy isn't going to be that good this year, but keep
an eye on him, or try and trade for him this year. If
you're in a league that trades because the upside is enormous and the computer already
is expecting better. So there's a few of these guys that I highlighted to
at least mention. One of them is Jack Sowinski, and he's getting popped
pretty high after his real breakout performance last year where he hit twenty six homers
stole thirteen bags to the tune of a one to twelve WRC plus, kind
of came out of nowhere. He was like a known prospect, that guy
sort of like power overhit, but nobody was really that excited about. And
he hit well in his kind of half season sample in twenty twenty two,
and then he backed it up and was basically just better across the board.
Even last year strikeout rate ticked up a little bit over thirty percent, which
you know is a sort of danger zone to me, but he's the kind
of guy that has the power and played approach to make that work. I
thought this was really interesting. So he's going two hundred and thirty fourth in
NFBCS. The actual average is a little different than that, but that's his
like average rank, like the number we're using here, so pretty high,
but Zips thinks that in a couple of years he's gonna be the fourteenth best
outfielder. Now, again this was for just overall offensive production, and he
walks a lot and hits a lot of homers. So your average leagues,
your your roto leagues that use average, you're gonna want to regress that a
bit. But I was actually super surprised that it was so bullish. And
he is still young. He's going into his age twenty five season, but
that's projecting quite a bit of growth still, and it basically says to me
that Zips is going to be projecting him as a thirty homer fifteen steel bat
for the next like four years, five years maybe, and that's huge,
even if he's sort of a batting average risk with the strikeout rate. So
he's one that, like I'll tell you, I've actively tried to trade for
in a few leagues recently, and the cost is probably less than it should
be given his really bright future. And I think some of this is sort
of like he wasn't really a well regarded prospect and with the strikeout rate is
worrisome, but everything else about the profile, especially in any kind of OBP
league, is going to crank homers. He's fast enough to steal bags.
And I actually think the Pirates might have a cornerstone right field type here.
That is, he's going to get six hundred plate appearances a year for the
foreseeable future. Pretty bullish on him and Zips is two. That's one to
like keep an eye out for. It's maybe not so much b siding,
but it's like this guy might be an elite asset here pretty soon and people
aren't respecting that. I guess like you can, you can get in a
little early. I know Jeff Ponce has long been a Sawinsky guy. Brought
him up many years ago. To me, it was now look out for
him, and he wasn't wrong. He was not He was not. Briefly
about Jordan Diaz nice he made my list too, so that that's good right
on our twenty twenty two A selection debuted the end of twenty twenty two,
but last season he got in three hundred and forty four played appearances, hit
ten home runs, struck out twenty two percent of the time, walked five
and a half percent of the time, one thirty one iso A three fifty
eight slug A WRC plus of seventy nine s nota getting drafted in NFBC,
and he's rostered in twenty percent of fan tracks leagues, which is less than
Judd Fabian, less than Jose Rodriguez, less than a couple four of them
of the White Sox one sorry Popeye, less than Blake Walters and JR.
Ritchie. Diaz is a classic guy that like, if he hit the ball
out in front and hit in the air and more, he'd probably be a
pretty enticing fantasy git here. But he doesn't do that. He hits the
ball hard, but into the grounds the field too much. But man,
I will say though, I mean I watched him when he was like a
twenty year old. The wats a good amount of him and he was just
wearing out right center field, right just line drives, they're just peppering it.
He does pull the ball, I think more than he did back then.
Yeah, when he was in the uppers, it was a pretty even
split. Like at Triple A in twenty twenty two he was thirty one percent
pull, thirty percent center, thirty seven percent OPO. Pretty similar in Double
A as well, though he did have more pull when he was at the
lower levels. All right there, you go, eyeballs lie sometimes yeah,
but it wouldn't have been when you were watching him because it was all ricky
ball stuff. So by the time he was in full season ball, he
pulled in a little bit more. By the time he's in high A,
double A, triple A, he was he had some of that. I
know, like coming up, you know people asking, well, well,
the slap hitter is like, he hits the ball hard, he's sixty third
percentile max CD seventy seven percentile average, Like he's got pop seeing him hit
some pulled tanks, and you know he's got great contact skills. I don't
think he chases too much. Well, yeah, he chased quite a bit.
He swung out of the zone forty one percent of the time last year.
That's not great. But he doesn't strike out a ton. Do you
think a guy like this can hit the ball out in front more? Do
you think that's an adjustment that hitters can make. He's still quite young.
It is an adjustment that people can make. And he's got a lot of
the kind of fundamental tools that I don't know that you want to bat on.
He's a skilled defender. He hits the ball pretty hard, especially for
his size, Like you know, people knock him verticizing, Like, I
don't care. He hits the ball plenty hard enough. It's just that he's
trying to hit everything, and a little bit of selectivity might help, right,
Like I think some of his problem because I watched him a decent bit
last year in Triple A. In his MLB time, he gets caught chasing
stuff that he has no business trying to hit a ball that's out of his
own and often what you'll see is he'll hit that ball pretty hard, but
those are the ones that are on the ground, or those are the ones
that he does hit soft or medium, and those are not productive balls.
I wonder if in a different organization I might feel more bullish. But I
don't know if Oakland has done much with this, like with this particular problem
of helping to change someone's batted ball spray or their swing decisions, Like I
can't think of anybody who they meaningfully changed a lot in the recent history.
So usually pretty slow to either give credit or blame to an organization and have
that reflect on the player. Because there are lots of other places that Diaz
could go and learn how to do that. But it does seem like this
is not really a thing that is an organizational wide philosophy. Now, I
would love for Diaz to get with someone like Brent Rooker, who does a
lot of the things well that Diaz doesn't, and I think is cerebral enough
to understand the difference. Maybe he can learn a little bit from somebody like
that, because I do like a lot of the stuff that Diaz brings to
the table. I think there is potential here if he makes some of those
meaningful changes. But as you know, a guy that hits the ball in
the ground this much, he's got to have superlative barrel control and usually good
plate discipline as well to make it work. And Diaz doesn't have either of
those things. So you're asking him to do two things that are hard to
change at the same time in an organization that doesn't make that a big priority.
I'm worried that it's never going to come together in that way. It's
interesting to me, though, because like watching him like he never he didn't
strike me as a guy who chased in the minors very often too. His
K percentages were like fifteen percent jumped up to twenty four in the majors and
backed by good swinging strike rates. But I think that that's his issue,
Like as a twenty two year old, Chase is not the same as Whiff,
Right, It's just that he's swinging at stuff that he can't really damage,
right, Like, that's that's his problem because he's a guy with good
barrel control, good contact, good exit velocities, but bad swing decisions and
bad barrel path So he's even when he's hitting those balls and hitting them hard,
they're going on the ground that at best is a single and often turns
into an out. And that is just that kills you at the big league
level when guys can really pick it. Organizations know where to pitch, you
know where to position their fielders, and those ground balls that helped sustain three
seventy three fifty babbitbs in the minor leagues turn into two fifty eight in the
major leagues. And again that's probably like even on the low side, like
you would expect it to be a little bit better than that in the majors
next year. But it's like you're asking him to change two kind of fundamental
things about himself as a hitter, and that's a hard bet to make all
right, we shall see. I think playing time opportunity is there for him
this year. Yeah, yeah. And he's a fun he's a fun hitter.
I do like a lack of a lot about him, and I'm rooting
for him. Maybe we can get at Brent Rooker on Twitter, he's active
there and see if he can bring along our boy. It's interesting when you
watch some of these guys. You know, obviously, like we said,
he doesn't pull the ball, hits the ball in the air, but you
know, folks be like, oh, no power. It's like, man,
I was like drawn to him initially because he'd let the ball travel on
him and he would lace line drives to right center field walls, and You're
just like, no, no, no, no, this guy has pop.
It's just it's just not shaped right. I'm curious, and this is
complete opposite in a lot of ways and a new Mariner. I'm curious,
what do you think about dominic canzone because you want you want to talk about
what I mean, his pool percentage fifty four point six percent, ninety ninth
percentile, his fly ball rate, flyball rate and the sixtieth percentile forty percent
almost and you know his ground ball rate also just a hair above forty percent.
Like I like that, Like Ken Zone is the kind of guy that
I preach about, right, Like this is the he's optimizing. He's trying
to hit homers. He hits the ball hard kind of though, but he
chases even more than the other guys that we've been talking about. Yeah,
his O swing percentage was forty three percent. Yeah, that's too high,
too high, And I think that's reflected in how people pitched him too.
He saw a lot of off speed, but yet a K percentage that was
quite low, seventeen point six percent. Yeah, but he ran I think
slightly higher carrates in the miners than that. I think we can expect something
above twenty in the upper In the uppers he was nineteen point two percent,
twenty point three percent, thirteen point two percent. Never real bad, yeah,
yeah, definitely, never really bad. And I think that's partly due
to to, like you said, his aggressiveness that he'll chase and he can't
strike down if you don't get the two strikes right. And he's the kind
of guy that I think is trying to hit the ball a lot. It
hits the ball pretty hard and hits the ball at good launch angles. I'm
definitely personally colored by his time with the Mariners last year, where he was
not good seventy nine WRC plus, chased at everything, hit some homers,
but he was just like two fifty eight OBP is unplayable, that doesn't work.
So my enthusiasm for him is definitely colored by that. Though he might
be an interesting compliment in the outfield that they have now they're remade nickel red
paper clip traded outfield that Jerry and Justin Hollander put together. He might get
protected. I don't know if his splits were bad in particular, but I
think he might get the chance to succeed in slightly more favorable matchups With Mitch
Hanniger in the fold now as well, they'll spell each other, I bet.
I think they'll rotate in some of their younger guys in the outfield as
well. The semi vets, Hagrity and more will get some time out there
spelling him, so they might ease him in a bit more and as a
late power play. I like it. I like it, just know that
it might come with some bad average years and certainly lower OBP as well.
Talking about a Lefty who's and we're only he's only one hundred and eighty two
played appearances into his major league career. Here he's another guy in Matt who
flyball exit velocity ninety first percentile. Yeah, and you see it. You
see it watching him, like the way that he swings. He is really
trying to hit fly balls and hit him hard. And I love that.
I think that that's my favorite thing about about him, and I wish him
well, not just because I'm a fan of the team, but it seems
like he's tried to remake himself in that way, like I'm going to optimize
who I am. You know, he's not a top of the scale exit
dilo guy. It's plus I think. Yeah, I think it's plus exit
velo just across the board. But he's really trying to make the most of
those fly balls and then, oh sorry, he's rastered in twenty four percent
of leagues less. He's rastered less than Trey Sweeney and Landon Nat, the
same as Cole Carrig and Justice big Bie. And I think it's like it's
a good point too. I probably in my teams where I'm competing, I'm
probably not going to use a roster spot on can Zone this year because of
the playing time concerns, because of some of the risks that we've highlighted.
But if I'm a rebuilding team, I'm trying to concentrate my prospects to the
highest possible prospects. So like, trade off my veterans and good players for
those very tippy top, prettiest of pretty boys. But then my major league
roster is going to be filled with guys like this. Exactly if he does
figure it out and does get full playing time and pops twenty five homers as
a twenty six year old, I mean that's gold. Like either he's a
contributing piece to your next team or competing team with an injury has an outfield
need and they're like, wow, that can Zone is running with this job.
Who has him? Oh, it's this team that I can actually line
up with in trade. So I think that's part of the message here is
that your rebuilding roster should not be just minor leaguers. Absolutely should have this
kind of guy. That was a total Yeah, that was the total premise
of that top one hundred. I did like, if you're rebuilding, load
up on these guys instead of your back of the top one hundred guys that
you got to pay so much because in the aggregate you're probably going to get
just as much or more production out of these types. Then you are fringy?
Are they everyday players still allowed to prove prospects and not just production but
also utility? Like if you are rostering, who's who's a good example of
this, Like I'm so good at for getting people once they're bad. I'm
trying to think that's also a part of this. Who was the top one
hundred guy like a year ago or two years ago, like back into the
top one hundred that maybe people were after as a rebuilding team. You're trying
to collect all of the prospect capital that you can. You're paying for Cole
Henry and that Liberator and Giraldo Perdomo. These guys are on the back half
of top one hundreds from two years ago and have little to no value anymore.
Even the ones that have made the majors have been like not very good.
And instead of rostering those guys, holding them in your lineups or in
your minors until they debut and are middling, I think it's much more valuable
for you to get the kinds of guys that Nate and I are highlighting and
then trade them, like you can't trade to a contending team that back of
a top one hundred prospect in the middle of the season. You need those
assets that you can take the gamble on their playing time, you can take
the gamble on them improving their stock and their utility to the contending teams,
and then take their future value from the contending teams because they're over a barrel.
They're competing for a playoff spot for a championship, and they need that
incremental production to cover their injuries. And I know, having been in that
situation, I've overpaid at the trade deadline and lived to regret it because I
needed that present production from a team that had a bounce back candidate and could
roster them, and they made out really well. Like one of my worst
trades in for sure, that I've ever made was I in a thirty teamer
traded for Tyler O'Neil when I had some outfield injuries and the owner smartly knew
that I had very few places that I could go for producing outfielders. That
year, I think this was twenty twenty one, I sold Eduard Julian and
Spencer Steer and Nick Nastrini in that deal. I think so like two guys
who are now major league stars and basically since that deal have been better than
Tyler O'Neil. But I needed to make that move, or thought I needed
to make that move at the time because I needed Tyler O'Neil's production in twenty
twenty one and neither the other two were up yet. That's the kind of
deal that rebuilding That's the kind of approach that really good rebuilding teams take.
Not can I hoard all of the DSL, all of the Complex League,
all of the A ball high upside prospects? Yeah, definitely, I agree.
I think that's a lesson that a lot of new dynasty owners maybe learn
the hard way. Do you know who's rostered at the same rate. Who
I think, just from a skills wise skills wise is far better than can
Zone is Elec Burlison. Oh yeah, only roster in twenty four percent of
leagues, So that's again, that's less than trace, ween I, Land
and Knack. I know playing time concerns, but four hundred Major league played
appearances for Burlison been below average. Hitter eighty five WRC plus over that time
has only hit two thirty seven ninety five. But I mean, we know
that Burlison's Burlison's bat has been somewhat famous, I think coming up through college,
and he was pretty good in the minors. I don't know, you
think you still have some hope for Burleson. I think I think I do.
Yeah, I do too. I like a lot of what he does,
again is a low strikeout slugger, Like he's got some power and does
a good job avoiding strikeouts. I think I like a lot of guys that
we've talked about here, he's one who doesn't optimize his batt ball profile and
that's holding him back, especially since that he does have a harder, a
tighter line to walk right with his defensive limitations, and this is one where
the real world implication of that I think matter a little bit. But as
a hitter, I think he's got a lot of a lot to really really
like. He's not the most fit guy in the world, but he is
surprisingly way more athletic than you would think for his size. And I know
I saw a little bit of best shape of your life season. But the
Cardinals pretty much told him, if you're going to survive here, you have
to be able to play the outfield. Evidently he's lost weight and all that
stuff this season. There's some stuff like, you know, he doesn't pull
the ball. He pulls the ball, fine, he doesn't hit it in
the air enough or hasn't. But I think there's a lot of batted ball
stuff, in contact stuff in here that has taken steps forward. I think
in swing decision stuff. You know, a lot of guys that I kind
of dug into that was kind of you know, this roster raid and this
demographic of major leaguer Like, there's a lot of stuff You're like, Okay,
this is not getting better. This is not getting better. I can't
make any sort of case why I might be interested in you still, at
least from like a numbers standpoint, right, I think there's reason for some
optimism with Burlison. Still there's some you know, young guy Chase, it's
not the worst that we've talked about. Chase is eighteen percentile O swing.
It's not great. The zone contact stuff is you know, top of the
chart. Contact percentage is top of the chart. Last year. Well,
the projections kind of like him from a ratio standpoint to some extent, hitting
two seventy three twenties obps for forty slug this year. You know, it's
above league average stuff. And to be honest, it's not crazy just to
prefer him. Or see the scenario in which he's out hitting Brendan Donovan and
Dylan Carlson and you know, probably can't play defense as well as Carlson,
and I think the organization likes Donovan a bit more. But I also see
a path for Burlson to take their share, like to you know, get
four hundred played appearances in a really good lineup, and again, he probably
hit towards the back of that lineup, and it might be DH spelling out
somebody in left field or something. But that's that's another one where they're are
some skills here. Maybe the slimming down helps him play defense a bit better,
and maybe there's some positive knock on effects to his offense as well.
Because you're more familiar with this, Matt, how bad is a fangrass defensive
What run score is though you called it how bad is negative eleven point four
very very bad, very bad, very bad, Okay, especially given his
playing time. So because it's accounting statistic like accruing eleven negative eleven point four
defensive runs, so so bad minus eleven also like per inning basis, that's
near the bottom of the scale for run value, and those things are noisy
and they can change. But just for context, like minus eleven is very
bad for a half season or so. I mean, his major league numbers
have not been super We're hot, right, so what what in there?
How do how do these projection systems like okay, yeah, okay, this
wasn't so great. This was twenty twenty two was pretty bad in a fifty
three very small plate appearance sample, three hundred and forty seven. The next
year wasn't too great. Blow But now this year, yeah, this year,
we think he's going to be an above average hitter. Like what makes
that happen? In projections? I have annoided a couple of things one last
year as using that as your baseline for what their future is going to be
is pretty poor as a predictor because there's so much noise in any given year.
Even a solid sample like three hundred and forty seven plate appearances for the
Cardinals last year, that's a decent sample, and so we know something about
his skills and how they translate to the major leagues, But you look at
some of the other things about his line and with you know, eighty ninety
mile an hour average exit velocity one ten point six max. The guy ran
a two sixty one babbit and that's with twenty two percent line drives and forty
one percent ground balls. Even for someone as slow as Barlson, that's unusual.
So you would expect him probably to run a league average or slightly above,
so you know, three hundred to three ten maybe, given all of
the shape of his production. Even just doing that, you turn that eighty
nine WRC plus into probably league average. So like when I look at his
production, I think a lot of the change, a lot of the difference
between what his production was last year and what the projections say for next year.
A lot of that delta I think is driven by his babbit. That's
probably the biggest change. The other one would be that because he hits the
ball hard and his bray like he does hit fly balls, you would expect
more homers than he had. So he only had an eight point two hummer
per fly ball rate and in triple A the year before he ran seventeen point
two. That's pretty high, So that's like higher than you might expect given
his power production, but eight point two is really low. So just as
a guess, I think it's going to be higher next year. And I'm
not sure if they show that in any of the projection that doesn't look like
they do, but I'm guessing that that's another piece of what some of the
projection systems are seeing. Is like, yeah, he's been pretty underwhelming in
the major leagues. Even some of the minor league stuff is like more good
than great, But the way that he's underperformed in the major leagues is sort
of obvious, right, Like it's easy to see why you should expect better
than he has been so far. Thanks. Sure, I wanted to touch
on a couple of guys, but unfortunately they all have particular issues except one.
So I've got one of my best friends baseball fan played with him in
college. He was all on the Kyle Lewis train, and he debuted for
the Marriors and had that incredible run in twenty twenty and won the I guess
it is like the end of twenty nineteen he was incredible, and then twenty
twenty he was incredible rookie of the Year. There used to be a little
bit of a Kyle Lewis Louis Robert debate in some circles that I was a
part of. Yeah, and Kyle Lewis is a guy that I really wanted
to just throw my hat in for it, as like a guy who showed
true power, like would hit fly balls and hit him hard and performed,
and then it was just injuries, Like injuries just piled up and ruined a
bunch of seasons for him. And if given a DH job or a part
time left field, part time DH job, that he might be a really
useful kind of late flyer bat. But he still doesn't have a job,
I don't think after giving a DFA by the Diamondbacks to offseason. And also,
I mean I was like skeptical at the time, like I was the
one saying he wasn't that good, even as he was just crushing to the
tune of two years of one hundred and twenty seven plus WRC plus A lot
of that was like, you know, unsustainable babbubs, unsustainable homer for homer
per fly ball ratios, and he's got strikeout concerns and can't play defense anymore.
There's a lot not to like about him, and the easiest one is
like, he doesn't have a job, nobody believes in him currently. But
I wanted to give him a hat tip because there are some skills there that
are hard to replicate, and he's that sort of classic post hype sleeper.
Maybe he latches on somewhere, he's still just twenty eight. I don't know.
I want to give the guy some credit. The other one that I
really really wanted to argue for is Austin Meadows, but I think his mental
health concerns have maybe his career might be over, like actually over. But
he's another one that I really loved the overall shape of the production. There
was a little bit of speed, a lot of power, good obp,
maybe a touch too much strikeout, but I was in. I thought that
he was a really really fun hitter and a real talent and it's been a
shame to see that fade away due to his real mental health concerns. And
I think again, as a twenty eight year old, he might be just
completely done. He doesn't have a contract, so that's a that's a bummer.
But like again, maybe a flyer in a deep league is if he
catches on somewhere and has had some help and gets his mind right. But
yeah, that's another one that I wanted to advocate for, but I couldn't
couldn't bring myself to do it. So the one that I'm gonna go for
is not much better, but shares a lot in common. He's twenty seven
rather than twenty eight, has showed flashes of top of the scale power and
real strikeout concerns. He might not have a job. Actually, no,
I'm looking it up. No, he doesn't have a job. He's a
free agent, so also also a free agent always shares a lot and come
with these guys, it's kesten Hera. Oh he's not with anybody. Nope,
So travel back, travel back to twenty nineteen with me. He debuts
in the middle of the season and after torching the Triple A. Torching Triple
A, he hit nineteen homers in two hundred and forty three plate appearances in
Triple A. Came up in I think it was July with Milwaukee hit another
nineteen hommers. So the dude hit thirty eight homers in his first in like
that, twenty nineteen season, struck out a lot, but still ran a
one thirty nine WRC plus short season twenty twenty at the major league level,
he played I think the full year with the Brewers and was underwhelming, like
took a step back, struck out more, walked less, hit a few
fewer homers, but still was fine. Thirteen hommers in two hundred and forty
six played appearances. That's still really good power. Then maybe didn't have quite
as much Babbitt luck, but still was smoking the ball. And then he
just keeped striking out more and more in Triple A in twenty twenty one,
thirty three point five percent strikeout rate in the majors, in twenty twenty one,
thirty nine percent strikeout rate. Twenty twenty two, he goes back to
Triple A again, where's his strikeout rate to twenty five percent gets two hundred
and sixty six plate appearances in the major league's forty one point seven strikeout percent.
That's Joey Gallo bad version level, and he doesn't quite have the power
that Joey Gallo does. So tenable, then untenable, then unplayable, And
in twenty twenty three he had just a cup of coffee on the complex.
I think as he was rehabbing, but in Triple A again, he scald
at the ball twenty three homers over three hundred and sixty seven plate appearances,
a threeho eight three ninety five five sixty five triple slash, good for a
one thirty seven WSC plus in the Eastern League and a manageable dare say like
league average strikeout rate of twenty four point five percent, and the Brewers let
him walk. Now, the Brewers do have quite a few outfielders. They
do generally shy away from this kind of a profile. It's not their favorite,
it seems from an organizational philosophy standpoint, the high strikeout, high homer
output, it's not really their bugaboo. But it's weird. They didn't give
him a job. I don't think he was, like, maybe he was
an arb one at the time. This is gonna be his first arbitration year
or something. Yeah, I think this would have been his first ar beer.
He just elected free agency. They didn't tender him a contract. Nobody's
picked him up, So I might be way out on a limb here.
It looked to me like the last couple of seasons he actually was raining in
his his strikeout concerns, was still hitting the ball hard enough and in batted
ball profile that was going to lead to a lot of home runs. And
you know, he's not a defend he's not a good defender, and so
that first base profile with this kind of power and strikeout concerns, like,
yeah, that's not the thing in the most demand. But man, I
just kind of was convinced that, like, somebody should give him a job.
Somebody should let him put up four and fifty played appearances this year and
see what he can do. And I still think that that is likely true.
And if they do, he's gonna hit twenty five homers. So he's
another one that like more than the other guys I mentioned, I think he
is likely to get a job from somebody, and if they give him some
run, you know it's the Nationals or A's or somebody with a lot of
playing time to go around. Like I could see him having a really solid
under the radar season that you know, people didn't see coming. But he's
still a potent hitter even with the strikeouts. If that happens, no one
but you saw that coming. Mat Yeah, he's you know, like down
in the seven hundreds, I think in NFBC, So somebody's drafting him,
Like, it's not nobody. Teams ten leagues have drafted guessing Hira, so
you know, it's not nobody. It's interesting though, right, there was
a time you know that we're in first year player draft season that like Otani
versus Kestenhira or yep, Ryce lewis, like which, how are you ordering
those at the top of your draft? Good remember that sometimes, I think,
yeah, it is, And it's good to remember that for a present
day context too, when you look at some of the high homer guys in
the miners and you might dream on them, like, you know, Trey
Cabbage, like he just got picked up by the Astros today, and he's
a guy that's like this, like a lot of power, but a lot
of strikeouts, and maybe Houston can fix some of those issues. And I
think I saw some chatter that maybe people are like now into Trey Cabbage,
but Cabbage is like Heira, you know, and this guy comes basically free
so thinking thinking about those other kinds of guys. And I heard the Baseball
America guys talking about Colaso and somebody else was talking about some of the college
first baseman with really big exit velocities, and they mentioned Kemp Alderman from last
year's draft. Is like huge exit velocity guy about big strikeouts, like and
first base only like this is the profile, Like you got to hit a
ton of homers for this profile to work, and with no defensive value,
like teams do care about that. So it is a really really tight path
you got to walk to make it work. And here is an example of
that. Yeah, we didn't even met we had our first B side or
get traded this year. Matto in that cabbage thing, right, Carlos Espinosa.
Oh, I didn't realize he was the return. Yeah he's off to
the Angels. Great, Yeah, I know, right, goes from Houston
to LA. Speaking of Houston, I wanted to talk about Jake Myers.
We were talking about Canada hitter hit the ball in the air more, Can
they pull it more? Here's the case of someone who's done that, and
it's it's kind of wild to me too, if you're thinking about thirty teen
leagues, we have Myers is the Astros starting center fielder at least to start
the season. They've said that and he's going to be at least early in
the season, every day at centerfielder. And he's rostered in twelve percent of
leagues, which is wild to me. You know who's rastered more than Jake
Myers, Troy Johnson, Troy Johnston, Chase Midrid, Allen Linens, Jeter
Downs. Uh, oh, rostered more than the Jake Myers. What was
it last season? Last couple of seasons. I have a couple of friends
who are Astros fans and followed them closely, and I asked him, like
you like more Myers and McCormick. It was always Myers, which is interesting.
We saw, we saw what McCormick did last year, Right, McCormick
did stuff last year that he had never done coming up in the minor leagues,
hitting for power like he did. And I'm just a little bit curious
looking at meyers batter ball stuff and contact things like it's all on the up
and up. He's six hundred and sixty four played appearances into his career,
twenty seven years old. He's hit seventeen home runs, stolen ten bases.
Strikeout rate has been a touch under thirty, but uh, he improved his
strikeout route, his strikeout rate eight points last year to a you know,
doable twenty five point eight percent, while improving his walk rate by eight percent,
which was almost as good as his best walk rate, which I believe
was in twenty twenty one in Triple A. His fly ball percentage jumped to
thirty eight point seven percent, which is the most that's been by a lot,
uh not since I A ball, I think, and close to his
twenty twenty one Triple A numbers when he hit sixteen home runs in the PCL.
Forty five percent pool raid has been the most since he was in Double
A. I get like the evs aren't real high or anything like that,
but they're trending up. And his fastball respectable ninety one miles per hour,
which is above average. I mean, he's kind of average evs. But
and you know that that short porch. I'm just wondering, Uh, I
don't know, are we going to see like a like a peak season here
for mister Myers and he's gonna get full time run I mean, if I'm
in a thirty teen league, and especially if you're if you play specific outfield
like center field's tough, like I have no problem roster and Myers to play
some center field. It's an interesting shout, and a lot of what you're
saying seems to suggest there might be a little bit more like Chaz last ye
he had never hit more than fourteen home runs in the season, I don't
think, and then he popped twenty two. Weird how the Astros can get
that to happen. But like, just just an interesting guy to me that
I think there are some things trending in the right direction. Yeah, that
that is interesting. I think obviously McCormick hits the ball a little bit harder,
but it's not that much. Yeah, I wonder, Yeah, that
might be you might be onto something there. That's an interesting. Astros always
seem to have one of these guys to kind of do something like this too.
I don't know. I'm just oneing. And Myers does play pretty good
outfield, like that's yeah, that's what keeps him on the field too,
Right, He's better than McCormick defensively, definitely, So I don't know.
It might be sneaky sneak here and nobody, nobody's on them if Myers is
McCormick of twenty twenty four, Like I'm saying, it's gonna happen, but
I wouldn't be surprised. You think they try and push one of their young
outfitters Melting or lower Feto up And sure, I'm sure they'll. I'm sure
they'll get some young guy some run at some point, but I kind of
think it's going to be Quincy Hamilton before those guys. So low Braffedo folks,
I don't know if it's a week, two weeks, a month,
he's kind of ahead of them, just up the ladder wise, and I
think he's done enough to earn a shot, but just a look, you
know, so I know La Brafito Mountain owners probably don't want to hear that,
but that would just be ugh guest, at least for fantasy's sake.
You'd kind of hope that Myers steals more like he's pretty fast, he plays
good defense, but I don't know he should have propencated a run. I
might get a little more excited about it, but yeah, yeah, an
interesting shout ATC's got him for one hundred games, two thirty five, three
hundred OVP three eighty two. I mean nothing, nothing real exciting, nine
home runs, six stolen bases, But I don't know. If it was
much better than that, I wouldn't be that surprised. I also kind of
find Kyle isbel a little bit interesting. Another potential starting every day outfielder.
I mean, that's how roster resource has it right now. Lefty twenty six
years old. He's got six hundred and seventy four Major League played appearances.
He's rostered in only sixteen percent of league's. He's rostered less than your guy,
Chancel Luise. He's rastered less than Jordan Groshan's. He's rastered less than
Ace Lacey. Well was I can't miss step King, Oh, I know,
I know as well as interesting to me because like I think there might
be some good contact stuff with a little bit of a home run potential.
Then maybe he hasn't quite fully blossomed. But he's hit the ball in the
air more as a big leader, but it hasn't pulled it as much.
He's got a plus hard hit percentage, he's got a ninety fifth percentile zone
contact, but he's become more selective, has swung less and as he's done
that, like his his slug has has dropped. Like he's cut the k
rates down a lot. But he's not doing as much damage. I'm kind
of wondering, let my guy go here and see what happens. Stop trying
to make him more of a Matt guy and make him more Let him be
more of that he was earlier on in his career and in the minors when
he did more damage with the bat. Pretty good defensively, I think,
as far as I can tell, So I don't know, it just kind
of an interesting I'm not going to win you any leagues or anything like that,
but if you're in a deeper league and you needed like a starting outfielder,
see how spring goes and what have you. But kind of Isabel's still
a little bit interesting to me, all right. He had some under the
red Ar hype a couple of years ago and didn't quite pay off. So
this is a good reminder to watch this kind of guy. Another sort of
similar one in the Kansas City system Tied Gentry, just on the prospect side.
He had a lot of hype coming into this year, and I think
had a rough first half of the year. But I still kind of buy
what he's got as sort of like average production across the board that leads to
production that's sort of greater than some of its parts. So Kansas City has
a couple interesting guys like that. Isbell's first introduction to Pro Bowl was only
eighty three played appearances. But I mean, he's a guy who's caught his
chase rate good chunk like eight percent since he was you know, first and
to coming into the league. So I think with some seasoning, some guys
can clean some of that up. I don't think that's craziness, all right.
A lot of the guys that I've talked about so far tonight index toward
the power profile, certainly an exciting one. There's lots of guys that hit
homers but strike out a ton and can't make that profile work for one reason
or another. But there's still plenty that you can add late in a draft
to, like I said, help make up for homers at the end of
the year. But it's a little bit harder to make up steals, even
in the higher steel world in which we live now. So I wanted to
highlight a couple of guys, one of which who I think is pretty well
known, and the other of which I bet, even in your deep leagues
probably is a non entity or potentially cheap to acquire. So the first guy
that I wanted to touch on is Joey Cowboy, as we affectionately called him
at my Mariners group chat. Jose cabierro sly traded to the Tampa Bay Rays,
is a pesky second base shortstop tight who has a preternatural feel for getting
hit by pitches using the pitch clock, and also is a really good bass
steeler. He doesn't have top of the skill speed, but he's very good
at actually swiping bases. Last year he was like twenty seventh in the Majors
in steels in half of the playing time of most of the guys on this
list a third like the only other guy with his few played appearances as him
it had a similar rate of steals was Jake McCarthy, noted speedster. So
he's another guy that I think flies under the radar a bit. Again,
not a lot of thump there. He went from one questionable playing time situation
to another. Even though shortstop apparently is his for at least the start of
the year. I don't think Taylor Walls is going to be out all the
year. And in Carson Williams and a Selba Spasave, there's a couple of
guys coming up behind that might push him for playing time. So it's not
like this is going to be a sixty seal guy because he's going to lock
into six hundred plate appearances next year. But I think he's going to keep
this kind of steel rate and because that's a part of his game. He
that's just how he plays is he's fast, and he wants to accrue every
little bit of value that he can. So Jose Cabierro is another guy that
I think is being underdrafted a little bit, maybe partly because I'm looking at
overall draft position and it might have ticked up since the trade and since the
news that he's at least going to start I think the year as the Rays
starting shortstop. But he's one to pencil in later on in your drafts as
somebody who might contribute in a couple of categories, not power, and he
may not have a full time job, but the Yeah, he was one
that I had on my list here too. This is a guy who like
literally barely late or like what four years mm hm. His minor league track
record was very little. I remember watching a broadcast of the Mariners and they
were talking about how they always really liked his skill set, he just couldn't
stay on the field. We're talking like two hundred and fifty played appearances since
like COVID before the major leagues last year. Yeah, so like in part,
I'm like, man, how much do we really know about this who
this guy is as a hitter as a whole. But yeah, I mean
I think you're you're super right about the stolen bases, and I think playing
time there and we know what happens when the Rays get their hands on some
of these types, they whether it be a platoon situation or what have you,
kind of optimize their production. His exsitveilos as a whole are below average.
He's a little bit in that Essak Prete's mold where he pulls the absolute
piss out of the fly balls that he hits, just pulls them down the
line like, and he hits quite a few fly balls. He has a
little bit less power, I think than Pretis. But I also think he
was a little unlucky with the homers last year, both playing in seatle and
I just baseline was a little bit unlucky to only run a five percent home
run to flyball ratio. I don't think it's crazy to expect that to be
close to ten percent next year, and that could mean the difference between five
homers and twelve in not full playing time. So he's another one like the
Power, might play a little bit better than you think if it all breaks
right for him. So just with a little bit of flyball walk he might
he might hit some more home than you think too, just a testament to
the guy's skill set. He played in fifty two games the COVID break the
COVID nine season, then walked into the major leagues and was a ninety six
WRC plus guy. And to be fair, a lot of that was a
really great start to his season, and he did tail off significantly towards the
end of the year as the league adjusted to him. But I also think
some of that was just some bad luck catching up with him as well,
And he's probably in between those two things. So I just really like him.
He's a fun player to watch, and those twelve Tampa fans that exists,
you're going to enjoy his game style. I think he's somebody that makes
you like him just with the way he plays, and he's somebody that I
enjoyed watching for the Mariners last year. Yeah, that's a good calu,
all right. And the other guy, funnally has a much longer track record
than Caballero did. But I've just never heard anybody talk about this guy.
And he's he's going into his age thirty one season. So like again,
this is not a prospect of any stripe die Ron Blanco. Can you even
name what team he plays for? The Royals? Nailed it. Nate's a
deep league guy, he knows. But this skill set, this is somebody
that I came across in one of my medium deep leagues when I really needed
some stolen bases. Part way through the year I'd lost one of my main
stolen based threat. Blanco was getting some run over the summer for the Royals.
Ended up right behind Cabairo I think, at twenty eighth overall in steels
last season in even less playing time. So the guy had one hundred and
thirty eight played appearances and stole twenty four bases in TRIPLEA, where he spent
most of the year. In two hundred and eight plate appearances, he's still
forty seven bases. That's top of the scale in stealing skill. I'd say
the guys that led the major leagues last year or minor leagues last year,
Chandler Simpson and Victor Scott. They I think were ninety five and ninety four
respectively, or ninety six and ninety five, something like that. But in
like five hundred some plate appearances, in way less than half of the plate
appearances, he got to half of their steel total. This is a real
skill for Blanco. He is I think, not even that good of a
defender. I mean, it's maybe above average defender in the outfield, not
any power to speak of or to write home about. He hit fourteen homers
in twenty twenty two and that was his high water mark, so it's not
nothing. I don't know. I think just because he's thirty going on thirty
one that nobody cares. But this in roto leagues, especially deeper leagues,
how are you not excited about this? It's not like the Royals are.
I have a fully stacked you know, sent them and forget him trio of
vutfielders out there. I kind of think Blanco's gonna get another three hundred plate
appearances next year. Maybe maybe not quite that many, but I don't think
it would be crazy to see it, and if he did, like probably
another thirty forty seals. So Blanco's another one again, deep league roto focused
because you're not going to get a whole lot else out of the profile.
But I was so impressed with the production, and as a as a category
specialist, he's somebody. He's a name to file away. Talking about the
Rays New Rays. Richie Pelacios is kind of interesting to me. Mm hmmm
hm. Drafted in the third round by the Guardians, kind of a classic
Cleveland sort of hitter, and then of course he was with the Cardinals and
then they did it again. They traded an outfielder away. But Placios ninety
seven percentile in strikeouts in a good way. It's lots of ground balls,
but he also puts it in the air slightly above league average, and he
popped more home runs than he had ever before in twenty twenty three, hit
six and he did that with like a plus twenty percent home run to fly
ball rate, which is probably unsustainable considering like his hard hit rate is bottom
of the barrel. This five sixteen slug far exceeded is minor league anything he
did in the minors, and he ran like a two thirty four babbit.
It's very passive. It doesn't really like walk a lot. It's only two
hundred and twenty five played appearances into his major league career, and like what
roster resource has him like platooning right now? Chance for some playing time?
Okay, man, he was like ninety one WRC plus last year. I
don't know eye contact. I'm not going to strike out. I don't think
he's gonna steal a ton of bases, but maybe maybe he's gonna do a
little bit more damage to the meets that eye. I haven't watched a ton
of plus, but I do think that there's a real hitter here, both
in giving the Rays credence in they're pretty good at picking these guys and pretty
good at maximizing, so they're going to put them in situations to succeed,
and some decent components here, I would say for fantasy, I'm not sure.
I'm not sure, like it's going to be a big boost in any
one particular category. So it's not like you can count on him to chip
in steels or chip in homers or even average. I'm not sure he's going
to run super high averages or on base clips. But he's he's an interesting
hitter, and I like him like slab hitter, but but like that or
something. I don't know. His max cvs six percentile, his average is
twenty fifth percentile, and then his flyball ev is seventy fourth percentile. The
Rays do like that, right, like optimize your flyballs. Yeah, I
mean this strikeout rate last year was ten point eight percent. Maybe a really
high contact, good eye guy who's kind of learned how to hit for a
little bit of power. I don't know. It's kind of interesting, yeah,
definitely. I don't know. I wasn't a big like Stuart Fairchild guy
when he was a prospect and he was like a second round pick, but
kind of maybe a little interesting obp and speed guy hits too many ground balls,
and another guy doesn't necessarily hit the ball like real hard or anything like
that, but he's got a good like home run to fly ball rate.
Just kind of wondering if there's maybe a little bit of a of a sneaky
sort of like power speed chipping combo here eighty six percentile solid contact, fifty
one percentile barrels. He doesn't make like a lot of weak contact. I
don't know. I just wonder if we're just like maybe a smidge off of
like some calibration here of him maybe being a little bit more excited, Like
strikehouts were always kind of like a big thing for me. He's good defensively.
His kra was as high as thirty eight percent in the miners, but
he's cut them way down to be fair. His high k rates were mostly
in small samples. Was more. Yeah, he was more like mid to
low twenties guy for most of his minor league career. Oh okay, his
exivelocity stuff isn't real great. But if we if you maximize it like you
can't, like we've seen, you know, fifteen twenty home run types guys
that hit the ball this this weekly, if you will, like some of
the stuff with Fairchild is a little bit like Tyro Estrada who hit fourteen home
runs last year. I think he hit the ball even like softer than Fairchild
in that ballpark. Fangraft says him is potentially platuning as well, maybe a
little bit of an interesting guy, who could you know. I know that
they are kind of jammed up in the infield and talking about playing steer in
the outfield and stuff like, you know, if they want some more defense
on some days, like a fairchild is probably their guy. And some chipping
counting stats that could be a little interesting. I could see it digging around.
Not a guy that I paid a lot of attention to before, but
Josh H. Smith of the Rangers, now I know we're now talking about
guys that are rostered less than some of our b sides, Matt. But
smith Man, he now, I know playing time with the Rangers is going
to be tough to get on the field. Fangrafts as him as like a
bench guy. But there's some interesting looking contact skills with a guy who's like
maximizing probably what he has home run wise, talking like seventy eight percentile zone
contact. Guy who doesn't chase eighty six percentile chase his exit velocities, I
mean thirty third percentile, thirty second forty nine percent. So, but he
pulls the ball at a forty seven percent clip, hits it in the air
thirty six point six percent of the time, which is sixty six percentile.
Maybe a decent little hitter here, and he plays all over the infield.
Kind of an interesting bad He's not very old hasn't played a whole lot in
the bigs. I don't know, maybe just a guy who was like,
oh, I think you might be better than than I thought you were.
All right, Well, that's Matt and I getting dirty in the bigs or
trying to. I don't know. Hopefully we maybe touched on a few guys
that might be helpful in some of your leagues. We talk out loud and
talk some of these guys out, you know how it is. Every season
there's somebody that quote comes from nowhere and improves. But these are some guys
that I think aren't aren't quite totally written off, still have some potential make
some improvements, have made some improvements a little off from more exciting production in
the majors. Absolutely, I don't know what we're going to talk about next
time. I actually, man, I kind of want to talk about some
pitching. We can do that. We've we've talked about my hitters for a
little bit. Yeah, there's there's some arms that are similar like this as
far as age and lack of popularity, and you know, arms were probably
I mean, they're always more exciting, but the potential of taking the potential
for taking a big jump might be there more so for for some arms and
some bats. But we also got a new toy that I've been playing a
lot with. I don't know if you have been, but maybe we'll talk
about some of that next time too, maybe. Yeah, I mean I
figured you want to because Reedvon Scooter is a damn star there and what are
you looking at? It's pretty impressive, man. But there. You can
follow me along on Twitter at Pitching Specs, catch Matt in the Dynasty,
dugout Discord chatting away and we're getting closer to the season, Matt, I
can't wait, talking about so close. Yeah, finally start to get into
some some drafts, some dispersal drafts, some fypds like oh, we're so
close. All right, Well, let Chicago Farmer take us out. We'll
talk to you next time. Do well. Peace. It was an hour
riding to his head. You have it down first with the lump boneyus face,
and on the very next pitch he up and stole second face with greatst
speed. He wasn't born. He had the dirty Yes uniform.