Not a bad miles an hour riding to his head, he hopping down first
with the limbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second face with greatest be He wasn't born, he had yes, beautiforn.
All right, Welcome to episode nineteen of the Prospect b Sides podcast. I
am Nate Handy joined me once again as always, rook the consensus. Yeah,
rook it, Nate, rook it. How are you, my friend?
I'm good, I'm good. It's like many people, we're experiencing a
bit of that arctic blast that has coming through town and hoping that the power
stays on tonight. Pretty icy out there. That would make for a poor
podcast if you went. Mia, one of my good buddies who lives on
the east side of Washington State, he likes to call anybody that lives over
the mountains on the west side of Washington or Oregon. He calls us all
coasties. Even though you know I live multiple hours from the Pacific Ocean.
He's like, he just calls you a coasty because if you're over the other
side of the mountains, but us coasties, we don't experience the winters like
you do on the other side of the mountains, especially not like you and
the Rockies, Nate. So our our little foray into this version of winter
always comes with just terrible driving accidents and lots of power and houses and lives
are not set up for this. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that everything
stays on tonight. Well, me too, and we need we need you
to stay safe, my friend. I'm excited about this episode, Matt.
We're recording Wednesday night, right, it's Wednesday night, No, no Tuesday,
recording Tuesday night, and yesterday was the International free agent signing whatever day.
Just curious if you had any thoughts on that, if you've been paying
attention to any of that at all, I mean paid attention a little bit.
Have read up on some of the reports on the top of the class,
you know, read Baseball America and Ben Badler has great work there and
are on Chris Klegg had some good write ups too. I My take on
this is that you just aren't going to know for a long time, like
even the guys at the very top of the class, Like I just don't
think you're gonna know for a while how good these guys are. And somebody
brought up in the discord. Like a year and a bit ago, I
was doing an FYPD and had some questions between some guys, and I went
back and looked at that particular FYPD draft and a thirty teamer, and I
got Joe Injury. Vargas was like one fourteen or something in that in that
draft, and like, now he might be top one hundred, top fifty
prospects for some guys, but like he was a total dart throw and he
was at the top of that J fifteen class last year, near the top
anyway, like top five for some people. So I just think that there's
such dart throws and you just really don't know who's going to work out that
I try not to sweat it too too much, you know, like I'm
not out there chasing the next one of those guys. And even someone like
Vargas who showed a lot last year, it's like he still doesn't come state
side, still hasn't in the full season ball like a lot can happen still
right with that profile. So I generally like it's sort of an interesting thing
and borderline creepy, like where we know what these sixteen year olds are doing
in the Dominican or in Venezuela. Like I've thought about that a lot.
Like I mentioned some of my buddies who are coaches in college, and you
know they're like routinely talking to fifteen year olds, Like, man, I
was such an idiot at fifteen, Like this is such a weird thing to
care about as an adult person. Yes, I concur you mentioned you had
drafted Vargas in the league like otherre certain leagues that you're more inclined to take
a stab or not so much? Or how do you play it? You?
Where do you line these guys up when you're getting ready for a first
year player? I take it opportunistically. I think like in that thirty teamer
I And again, are drafts coming up in a couple of weeks. I
have no high picks. My first pick is probably in like the late fifties
range, and then I've got a couple in like the sixty to seventy range.
And so how am I going to line up whoever falls, because like
the top guys in that in the J fifteen class will likely get popped pretty
well before I pick. But if it's like a guy who got you know,
a million bucks from the brewers or something like, maybe I'll look to
grab them. But I think I'm less likely to do that this year because
a We've done so much work in looking at this FYBD class, like the
last couple of episodes talking about all the guys, and frankly, that familiar
familiar with this class I think makes me more interested in the what I know
rather than just plopping a random bet on something that somebody else says, you
know what I mean. So I think in that sense, like I'm even
less likely to get an international free agent guy this year than I might have
been in previous years, just because I have sort of a mental picture of
this class, which I think is pretty strong. The domestic amateur draft class
was pretty good, so I think for that reason too, like when I'm
down in my sixties, pick hundred, pick one fifty, even, like
maybe I'll drop a high upside take and pick one of the J fifteen guys
there, But I gotta say it's probably unlikely for me. Yeah, you
know, it's it's a trick. It's a tricky thing. Like you know
that there's gonna be some star players that come to major league organizations via this
route. That's no secret. But like you, I'm just so much more
inclined to, you know, take a gamble on something that I know,
something that I've seen. But that being said that I kind of find myself
coming a little bit more back to the idea of taking stabs on some of
these names and little Ben Badler blurbs that I have read, I mean interesting,
Tell me, tell me why. What's kind of swayed your mind?
What has swayed well? Like in the leagues where you cannot pick up prospects
in season, I think I'm more likely too. I think I've mentioned that
before, just in part because I just see what some of my league mates
are doing with that and having some success getting some studs, and I want
maybe a little piece of that, And you know, trying to value and
pick who you might go after is really interesting to me. It's it's really
kind of just a throwback to I don't know when I first started getting interested
in prospects many years ago, premilb dot tv, where you read a blurb
about a player and you made your decisions off of that, off of very
little right. Baddler is the FUKA of any J fifteen international prospect opinion really,
and I think I'm using that correctly, right, FUKA first, universal
common ancestor, I think is the scientific term. We are all related to
some single cell organism that was struck by lightning or something back in the day,
right, I don't know it, it's tricky. I'm more likely in
those kinds of leagues. And I think there's just like for me, just
two main first year player drafts stories for me involving these players. I took
Malcolm Nunez whatever year that was, that he just pore up the DSL at
four hundred, slug eight hundred or whatever it was, right, So you
play those DSL stats and you know we have seen how that has played out.
You can hit some home runs, but you know that's not a win
in me any leagues. And then I think I'm hesitant in leagues where you
can pick up prospects in part because like I drafted Jackson Curio round five of
a thirty teamer his first year, and I subsequently dropped him a few months
later for Edward Julian. Do I trust myself, but I'm going to really
hang on to some of these guys in a league like that, not really
that's my That's my other concern with J fifteen guys is I'm willing to be
patient on a prospect, but I mostly am interested in prospects so that I
can sell them, trade them to get a win now. Piece. I
just think that generally speaking, we're still, even in the dynasty world,
still way too worried about next year or the year after your contention window.
And with you just keep red paper clipping in and you can turn a prospect
that nobody cares about into a performing, you know, maybe average big leaguer,
but that that's value in a lot of these big leagues. And look
I took last draft season, I took I took some stabs on Ethan Sallas,
like thirty second, twenty fourth somewhere in there, grabbed him in a
few leagues. And I can tell you right now, I have zero Ethan
Sallas shares. Right. I don't know if that was smart at all.
I am very impressed that with that player and what that could be. And
I don't know if I made a smart move or not, but he was
sitting there and I was trying to contend and get into playoffs and do damage.
And I use that as an opportunity to bolster that. Yeah, I've
got Vargas I think in two deepish leagues, one really deep league in one
medium deep league, and it is I would be absolutely astonished if he debuts
with my team like there's if he keeps doing really well next year when he
comes to full season ball, the chances are that I trade him for whatever
top tier talent that I can get from a non contending team, and he'll
be one of my top trade chips. It's super hard for me to envision
holding on to him for even the three four years of an accelerated timeline for
him. You know, I guess maybe two at the very outset, if
he follows like a Cheerio kind of route or something. But yeah, I
don't really see that happening for me. And so again it's and Salas and
Vargas even are the better kinds of outcomes for those international guys like a Sallas
doesn't ever happen. Right. What he did last year was insane, both
the Padres deciding to promote him through like four levels as a seventeen year old
and sixteen year old and him doing really well at some of those levels.
That was crazy and speaks to his talent, like, the kid is going
to be, I think, a phenomenal big leaguer, But is he likely
to end up on an of my teams? Like? Probably not, because,
like you, I probably would have traded them away already at this point.
So that's I think my other point on the that usually it takes a
lot longer than that for them to show that value, and so I'd rather
use that draft pick as something that is going to, like call it mature
faster than a J fifteen prospect would. I don't know if we've ever mentioned
David Foster Wallace on this show. Have you read David Foster Wallace? Yeah,
oh yeah, big fan. One of my I mean, so many
great quotes, but one of my favorites is although, of course you end
up becoming yourself, like know yourself. If you're not going to hang on
to these guys and you know you're not going to maybe maybe we don't waste
a pick. Yeah, But AnyWho, Matt, let's get into what we're
going to get into. I'm pumped for this. We ended the last show
taking some listener questions, particularly my guy SPP. He asked us the Shelley
v tweet thing, right, someone who's gonna rise, someone who's going to
fall, et cetera, et cetera. Right, Well, we answered for
each other, and you just so happened. And I didn't even realize this
at the time, but you brought up three players that I had just recently
spoke about on a podcast in part I wanted to kind of answer my guy's
question a little better here and offer out some other names. Not that your
answer was poor, it was just it was a repeat for my guy.
Ah, I didn't even know that. Jesse Severe's Dynasty Sports Life. We
talked about eight of our B side selections, kind of the better ones,
more interesting ones, And then we had finished the show and you and I
had started talking about what we were going to do next, and we brought
up the idea of coming up with some hypothetical trades that we might make in
that vein someone we might be fading who's more popular than someone we may like
who isn't quite as popular, that sort of thing. Right. Then on
top of that, there was an interesting discord conversation in the Dynasty dugout where
well, we had started talking about Joandre Suarez, right, or is it
Johander is the Jay Silent? I think it's silent. I think it's Yeah.
We started talking about him right, posted some video and you had shared
some high praise like you did on on the B Side Show when you started
talking about him as your Mets pitching selection, and someone posted a great question
in my opinion, and I'm going to paraphrase a little, but it was
something like, how can you advise other people to sell a top one hundred
prospect for some no name B side guy that we've been talking about? Right?
I think that I think that's pretty much more or less what was said,
Right. I think that's an extremely fair and great question, and one
that we could probably talk about for hours. We may even sometimes we talk
a lot after we're done recording, too. But I want to kind of
answer that, Like, I don't know, what was it twenty twenty I
think is when I at first started doing some stuff at Picture List and taking
this hobby of mine, just putting more time into it, right, And
like part of the reason was I thought I could maybe add some pieces to
these puzzles that we're trying to put together with these players that maybe I thought
weren't really being thrown out there very much, and you can you can be
the judge of that if I've if any of that's been worth a wick or
not. I mean, aside from we always see prospects that are in top
one hundreds that fall in and out of that you had mentioned at the end
of the show. I had asked a last show, I had asked a
somewhat rhetorical question, but I thought your answer was extremely interesting. I'd asked,
like, where does consensus opinion come from? Right, And you had
and you had in your answer said, when there's a lot of unknown,
folks tend to herd together, right, feel safer that way. I think
a lot of opinions start to get you know, piggybacked off of other opinions
and that sort of thing. Right, I think that's somewhat just like human
nature. Right. We're seeing a lot of that right now with these J
fifteen stuff. Right, we don't know hardly anything, and a lot of
opinions are gonna breed from that and get bred from that. And like,
I almost want to go the other way, right, there is so much
unknown. I want to go and try to find what the herd, so
to speak, might be missing. Right, but they might be not paying
attention to baseball minor league baseball, is Hugh Mongous. I've mentioned my friend
Craig a few times in the prospect One Room. He brings up this great
point often, right, Like, think about the major leagues in our fantasy
leagues, and think about how much discourse and digging around and numbers and research
that go into trying to order the first round of established major leaguers. There's
a ton of different opinions on that, right, and lots of debating.
Yet it's interesting that when we start talking about prospects, with so many more
gauntlets to run and so many more variable still in play and so much unknown,
that like, we are more in line with each other's opinions and there's
less debate on who the top five guys are or whatever. That is extremely
interesting to me, Matt, and I think a great point by Craig.
So that's part of my answer, I guess to that question. But also
too, when MiLB dot TV came about what was it two thousand and eighteen,
is that right? I started getting addicted to watching these really crappy broadcasts
of minor league baseball, and man, Matt, that was to me,
just very very eye opening in a lot of ways. I had never watched
minor league baseball before, and like I just came away with is very different
opinions on some players. Well, my eyeballs were telling me wasn't driving with
some of the blurbs, right, I dare say, if you haven't already,
if you don't watch minor league baseball, well if you did, if
you just set aside top one hundred lists, dynasty lists, didn't pay any
attention to them for a year and just watch minor league baseball as obsessively at
times that I have, I think when you looked at the top one hundred
list whenever you came back to society, you would have a lot of different
opinions. I think sometimes with all of these metrics and so many more,
you know, people writing stuff and like, you know, this is blown
up big time. There's a lot of content out there, right, But
like sometimes I think, like just we all learned about baseball by simply watching
it. We all learned about players just by watching. I learned that Eric
Davis was one of my favorite players because and that he was good at baseball
by just watching as a ten year old kid, or whatever. Right,
you can pick up a lot of things. You can come to some pretty
solid conclusions in my opinion. My five year old son, he's seven now,
but when he was five he started watching baseball, So, I mean
Tim Anderson was his favorite player, right, you want to know how Tim
Anderson was doing it? You know, twenty twenty two, Tim Anderson was
pretty good. I remember the field I think it was two thousand through the
Field of Dreams game when he hit the walk off. Like, my son
was watching that and he loved that. That was an awesome moment. And
then last season, as a six year old, he's sitting there and he's
watching a White Sox game with me, and he turns and he says,
Dad, how come Tim Anderson isn't good anymore? Like my six year old
son, who just learned a year ago that when you hit the ball,
you run the first base, could pick up that Tim Anderson wasn't doing so
well, right, Like I think, sometimes it can be a lot simpler
than we make it as well. Right, we put a lot of time
into this, Matt this offseason series that we've done, a lot of hour
we have I mean, I don't I don't have much of a life other
than being a dad going to work and watch him minor league baseball. Right,
That's pretty much where I'm at. It's just it's hard for me.
I want to be I'm gonna be honest. I want to be honest.
Right. I can't sit here and watch a you know, they'll say,
I say, I really get into a picture I watch a Dylan Ray's a
bunch of starts, right, I'm gonna come away with with, Well,
what I really want to do is just kind of observe and report for the
folks who do have lives and don't get to watch these many starts by Dylan
Ray or whatever, and just try to try to do the best that I
can to put that information what I've seen out there. But of course,
with all of this, people are gonna want to know your opinion on things,
and I just like, I can't watch a guy like that and,
regardless of where he might be ranked, tell you a lie and tell you
that I don't think he's as good as this guy or as good of a
bet, there's absolutely no certainties. I know that a lot of what we
talk about on this show people would call like anecdotal, right, it's all
anecdotal. Even if you're using numbers like further, there might be better arguments.
There might be some numbers that are more telling than others, but this
is not scientific. As many metrics as you want to get into. I've
had major league scouts, amateur scouts who man blue collar stuff. Man scouts
work a ton and it is a grind, and they have way better tools
and resources than we do. Right, anyone in the Dynasty world, And
like I had a scout coming up on the twenty twenty two draft just really
not have a very high opinion of Caden Dana, right. I think you
had them as like the seventeenth best right hand prep pitcher in that draft class.
Like, sure, this is very early and nothing can be can be
sett in stony right. These stories have not been written on these players.
Stories have not been written on the players that I started writing about in twenty
twenty, right, But I mean that doesn't look like maybe what's really happening
right now. I think there's probably not fourteen right hand pitchers from that prep
class that you would rather have in your Dynasty league right now. My point
is not that he was dumb for that he had great reasons right to me,
in my opinion, you have reasons why you might come to some conclusions.
Some might be good, some might be shit. Right, I've had
both, So that's it. That's all we got is reasons, and I
am going to try to share reasons why I've come to some opinions in this
Dungeons and Dragons baseball game that we are obsessed with. So a couple of
things nate to what you said. You know you reference David Foster Wallace earlier
on and love him as a fiction writer and nonfiction writer. I think I've
learned a lot from him, both about writing and also about life and philosophy.
And the closest I think that baseball has to David Foster Wallace is a
guy named Sam Miller. I'm not sure if you've ever read any of Sam
Miller's stuff, but Sam has written a bunch of places. He was an
ESPN for a while. He now has just an absolutely phenomenal substack that I
highly recommend any baseball fan should check out. And he was the founding co
host of Effectively Wild, one of the all time great baseball podcasts. And
Sam I cannot get enough of all of the things that he wrote. But
as you were talking, you mentioned that all of this is anecdotal, and
in the absence of deterministic stats, it's we are just kind of scattering about
in the dark. And Sam wrote an article about this in twenty seven where
he said, could you figure out who the best player in baseball is?
Just by watching? So if you had no access to stats, no context
at all. So if you show up to a game, who's the best
player? And he, in his typical Sam Miller way, breaks it down
in a few different ways. So there's the total anarchy where you might just
like watch a guy for a week and you're like, this is the coolest
player I've ever seen. And over the course of a week, baseball players
can kind of do anything right, Like you can just have a hot streak,
you never miss your have perfect command for that full week, and you
look like the best baseball player on the planet, whether you're just locked in,
you're in the zone, whatever it is, and over that short time
period, maybe you do look like the best player that ever lived. Then
there's the like, who's pretty good at everything? So you want to see
somebody who's, oh, they're fast, they can throw the ball really hard.
They can hit the ball really hard, and they seem to like hit
the ball a lot. Maybe that's the player. It's really good, and
you can use that as a heuristic to evaluate. And then there's the wow
philosophy, like who's tools stand out so much that it's impossible that they're not
among the very best players in baseball? And we're doing some of that right,
Like, we don't do it in those exact terms, but what I
think we do try and articulate is the why behind we're interested in somebody.
So it might be one standout tool, and I hope we're doing a better
job than some about saying why that tool might be interesting because like, you
know, yeah, guy throws the all really hard from the outfield. It's
like that is a cool play and when I'm at a game, that's one
of the most fun things to watch. But does it help you in this
silly little game that we play, Like probably not. So that's less interesting
than say a pitcher who has a really weird looking arm angle or an approach
to pitching that sets him apart from his peers. And I think that while
I certainly do try and lean on the stats, like I think they are
trying to tell us something, and they're a good barometer for what our eyes
are easily duped about. It's I like telling the story with both right,
Like you want to see somebody that does something exceptional, or you might see
an explanation for why their stats look one way or another, and then we're
trying to explain that in the best way that we can, perhaps not quite
as eloquently as David Foster Welser or Sam Miller, but in our own b
side munning way. We're trying to tell that story with the information that we
have exactly what our off season thing. We've talked. We've talked about hundreds
and hundreds of players, and just by nath alone, a couple of those
guys are gonna pop. Like, in no way do I ever want to
try to present that I am some sort of like mystic crystal baller. I've
got this thing figured out sort of thing. No spreadsheet has figured it out,
no scout has figured it all out. I think some great hits been
dead on about some things that have come to fruition. And I've also would
have rather Johandrik Panango over ze Field Tobar a few years ago. I thought
Bryce Jarvis was going to that there were reasons and things that I saw that
Bryce Jarvis might turn into a stud pitching prospect. Right, You're gonna have
hits and misses, and that in part to answer this question why should someone
listen to you, Well, I mean I'm trying to answer that. That's
why I track pretty much all the players that we've talked about that I've talked
about that I've labeled as B side guys, trying to talking about the thirty
three percent hit rate so to speak. Right, I don't know if if
anything that I'm doing is special or worthwhile, but all I can promise is
that, like I'm putting time into it, and maybe some of that can
be can be useful. So, like I think how I kind of left
the little discord discussion was you put the time in, you do your work,
you come to your conclusions, and however that might look towards other people's
opinions, like so be it. So am I advising you to trade some
of these top fifty picks that I'm going to talk about for the players that
I'm going to recommend or get into here. No, I'm not advising anything
that's for you to decide. You got to take what pieces of all these
puzzles and make whatever kind of picture you think might be there. So I
don't advise anyone, but I hope that we do a good job of just
shedding some light on some other players out there. I mean, when you
and I have talked before, like sometimes the I don't know, I kind
of feel like in the Dynasty world, the gap in talent between these guys
with high brown names and unless you're named just isn't really as big as is
pretended. Sometimes, at least That's what I'm gathering over the last since the
advent of MiLB dot TV. It's also constantly changing, and I think that
one of the things that we're trying to come in with is another view.
And sometimes it's reasons why we're more interested in a prospect than others are,
and sometimes it's why we maybe have some questions. And I think that's a
little bit of the spirit of this show, where we're going to talk about
some high brow names, as you like to say, and who we might
envision flipping them for, not to say that they're bad, not to say
that they're not incredibly talented. Like I shared Fields with these guys, and
they were all very clearly better than me then, and they are for sure
way better than me now. And I hope that some of that comes through
that this is still a lot of appreciation for their talent and they're doing one
of the hardest, most entertaining things to do, and we're just trying to
see through the fog. Right, you know, this is fun too,
Like, you know, we're playing fantasy to have fun, so let's not
let's not forget that, but like and also too on the top, like
I don't know, I play in some leaves with some like sharp guys,
guys who pay attention, read lists, watch games, And if you want
to get ahead of those guys, you want a little advantage of those kids.
That's the name of the game in my opinion. Who's popular, who's
coveted by other owners that maybe you don't really care for, And how can
you get you know, how can you turn that into a profit for you?
So I was thinking, mat like, man, what if we lived
in some sort of like authoritarian baseball loving country and they like made you fly
to have a podcast or write about baseball prospects, like I mean, look
at us any Joe schmos can can write stuff and put out podcasts, right,
And I get that. I get that as a as a listener,
You've you've got a lot of stuff to a lot of voices and a lot
of tweets to siphon through and who's that coming from and all that sort of
jass. So I want to apply for a B side license, Matt.
I want to apply for one night, and I'm going to do that by
offering up some hypothetical trades that I want to impress the application committee with and
hopefully we'll revisit these in a year and kind of see if I maybe you
can earn that license and or at least still remain in consideration. I don't
know. I thought I might like it. I like it. I've done
my homework a little bit as well. And maybe this is me showing my
lack of humility here, but I think I would do all of these trades
that I'm going to propose. So you know, those of you in dynasty
leagues with me, and if you call me out, if if you want
to offer up one of these trades, yeah, let's let's put a little
bit of our you know, money where our mouth is. I mean,
we don't have any money, but let's put a show where our mouth is.
Like, if there's a day where I'm like, man, mate,
you just need to shut up. You're not good at this. One needs
to hear your stupid opinions, Like, I'm just gonna I'll shut up,
I'll walk away. It's fine by me. I'm trying. I'm seeing,
I'm seeing if there's any worth to the time that we're putting into this.
It's just it's going to take a while to find out, I think.
But uh yeah, let's put a show where I'm out is man, all
right, I'll let I think you might have a few more than me,
at least formally set up here, so I'll let you go first. For
those of you in the Chris Klegg's Dynasty Dugout discord, this won't be that
much of a surprise because I've kind of teased this was my headliner hot take
out here earlier this week. I've seen Walker Jenkins popped as as high as
five overall in prospects, not in the class you know, he's taking fifth
overall in the real life draft, but I've seen him already vaulted up to
number five overall. Even Chris has has him at number six. I think
MLB Pipeline might be the low one. They haven't updated their lists, but
I think they're the low ones at sixteen. So this is like pretty universal
top tier. This guy not just as a real life stud high schooler eighteen
years old out of drafted by Minnesota, but this is a no doubt fantasy
like already has sort of won over the fantasy community. And there was a
tweet shared, and I'm not going to be able to give correct attribution.
There's a tweet shared in the discord a while ago. Looking at over I
think it was just last year, all of the players twenty and under at
a ball comparing their swinging strike rate and their ninetieth percentele exitvelocity, sort of
good measure of sort of what's your power production and your contact skills. And
there were a lot of really interesting names on this list. I think for
another time to dive into some of those, but I was struck by Akar
Jenkins name being where it was, which is way below average on the ninetieth
percentile exit below and slightly above our average I think, significantly above five percentile
just to be ninety fifth percentile to be accurate, Okay, so ninety fifth
percentile, and if I'm remembering it right, his ninety fifth percentile was like
one oh two something like that, somebody in that range. So and good
swinging strike rate. I think the number that I have for him on that
is comfortably plus at nine point one percent is what I have. I'm not
sure if that was the same. One on one and a half was one
one and a half. Yeah, so one on one and a half was
his ninety fifth percent exit VELO four context, that is well below average for
major leaguers. I think the average for major leaguers for ninety fifth is closer
to like one oh five. The average MLB average ninety fifth percentile according to
this was one O five. Yeah, one O five, one oh five
point seventy nine, which is what the data that I have, So way
above that. And if you turn that into the scouting grade, that's like
thirty, a thirty, maybe even a twenty five on that grade, so
like near bottom of the scale for power. So that caused me to start
asking some questions like, oh, that's super interesting this guy who is receiving
just near universal dynasty praise after being drafted very highly. That's a pretty low
number. I've written before about how I'm a little bit skeptical of the scouting
aphorism, like that they're going to grow into their power. I think that
the actual power growth is more limited than a lot of people would care to
admit. And I know that BA has referenced some of this that there.
You can expect it from the teenage years, like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen
up till about twenty one. You can expect some power growth, but it's
not huge amounts. I think it's something like two or three miles per hour
off of their ninetieth percent ale exit velo. You can expect it to rise,
and that's not universal. There are some guys for whom it never rises
or they're already showing their max power their power potential at that age, and
then there are other guys that can significantly bump it up. I'll believe that
it's certainly a spectrum. But this is a data point that we have,
and I think is one that I haven't seen talked about I've seen. I
think Baseball America gave Jenkins like a future sixty five grade on his game power
output. I've seen others say sixty on the power, and he did pop
three home runs in a relatively limited pro sample this year, but that's a
pretty low number. And I will note Beck Zach Beck reminded me that he
did have a hamdmate injury that he was coming back from, and that is
notorious for sapping power from hitters. So all those caveats aside, I did
some other digging into his batted ball profile. So he's got good contact,
he doesn't strike out very much, but he swings kind of a lot and
doesn't walk either. So I looked at who what's the shape of that production,
so kind of ignoring his babbit, ignoring his homer's homer flyball ratio,
which are noisy season to season and are huge drivers of your overall weighted runs
created. Plus, if you ignore those things that aren't really sticky that have
wild fluctuations year to year, you can maybe learn a little something about who
has similar looking production at the major league level. So this is a super
simple tool that I like to use to help give context for what does this
production translate? How does it look in the big leagues? And with Walker
Jenkins twelve point two percent k rate on the year last year and seven point
eight percent walk rate. On the year, he ran a graund ball rate
of four forty seven point one percent and a flyball rate of twenty eight point
seven percent, and the ground ball rate was well above major league average,
and the flyball rate was well below. The guys in the major leagues last
year who most resembled those four components were Bryson Stott Okay, not bad,
had a solid year, certainly outperformed my expectations. A lot of that was
the value that he returned from his steels, but still pretty good season for
stop. But the next three Kevin Newman, Tyler Freeman, and Geo Orshella.
That's not good company, I would say, especially for somebody who I
think it's fair to say that the speed maybe is average. Like I think
he's a pretty athletic guy, but I don't think speed is his calling card.
I have seen him get fifties. I think Fangrafts maybe gave him a
forty future speed grade, so slightly below average because he's a big guy and
maybe they expect him to fill out a bit. So you're talking about for
fantasy kind of rotisseary five by a guy who isn't going to be an impact
based dealer. Hits the ball in the ground a lot like those guys.
That's a line drive, slap hitting, low strikeout contact kind of guy,
and that's a limited profile for the major leagues. And while he's a big
guy and there's great scouting grades on the power projection, I'm a little concerned
at a near bottom of the scale first showing in pro ball with a one
on one five ninety fifth percentle exit BULO. Even with all of those small
samples, I think there's some signal to that noise. One of the books
behind me on the shelter you guys can't see is The Signal and the Noise
by Nate Silver. And one of the things that we try and do with
looking at the data is what about this is telling us something? And one
of it is just noise. And when we say something as a super small
sample or small sample size alert triples, it usually means that maybe there's some
noise in there, and that is likely true with just what did he have
this year? One hundred and fifteen played appearances in pro ball. That's not
very many. However, I think it's telling us something, and maybe it's
telling us more than we're giving it credit for. Certainly I would listen to
that data and say, maybe some of the pre draft grades were wrong.
The scouts get this wrong all the time, and the only thing that ends
up mattering is performance on the field. And so I think this is gonna
skew my view of Jenkins a little bit. And I'm going to kind of
ignore the one fifty nine point seven WRC plus that you put up this year
and say, like, I'm a little concerned about the shape of that profile
and looking at some guys that are seemingly universally ranked behind him now, well,
one of them is Max Clark, who got taken one pick before Jenkins
in the draft, who has maybe double plus speed thing we should care about
for fantasy. I think is considered a plus center fielder and had a very
strong showing for his debut as well. And like, again, there are
some places that have these two super close. So I'm not saying like you
could flip them one for one or even that's the end of the equation.
But for Max Clark, his again one hundred and seven plate appearances was only
one to eleven WRC plus, so maybe he will draft at him, and
they're like, I'm a little soured on that. I was hoping for more,
and I think the shape of his production is actually a lot more encouraging.
Even though he struck out a lot more. He hit a lot more
fly balls, almost ten percentage points more fly balls, sorry, only six
percent percentage points more, but walked a lot more, showed a lot more
speed, And the closest comps for Max Clark's shape of his production are Randy
A. Rose Arena, Paul Goldschmidt, and Dansby Swanson. Like, that's
a more interesting fantasy profile to me in this super simple comps tool than the
ones produced by Walker Jenkins. So I'm like, that's one that I would
probably make straight up, and I think a bunch of people seem like they'd
be really excited to take Jenkins off your hands and you could get something else
thrown in maybe as well. But another one that I'm even more excited about
that I think is farther apart in a bunch of fantasy rankings is Emanuel Rodriguez,
who is someone that I've talked about just being so taken in with this,
with his plate approach, his power and his speed that especially in an
OVP five by five league. I think Emmanuel or Rodriguez might be the just
clear, far and away number one prospect in all of baseball in fantasy baseball
coming out of next year, because he actually does seem to have top of
the scale raw power and hits an absolute crap ton of fly balls, so
he's going to get to all of that power. Takes walks more than anybody
in the minor leagues, so he gets on base and is fast. I
think, has plus speed and has shown a willingness to steal some bases in
the past. Speed grade is quite high on fangrafts for what that's worth,
and the shape of that production I think is just like so exciting to me
that that is somebody that I would happily trade one for one over Jenkins in
basically any kind of league, and except maybe a league a points league that
like just murders strike out right, because Rodriguez his big knock is that he
strikes out way too much. So for my first one, I would say,
like I would straight up take Max Clark over Jenkins just in both super
limited sample sizes, and would one hundred percent take him in or Rodriguez ever
both, and I think that that's a minority opinion, so you could likely
get something else thrown in on the side. So that's my first one.
It's not really a surprise, just given I've talked at length about both of
those guys in the Dynasty d I got Discord, but that's pretty concerned about
Walker Jenkins, and I really don't understand the just lock everywhere that he's a
fantasy star in the making. That's an interesting one to put down on your
application, sir. I just want to put out there too, these that's
a pretty small sample size of battered balls, and there was that injury.
But you know, when we're talking about minor leagues, young players, that's
a small sample size, and we're this is a small sample size inside a
small sample size. And shoot, I've I've talked about some players that I
watched pitch two innings, right, like, that's what we got. So
like, at this juncture, how are we gonna take all these these pieces
and how are we gonna put them together? Right? And you know,
Matt, we don't have to look back too far to see a very highly
touted, very loved by the fantasy community. Prep bat go from where Jenkins
is right now, I think roughly to uh where he is now. And
that's why I'm just gonna segue into this one. I was gonna do a
little bit of a different order, neither here nor there. I was kind
of thinking, I'm inheriting a team here and I got these guys, What
am I gonna do with them? But I'm gonna trade Drew Jones Matt.
We've mentioned him, I think maybe once. And we're doing this on the
eve of Baseball America dropping their new top one hundred, which is just kind
of fun, kind of curious to see where some guys that we mentioned tonight
might end up there tomorrow. Mean while you're at the time listening to this,
But let's see Drew Jones. These are all public lists. BA had
him at seventy eight, Clegg had him at fifty three, Pipeline had him
at thirty three, which was the average rank of like fifty five. He's
rostered in forty two percent of fan tracks leads. But man, I don't
want to. I ain't calling him the B word, But if I had
to make a bet right now, very black or white, is he a
bust? Or is he not? I'm gonna lean bust, like you had
mentioned this a couple of shows ago. But I do wonder if there is
something kind of fundamentally broken in his mechanics and in his swing. Now what
he got in twelve complex games twenty nine A ball games is very young,
tons of pedigree, tons of talent. Otherwise the Diamondbacks wouldn't have taken him
so high. Like I get that, I could look like a total buffoon
here given all the things that we know. This is how I'm leaning and
what in the complex? Now? Excuse me? The complex wasn't so bad
in those twelve games. But his twenty nine A ball games, he hit
the ball on the ground sixty one point three twenty six percent of the time.
He went opposite field forty eight percent of the time according to fangrafs,
the swing strike rate of thirteen point two percent. He did hit a couple
of home runs, he did steal six bases and iso under one. Aside
from the numbers, just like I had said, I think he might be
broke, and who knows, maybe that can be fixed. But I definitely
in not valuting Drew Jones like a top fifty ish bat to me, Jeff
Pond said this to me a couple of years ago, and it stuck with
me at any given point, like, truly, how many guys you really
want to bet on are like future everyday players? Like how deep does that
list really go? And I think he had said something and I kind of
said it at like forty to fifty prospects, I think, And of course
it's different every year, but that's about the market, like where I think
you really want to value these guys, and anything beyond that, I think
it gets really dicey. You really want to bet that they're everyday players.
And now, of course that also implies that you're liigning those guys up well
in the top forty or fifty, right, Drew Jones Before the BA new
Top one hundred comes out tomorrow, I'm going to try to trade them tonight,
And I'm gonna this might be kind of ass hattish of me, but
I am going for some style points here in these trades. I want to
impress if maybe I can just hit one of these, but hit it like
in a really great way, maybe this license committee will let me stick around
for a little. I think I got a no brainer here my trades.
I talk in my leagues. If you're in a league with me, I
like to use the phrase no brainer, no brainer trade is sitting in your
box. There's a couple of different kinds. There's a couple kinds, different
kinds of no brainers, Matt. One no brainer is you get an offer
and you see it and it's you slam accept. There's that kind of no
brainer. Right. There's the kind of no brainer that I'm sending to a
guy that I think he's gonna think it's a no brainer, but really it's
a no brainer to me. Right, That's the kind of trades that I
like to send. My goal here is to send this guy a no brainer.
He's gonna instantly slam accept, and I'm gonna feel good about Okay,
So tonight I'm trading Drew Jones for Victor Barracodoo. These are not I tried
to keep these hypothetical trades and like what I do these one for one and
then I'm but I'm also gonna get an extra piece here, and I tried
to keep them similar players. Now, Drewe Jones and Victor Barracotto, I
think are pretty different in some ways. But Bearracoto, my giants B side
selection heading into this year. Was it this year? Yeah, twenty twenty
three. But man, this guy, I know he gets on some west
but and like I find it interesting, he didn't hit ba's top ten,
so I think I think a lot of people would slam except on this trade.
But my man, he hit what I know, we've talked a little
bit about him, but he hit between High A and Double A last year,
twenty seven home runs. He had a slug of five thirty three in
High A, four seventy eight in Double A. Strikeout rate was nineteen point
four percent in High A. In Double A it jumped a little bit to
twenty six point five percent. But Matt, there was very much an introductory
period for him at the higher level and when that ended, so what he
got in fifty one games in Double A his last forty game, so after
a couple of weeks he slashed two sixty seven three eleven five twenty seven with
nine home runs, And that's one hundred and sixty three played appearances. And
mind you, Matt, that those half of his games. His home stadium
is Richmond, where home runs do not get hit, and he hit one
there, so the other eight were on the road kind of makes me wonder
what would that home run Tota look like if he was in a better home
park. And Cleg, I know, had shared with us some of his
excellent velocity and contact percentage stuff. Barrakota is on par as far as hitting
the ball hard with a Yanko Fernandez, who I was going to put on
this trade, but I wanted to use all top one hundred prospects in all
three lists, and Clegg has is low man there with the he had Yankiole
had one hundred and fifty seven, so I didn't think that was quite as
stylish of a trade. But I kind of value those two roughly the same.
So what's the knock on Barrakota's junction? Maybe? I know the contact
percentage stuff that Clegg shared wasn't like off the charts are great, but it
was fine. I don't think he's like a real great defender, but I
don't. I don't really know for certain. There's no speed to his game.
He's still won base last year. He's not gonna run, so you
know it's a it's a power heavy profile, and you know those can definitely
be tough. Tough am I sould that Barracodo is an everyday major leaguer.
No, I'm not going to bet on that, but at this juncture,
ID of like his chances just as much as Dru Jones. I was just
gonna say that, you're not gonna hear any arguments from me. I think
one of my hot takes from earlier this offseason or maybe late last year,
is after watching Drew Jones, I was like, I don't think he's going
to make the major leagues, which is for our top you know five too
prospect in a draft like that's pretty rare for you to make it, which,
like I had mentioned, uh when you were talking about Jenkins, like
Jones made the same fall in the Dynasty world that you might be getting onto
here with Jenkins. But I get it. But I get an extra piece,
right I can. I can get an extra piece for Jones. So
I'm not going to get too much into it, but I'm gonna throw Joey
Estes as my additional piece here. I'm trading Drew Jones from Victor Barricoto and
Joey Estes and we'll talk in a year and see what this looks like.
I like it. I like it, you know, tossing in a picture
like that, who is going to give you major league innings, especially in
a deeper league that likely has value, and especially looking at the rather large
chance, I think that j Jones never turns into anything. I like this
move. I mean it's it's bold, and especially the giving up the potential
on the steels and if he does ever figure out his swing, which man,
it's so busted, But if he does figure it out, it's a
fun profile to to dream on, especially in leagues where steel are rewarded.
But yeah, I'm with you. I think Drew dis is a cell.
You think that's fair to say that I would get an instant accept if I
offered that to somebody, Or I'm pretty sure with even with Drew Jones really
horrible year and falling down prospect lists, I'm pretty sure you're going to get
an auto accept on that one. I think folks would slam except the Barracoto's
rastered in six percent of leagues, and Joey s This is rastered in twelve
percent, And like I mentioned, Jones and forty two percent. Who you
got? What's your next one? Well, on this fictional team that I
inherited, I've got a young, up and coming shortstop with a lot going
for him. Sitting in my minor leagues, we've got Carson Williams. He
of the plus or or some even say double plus defensive ability. I think
Eric Longenhagen called him the best fielding shortstop in the upper miners last year,
so he can really pick it. And with an opening in Tampa as their
shortstop appears embroiled in quite the gnarly lel situation in the Dominican and their backup
shortstop from the last couple of years, Taylor Walls is on the shelf with
a back thing. I think so Carson Williams might get a long look this
spring. And he's been really good in the minor leagues. Just last year
he ran a one thirty WRC plus end of the year in double A,
showing plus power, got quite a bit of speed. There's a lot to
like about Carson Williams, and I think fantasy analysts have reflected this. According
to our diligent Nate Handy research, he's ranked twenty two at BA prior to
their update that's just dropping tomorrow. Our buddy Chris Klegg has him at seventeen
overall on prospects, and MLB pipeline puts them at nineteen overall. So for
an average of nineteen and he's roster in forty four percent of league, that's
a lot. I'm worried, though, Nate. I have done some digging
into Carson Williams, and the k rate really scares me. He ran a
combined k rate of thirty one point four percent last year, backed by a
wubbalo average thirteen point three percent swinging strike rate, and seems like he's gotten
a little bit of babbit luck, some batti ball luck, as well as
some I think concerns about how well his speed is going to translate as far
as steals go. So I've got some concerns that this profile is. I
think he's good. Like I'm not saying that Carson Williams is a bad player.
I think the power that's there seems pretty real, and unlike some of
the other guys that I'm talking about, he hits flyballs. He hits thirty
nine percent flyballs, which is decent. It's not out of this world or
anything, but it is pretty good, especially for someone who has the kind
of power that he seems to have. I like that, but I'm pretty
worried that the k rate's going to get to be untenable as he gets to
the major leagues, especially early on in his career. He's the kind of
guy that seems to me like he might come up soon because he has such
a good defensive floor for the major league team, and then feel like a
pretty big bust for fantasy when he's running a two hundred batting average to seventy
OBP and isn't getting to show off his wheels on the bases and is popping
a homer or two here and there, but maybe even he's getting platooned in
Tampa and now you're like, oh, I have this really high talent minor
leaguer that is underwhelming for my team. So I'm worried about the shape of
his production, especially for how it's going to translate when he gets to the
major leagues. And one just little data point is that Dan Zeborski is rolling
out his ZIPS projections for all of the major league teams for the upcoming twenty
twenty four season, and he's done most of them. I think there's like
three or four to go. When he rolled out the projections for Tampa,
I made special note to look at this. And you know Carson Williams.
Oh, he did make it up to triple A last year. I had
forgotten that. But his line projects next season if he was plopped in the
major leagues for an eighty, that's zero ops plus. So that's twenty percent
below big league average if he played next season, which he might write like,
that's sort of the median projection according to Zips, I think that would
feel like a bus for someone that is this high, this highly regarded.
So I've got some concerns with Carson Williams, and so I'm out shopping him,
And just so happens, there's another shortstop on the East Coast, also
with the last name Williams, who I think might be my target here to
trade for, and that is Jet Williams of the New York Metropolitans. Jet
is universally less regarded than Ben Carson. He's I think at forty eight for
Chris Klegg, and I think that's the high man on Jet. I was
looking at Pipeline. I think pipeline is even lower on mister Jet Williams.
Part of begets why Jet Williams is a short king. He's listed at five
six, one seventy five on MLB pipeline. That's pretty short, and so
they've got him ranked as the seventy eighth prospect overall over at pipeline. But
Jet Williams, man, did that guy have a hell of the year last
year. Made it up to double A at the end of the year,
made it up to double A at the end of the year, and his
combined line over five hundred and thirty four plate appearances as most of the season
as a young twenty year old. I think he was twenty for a good
portion of the season. He's slash well obp of four to twenty five,
slug of four fifty one on the year. Jet Williams had an incredible line
for the year, good for a one forty four point seven WRC plus on
the year as one of the youngest players in High A and then one of
the youngest players in all of Double A. On top of that, Jet
Williams is fast. But even more than that, he is really good at
stealing bases. So Carson Williams fast, plays really good defense, but I
don't think is very good at stealing. Like his his success rate was lower,
he was going less. Jet Williams steals a lot and is successful a
lot, I think, showing plus skills on the base paths, which we
should care about in our rot leagues. And while Jet Williams his reported exit
velocities are underwhelming, they're actually well above what we were talking about with Walker
Jenkins. I think his ninetieth percentile exit blow is around one oh three,
which is below major league average for ninetieth percentile, but still in the range.
So it's like, maybe it's a forty five raw forty five, so
just barely below average, call it forty even if you want to round down.
But what Jet Williams does really well is he pulls the ball and he
puts it in the air. His flyball percentage last year was forty three percent
on the year, which is really good. Even more, he pulled a
lot of those flyballs, so that's how he was able to get to as
many homers as he did, even though folks are giving him twenty present game
power. That's the grade for his game power on fangrafts. I was really
impressed by what he did. Now I would be even more in and I
would just do this straight up one for one if it weren't for the showing
that Jet had in just a very very short sample at double A, his
ground ball rates skyrocketed. He struck out over thirty percent of time, and
it was only six games I think at the end of the year, but
it showed enough that he was like, definitely looked overmatched there. And given
some of the concerns that you should come in with a smaller guy, maybe
the exebulos aren't there, it should give you a little bit of pause.
All that said, I am super into Jet Williams and think that I would
trade Carson Williams for Jet Williams straight up in most leagues unless the league really
really rewards power I and even then I might think about it because Carson Williams
hits the ball on the ground a bit too much for someone who has the
kind of power that he has, but Jet Williams does not. Jet Williams
gets those fly balls and pulls them. I guess I said that wrong.
Carson Williams does hit flyballs decently, he just doesn't pull them in the air
quite as much, and so still on balance, he's going to have the
better power projection, and I'd be more interested in holding a Carson Williams side
say, in one of these points leagues that I play in where power is
really really at a premium and we don't really care that much about K's,
but in any K penalty league, I might prefer Jet. Any roto league,
I'm almost certainly gonna prefer Jet. And because of the disparity in rank,
I think you can get a decent picture thrown in here, and so
talking like, it's not crazy to ask for Drew Thorpe or a Christian Scott,
somebody that might be more of a statline darling rather than highly ranked on
a prospect list. So I don't think it's crazy to ask for Christian Scott
and Jet Williams for Carson Williams and taking a pair of Mets in that scenario
and shipping off Carson Williams and his plus glove. I didn't know that you
were a Jet Williams guy, right, Yeah, it's I just follow the
short kings around and I'm just they're applauding him. I think I've told the
story the story you should have known. I mean six I too, I
had Carson Williams on my short list here putting some together, I was close
to maybe shipping Carson Williams off too. You know, if we were co
managing this team, I'd call you up and we'd have a long talk about
whether or not we should target mcconnagall in this trade instead of Jet Williams.
But maybe that's a discussion for another time. But another short king, So
there's there's that I could try to sell you. But I trust that bat
I think a little bit more than mister Williams. But that's that's neither here
nor there. That's a good one that I mean On that one. I
well, maybe perhaps another shorter guy here. But luis anhell Acunya. He
was ba's fifty sixth cleg's fifty fourth and Pipeline's thirty eighth ranked prospect just the
average of forty nine so considered a top fifty consensus on the public list rostered
in forty nine percent of fan tracks leagues. Now, I have long been
skeptical of Acunya here, and again, like I mentioned prior this sort of
range, you're kind of saying that he's probably an everyday major leader or close
to two. And I cannot get on that train. Tell me why,
Well, One, he's not very good defensively, from what I have seen,
he might be a fine second basement, But I think to earn a
major league everyday roll, the bat will have to warrant that. And I
don't know, man, I think that a lot of the value here might
be put on speed. Let's see, he slashed two ninety four three point
fifty nine, slugged four to ten in five hundred and sixty nine double a
played appearances, most of which were in the Texas League. And when he
was traded to the Mets, look at us talking about all these Mets in
the Eastern League thirty four games he did not perform nearly as well, slugged
to three h four there. Now, when guys get traded in new environs
and all of that stuff, I'm definitely giving them the benefit of the doubt
here. But you know, he's doesn't strike out too much eighteen point six
k percentage, walks nine point one percent of the time. I do find
him to be more on the aggressive side, I think when I've watched him,
and I like that. But that was good for a one oh seven
w RC plus, so a little what that's supposed to be a little bit
better than the league average, right, Matt, is that how that works?
Seven percent? In fact? Yeah, Now he stole fifty seven bases,
though, but I am skeptical that that translates into super gaudy major league
stolen bases because I don't think he is like a burner. I think he's
speedy, quick, and a good base runner, which is nice. You
know that's that's not a knock, but I kind of feel like that's a
big part of his fantasy hope here, and I'm not quite social sold on
that, particularly, like you can't steal a lot of bases if you ain't
playing, and I wonder what the future holds there in New York in the
middle infield. So I don't like hate a Kunya. I think he's a
fine prospect, But there's a short stop the same age, who was in
the same league until he got promoted to Triple A, who is good defensively,
who's bat I think I trust just a little bit more. Now.
I'm not sold that he is a major league every day, but he's in
an organization where he might get a chance fairly soon. And that's former twenty
twenty two Orioles b side bat selection Darryl Hernez, who does get a little
bit of love on some list. Clegg has them at two thirty three.
He is rostered in thirty one percent of leagues, so just eighteen percent less
leagues than Akunya, and I would dare say I would trade these two one
for one, but of course I could get more perhaps, But I imagine
whoever has Hernes is probably a big fan, or relatively speaking, a big
fan. But Herne is in Double A, the same league that Acunya was
in. He slashed eight three ninety three four eighty six. They both hit
nine home runs on the season and roughly the same amount of played appearances.
Herne has had two hundred and fifty three played appearances in Triple A, Triple
A, which you know is the PCL. Right, you should see some
sort of boost. But like he didn't slug a ton, it'slugged four eighteen,
hit three hundred three seventy six on base percentage strikeout percentage less than Akunya
fifteen point six in Double A ten point seven percent in Triple A. I
think he too is a fairly aggressive hitter, and I have a bit more
hope in home run production with her NAEs than I do Acunya. Just from
watching him for the last couple of years now, I think he does a
pretty good job of maintaining being aggressive but not being out of control, even
though he does swing pretty hard sometimes. But yeah, I would feel just
as good in a potential everyday short step. Well, I don't think acun
is a short stop but middle infielder with hernees as I do. And so
I'm not going to ask for too much here, Matt, as my second
piece. Matter of fact, this guy isn't gonna be up for trade because
literally no one rosters him on fan tracks because he's not created yet. Maybe
I got to pick him up, maybe I gotta get him created or whatever.
But I'm going to add my Pirates B side arm Alessandro Erkolini. M
okay, interesting slider to my application here. And I feel pretty Dane decent
about this one, Matt. I feel like in a year, if any
of the three I feel the most confident in, then I'm going to present
tonight here it's this one. This one I feel least confident about. I
think of the ones we've talked about so far, my issue with herne is
don't get me wrong, like I said, I'm going for some style points
here too, Like I feel like I could probably get some more trade return
off of this bone, but I think you probably could. I think that
two things for me in this one is that while I agree with you that
Acunya is, I don't think a burner necessarily. I think he's got,
like Ronald, a real penchant for stealing bases. So even though Acunya is
not a top of the scale runner, he's the top of the scale base
stealer because he's really aggressive and is quite successful. That's the vibe that I
get from Luis on Hell as well, and that in fantasy leagues if he
does get regular playing time at second or maybe he shifts the left field at
some point or I don't know, I think he's going to be a pretty
decent base dealer. So for me, that helps with the floor for the
production. And while I hear you on Herne's like hits the ball pretty hard
and has I think quite good contact skills, he also just hits everything on
the ground, so I think that's going to limit his upside. You know,
he's almost at fifty percent ground ball rate. Her NAEs is and well,
Acunya is at forty eight point five percent. Hernas was at forty five
point four percent in the same league. Yeah, that's true, But I
think that with like you'r you got to do something better because he's not going
to steal more bases, right, so you would want to see like a
lot more home runs. I just don't think that's part of Herne's game,
is I guess what I'm saying. Yeah, perhaps, but I'm going to
bet on I'm gonna take a leaning bet here on Hernae's glove and good enough
bat more so than Akunya's if he if you can hit enough to get on
the field and stick with the poor glove and steal you your bases. Yeah,
And and this, I think what I'm saying here is not that it's
a bad bet. It's when it's an interesting one. But I think you
could ask for an even more interesting arm other than a guy that you just
had to create. And I agree, you know, I agree, Like
that's what I'm saying. It's like, I think there's a bigger gap here
than even your you're implying with asking for Erklani. Yeah, I don't disagree
with that, but I'm trying to I'm trying to walk on the wild side
here. I like I hit on one of these, look good in the
committee's eyes, but I like my chances to hit two out of three here.
But who knows. I'll do sort of an honorable mention one here.
It doesn't technically qualify for this because Pipeline actually has them in rank order or
at least sort of close that I would do. But I was gonna sub
submit that I inherited Kyle Teal, and I was going to trade Kyle Teal
away because some folks I think, I think BA has him pretty highly ranked
as well. I know Clegg does too, but Pipeline has Teal at eighty
two, and I was going to try and trade Teal and his helium from
his really incredible pro debut for Dalton Rushing, someone who have an even more
incredible pro debut last year but seems to have fallen a bit out of favor
and people aren't quite as high I think, but I still think they should
be. But anyway, only Pipeline still has Rushing like forty spots ahead,
so it probably doesn't fit our profile here. So I'm going to hold on
that one and really go down that route, although just to say that,
I think that Dalton Rushing is going to be a very very good hitter,
especially in points leagues. I think he's going to get walks and power and
maybe the Dodgers will eventually plan them. I don't know, or we'll get
traded out somewhere. But I think he's very good. And I worry about
Kyle Teel's production, largely semming from an unsustainably high line drive rate. I
worry about the rest of the shape of his production, although he seems like
a plus glove, so maybe he's just going to win that on the back
of getting more played appearance. But why did Russian? He seemed like a
very popular name, lots of talk about him last year. How come folks
went quiet on him? What happened? So I'm not sure. One thing
might have been that he was, you know, so the fortieth overall pick
didn't have a ton of collegiate track records, So I think that there was
like the fact that he hit the ground running so much last year. I
think that there was like maybe people were like, oh, this is a
flash in the pan, even this is too good to be true, because
I mean it was obviously he ran a two twenty four WRC plus over one
hundred and twenty eight plate appearances. Like that's an insane debut. But it's
not like this year was bad. He was at high all year, hit
fifteen homers, walked even more almost nineteen percent of the time, kept his
strikeout rate, you know, a striker was maybe a touch high, but
still showed good power, but had a low babbit So his two seventy six
babbit led to a two twenty eight average, so maybe that was part of
it. Still good for a one forty six WRC plus. I just think
that he's showing some of the skills that I really value in a hitter.
That he takes a walk and if you have power, use it, and
I think he does. He gets to that pull fly balls that I really
like. So I think for me, like Rushing seems like a guy that
is going to be a very very good power hitting catcher at the major league
level. And Teal, I think succeeded in his debut by getting a bit
lucky, like hitting a tonnel line drives and that's just not a thing that
is sustainable. So that for me is more like just highlighting the difference in
their debuts, and it's just interesting that like Brushing's debut was way better than
Teal's, and I wonder if the plus defensive reputation from Teal is helping bolster
the overall profile for Teal. But anyway, this one might be a straw
man that there's already a divergence of opinion on, so you need to go
down that. Let's well, we're at Catchers, my last one here.
Okay, you know, Matt, we're not going to get out of this
one without me trading away and there in there. But Harry Ford, he
has him, had him sixty first cleg, forty second, pipeline, thirty
ninth for an average rank of forty seven. He has rostered in thirty nine
percent of fan tracks leagues. Now, he's a little bit different than the
other two guys that I'm trading away in that I don't particularly dislike Harry Ford
or there's not like these big like red flags or to me or what have
you. I just think he's just kind of overrated in a generic sense.
Last year in Hie spent the whole season in hi a right five hundred and
sixty three played appearances. He had fifteen home runs. He stole twenty four
bases, which, hey, for a catcher or maybe a catcher, that's
nice to see. He slashed two fifty seven four to ten, slugged four
thirty with an ISO of one seventy three, babbit of three h seven.
He struck out nineteen point four percent of the time. He walked eighteen point
three percent of the time. Bad at ball profile. There. There's nice
stuff in here, no doubt, but like I said, I'm not totally
sold that he's an everyday major leaguer at this juncture, not a guy that
I want to put top forty to fifty sort of bet on. And there's
a catcher that I happen to like quite a bit that I think is maybe
not grossly underrated, but I don't think gets the attention, especially considering his
proximity that he deserves. And so I'm going to swap Harry Ford for a
very modest catching prospect here, Ivan Herrera, who has had a little major
league run the last two seasons. Cardinals catching situation is interesting at this point,
would not be surprised. My hope here with this trade is that when
I get rid of my exciting young catcher here that I'm gonna dream scenario would
be I'm looking up at the end of the season and I got the Cardinals
everyday catcher who might not wow you offensively, but I think he's a very
good contact hitter. Hits the ball the other way a lot, probably too
much. He doesn't get into the power that I think is there ten home
runs last year in Triple A and three hundred and seventy five played appearances.
Now, even though he grades out really poorly for speed, from what I've
seen, I think he's a little bit more athletic and quick than he's given
credit for. Now that this is a guy that's going to add stolen bases
like Harry fordnite, but he might be able to chip in a few.
He slashed two ninety seven four point fifty one and slept five hundred in Triple
A. Of course, that's a well the International League Memphis, that's not
it's not the PCL was ISO of two oh three. Defensively, I don't
think he's super great, at least from what they say. From what I've
watched, she seemed fine, seems decent. Maybe he's got a good arm,
or good enough arm, but I think kind of a sneaky play here
for some proximity and a guy who's might get you some nice ratios as a
major leaguer, but that is not the meat of my return here. I
feel like with that's offer, I can ask for more on the pitching side.
So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get a guy that I've
talked about enough, Cayden Dana. With that, so Harry Ford, Ivan
Herrera, Cayden Dana. He's rostered in twenty percent of leagues, where Herrera
is six percent of leagues. But I like him, you know, talk
about potential arms that are outside of the top one hundred that could be there
at the end of next year. Kind of like that. I like that
bet a little bit. He's he's very young, and he's proven himself a
little bit in the uppers already. I wrote that piece where I watched a
lot of his his outings, and I know what I'm getting into. I
think he's maybe just like one or getting a little more polish on one more
offering from maybe being a big time pitching prospect. And we know that he's
shown some horsepower which could be dangerous. Who knows how the arm holds up
and all that. But uh, I feel good about this, this trade
being a maybe sneaky good a year from now, all right, I actually
quite like this fun for you, but both being aggressive on the arm ask
because I think there's a pretty big perceived gap in there, and I also
like Herrera. I think that's a really sneaky buy in a deeper league,
especially given I think the legitimate concerns about is Harry Ford going to be a
catcher at the major league level. I think that showed at the WBC that
he's not ready I think right now. And I watched a fair bit of
him in Hia this year, and I don't think he's a great defensive catcher,
really good athlete, but I think struggles with receiving a bit, and
that's super important to a lot of teams. So I think he's a candidate,
and they've talked about this a bit. I think moving him off catcher
at some point, but they're going to keep developing him as one for now.
I think the other sneaky thing about Harry Ford, I'm a little worried
about his power. You know, he hit fifteen homers this year, but
he did so at Everett, which is one of the tiniest ballparks in all
the land, and it's pretty easy to hit homers there. And I,
yeah, also just think that there aren't great exit vilas behind it. The
shape of his production is still interesting. I just don't think you should expect
a Cal Rowley kind of like big time power bat or even a peak GT.
Real Muto, which I've heard people throw around, because he's got the
speed there as well. So I think with Harry Ford, if he's a
left fielder or a right fielder and is hitting fifteen homers a year with fifteen
steals, like that's still a decent player, but it's not sort of a
cornerstone franchise catcher, and that's what you might be worried about on the downside.
So and Herrera seems like a lock to sicket catcher and did have a
sneaky good year. He's had a couple of sneaky good years. Yeah,
I like that. I like that as a target. He kind of fits
these profiles that I'm a little bit drawn to, maybe too much, but
like a Jordan Diaz at the plate right where yeah, there's a lot of
hitting the ball deep on him, A lot of opposite field stuff, a
lot of line drives, but yet there still is the ability to pull the
ball, and it's monsters. I don't know if that's what those guys will
end up being before a young hitter. I kind of like that as maybe
a potential starting point, So we'll see. But I don't chipping off Harry
Ford for potential everyday catcher and a pitching prospect that I really like. I
feel okay about that, And I also think that you could probably get a
lot more for Harry Ford than that. But trying to look good, at
least you asked for, like a real created arm. That's good. You're
learning, you know, yes, yes for more. Yeah, yeah,
he's actually on somebody's roster, right. The worse you can do is somebody
will tell you no, okay, my last real one here, last one
that I sort of fleshed out again. I tease this a little bit in
the Dynasty dugout discord. I've inherited Brady House on this team. Top pick
Stallion six for tooled out toolshed monster. I've heard all these things describing Brady
House, and I gotta say, I like my tooled out toolshed monsters to
actually show their tools for someone that has you know, quote unquote plus to
double plus power, he's really not shown that so far. Some of this
is probably injury related, He's battled injuries throughout his career, but I think
more of it is his swing. I think the power is there, but
I think the way he swings limits that upside. And even though he's ranked
in the forties, I think by MLB Pipeline Yeah at forty by MLB Pipeline
sixty two by Chris Klagg, I'm not a fan here. I think this
is a cell high candidate for me for a few reasons. So I did
write about this a while ago. I think this might have been in my
piece where I analyze just way to Paula's swing as well. But he he
has some of the same markers that justswait Apaula does, and that he seems
like he's going for more contact than he should, like he sort of swings
around his body and more so than Depaula, Like he swings really fast,
like his hands are moving fast. And I think his exit Bilo's back that
up. Even as a nineteen twenty year old, I think he was getting
way up there. I think I've seen his exit vilas reported at ninetieth percentiles
at one oh seven, which is comfortably plus. But he hits so many
of them on the ground, both because of his pitch selection, like seeing
him chase sliders below the zone and pull them, make contact on them,
but pull them, or with on fastballs up and away, because again the
rotational nature of his swing, he's almost turning too fast rather than like what
great hitters do, which is use their rotational force, turn really fast and
then use that to extend their hands through the hitting zone. What it looks
to me like his house just keeps turning really fast. So when he gets
the barrel on the ball, he might hit it really hard, but that
leads to a quote unquote kind of flat around the ball swing, which gives
a lot of ground balls. And that is true to his profile. He
hits the ball on the ground quite a lot, especially for somebody that has
like plus game power. You want to see more flyballs than he's hitting.
He's hits forty five percent of the balls on the ground last year and only
thirty one percent flyballs. And that's not as egregious as some of the guys
that we've talked about for but for somebody who's really only calling card is his
power, Like, he's not going to be a plus hit tool guy.
He doesn't walk. I mean, he ran a full season walk rate like
under five percent, or I guess it was seven percent last year, buoyed
by his A ball performance, but it was four point four percent at high
and four point seven percent at double A in decent stints at both spots.
He's not going to be a plus approach guy. And he's not a plus
speed guy either. You know, nine steals on the year last year,
and I think that's likely to be his ceiling maybe, So he's not a
shortstop. He's a third baseman power only probably some K concerns like twenty eight
percent at double A last year. It was okay at high A at nineteen
percent and okay at A ball at twenty one point five percent. But I
want to see the power production from a big time power bat, and I
think both the shape of his swing and his pinch it for hitting the ball
on the ground worries me enough that I'm going to try and sell him for
a guy that, to Chris Clegg's credit, is ranked right behind him on
his top one hundred and that's Brian Ramos from your Chicago White Sox. He's
easy there. Clegg has ranked Ramos quite aggressively this year, but he's a
guy Ramos in that I was kind of clamoring for a bit even last year
that I thought he was under ranked and underappreciated, and while having guys back
to back like they're interchangeable, and even Chris would say this, it's splitting
hairs within the tiers, but I think that that isn't a widely held belief.
And everywhere else I've seen has House way ahead, Pipeline has House at
what I say, forty, and Ramos isn't in their top one hundred.
I'm not sure where Ramos is on ba's top one hundred, but he might
not be on it, and I think Brady House is still. So this
is a swap that I'm comfortable making for a couple of reasons. Ramos has
hit in Pitcher's parks for most of his career, and as such, his
like top line production sort of looks a little underwhelming. Ramos also has had
some injury concerns, especially this year. He started late and I think took
a little bit to get going and you know, he only hit fourteen homers
this year, barely more than Brady House, but his exivulos were good.
They were almost as high as Brady Houses, who's lotted for double plus power
and ramos. People don't talk about this that much, but I think he
has comfortably plus raw power and more than that, he's going to get to
it because Da Da he hits fly balls. He hit fly balls at a
forty almost forty three percent rate this year at double A and I and and
he pulled the ball a lot, you know, forty four percent pull rate,
twenty nine percent center, twenty seven percent oppo. That's the shape of
a power production hitter. And it sounds like he might be an option at
second base soon for the for the White Sox so plus power at second base.
I'm I'm pretty interested. And I think he's got slightly better contact skills
than someone like Bretty House as well, So they're not super far apart in
age, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I don't think they're super far
apart in age. Maybe six months or something. And I just trust the
ramost bat a lot more than I do Brady House. And because of their
perceived difference. I think you can also ask for for most people, maybe
not in the dneasy dugout, because Chris has them ranked pretty close, and
I think a lot of people are rightly listening to Chris's sage advice. But
in that kind of case, you maybe you ask for one of my b
side arms that I really like, like an Isaac Coffee, somebody who you
know low velocity but has really showed out, I think largely because his approach
angle is just so unique that it does not look like anything else any hitters
have seen, so like, I kind of don't care that it's only ninety
one ninety two because it just looks so different. But I think a lot
of people still really really care about velocity. I think that's a topic maybe
that we'll save for another day because we're already two plus hours in here,
and I have a lot more to say about about that. But Coffee is
a kind of guy that I think might be underrated by people, even though
he just had an absolutely incredible season. I wonder if from a lot of
people, I might be able to get Brian Ramos and an Isaac Coffee for
Brady House, and I personally would feel really really good about that? All
right? Matt? Well, you know I love you and I know you
presented some great reasons here, But in this team that we co owned together,
I have changed the password and kicked you off of the team. Uh
oh, because I am not on board with trading Brady House for Brian Ramos.
Tell me why? What what did I do wrong here? Why do
you want to trade Brady House? Who? Mind you? Not? Great
hitting environments versus right hand pitchers slash three oh six three point fifty nine four
sixty six with eight home runs for a guy who slashed two nineteen three sixteen
three sixty one with eight home runs versus right hand pitchers, Like those splits
don't don't concern you, No, I mean one, splits take a pretty
long time to be predictive of anything, and it would take it would take
a lot for me to be like, oh yeah that even a season's worth
of them. It's it's pretty rare for them to be more predictive than than
just like a generic righty, you know what I mean, Like than than
just having a baseline. So like I, I mostly don't even look at
the splits until they're like they've had like a couple of seasons of like bad
performance against an arm Okay, well, I don't think Ramos has ever been
great versus righties. These are two interesting side by side players here. Ramos
led seven thirty and eighty seven played appearances against lefties. House was six thirty
one in just about the same same amount of plate appearances versus lefties. I
yeah, I do agree, you know, to your point. Like even
though I would start usually by saying, yeah, it's gonna be noise for
a pretty long time, but like that's a huge difference. So maybe there
is something there to the to the splits. Yeah, I think I think
that's a good player debate though, that's a that's an interesting one. But
I I want nothing to do with White Sox anything right now, so we
would we would have a discussion about that one. My co owning friend a
little short list here of some other consensus of the three list top one hundred
guys that I was mowing around trading with Tink Hans, Nick Abel, Carson
Williams, Jacob Mizerowski, Sebastian Walcott, Kyle Teel, and Hearson Waldrip or
whatever that's worth. But I liked the three trades that I came up with
here to put on my application the most. All right, so how are
we how are we grading this? What are we doing? We're just looking
to see, like, let's revisit it. We'll revisit a year from now.
We'll see if if we're morons, if if any of our reasons here
it seems sound or looking good. I don't want to say that I'm gonna
be coming out ahead of all three of these trades. I've ideally that would
be the case, but I think I can. I feel good that one's
gonna look pretty good, one's gonna look probably once is not gonna look the
greatest, And that might be all right if I come out looking and looking
good on two of the three, and then I think that's a strong case
to get my license. I like it. Okay, So we're shooting for
positive turns. You're not gonna win every trade, but you want to win
more than you lose, right, And maybe we can post the the hypothetical
trades in the discord and see if we're off base, because you know,
it's always hard, like you gotta know your league, you gotta know your
trading partners and what works for somebody somebody else might be like, that is
a stupid trade. I'm not even interested in engaging. I tried to go
like, yeah, I tried to go as far as I could doing good
about it and giving someone an instant slam the accept button. Yeah. But
yeah, So you can follow me along on Twitter if you want pitching specs
and hey, fill out your own B side license applications send on my way.
What kind of crazy, crazy walk on the wild side you got there?
What kind of pretty boys are you gonna send for some maybe unheralded guys
that you like. And if some of those trades went down, I mean,
the V word is gonna get tossed around like I might get. I'm
gonna get vetoed out of that league. You know. I think maybe I
had mentioned this once before, but what was that twenty eleven? I think
it was. I think that sounds right. I traded a very red hot
Tony Songranni starting pitcher. It was a great year in a very very heavy
pitching points league for a not super popular prospect by the name of Jose Ramirez,
and the league vetoed my trade. Wow. And I never got a
share of Jose Ramirez there and i'd be lying if that still doesn't bother me
some. And I hate Vetos, I am with you. I hate Veto's
as well. I almost never ever think that it's the right thing to do.
Now, it's not going to make the league better, it's not.
It's like it's it's also just like let people do what they're gonna do.
Like there's I was reading this is right when I was getting into the dynasty
game. I'd played fantasy baseball for a long time but had only done sort
of limited keeper leagues, and I had never done a full dynasty league.
So I was reading up something about it, and I think there was like
a bunch of posts on like maybe the Dynasty Guru or you know, one
of those sites. There was like this is you know how things change if
you're in a dynasty league versus just a regular keeper league or redraft league.
And the article is good, it was, you know, informative, interesting
stuff. But the thing that was so fascinating was it was written in like
twenty sixteen maybe, and the examples that they were giving of, like this
is a crazy trade that nobody would do. You look back on it and
you're like, wow, the prospects are way better in that trade than the
major leaguers. And they were like talking about how that would get vetoed in
the league, and I was like, man, Dynasty, you just don't
know, right, Like you really really don't know. So you kind of
just have to say, like everything goes and you know there are problem owners
that you need to replace every year and teams that get abandoned every year,
but it's still I think you just got to like let people do their thing
and just be mad that you weren't talking to that owner first. When I
sit down and edit these shows, there are definitely times when I was like,
whoa, whoa, Nate Me, are you sure that's what you really
think? Like this is divining rod stuff. There is only so much confidence
that you can have and things and players. Things are never as good or
as bad as you might think. I think there's a lot to that idiom
And I don't know, Man, you gotta let guys play in dynasty leagues
and do their things. Gotta let people have their own evaluations and and like
who is trying to get our fake license here? Like who's got the license?
Who is the gatekeeper of what's fair and what isn't like, here's the
thing. We are, Nate, We're the ones. We're going to issue
our licenses to ourselves. Right, So that all being said, this was
a lot of fun. Hope you come out looking all right. We shall
see, and uh, you know it's interesting. You know we each sort
of like co signed on two of the others others a trade. So that's
that's interesting, and some questions about a third. We'll let Chicago Farmer take
us out and we'll talk to you next time. Until then, we have
it down first with the lumbonius face, and on the very next pitch he
up and stole second face with greatst be he wasn't born, He had dirty yes uniform