Ninety five miles an hour, riding too his head. He hopping down first
with the lumpbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second phase with gretest be he wasn't born, he had yes uniform. Well
well, well, welcome to episode twelve of Prospect B Sides. I am
Nate Handy and the rookie Matt is joining me once again. Back again.
Tonight is Thursday, the last night of the AFL regular season, and I
see your guy, Cale Durban hit his third home run of the AFL and
your picture there, goolfoil is. He went three and two thirds, struck
out six, walked to and gave up one run. Pretty solid. And
if I'm not mistaken, Cable Durbin is just a couple steals off of the
all time AFL record. I was not aware of that. Yeah, he's
three shy, so he probably won't get it. But yeah, pretty good
little showing for mister Durban. Yeah, look at you, Look at your
guys showing up. Do you want to maybe just give a little summary if
there's someone new listening of what it is we're doing. Sure? This,
as Nate coined it, what a couple of years ago when you started this
is the B Sides. We're looking for those prospects that might go underappreciated by
the wider public lists that you see your top hundreds, your top two hundreds,
your top five hundreds. These guys might not appear on those lists.
But Nate and now the rookie me, we've dug into them and think that
maybe they belong a little bit higher on some of these lists. And for
those of you playing in d for dynasty leagues or really digging in the mud,
as Nate likes to say, these might be your kind of guys that
fill out the back end of your roster and then turn into something useful down
the line, whether that's a big leaguer or a throw in in a trade
to get that guy that you really need to put you over the top.
We're trying to help you out, one muddy B Sider at a time.
Just one little bit of housekeeping. Last week we did the Al West and
I had failed to mention a few of the pitchers that I had selected last
season. But I forgot to mention Ryan Pasteau, a pitcher in the Angel
system from LSU. I believe drafted what was that. I think maybe the
twenty twenty two draft, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh round something like
that. But he had kind of caught my eye another one of these sort
of some of all parts, more polished, I think, decent to good
stuff. He was injured last year. He had Tommy John surgery, but
another arm that is not going to be highly owned that I don't know.
I'm anxious to kind of see come back this season and see what he's looking
like after the surgery. Happens a lot with those injured guys where maybe they
were a fourth or fifth rounder and so someone you wanted to follow, but
then injury and then it takes another year to build up any innings, so
nobody's interested. I feel like a lot of those guys have been ones that
have been interesting to me. Doing this exercise this year is like, hey,
maybe they missed part of the last year and a half and now they're
coming back and showing something. So I do like to flag those guys for
sure. Yeah, And I think sort of throughout the little B side history,
injury is a part of a lot of it. Guys that missed time,
didn't play. They can slip through the cracks, so the Dodgers B
side history. I don't think we've really had much success. Matt. I
wanted to mention my pitchers selection last season was Luis Valdez, a young left
d that I watched a total of two innings of last season and was actually
kind of dumb enough to go on a Baseball America fantasy Well. I don't
know what they called it extravaganza and talked about him, but he's a young
pitcher. He was traded to the Rangers. I forget what the whole trade
was, but he is an arm that I want to pay attention to this
year as well. He did not start off nearly as well as I had
hoped. I kind of saw young lefty who threw fairly hard and had really
good command of secondaries. Again, this was two innings, but pairing that
with some of his rookie numbers from that season, I think he had walked
three batters in like forty three innings or something like that. Young teenage left
in the Dodgers system. This could get interest in good command stuff, and
like I said, didn't start off the greatest, but was traded to the
Rangers, who I happened to know liked him as a low cost, high
reward type of arm. So maybe I wasn't too off of my rocker.
There was some people who do this for a living who had some interest in
him as well. And then what I had selected Ermine Rosario in our picture
draft a few episodes ago, so I won't get into any more arms here.
So Matt, you got a Dodger's arm that you want to kind of
put a stamp on this year. Wow, we're really starting out hot.
You know, your Dodger's arm is no longer in the system and has scuffled
a little bit since you picked him. And as we were saying before starting
the pod that Dodgers' arms in particular were pretty tough. It seems like when
their arms performed, they really perform well, and they get that fantasy industry
excitement behind them, and the ownership rate shoot way up. I don't know
whether it's something in common with the meritors hype machine, but the Dodgers,
especially with arms, once they start performing, it seems like everybody jumps on
board. The guys that I thought might make my lists coming when we first
started talking about this that were a little bit underappreciated, guys like Kyle Hurt.
I really liked what he did this year, and he was definitely at
the very back of a bunch of prospect lists even at mid season this year,
but I had liked what I had seen. He finished the year so
strong that I think he's gonna be a top one hundred guy in places,
and he's now pretty firmly in above our ownership thresholds. I think when I
pulled it, it was like at six percent already, which is way too
high for US B siders. Emmitt Shean, Maddox Bruns like these are guys
that they, you know, maybe didn't have as much hype this time last
year, but really did figure things out and obviously their ownership shot up.
Even a guy like Justin Robleski, who is again someone that fits the mold
of the kind of pitchers that I like. You know, he's lefty,
he gets ground balls, doesn't walk. A lot of guys like kind of
that command projection kind of picture. He was way too owned for this exercise
as well, and I think, and I think a couple of places have
him ranked in top three hundreds or so, so you know, those kinds
of guys, once they start doing well, the Dodgers system, people start
to take notice, and indeed I agree with that because I think a lot
of those guys are going to get a shot next year with how thin the
Dodger's rotation has become. So definitely good hunting grounds for those impact arms.
But trying to go a layer deeper, it was either guys with really short
track records or guys that after watching a little bit, it's like, oh,
yeah, it's really earned that bad walk rate, or yeah, it
doesn't seem like this is going to play at the next level. So I
struggled a little bit for this. Guys that I tried to look at.
You know, Joel Ibarra is one who I had seen a couple of years
ago. I think Eric long and hanging at Fangrafts had written about how this
is a converted shirt stop and really power arm and maybe if there's something there.
Well, he still is incredibly raw, even two years into the pitching
experiment and it's reliever only, and he walked eighteen percent of batters, Like
I'm just out. I don't really care how good the stuff is. If
you're that high, it's like, it's not my kind of guy. So
I did go with the guy who shares some similarities with that in that he's
a reliever only and has some command issues. But I went with Brydon Fisher.
He's a twenty two year old, was drafted all the way back in
twenty eighteen out of high school. Almost immediately dealt with injuries, you know,
short stint in his draft year, and then he had Tommy John in
twenty nineteen, lost all of twenty twenty to the pandemic, and then since
he's been back, they mostly have just had him in the bullpen. They
give him a couple of starts here and there, but he seems to be
a bullpen only arm. He's up to Double A this year and finishing up
in Double A. He started at high this year. Ran Fisher ran a
two seven to seven ERA across sixty five innings. He did get one start,
but it was an open rather than like any sort of length. He
did throw a couple innings here and there. But Molessly, who was used
in short stints, he struck out a lot of batters like that was the
thing that across all the levels that he's pitched so far, he has stuff.
It's a good fastball, gets some whiffs on but an absolute hammer of
a curveball, really kind of a fun curveball. It's firm and it has
that really sharp bite. Got a lot of swings and misses and a lot
of ground balls with that pitch, and also throws a cutter slider kind of
thing. I didn't think that one was as good as the curveball. But
the stuff plays like. He doesn't get hit very hard and gets his whiffs
thirty three percent strike out rate this year, but he walked thirteen and a
half percent, and at times it looks pretty wild. He'll let that fastball
go up and away and really loose commanded that the curveball, it has a
ton of movement, and if he's not locating that hitters really just if they
can spit on that pitch, they sit on the fastball because I don't think
the slider is as much of a weapon, And when that happens, he
gets hit a little bit harder and also walks more guys. So it's not
a super exciting arm, but I've seen enough of him this year that this
could be a medium leverage arm for the Dodgers pretty soon. The stuff looks
like it'll play, especially if he tightens up the walk rate just a bit.
This might be he has a chance to be at the back end in
the higher leverage innings, but as of right now, i'd say, you
know, fifty to fifty for him to make the bigs. And if he
does, at least initially, I'm guessing it's going to be in a lower
leverage kind of a couple innings here, a couple innings there, mop up
kind of role. But yeah, Brandon Fisher, there's something interesting here,
but it's not the most exciting guy that I've seen. Right on, not
an arm that I think I'm familiar with, So right on, thank you,
that's you selected number one. Number one one briefly mentioned Austin gott here.
Again he's he's my Dodgers pick. There's a couple of other Dodgers that
were interesting. I wanted to talk myself into Ryan Ward at triple A kind
of utility guy left field, right field for space corner guy. Not super
excited about him, but there's some power speed blend there and the kra wasn't
terrible, but you know, ultimately he didn't rise to that to the lofty
levels of Gotier. Again, it's one of these just like really well rounded
hitters that the Dodgers seemed to have a few of in the Jorbet Vivas Miguel
Vargas kind of mode where a lot of line drives a lot of doubles,
doesn't strike out very much, has a good eye. You know, he
walked basically as much as he struck out last year and made it up to
double a. Actually walked more than then he struck out. You know,
He's got a really really strong plate approach and is pretty quick, and I
think can play the infield like he's going to play somewhere in the infield,
maybe even left field if they wanted to try him out there. But yeah,
Austin Gotier I think is really good. And Gothier got a present ninety
seven WRC plus projection from Steamer, which is pretty impressive for somebody who's unheralded
and I think validated my B side number one selection. Like it's basically saying
he's a league average hitter right now. That's pretty good for someone that was
one or two percent owned YEA at the end of the year. So Austin
Goffier, I've remain pretty excited about him. I think he is actually a
big league regular in the making, and that is gold for us mutters.
There were two pretty young bats that I'm just more curious about. I don't
know if you saw any of these guys, but they have a young infielder,
Juel Perez, who started the season in a ball wouldn't say he was
particularly great. He's a young eighteen year old, and then they sent him
back down to the complex. He really turned it on the last couple months
there or whatever, slug like over six hundred over like his last thirty five
games, so I'm interested in just watching him again. Then they got a
young catcher, Jesu's Ali's, who I think had a decent little season at
a ball nineteen year old. Got to keep my eye on him, but
they weren't really I didn't really feel great about making them B side selections.
Maybe this is kind of being cheap or cheating a little bit mad. I
didn't really want to do this, but I'm just going to double up on
my Dodger bat selection from last season and go with Junior Garcia last year what
he was twenty years old. I believe this is a very powerful bat who
I think kind of had the reputation of chasing too much, not a good
approach and all that kind of stuff, But that wasn't really what I was
seeing on the video. And then he had he just absolutely dominated the end
of his a ball run last season, his last two hundred and sixty one
played appearances there, he went like three point fifty three, four to twenty
three, slug six twelve, hit twelve home runs, and playing for Rancho,
you don't you know, you don't get their broadcasts, but some of
the some of the home runs that you did see were just urminator as sort
of distance and ridiculousness. And then he got moved up to Hi A at
the end of twenty twenty two. I think he struggled a little bit,
and then this season he was back at High A, but he didn't play
for very very long. He only got in what one hundred and seventy five
played appearances, I think maybe even less. I don't know if some of
that was some rehab. Didn't really do anything spectacular. He had two to
eighty, slugged three thirty now excuse me on base three thirty, slugged four
sixteen, hit five home runs, So nothing super spectacular, but I'm just
gonna kind of maybe take twenty twenty three is just kind of a throw it
away year and see what Garcia looks like this year. I know Clegg had
gotten into some of his you know, data, and there was lots of
hard hit and lots of evs and things of that nature, and I think
he had gotten a little interested in him coming into this year. But you
know, of course lots of ifs. Garcia just feels like a guy who
could potentially have like a thirty home run minor league season if it all goes
well, and that would surely boost his zero percent roster percentage right now.
So I don't know who's the dadgers, and I just couldn't really find anybody
that was a little bit more enticing them Garcia, So I'm just going to
stick with him. Have you watched him at all, Matt, I have
watched a fair amount of him. I was on him coming into this year
and had him in a couple of leagues, partly, I think on your
recommendation as well as Clegg saying some of the underlying data was pretty good.
The kid hits the ball really hard, which I like, seemed to have
a pretty good plate approach, which I think took a little bit of a
step back this year. It seemed in both categories. I did end up
thinking both leagues that I had him, I dropped him because the power just
wasn't showing up. I hope that it was all related to whatever injuries he
had this year. And what were the injuries? Do you have any idea?
I don't know. I thought one of them was a back or something.
I had asked a couple of people who might be in the know,
and nobody seemed to know what the issue was. So I just know he
missed a bunch of time and it wasn't very good when he came back to
which I was kind of bummed about. Didn't hit a homer after he came
back from his injury. And I don't know. I again was pretty excited
about him coming into this year. So I think seeing writing this off as
a lost injury year might prove prescient and he could really turn it on.
But yeah, tough year for junior. Yeah, still quite young, he
did have like he still managed the one O three w RC plus in a
short time. The Midwest League is not necessarily the most homer friendly of leagues,
especially early in the year, but I don't know. Yeah, I
think he was around early in the season, so yes, we'll see the
year. Yeah, through early May he was in the Northwest League and yeah,
yeah, not an easy place to hit early in the season or pitch.
So yeah, the pretty boy dadgers not muddy enough for us. Matt.
Look, I think that Junior Garcia might be a more interesting hitter than
Yesuaya Paula. And that is a hot take because JDP is in some top
fifties and people love to talk about his sweet swing and advanced approach. And
I will admit he does have an advance approach. He knows the strike zone
pretty well, and he doesn't whiff a lot. It's it's a pretty like
he makes a lot of contact. But I don't know if I'm not a
really big Twitter x guy. But apparently there's a big storm over the GM
meetings because Brian Cashman is talking about they're going to play more small ball and
bunting, and somebody else was talking about contact is king and oh, I
think Jerry Depoto actually he mentioned this that they want guys that make more contact
and don't strike out as much. And some of the smart people on Twitter,
like Mike Petrie, Hello he, I guess tweeted out about like how
Yeah, the teams that draft and prioritize contact over everything else, they also
hit the fewest homers and they aren't very good offenses. That's the Nationals and
the Guardians, Like they're the two highest contact organizations, and they were twenty
nine and thirty in home runs hit this year. I think just way to
Paula is that kind of hitter his For all his you know, six'
three athletic looking, big strung kid, I think he swings very soft for
someone that should be impacting the ball. And part of it I talked about
the way his swing works. I think he is prioritizing that contact way too
much and he should be whipping more and hitting the ball a lot harder.
And part of that is that I don't think his hands work through the ball
very well. He's very good at hitting at the ball, and so he
makes a lot of contact. But I think when he does make contact,
there's a lot of side spin. It's very much singles here. He might
find a gap and hit a double, but he hit like one home run
in the Cow League. And Rancho is a really great place to hit,
especially for lefties. Like, I'm just not sold that this is an impact
bat. And you know, BA shared that he had pretty good exit velo
data and you expect it to grow maybe a little bit over the next year
or two. But I'm just not seeing a good hitter. I'm just not
seeing like someone who is comped to Jordan Alvarez or whatever some of the crazy
comps were coming into this year, and so I think the hype on him
is like wildly out of proportion to what his actual skills are going to be.
I feel like I'm just on an island about this, and it just
gets me going every time because I like, people are so excited about him.
I have him in the league, and I am cannot wait to trade
him this offseason or next year because I just don't see it. I don't
see like I don't think he's going to make the big leags. Like that's
my take right now. So that's a hot take for me. And you
did bait me into talking about him, even though I promised myself coming in
that I was just going to talk about the guys that I actually was excited
about. But the Dodger shark it felt right, we're gonna get into some
like pretty boy bashing, right, and then yeah, I think I think
that's going to be part of our show. So it's a good warm up.
JDP. Matt is not a fan and no, but I think by
association neither am I. So let's do the Diamondbacks, Matt, let's get
into it. I'm curious. Jorge Barossa was my selection for a few years
now or for a few years in the past. Few seasons in the past,
he's been on the forty man for a minute, he's up to like
seven percent. And I don't know if you've watched much of him, but
man, what a little mighty mouse of a guy. Love him. This
is one of my favorite b sides of yours ever. And I oh,
I think in like every league that I could. I'm a big fan of
the skills. Yeah, this is my kind of guy. Nice is what
list five to five and he's probably that oh yeah, switch hitter, he's
uh, he's better. He's better as a lefty, I think, but
that, but not much worse as a righty. Do home runs. This
last season, right handed dude eighty walks to eighty two strikeouts on the season.
This is all in Triple A, right, I think he played his
whole season in Triple A. Yeah. Yeah, this was kind of fun
play and you get some of that stack cast stuff. Uh. He had
a max VLO of one oh nine and an average of eighty seven. I
was not really expecting that, Matt. But that's the little juicier than I
thought you'd get a little bit. It is still pretty significantly below average,
but definitely more juice than you might expect from someone who is that small.
He's still quite young, what twenty two, twenty three years old? Yeah,
a nice season. Two seventy four, three ninety four, four fifty
six. Now outfield and Arizona is probably a little crowded. I think Brosa
is gonna get He's gonna get a chance this soon here. Don't you think
I worry about the opportunity, like you say, with Carol locked in,
right, they're gonna play Carol every day. Alec Thomas is one of the
best defensive players in all of baseball and one of the best center fielders in
all of baseball, and they have had quite a few options in left field.
There are options that they were playing in left field. I think are
leaving via free agency this year, so you're not gonna see Guriel out there.
You're not gonna see fam out there. Maybe Barrossa does get some run.
Jake McCarthy is there, Don Fletcher is there. Both guys are likely
to see some time as well. But I think we're going to get to
see an opportunity to see if this profile works for Barissa at the big league
level next year, and I'm pumped for it. He's no slouge defensively himself.
We're only like a week away from forty Man's having to be decided,
right. Do you think there's any chance that they knock him off the forty
and put them out there for great I don't think so. I think they're
going to keep him on the forty man. Yeah, because they've got a
little bit of room since they're they're having a couple of guys leaving free agency
and so, and I also don't think he's at the top of that list,
is my guess. I think it's a lot more likely they put something
like Blade Alexander bump him off the forty man, maybe even Diego Casillo before
they cut Barroso. So I do think Boris is going to get a look
before decent. Besides success story there arms, Matt, I didn't have a
large list of arms that really interests me. This raster percentage in this organization.
Was that the same for you? I agree, there were a few
that were interesting. I mean, so I was basically down to Ricardo Yan,
who I really don't love all that much. I mean, he's got
he's got breaking ball, right, I don't really have a lot of faith
in the fastball. So I was just gonna double up on my selection from
last year again and be a little cheap. But I think, if I'm
not mistaken, that's also the guy that you want to go with, right
it is. And when I selected him, I didn't know that that was
your god right, But yeah, that's no, No, that's that's fine.
I think we should I think we should just double stamp him for another
go here and let's talk about him. We'll lead us off. He's a
what twenty three year old Venezuelan now, And you know it's interesting sometimes these
not created yet in fantreks guys can turn into a little bit of something and
or get some attention, like I think shortly after I had spoke about him
last offseason. I think he did show up on the back of some top
thirty lists with Diaz. It's the fastball, right, I think I saw
I want to say, like sixty five. I was put on the fastball
regularly hits the high nineties. It's pretty good, it's pretty nasty. And
then he pairs that with two low eighties breakers. So I don't think he
really has like a medium speed. And let's see what this year. He
was in High A and then got bumped up to double A for two or
three regular season starts, and then they actually had him start twice in the
playoffs. One game he fared pretty well. I think he gave up like
two runs, went like five or something like that. Then the second playoff
game he started off really well, pretty much just blew through the lineup the
first time through, and then got into some trouble gave up some home runs,
which I think he is susceptible to doing. Diaz's biggest issue is command.
Right, what was his walk rate on the season. It wasn't pretty.
I think it was over five. I think it was over five per
nine. Now, his strikeout rate was I think fantastic. What over thirteen
per nine, right, I think he has thrown a change up, but
I don't think I saw any in my looks this year, Matt. Maybe
maybe you caught some. I did catch a couple of his change ups,
and you know, you're saying, how does he do in that middle velocity
range? His sweeper and his change are pretty similar velocity bands, And then
he's got the curveball, which I think has a lot more downward plane movement.
Yeah, but I caught that mostly in the high seventies. So you
know, maybe the sweeper, maybe the change or that middle range for him,
but yeah, yeah, I think I think the sweeper too, at
least when I saw it and there was some vilo, I don't think it
was getting more than like eighty two on it. Yeah, I saw eighty
to eighty three. Yeah, okay, But you know, he is a
he is an arm that the quality of the fastball and the breakers, I
mean, he might be able to get away with it, but not with
his sort of execution. I don't think the slider command I think can get
quite unprefer fessional at times. And the fastball, I'd say he probably like
controls it well enough, but I don't think he really spots it all that
well. You know, the fastball, he tries to play it up in
the zone, leaves it down a little too far, and that can get
hit hard at times. You kind of pair that with his size, delivery,
lack of efficiency, Like he was rarely over sixty percent strikes as a
starter in his outings. This year, he loses effectiveness the second time through.
It's easy to see how he may be better suited for the bullpen,
but the Dbacks have stayed committed to some of these arms. You know in
recent history that that sure seemed like a future bullpen type, but you know,
with debatable results. I think Jamison and Nelson there were points where I
felt like they were very much seemed suited for bullpen and starting wasn't really going
to work out. You know, Jamison's probably now in the bullpen, but
Nelson's still starting. He threw just over I mean, he threw one hundred
and twelve innings this year if you include the playoffs. I'm sorry, his
caper nine was at just over twelve, not thirteen. That was it dropped
a little bit at double it, but it was still over thirty percent strike
strike up percentage on the air, which is really good. So see Mann,
I can be a bit of a stuff guy too. I'm not all
command give them my options here. I wanted to just kind of double down
on Diz because I think even if this does just end up as a bullpen
arm, I think he could be quite good at it. But I think
the Diamondbacks are going to stick with it and see if the if you can
tighten things up. I don't really think there was much improvement in that throughout
the course of this year, but I don't know, maybe maybe you've got
got some other observations. Well, I'll double tap on everything you said.
I think that this is a stuff over command arm, which is a bit
unusual for us. Some of that was the rest of the options for either
kind of command only guys. And I think Yon and to a lesser excent
or to even a greater extent, Lynn both are command guys that have solid
command, but I don't think their stuff is going to keep up with We're
kind of dominated up to this point, and they're both getting pretty popular.
Diaz has great stuff. I'm a fan of the slider. I think it
pairs pretty well with the fastball and the few changes that I saw it seemed
like he just has no idea really where it's going, so he doesn't really
trust it that much and ends up not throwing it a lot. But the
stuff will play. I mean, this is an arm that would not look
out of place on a big league bullpen delivery. He falls off to the
left pretty hard. He does sit a bit out of control in the delivery.
At one of the starts that I wanted to highlight, he actually outdueled
Jack Lighter after Lighter came back and looked pretty good during that stretch in double
A. The only damage in that outing was an opposite field home run from
Wyatt Langford, so he kind of dominated a pretty good lineup for I think
it was like five and two thirds, and the only knock against him was
why at Langford is ridiculously good baseball player, Like, yeah, that's that
seems like a decent arm, but yeah, the command is just what it's
going to hold him back, like if he can take even a small step
forward. Thirteen percent walk rate is bad. It's been bad for a pretty
long time. And even when he's going pretty well, like you see one
or two walks in a start, and those are the good ones, It's
like, that's tough, but the stuff is very good, and I'm definitely
interested in following him. I wonder if he gets a little time with the
major league coaches next spring training whether that might help. I mean, they
say Brent Strom is pretty good at getting guys tightening up their command. Although
I mentioned the other week that I was reading Winning Fixes Everything about the Astros
and obviously stroms with the Astros for a while there, and they have a
bit towards the end of the book about how one of the things that they
think Brent Strom was really good at was having his pictures apply sticky stuff to
their hands, and that that was like a big part of what the sort
of instant Brent Stram effect was. And I thought that was an interesting anecdote,
and I wonder, I wonder if there's still some truth to that they
called it. Was it Strom sticky bucket would just bring it to their first
bullpen and all of a sudden their stuff goes up, like talk some bats,
those stinky, those stinky bats. I'm going to athletes. I think
I'm gonna let you go first, Matt, because I think you're going to
select a guy that I was going to talk about a little bit, but
why don't you just go for it? All right? Well, my guy
that I'm going to go for is Christian Sirdup Curda is a twenty year old
catcher made it up to High A this year. I got to see him
live a couple of times out in Hillsboro. Has kind of had a kind
of interesting line this year. Full full season, four hundred and seventy played
appearances. He had eleven homers two forty seven average, four h two on
base three ninety seven slut. Pretty unusual line. He only struck out twenty
percent of the time, again at an advanced level for his age. All
good for a one twenty six w RC plus, but if you're doing your
math really quickly there he hit two forty seven but had a four to ho
two on base percentage. That is a huge walk grate twenty percent walk grate
nineteen point eight actually, But he basically walked as much as he struck out,
and he walked a boatload. And this plays out with watching him.
He has kind of a funky stance. He's a big dude. There's no
speed here whatsoever, but boyd does he know the strike zone, and boyd
is he geared to take advantage. I think one of the games that I
saw him live, Winja from the Giants, was thrown against him, and
I think he walked him three times. His certa doesn't give in, so
if it's in the zone, he's fouling it off or trying to spoil those
pitches. And if it's out of the zone, the man doesn't swing really,
lets those wild pitchers give him the free base. These kinds of skills
tough to do, tough to fake, I guess. So it really seems
to me like, even given that the command for pictures is a lot worse
in the lower miners, he's at the level now where like, this is
a real skill that he's showing and it's one of the most valuable ones.
I wish he hit the ball a little bit harder. I think there's room
to unlock that with his swing. Again, his setup is a little bit
awkward. He kind of has like a big crouch and then like his left
leg is almost straight out in front of him and his hands are kind of
high, none of which I would teach if I was trying to get him
to unlock a little bit more power. But he seems like a strong guy
and with the underlying plate skills. I was excited about him, and I'm
excited to see where he goes next year. Did you get a chance to
watch Surta much? Yeah, I've watched a little bit. I wasn't binge
watching him. He's one of like three Ish techer prospects in their system that
has kind of gotten my interest, called my attention a little bit. One
thing about Surta. I saw him, well, he only had one stolen
base on the season, but I've seen him stretch a couple of singles into
doubles and I was like, hey, you can kind of run a little
bit. I think he did steal five last year, so it's not like
a total zero. But he's a big dude, and I don't think speed
is ever going to be a part of his game. Oh no, no,
not at all, but a little bit more athletic. You might think
he was an undrafted an undrafted free agent of the Rays. Look at the
Rays trading undrafted free agents part of the Parolta trade. I think, oh,
yeah, you know, just catching at bats and stuff, Matt,
You know that I don't like guys who are up there to take walks man
especially. I know, I know, this isn't your kind of guy,
but that's why I had to highlight him a bit, because he's got those
sort of like old professional hitter skills and if someone can unlock a little bit
more power out of him, this is a pretty interesting guy. Now,
he's strictly a catcher, right, I don't think he plays anywhere else.
Did you catch any JJ Dirazio? Yes, I did watch a little of
him. He's a catcher that seems to be just kind of like one step
in front of in their system. Mm hmm. Yeah, it was probably
gonna have to get past him. But Manu di Erazzio, So when I
did you know? I Binge watched down near all like Dylan Rays starts and
wrote a little bit about him. Dirazzio is catching him pretty much every one
of those starts, and man, he impressed me behind the dish defensively calling
them the game. I'm pretty sure he was like calling his own games offensively.
What he hit like two seventy six, three thirty one, only slugg
three thirty three. I don't think he's like a total slouch at the plate,
so, you know, more of a real life prospect, if you
will. But he's kind of interesting to me. I think he's hitting some
top thirties too, so sorta is gonna have to get get in front of
him. I think I think he's going to that's my take. I think
I also thought Serta was a pretty good receiver. I didn't see a ton
of him throwing guys out, so I'm not sure how he did there,
but I thought he was a pretty good receiver in my live looks, and
I am a big believer in that approach. The other guy that I wanted
to highlight real quick before I tossed it over to you is Caleb Roberts.
He's a twenty three year old that made it to Double A this year.
Roberts had a really good year two seventy eight, three eighty two, five
twenty three, seventeen homers, eleven steals, good for a one thirty five
WRC plus. When I watched him, I thought, left handed hitter,
really good hands, a little bit too much with to him average speed that
he uses, and he's also in that sort of utility mold that he plays
a little bit everywhere. Like I think he caught a couple of games this
year and plays left first base like they move him around a bit, and
I wonder Diamondbacks bt that with our show, Like I think that they liked
that kind of guy that can move around a bit, and so he was
one that I thought was interesting. The strikeouts for me were just a little
high given the other skills, so I ended up with my guy Serta instead,
But I did like Roberts, and I think he's someone that I'm going
to keep an eye on next year. That second that I was actually gonna
go with Roberts until I did a little bit more homework this week and change
my mind. I'm not one hundred percent on this, but I think he
was drafted as a catcher, but I don't know if he's really that great
at it. So for me, it's a very bat heavy profile. I
think part of him playing around was they're not really sure where play him maybe,
but you know, defenses were We're just getting glimpses of stuff really,
So I mean, I will say he caught thirty games this year, like
that's nothing. Yeah, you know, he moved around ate at first forty
two and left punch and center last year like around but and I know he
I think he's had a pretty decent AFL too, if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, I think he's a decent athlete too. Like that's you know,
part of the reason they're moving him around, I think is that he doesn't
look bad at least in my looks at those other spots. He's run a
little bit higher babeps and I think that drove a little bit of his line
this year. But an interesting guy to follow. I kind of got into
a few other bats in their system. There's this not created yet in fan
tracks. Guy Gen Walters, two year old Cuban who actually made like a
little cameo and spent most of the season in high end. I made a
little cameo in Triple A at the end. He was just like kind of
a little too much of like a slappy hitter for me. Nephew Castillo,
I've kind of been a little bit interested in the last couple of years,
kind of a power speed hopeful. Maybe he did hit seventeen home runs stole
nineteen bags this season in Double A, but he does strike out far too
much to have too much hope. I think what thirty two point seven percent
on the season. Tim Tawa I don't know if you watched him at all.
He was a two thousand, Yeah, eleventh round pick out of Stanford.
I don't know, maybe a shot as a sort of utility type.
I didn't really light the world on fire too. I mean, he slid
four sixty one hits line drives like twenty five percent of the time. But
I don't know. I thought there was a little something to him too,
not quite enough to really be my be my guys here, So who's your
guy? Who's your guy? For the Yeah twenty one, they drafted Gavin
Conticello in the eighth round. Stoneman Douglas High School, right, a friend
of mine who follows preps quite a bit, who has very much impressed me
with in our leagues, with the young bats that he likes to go with,
just kind of had mentioned him to me at that time, So I
just kind of been paying attention to him a little bit here and there.
I turned him on the second half of this last season, and I couldn't
help but think every time he hit a ballpool side in the air it was
a home run. I got into a wormhole. Matt and I went through
thirty some game feeds to pool or try to get an idea and get some
data that I don't know where else to find. I was kind of right.
I mean, I discovered that he fifty seven percent of the pool balls
he got into the air during this his last like thirty five game stretch that
I'm referring to left the yard. Not that that is like some super high
percentage. You'll find guys in the majors who who do that plus some.
But I do think that he had a developmental breakout in terms of tapping into
his natural power stroke in mechanics. Kind Soul wasn't a nothing, perfect game
sort of guy. He was just kind of watered for his power potential as
an amateur. But over this stretch he hit two eighty three eighty nine on
base and slugged five point fifty three with nine home runs nine stolen bases.
This is only one hundred and fifty seven played appearances, so small sample,
but it also included a two week promotion to High A at the end of
the season, and prior to this his three hundred and nine played appearances before
he was slashing one ninety two, two seventy two, three point fifty one
with eight home runs, so he hit seventeen home runs on the season in
four hundred and sixty six played appearances. Per Fangrafts, he had a twelve
point nine home run to fly ball right on the season. But over that
mentioned stretch, and this is where did my crazy man work. It jumped
to thirty four point six percent home run to fly ball. Right now,
just to put that into a little bit of context, six major leaguers did
that or better this season. Do you want to take a stab on who
any of those might be? Matt and it's just on all fly balls are
just pulled. All I'm gonna say someone like Yandy Diaz, Matt Olsen was
thirty four point six, DJ Stewart thirty five point seven, Logan o'happi thirty
five point nine, Aaron Judged thirty six point seven, Nelson Velaskaz thirty seven,
and Otani with thirty eight. During this time, the walk rate the
walk grate run from eight percent to thirteen percent, while his K rate stayed
roughly the same U K what twenty one percent on the season. Now,
I didn't figure out what his home run the fly ball rate was prior to
this stretch, but given it was thirteen percent on the season, I imagine
it wasn't very good and that something of note had changed. Now he does
tend to i think, pop up the ball a little bit and fuel pop
ups, but that's typically when he's trying to let the ball travel and go
deep. Like there were twelve in my dig and they were all they're like
the third baseman. But in part, this Appo stuff is a little bit
of a wrinkle in Constell's profile. I think there seems to be an effort
some coaching perhaps to hit Appo gap. Of course he's on the opposite side,
but there's a he's a lefty. There's similarities to another guy that I've
watched quite a bit, and aj Vukovic when he was at these levels,
and Vukovich was also kind of a prep sort of lotted for his power that
I think they tried to help turn into more of a you know, line
drive Apo getting that into his game. That so does have some success going
the other way. I've seen him lay some doubles and all that stuff,
but there's just a lot of mis hits when he lets the ball travel on
him. Only one of his seventeen home runs on the season went opposite field,
and it wasn't the truest struck ball. I don't think there was a
lot of intent going that way, and you know it wasn't. It was
probably like a bit of a side spinner, like we talk about. So
this sort of flipped this sort of one eighty in production also coincided with me
just thinking that, so it looked a little different at the plate later in
the season. People talk about like swing changes and all that sort of stuff,
and I don't know, at least when I have seen hitters actually make
like a change, it's it's not like, oh, all of a sudden
Saturday, he started standing this way and swinging this way or whatever. It's
more of a gradual progression. So I turned on some of Conticilo from April
and I shared that. I shared that video with you, the little side
by side, and I think you can confirm there's there's definitely some differences there,
right. Absolutely, he was a lot more crouch early in the season,
and his bat behind his head was a lot more parallel to the ground,
a little more level. At least in the gift that you shared,
it looked like that was a little more of the like line drive. I'm
trying to go up the middle, big part of the field, sort of
classic hitter coaching. Whereas towards the end of the year, he himself is
more upright, his bat is more upright, pointing more towards the sky,
and his hands really get extended out in front of him a lot more,
and he catches the ball way out in front of the plate and hit a
homer on that pitch. I think is what you shared. So again,
it looks very different. I mean, I'm a hack at this. So
I phoned some friends too, and I won't paraphrase everything that they said,
but what I've gathered is that he is now transferring energy much more efficiently.
I think his hands are in a better position, and he's just quicker and
more efficient. You can see in the video there's I mean, his body
is stiller, right, and I think it's just a better transfer of energy.
So we've got this kid who's supposed to have a lot of this natural
power. It wasn't really shown up as a pro. All of a sudden,
he is starting to hit home runs higher rate, and he looks very
different at the plate, right. I don't think that the one eighty in
production was just a hot streak. I think there's something developmentally that has changed
here with him. If a guy can get out in front, pull the
ball and hit home runs at high rates, it doesn't necessarily mean that he's
a great hitter or a great prospect or anything like that. A little bit
of context here, per Fangrass, the only players with a higher home run
the fly ball rate on the season than thirty four point six percent in full
season ball where you and your Severino, Chandler, Redman and gerar and Canarcion
and all of those guys had much higher k rates right when we're talking like
thirty to thirty eight percent. Severarino hit thirty five home runs, Redmond hit
thirty one, in Canarsion hit twenty six. These guys are two to what
three four years older as well. I don't know what he wants to do.
I don't know what the Diamondbacks want to do. But the look at
me here, Matt, I'm going I'm talking about guys hitting the ball all
out in front and pulling it and hitting home runs. Love it. You're
learning this is great. What if he starts doing this more? What if
this sticks? I mean, is it crazy to say that Goss hits thirty
home runs, I don't think it is he's got. I think he's much
more just generically speaking, a better hitter than some of those other guys who
have hit thirty home runs, I mean, and that would surely get some
more attention, especially if the walk rate and k rates hover around where he
is. I think donasty owners would get quite interested. He's currently at zero
percent fan tracks ownership now, And of course, like I said, this
is some number wanghing and pulled from a pretty small sample. But there's a
nice looking power stroke here, and I think some bat skills and I think
his juice may have finally arrived now. He does struggle some versus lefties.
You only hit three home runs versus so splits may be a thing. But
nonetheless, the twenty twenty one year old Contcello, it just got me more
excited than Caleb Roberts. So. I watched a decent amount of Contocello this
year, and I liked Conticello. I don't know that's how I would say
it. I don't know. I didn't listen to their broadcast, but I
think I would have said, Conticello, but I think you are onto something
there's a real meaningful swing change here, which is good because his production was
pretty middling before this, you know, repeated complex, repeated a ball and
was okay, sube hundred WRC plus at both stops in twenty twenty two,
and then for most of this year at a ball it was just a ninety
five WRC plus, so a little bit below average. But Conticello popped on
a leaderboard that I like to track to try and weed out some of the
effects of babbit because, as Nate knows, and I think many of you
know, babbeb takes a long time to stabilize, even for folks that have
pretty extreme profiles. So if someone has a particularly low BABBIT but are still
performing near league average, like, that's something you might want to pay attention
to. And that was Conticello. For most of the year he had an
a ball, which was the bulk of his production one hundred games at a
ball, three hundred and seventy plate appearances. His BABEB was two forty seven,
very low, you know, for context, like the lowest in the
big leagues this year I think was Pete Alonzo at like two five or something,
but too forty something is very very low, and he still put up
a ninety five WRC plus, so I was pretty interested in that, especially
as Nate said, it seemed like the plate skills were pretty good. He
was only striking out twenty two percent of the time, still had some juice,
you know, almost two hundred points of ISO, so I was pretty
interested. Now, the plate skills degraded pretty substantially upon promotion to High A
in the Northwest League, and it might be because he just had to face
Reevan Scoder all the time, and Scoter is just so good. I think
it might be that this approach change he's still getting used to because he was
pulling the ball an absolute crap ton in Hillsborough sixty eight percent of the time
polled, which is you know, nobody does that, not even my boy.
He's sacked Paratus so and he popped it up a lot forty four percent
pop ups. Again, pretty small sample at the end of the year,
but I had two series, right, yeah, just ten games. I
am pretty interested in him. He was my third guy on the list when
I was looking through him. I do think that there is some interest here,
especially because I don't know if you mentioned he is really skinny So this
is a guy that you want to talk about power protection. He's twenty turning
twenty one. He's going to put on some muscle. Coupled with the swing
change and his penchant for pulling the ball and pulling it in the air.
I could see this guy turning into a thirty homer bat. So I like
this pick a lot. He seems like one deful I bet he'll start next
year back in Hillsborough, but they might aggressively promote him up to double a
pretty soon after that, which is also a nice place to hit home runs.
The surface numbers just don't seem to tell a great story to me right
now. Like he hits what forty one percent on the ground, I think
it was for the season. But when he pulls it and hits it on
the ground, it's often very hard turns into singles and doubles. But when
he hits it the absute way on the ground, it's soft like mishits and
things of that nature. So I think some of that might be a little
bit misleading, especially, like we said, if he starts pulling the ball
more could get quite interesting. Well, look very different. His battit ball
profile at a ball is pretty close to ideal. Like that looks a lot
like the battterball profile of a big time slugger, and not a ton of
line drives, but not many ground balls sub forty percent ground ball rate,
more flyballs than ground balls forty five percent fly balls, a few too many
pop ups at almost just over nineteen percent, a ton of pulled balls,
Like that's what you want to see from your cluck, Like that is the
kind of distribution that you want to see. It get a little hairy in
the ten game sample in Hia, but that if he can replicate that kind
of production, that kind of batter ball distribution, he's going to get to
all of his power, whatever it ends up being. And that's interesting.
Let's start with some more Rockies pictures, Matt, there's a lot of fun
ones. Yeah, we had both chosen a Rockies pitcher in our pitcher draft.
I went with Jared Candy and you went with Michael Prosecci. Yes,
Prosecci is my official selection. I feel pretty confident in him. I'm actually
very excited about him as an arm both just kind of the conversion from a
reliever in college and what he showed last year was super impressive. He's got
a tough challenge pitching and Spokane next year as to a couple of these other
guys, but I'm pretty excited about him. I think Proseki has a real
shot. The only other guy I wanted to highlight I mentioned him last week
or a couple weeks ago, I think was Joe Rock. He's this giant
lefty who kind of pitches like Chris Sale, just kind of crossbody side armed
to three quarter slinging it. But the stuff is pretty big. Both the
commands leaves something to be desired. The production from that from what seems like
really big stuff hasn't quite lived up to it yet, you know, only
twenty seven and a half strikeout percentage this past year. I like him as
somebody that he might end up being a reliever and the stuff might play up
even further. So Joe Rox another one just to keep your eye on.
Despite him being a Rockies guy, like I think the stuff might be big
enough that it will play even at elevation, So Joe Rock, keep an
eye on him. Case Williams was my selection last year after he I think
he had one or two double A starts at the end of twenty twenty two
and was very good, but he was not super good this year in Hartford.
What he had a eer over seven kateer nines were six point nine to
nine. Don't love to see that. But one thing I will say about
case Williams is I think he's going to be starting for the Rockies at some
juncture. I think, no matter how it sort of goes, they've already
determined that he will at least get a shot to start, So I don't
know, maybe that makes him interesting to some degree. I think he's got
a decent fastball. I mean, he's got decent sliders and all the stuff.
He just doesn't execute well. That's I think the biggest issue with him.
Although he did have a pretty nice AFL five or six starts. I
think he was like not getting hit up, although I think he got hit
up today a little bit, but I take that for what it's worth.
But just from the standpoint that I think he's only twenty one, twenty two
years old, but I think he is going I think you will see him
starting for the Rockies at some point. Carson Palmquist, I think if he
was in any other organization would be rostered more than one percent, right,
he was a third round draft pick in twenty twenty two. And then,
man, I gotta say pump Quist is one of the Jeff Ponts. There's
three arms that always make me think of Jeft Ponce, pump Quest she Han,
Oh why am I zerpe? All three of those guys. I'd ask
Jeff like, I think a year before their draft, Hey, who are
some you know, who are some colleg darms that you might like? And
all three of those guys if someone was an arm that he had mentioned well
before the draft, and all of them Jeff a smart guy, Yeah,
yeah, and like we had talked about last week, or pump Quist,
Gpe, what are Both those guys are kind of just different looking, right,
give hitters a different look. Jeff just kind of sided at the time.
But pump Quiest kind of this left east side armor. Doesn't really throw
super hard, right. I think his fastball is like low nineties, but
he's got a he's got a good breaking ball, high seventies breaker. I
think he had four f QoS this year. You in double A. He
only had what four starts in double A. So I think he's an interesting
arm in their system. Yet, I don't know if I really see him
long term as a starting pitcher, in part because the Rockies starting pitching isn't
that great and guys like Suitor are very useful to the Rockies. I could
see him sort of settling in that kind of role. Right someone gets lit
up for an inding or two, pump Quist comes in. That's a lot
of speculation. I really like Victor Warrez. I don't know if you've watched
him at all, young Mexican pitcher who super impressed me as an eighteen year
old in a ball, just from a just sort of poise and sort of
moxie and know how in confidence on the mound. You see watch the AFL,
watch guys right out of college in a ball. They don't even have
the wherewithal the head to control the running game. Right, Ras walked in
as an eighteen year old and was picking guys off and just his head was
above the game, so to speak. But then pairing that with what I
thought at the time was just super impressive execution of a lot of pitches.
Doesn't throw real hard. I know his fastball has gotten like forty grades,
and I think that's selling it a little bit short. Excuse me, he
was up at Hia this year didn't have statistically, did not have a great
season. But one thing that I do like about it is that the k's
actually picked up maybe just a smidge or stayed about the same, which was
something that was a concern of mine. It did not look as crisp as
his early days in Fresno. But I also wonder if some of the tools
have been sharpened a little bit. Maybe that plays into itself. Long story
short, he leaves way too many pitches over the middle of the plate right
now, and they're not good enough pitches that he can get away with.
That seemed like he got hit a bit more like a lot of hits given
the inning he threw. Yeah, definitely, Well was his babbit against was
what three eighty two? That sounds very good. Still very young, I
think a guy who could be like we like the sum of all parts sort
of thing. But going to keep an eye on him moving up a little
bit of b side hit or history here with the Rockies, I mean,
we've had Pilvar Drew Romo. By the way, I don't know if folks
necessarily realize how Romo finished his season from June eighth to September twenty third,
he slashed three hundred three sixty three five forty one with ten home runs.
That's over fifty eight games. That's not too shabby. I want to talk
real, real, briefly about Vladimir ar Restitutio. If you don't mind,
Matt, go for it. So he was my my Rockies bat for the
last season. I don't know, hit double a start off as a twenty
one year old. This year, hit twoin fifty eight on base percentage of
two seventy seven and slugged four fourteen with fifteen home runs and seventeen stolen mases.
What do you think is walk right? Maybe you're looking at it.
I'm looking at it. One point. God, I love it. I
love it. My man is not to walk now. He doesn't strike out
ton eighteen point nine percent, but yeah, because he's swinging and everything right,
if you don't get to two strikes, you're not going to strike out
very much. He's just a super interesting watch to me. I think he's
a fascinating a fascinating hitter just because of his ultra aggressiveness. But I think
the Rockies in particular, and I think we're gonna talk about Ryan Ritter right
Recito, Ridder, Tovar. I think Julio Kurere is to some extent now
Montero too. Specifically, the guys that I mentioned very good defensively. Right
Reso is a pretty good center fielder. The other guys are pretty good infielders.
I think they're gonna put a high priority on defense, which I think
makes a lot of sense, which also makes it interesting for some of their
bad that might be getting to the uppers or knocking on the big big league
door. I don't know if you're gonna get every day run with the Rockies
if you don't play very good defense. But I digress a little. So
you see these young hitters that they have that are athletic good defenders. Tovar
wasn't a lotted for his bat, Restituto wasn't. Qureras wasn't. So in
a sense, I think the Rockets are just like swing the bat, use
your athleticism, let's go and we'll figure it out. Well, that's where
I thought you were going with that list of guys, because they all also
were pretty aggressive. They don't like taking walks. They don't strike out a
lot, at least of that group, you know, So adding Montero to
that someone like Restituo totally, although he walks a decent amount this year.
But Romo Tovar even I'm a door like, they don't walk a lot,
they don't strike out a lot. They just are up there to hit.
And I think that that's interesting as as an approach, you know, I
don't know, Like I saw Tovar when he and rookie ball and I was
like, yeah, maybe if he becomes like a little slap hitter, you
could be a big leaguer. Right, well, I mean he's not just
a little slap hitter. Now, I think they're kind of showing that it
is a way to maybe get something out of a bat that maybe isn't so
you're maybe not supposed to get a lot out of it. I don't know
if that's a great way to say it aren't expecting much out of or it's
a way to grow a hitter into doing some damage. Now you see what.
I don't know if did the Rockies lead the majors in strikehouse this year?
They may have. You see Tovar, you see Doyle, you see
even Nolan Jones start to get a little bit more selective this season. So
I don't know. It's just an interesting thing that I noticed in this system
that I don't think is necessarily a horrible way to approach hitting when you're young.
Now is rest of too you're gonna make it with this sort of approach
into the major leagues. I highly doubt that he had well fifteen home runs
this year, eight home runs starting in June of last year, and I
think prior to that maybe he had like, what three or four in his
whole whole pro career. This is a wiry little guy, don't Just an
interesting approach to hitting going on with some of these guys, which I think
Ryan Ritter, who is my selection for this short stop twenty twenty two fourth
round draft pick out of Kentucky. He's twenty two years old, played at
three levels this year, A High A, and Double A. He has
rostered at two percent. Now, did you know that he won the KL
League Player of the Year over? Know that? Over any of your nuts?
Yeah? Well, they were all up late in the season, so
that makes sense. Rather only played sixty five games in the league. That
was kind of crazy. He had twenty four home runs on the season,
but mind you, seventeen of those were in the Cal League his first three
months. But this is a plus defensive guy with another aggressive approach that I
think the Rockies do. Like strikeouts twenty nine percent. Don't love that.
I didn't like super love. Going with Ryan Ritter seemed like my best option
walk twelve percent. Well he ended up he slugged five nineteen. Now,
this is not Ritter is not a big guy. He's not the type that
you think would be hitting this many home runs. And mind you too,
he's well, he's from like the Chicago Land area. He played junior college
ball. What one year at Kentucky have a northern guy like I think there
is still a little bit of him growing into being the hitter. But I
think they've got him on this plan. Saw him, saw him rip a
nice RBI double off your guy Wilcolm in Nzalaz at the end of the year.
Oh, nice off of a tough pitch too. I don't know,
like I said, I don't, I don't. I'm not in love with
Ryan ridd I don't want to totally hitch my wagon here, but I felt
that two percent. The opportunity that I think might be in front of him
to do some things in the uppers next season and a kind of a surprising
that with some pot Yeah, I liked a lot of what I saw from
ritter I agree with you one hundred percent. He is a very good defender,
and it does seem like that is an organizational philosophy for them. There
are a lot of good defenders are those it's a major league level and in
the lower levels. They have five Gold Glove caliber guys starting for them at
the end of the year in the majors. Yeah, Now, they did
give a lot of run to Montero, and Montero's a pretty bad defender.
I think he's a good hitter Elahiris Montero, but I think he's an awful
defender. Awful defender even at first base. I don't think he's very good.
Yeah. Yeah, I'll also say like Sterlin Thompson, I think is
a good hitter, but I don't think he's a very good fielder either,
So he might buck that trend a little bit for I think, Yeah,
I've got to think that they're going to trade some of those guys, but
I don't know what. I don't really do that though, it didn't really
do that. Though it's Colorado. They're weird you can't. You can't judge
Schmidt by what Bradi did. I mean, that's true, He's made some
trades. He traded for Nolan Jones, He's traded for some arms. I
think I think they're gonna have the one deadline deal this year, like four
days before the deadline, which they hadn't done in like five years before that.
So I think they're I think they're gonna have the right ideas. Now
we'll see how the execution of it goes. But my problem with Rider though,
is even though I think he's athletic and fast, and I think his
speed that helps his defense play up, will continue to help his base running,
both in steels and taking the extra base. I thought he was a
pretty good base runner in my looks, I think the k's are untenable.
Like that's why he's he bumps down for me that I don't know. If
you read that article on Baseball America, the stat cast or rankings that Jeff
and Dylan did, I did. That article put Colorado as an organization last
in chase rate. So like that gets to your point, if that these
guys are just up there swinging and if the ball is not in the zone,
they're still swinging at it. I think Ritter does this. I watched
a good bit of him, and he was whiffing at pretty non competitive pitches
at times, especially in his you know, eight games at double A.
I watched a couple of those and I was like, well, he is
kind of getting overmatched by these. The strake aut rate went up to thirty
eight percent and slugged two hundred there, Like it was that was what that
kind of approach can happen when you're maybe a little bit out of your depth
from a competitive standpoint. So I, you know, he's not that bad,
Like it was just just a small sample, and his first tasted Double
A remarkably similar to his line at High A as well, where the strikeouts
were thirty four percent, And that was a pretty decent sample of one hundred
and seventy or almost two hundred and one played appearances. So I think the
whiffs are going to doom him, even though he is a good defender,
he is athletic and has a little bit of pop in there. I think
that the whiffs are going to cause him to I don't. I don't think
he's going to make the major leagues like this unless there's a real change.
Only other Rockies bats that I wanted to bring up real quick, because Braxton
Fulford is a catcher that I think is very much going to be a major
league option for them relatively soon. Here. He didn't make it up to
Triple A. He was a six round pick out of Texas Tech. He
can swing it a little bit, and I think he's he's decent behind the
plate, a bit of an older bat. But did I don't know if
you watched any Zach Kakowski he was a two thousand, Yeah, I did
watch a little. Yeah. I think he just turned twenty five years old
and he was in High A old. But he got hurt in like July
and the end of his season, and that may have stopped him from being
my my like sort of official selection here because I think he was going to
be in Double A by the end of the year. But I mean,
this guy slugged five sixty two oh ps a nine to sixty one line drive
rate at twenty seven percent. Yeah. Sole eighteen bags, hit sixteen home
runs. His first base left field type. If it ever happens, he
could be an interesting bat in Coors Field. I think he shares some similarities
with the guy that is my actual Colorado selection in that he's kind of an
older bat, has a pretty well rounded profile, and I actually liked what
I saw from Kokoska. I thought he was an interesting guy and it was
a bummer to cut his season short. It'd be I think it'll be interesting
to see what he does at Double A next year. My guy was Jimmy
Herrond. You didn't mention Jimmy. He's again a little bit older, twenty
six, made it up to Triple A this year, and his full season
line was pretty interesting. Two ninety six, three ninety five, four ninety
eight, so just barely off that three hundred, four hundred, five hundred.
That is really nice to see. Good for the whole year, one
seventeen WRC plus, which speaks a little bit to the offensive environments that he
played in, like those are easier places to hit, but he put up
nineteen homers and stole thirty three bags, and his vibe kind of reminds me
of another late blooming Major leaguer that I actually played with, Mark Canna,
you know, kind of similar in their approaches, like how they approached the
plate, both kind of right handed hitters, that have a little bit of
an upright stance, but really smooth hands through the zone, and I feel
like they're decent plate coverage and you know, not striking out. I think
should think he reduced his strikeout rate as he went up and increased his walk
rate as he raised as he went up in levels, which is really hard
to do and might speak a little bit to Nate that hypothesis you were talking
about that you want him to swing more freely lower down, and then as
you go up in levels, you want to kind of tighten your zone and
do damage on the pitches that you can and spit and leave the pitches that
are not as good. So I thought Jimmy Heron did a lot of that.
He's not a center fielder for me, so he's a corner guy.
The couple of looks I had him in the outfield was like, guy,
it's okay, he's got some speed, but he's not Nolan Jones or Brenton
Doyle out there, who are plus plus outfielders. But I really liked what
I saw from him, and he's my official B side selection here. Nobody's
talking about this guy at all. He has been under the radar for his
whole career. I think he transferred into Duke and then was like, Okay,
I guess maybe he was at Duke, but he was like an older
guy at Duke really anything other than a little bit of a speedster there,
but kind of an unimpressive college career and has just bumped around the miners for
you know, since his draft year in twenty eighteen. But I liked what
I saw, and this is the most power that he's ever had, So
I wonder if he's unlocked a little bit of something too, kind of like
Conticello did. So I like him, you know, left field, center
field, maybe a little bit of right field. But he's yeah, he's
he's pretty good. He's knocking on the doorstep too. So if there are
injuries or if something opens up for him, maybe he gets some run in
Colorado next year. So Jimmy Herron, I like him. I dig it.
That wraps up the Rockies, right, nothing of that. Let those
lose that. San Diego Padres, Matt, I don't know what your thoughts
are here, but I kind of watched a decent amount. I don't have
a lot of hitters here. I don't know if anyone super wowed me what
I ended up taking. I ended up taking that hail Mary Roseman Verdugo.
You went with Turso Nalis and I watched some Griffin Dorshen, he's a Wisconsin
guy. Jared Dale, Ky Murphy, Curvin Chardo watched a little bit of
him. I watched some Nick Voight. There's this young first basement Romeo,
Santa Bria. He only had like a sixteen game a ball run. I
thought he had a couple of nice series, saw some nice gap to gap
hitting. It kind of tore up the complex. He was a little interested,
just kind of a guy I want to watch next year. Some and
then I didn't know much about Tyler Robertson. I think he's had a little
decent AFL too. Did you watch any of those guys who get into any
of them? I watched a few of them, but all kind of had
something or the other that kind of turned me off them, So it was
like short looks for most of them. Marcos Castinon, well, he's a
twenty four year old. He was a twelfth round draft pick twenty one out
of UC Santa Barbara. Hy a double A this year third base, second
base, where he slugged four sixty eight at A eight thirteen ops, struck
out twenty one percent of the time, walk twenty four percent of the time.
Yeah. Yeah, you know his line is is good, and he's
a little bit older. You know, he's probably like seeing him challenged at
double A, it was was good this year. I was glad that he
got up there held his own for the most part. I mean, I
don't think it all fell apart at double A like it does for some folks.
And in fact, the fact that it was largely really similar to his
run at Hi A this year in Fort Wayne. I was impressed, Like
I was like, that's that's good. That whole line, at least at
double A was league average, so it's okay. I liked his right handed
kind of whippy swing. I think there's it shows some athleticism. It seems
like he can move the barrel around the zone and handle pitches up in the
zone as well as down. I thought some hit reasonably well on fastballs and
on off speed, so it's solid all around. To me that he seems
like a guy that is a backup or a second division regular, so like
maybe he gets some run on a bad team or he's a backup on a
decent team. But I liked enough of what I saw that I wanted to
talk through it. You know, the plate skills are okay. You know,
he's not up there swinging at everything like he's in the Rocky system or
something. But he's still has solid contact skills. You know, twenty one
percent of the time strikeout rate. His strikeout rate actually has gone down at
every level that he's done so far, which is impressive. You know,
some of that is small sample and it's likely not to continue as he rises
up the ranks. But I think he's a decent little hitter. And it
seemed like he can play second base well enough. So if he ends up
as a second baseman and can hit something approximating this like, it's decent.
Again, I'm not super excited about him. I liked Ornellis as a hitter
quite a bit more. And if you'll call Ornellis had some serious flaws to
hitting profile, as you know, but noon Is he's he's good. He's
he's a good hitter. He's one that's going to make it up to Triple
A. And I think he's going to make the major leagues. Whether he
has any impact there. I'm a little bit skeptical, but he strikes me
as you know, some of these and I think it kind of checks out
with some of his bad ball profile and stuff stuff like that too. But
I feel like he kind of like maximizes himself, like he gets he gets
like everything out of himself, Like Javier Sonoya is kind of like that to
me with the Marlins. Like no, I like that and I respect that,
you know, I think like a lot more pop than Sonoya. But
yeah, yeah, I agree with you. He has he doesn't on him
like Bregman's like that too, right, Yeah, that guy just gets every
ounce of his ability I think out of himself. Last year I went with
Norwilliam Sedanio. I don't know if you any of him. There wasn't a
ton this year again, only sixty two played appearances and I don't know.
There's an interesting switch hitter. I think that is talented. But this guy
just cannot stay on the field. Man. It's really kind of unfortunate.
But he's still quite young. I'll still keep my eye on him. He's
only like what twenty one, twenty two years old? But yeah, so
Padre's arms last year, last year, I went with Garrett Hawkins, who
I'm anxiously awaiting his return from. I think Tommy John. He got four
games starts in at High A this year. He's kind of a bigger guy
who I think has a major league starter arsenal and ability. Matt. We're
going not yet created in fan tracks yet territory, but I still see this
name creeping onto the back of some top thirties and that's Isaiah Low. Another
low loud, but I'm pretty sure it's Low. But he was a twenty
twenty two to eleventh round out of North Carolina High School Prep. I believe
he is twenty years old now. He got three starts in before some injury
crept in, and I don't know what the injury was. I had feared
that maybe it was quite serious, but he did make a rehab appearance in
rookie ball in August, so I don't think it was like Tommy John or
something like that, but I was. I was quite impressed in I don't
even know if all three of the starts, so we're talking eight innings here
that I got that I got to watch from he was nineteen years old at
the time. In May, one of which one of which those starts he
dominated your nuts, Matt. He went when four, walked, two,
struck out six. Only Hitty allowed was a solo home run to Freddy or
Freday Bautista off a breaking ball he left hanging over the middle. Cole,
Young, Gabby, Gonzalez hood all went over against him. He's listed at
six one two twenty, which seems about right. He's got a really strong
lower half. I believe he throws two as balls and they touch high nineties,
and then he's got a slider and a change up. Fairly low effort
delivery. I've seen sixties slapped on the fastball, fifty fives on the slider
too. He controls the fastball very well. See him get down three to
zero, three to one, and then he just pumps that fastball for generic
strikes and it's good enough to get him back. I don't know if he'll
be able to get away with that as he moves up. The slider isn't
nearly as well controlled, but man, it really does flash some nasty He
can execute it fairly well glove side, I think, and when he does
it's pretty impossible looking. Struck out seventeen of the forty nine batters he faced
this year, that's thirty five percent. There was a combination here of plus
arsenal. There wasn't anything really alarming that I thought, man, this guy
might not be able to control these plus weapons. That combination was good enough
for me to go with Isaiah lo Nice. He's one I told you I
didn't catch at all, but it seems like he's got some real skills there.
So I hope he's healthy and we get to see a lot more of
him next year. Yeah. He uh, he's got he's got some nasty
you know, you see a teenager down in a ball with a couple of
nasty pitches like this, they don't they don't pitch as well as he did
in these two outings that I watched, So, you know, talk about
turning on a guy and getting on the edge of your seat a little bit
like that was definitely the case with with with Low For me. Interesting,
well, I made a note of of him in a couple of leagues,
and I'm gonna hope he comes out the gate hot next year. Especially the
territory of prospect that we're kind of talking about here, it's it's an injury
stuff comes up it's it's hard to know. You know, there's not a
lot out there. I don't know what it was. I thought that again,
this was an organization where kind of the top arms that are well known
they performed pretty well, and in guys like Snelling and Erie Rta I think,
I think are pretty well known and performed pretty decently this year, and
kind of looking down the list of other guys that I looked at that weren't
really inspiring. I watched a bit of a frame Contrarast and didn't love it,
and saw some Henry bias as well, and you know, there might
be some stuff there, but I ultimately was turned off by both walked a
little bit too many and didn't quite strike out enough and ended up not being
my kind of guys. So I went back to the lefty well, and
I'm taking Austin Crab. Austin Crabb is a college arm. He started out
at community college. At community college, I hadn't heard of Kirkwood or something.
I think, ended up at TCU for four years. Pandemic extensions and
all of that good stuff. He wasn't great, He was a reliever,
got a couple of starts. None of his numbers were that good, but
because he's left handed and he you know, he clearly worked at it and
ended up starting sixteen games his final year of college, his like red shirt
junior year, whatever that would be. And it wasn't a fantastic line.
But I think he got scattered enough in the Big twelve that he got taken
twelfth round, so didn't get a ton of money, like pretty deep in
the draft, so even the Padres didn't have a ton of faith to take
him that late in twenty twenty two. But since he's been a pro,
he's been decent. His twenty twenty two was very short, like almost throw
it out, but he was really good this year across stops at low A
and high A fifty nine and the third innings in Fort Wayne in Hi A
for had a pretty solid overall line one hundred and some innings overall, but
ran a twenty six point four percent strikeout rate nine point one percent walk rate.
That's a pretty good K minus BB approach just seems sharper than I would
have expected from this kind of a guy. It's a low slot, really
short armstroke that he repeats really well. He lives around the zone with low
nineties fastball. I think it's mostly a two seamer. I didn't see a
four seam percent from that armslot, a big sweeping slider in the low eighties
which I thought was pretty good, and he had a good change up in
the low eighties as well that had good sink. All in all, like
the combination. This seems like a classic pitchability lefty, and I wonder with
kind of a short armstroke and the way that his pitches look that even he
looks a bit different from other lefties helping his stuff play up. I'd imagine
he starts next year again at high A would expect him to get some double
a run next year too. So Austin Krabb, I, you know,
he wasn't the most outstanding lefty that I saw this year. You know,
not everyone can be Readvan Scooter, but he had some similarities with him,
and I did like what I saw. So he's one to keep a follow
on and actually am pretty interested in him. I think he's one that he's
got that good base of innings, which I really like. It wouldn't be
totally crazy to see him make the major leagues next year. Padres are trimming
budget. They lost more than half of their innings that their team through this
year to free agency, and it doesn't seem like they're going to fill all
of those externally. While I'm a big Robbie Snelling fan, I think the
stuff is incredibly good. I would be really surprised if they pushed him,
just given that he's so young there, so maybe maybe they would. And
I do think he's a much better prospect than Crob. But I do think
Crob is another one that they might give a long look to to eat some
innings later near. I don't I don't know if I've if I've watched any
Crob. I don't think that I have. I had come across Low pretty
early in my process here, and I was like, yep, this is
what I'm doing. Yeah right, I'm the only other arm that I thought
was a little bit. I just kind of like tabbed, like, hey
check this guy out. Early next year was Henry Martinez, who was another
teenager an a ball. I don't know if you watched him at all three
starts in a ball it was only five innings of archives gave up a home
run, hit a guy. The sinking action on the fastball, you could
you could there's some life there get off the bus. Type of guys like
six' four one, ninety strong. I don't know if he throws particularly
hard. He had a good looking breaking ball. I thought, you know,
pretty raw guy. But again, just just a young teenager, teenage
arm that I just want to tab for next year. Yeah, I don't
know. I don't know him at all. So that's another trishing one to
follow. All right, Well, let's uh, let's move on to the
Giants. Huh. All right, it's bringing home pretty successful in the past
here, Casey Schmidt, I mean Bress White, Brett Wisely was with the
Rays, but I mean both those guys were, they were they were starting
together in the middle of the infield for the Giants this year at one point.
But then last year Victor Barracoto I think was a pretty good B side
call and he's still what when I pulled it in September, he was still
only at two percent, so I mean he's still he's still very much a
B side, right, but he hit well, how many home runs did
he hit this year? Twenty seven across hi A and double A. Indeed
did a good year. Yeah, at twenty one years old, forty oh
ps slugged five to eleven, struck out twenty two percent of the time.
He's an interesting left handed, left handed stroke. I think I know that
he had gotten gotten picked up in a few of my leagues, like early
known when he hit double A he kind of struggled a little bit, but
then he took off again. And you know, Richmond is not is historically.
I know this from Jeff is historically like horrible place to hit home runs.
He's a fun one to follow, and I like the skills underlying it's
He's an interesting one. Yeah, I think he's got a chance. They've
got a couple of what twenty twenty two undrafted free agents from some small schools
that got my attention from Carter Howell, who I know is in the AFL,
I think having a decent month there. He had two ninety four,
three sixty nine, slugged four forty two, struck out nineteen percent of the
time. What he hit, hit ten home runs, stole fourteen bags.
I liked this. Matt Higgins sort of like left field first base guy from
Bellermine hit twelve home runs, ten stolen bases, hit two seventy six with
a three sixty seven on base and like almost four forty two slug almost identical
slash line as Howl there. But I watched a little bit a little bit
of those guys, but I still stuck with Diego of Alaskaz, who I
took in the draft. But Howl and Higgins were a couple of guys that
kind of want to keep an eye on when they hit the uppers, which
I think will probably be next year at some point twenty four and twenty three
years old. Yeah, I think I mentioned this when you took him in
the draft. But I like Diego of alaskas a lot. I think he's
a has a chance to put it all together and be be pretty good again,
you know. Like one it was surprised he didn't make it up to
Hi A, and I want to see him do it at the higher levels.
But I liked what I saw from Velaskaz too. For the guy that
I'm going with here for our giants, I'm going with Trenton Brooks. Brooks
is an older guy. He's up in triple A, so you know,
he's not in his thirties, but he's he's which might as well be dead
obviously if you're in your thirties he might as well be dead though. He's
twenty seven, so older than most of the guys that we talk about.
But I think that plays into the fact that he wasn't really a big time
prospect ever, you know, seventeenth round pick by the Cleveland Club. He
was with Oakland for part of last year, and again I think that might
have been he might have been a Rule five guy that Oakland picked up in
their second round there I can't recall that. And then he got traded maybe
to San Francisco. He ended the year in San Francisco, is all I
know. So that's why he's on the San Francisco list. But I really
liked what he did. I mean, he spent most of the year or
the whole year in tripa a split between Oakland and San Francisco. In the
PCL. This line is just like really wonderful. He walked fifteen percent of
the time, he struck out fourteen percent fourteen point seven percent of the time,
so he walked more than he struck out. Twenty two homers swiped seven
bags. Power metrics So obviously, because we have some statcast data on him,
aren't great, like they're below average, But when you look at his
hitter profile. He's the kind of guy that gets to all of it.
And we've talked a little bit about this with some of the other guys today.
His ground ball rate was below forty percent, his flyball rate above forty
percent. He didn't pop it up a ton, a little bit more with
Oakland than he did with San Francisco, but still above twenty percent. Line
drives pulls the ball a decent amount. I mean, in the last little
stretch of the year he was using a bit more all fields, but early
in the year with Oakland forty three percent pull, twenty five percent straight away,
thirty three percent, thirty two percent OPO. So just a really well
rounded hitter. He's like five ten, I think, and is not physically
imposing, but I just the stroke is so simple, and I think he
gets to his pull power really well. He reminds me a little bit of
a guy like Carry Carpenter. Decent plate skills, but isn't going to jump
off the page on stat cast. But the approach and the damage that he
can do to the pull side in the air is enough that there's there's some
real production and a guy in the Giant system that has some similarity to this
as a guy like Mike Yustremsky where he was a little bit of a late
bloomer and then made it up to the bigs and had a great rookie season
as like a twenty eight year old, And I kind of think that Trenton
Brooks could do something like that. I'm not saying he's as good, and
again, my looks on his defense were pretty limited. I don't know how
he plays on defense, but I liked a lot of what I saw as
a hitter, and he's a guy that actually was on my short list for
our draft likes he's one of the just missed guys. So I feel pretty
good about him, and Steamer, for what it's worth, does agree with
me a bit. I mean, ninety one WRC plus like it's not earth
shattering, but for a team that might not be the full competitive miss spectrum,
someone should give him a shot to see if he can turn the plus
approach and average power into a useful regular. So Trenton Brooks, I think
is my pick, and I felt pretty good about him. Nice. I
get a little nervous when when you pick out these little bit older guys that
I wasn't paying much attention to because then when I start to I'm like,
oh, yep, he's kind of good. I'm sure, it's just a
really long time Brooks. No. I mean like he just hasn't been very
good for a really long time. And honestly, it's like a Cleveland hitter
right like doesn't s trek out a ton doesn't have a ton of impact in
the bat. Basically for the past five six years he was drafted in twenty
sixteen, he's just not been very good. But now as he's made it
into the upper levels of the minor, he's definitely impacting the ball more.
And really the last like two three years he's he's been good right on.
All right, let's move on to the arms. Huh. So last year
one was with Nick Zwhack and I think I think we've chatted a little bit
about him Matt, maybe not on the pod, but man, I was
I was excited for Zwak this year. It really was one of my favorite
pitchers to watch in twenty twenty two, just talking about an execution machine.
I think there was an outing when he was still in the Mets system where
he threw like twenty seven of his first twenty eight pitches or something like that
for strikes. I had talked to Jeff about him on this pod and digging
around, asking about the stuff, and he's like, yeah, I think
the slutter is good and the fastball, you know, it is good enough,
but just did not have a very good season, and in a place
where I think you're supposed to have the advantage as a pit As a pitcher,
what eighty one innings an ERA of six and a half, he still
struck out, struck out over ten per nine, And yeah, I'm surprised
that his walk rate was three point five six per nine. He's twenty five.
I don't know. I don't know about my guy Nick zhack here anymore.
But have you watched him at all? Yeah, we've talked about him
a little bit, and I think that starts that I've caught of his He
was just all over the place, like it just didn't seem like he was
in control of his body. I caught him up against on the other side,
against some arms that I was interested earlier in the year, and I
just like, it didn't look like even when he was finding the zone,
it just seemed like it was middle middle. And then if he was missing
the zone. He was missing it by a lot. You know. The
locker rate wasn't terrible, like all together, it didn't. It's not an
awful line, but the couple of starts that I caught of him, it
just seemed like something was out of whack. So I would actually view that
maybe as a bit of a positive sign for him, that maybe he was
trying to work on something mechanically and it just hadn't clicked yet and it wasn't.
It's not like he was consistently just missing. It was more like,
if he was missing, something was way off, you know what I mean.
So if you can iron that out, maybe better times are coming.
Zack had done some things that I thought was pretty interesting last year, so
I liked your pick of Swack. But yeah, he had a tough year
this year. I really thought he was like one of the some of the
best execution I had watched in all the miners in twenty twenty two, and
I watched a lot of pitchers. But yeah, AnyWho, let's move on
from Zwak. Here a couple of a couple of arms that are in the
AFL. Maybe we're my finalist in Hayden Winja and Nick Sonicola. I don't
know. I know you had said that you that you saw Winja live and
wasn't very impressed. He's kind of just like what lanky, big lefty,
different different sort of angle, potential, different look. But it's just the
command, right, I mean, the command just isn't isn't major league quality,
I don't think. And then his whole season line was okay, But
like I said, when I saw him at hi A this year, he
I think had three wild pitches in that game. They might have one or
two of pass ball, but it was like he was really really wild.
I think I said he walked Serta a couple of times in that game.
It didn't look it looked like he was getting squared up a bit too in
that game, quite a bit of loud contact. So that's there's a good
lineup though that he faced. And he did have a pretty good year overall.
Not someone I'm riding off entirely, but just didn't super wow me with
that look. I decided to go with Trevor McDonald, who was a twenty
nineteen eleventh round a Mississippi prep pick who is now like twenty two years old.
I think now he had one start in April this year and then went
on the shelf until August. He came back in August and he ended up
winning the Northwest League Picture of the Month over your boy vand Scoots there I
think now Van Scooter won it the other month. So so it's okay,
Well that's because McDonald wasn't around man with that league. There's still only three
broadcasts of him, and with a center field angle, so we're still talking
very limited amount of like looks for us are decent ones. But he's got
a fastball. It's like ninety six curveball slider. I don't know about a
change up, but the offerings look look pretty nasty. Now. What I
don't like about him, though, is his arm action, and not that
he not that he doesn't at least control command his pitch as well, Man
Matt. His arm action just makes my arm hurt. Watching him, it's
like interesting, you know, and you know, like this stretch for pictures
and I know no one can see what I'm doing, but like just keeping
your forearm and buy upper arm at a right angle and stretching, you know,
doing this thing. It's like doing an internal shoulder rotation is what Nate
is doing. Thank you, thank you for that. It's like that's his
motion. It's like this and then like this, like it's hmm, it
just it's just like I said, it makes me hurt. So it's kind
of like this short only never extends back, just keeps his aren't just kind
of at this right angle like all the time until he extends and releases.
Now do you think that that's something for you that raises a red flag for
future injury or do you think it's just the way that he throws and maybe
adds to deception. What do you think about it? I don't know beyond
my paygrad and so to speak. But I also know that I have kind
of just to some extent, I know, I don't like like some sort
of looking mechanics like mostly like headways. But for the most part, I'm
just like I don't want to worry about injuries. Picture injuries. They happen
to everybody. I want to try, especially like b siding, Like I
just want to find a guy who's skilled might be good enough to make it.
You know. Layman opinion would be like, yeah, you that's got
to be. It's kind of not be good to throw like that, but
I don't know he's still doing it. Probably probably isn't a good thing.
But do I care about it as far as picking him for a B side,
Eh not really. No, Well, interesting name, He's not something
I watched at all. And looking at that line, I'm I'm yeah intrigued
and now, especially by the motion, I can't wait to see see if
I see anything. Yeah, like what so what he had? He pitched
thirty seven? What thirty seven? Thirty eight innings? Is that right?
His er? I think it was forty seven on the year. Okay,
Oh, I might have pulled this, Yeah, I might have pulled this,
like before his season was totally over, but at this point it was
thirty seven and two thirds innings. His era was point nine six. He
had a point eighty five whip, thirty nine strikeouts. It was his walk
He walked one point nine to one per nine. Like it was like you
said, it was a pretty He was pretty dominant in his short, little
high stint. Yeah, and it checks out again, like I think it's
I think it's plus stuff and command at least, I mean, you don't
get the greatest angles there, but he was tough to square up and he
was throwing a lot of strikes. Nice. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna
watch some of some of him. You know, My guy remains my number
one pick for our pitcher draft, Kaiwai Tang, who going back to the
Steamer projections that dropped earlier this week, he had quite the rosy projection,
which I felt somewhat validated by with my first round pick. Tang is a
guy that's one percent owned as the end of the year, but projects as
a four to two er guy four two year, a four two fifth per
Steamer this year, which is way better than I even I thought. They're
giving him a lot of benefit of the doubt. On the walk rate,
you know, his walk rate has always been really high, like way higher
than I like. But he's always struck a lot of guys out. He's
actually the minor league strikeout leader over the last three seasons, Like he just
punches batters out because his slider and cutter are so good. They project his
walk rate like like three something, wasn't it like three point five or something
like that, which both Nate and I laughed at, like, I don't
know if we've watched the same picture. Their steamer because I'd be surprised if
he has a walk right that good. But if he does, I think
that's the kind of area that he can put up because he misses bats,
gets ground balls, a lot of weak contact. That's kind of how I
sold him with my number one overall pick in our pitcher draft. So I
was really encouraged by that. San Francisco, like San Diego, I think
they're going to have some openings in their starting rotation. They've had some injuries
issues, Manaiah's leaving for free agency testing the waters there, I thought.
I think they brought back Cob I think they might have an option there and
they picked it up. They still have a bunch of innings that they got
to fill behind Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison, and I think Tang might be
one of those guys. So Tang I think is interesting and remains my pick
there. But the other guy that I wanted to highlight on the pitching side
is Eric Miller. He's someone I watched a little bit of in college when
he was at Stanford. Caught him live a couple of times when he was
coming up through the pack. He's a reliever. Now they've put him to
the bullpen primarily, and the stuff I think has played up a fair amount.
I thought him as more of a pitchability righty coming out of college.
You know, he was good in college, but I wasn't sure he was
going to make it as a starter with what he had. But his stuff
has definitely ticked up as he's been in the pen. Ran a thirty four
percent strikeout rate over sixty plus innings this year. The walk rate is crazy
high seventeen percent this year, but it hasn't always been that way. So
he's one that I think there's better times coming. Like at Triple A this
year, he threw fifty some innings and his walk rate was seven point one
per nine, Like, that's wildly high. He still had a really good
er because he stranded a lot of runners and had a low Babbitt because his
stuff is very good, and he struck out twelve point six per nine.
So like, the stuff will play. And we were having this conversation in
the Dynasty dug at Discord this week Nate about the automatic ball strikes him in
Triple A and that a lot of pitchers pointing to that as something that caused
their walk rates to tick up, and I wonder if that had something to
do with it, because a couple of these guys that we've talked about that
have made triple A on the pitching side that they've had sort of uncharacteristically high
walk rates, and Miller's that kind of guy. For me. He's had
high walk rates in the past, but mostly in really short stints. Anytime
he's had a longer stint, it seems like he's kept his walk rate in
check, especially given that he misses a lot of bats, so you can
live with a slightly higher walk rate. I think Miller's a pretty high probability
big league reliever whether he's He's not going to supplant Camillo Dovall anytime soon,
but he's good and I think it's going to be miss bats at the major
league level as well, especially if he can tighten up his command a bit.
So Eric Miller just wanted to plug him as another guy that I think
is going to be in the middle innings for a big league team soon.
I think that wraps up our NLS, doesn't it. Next does next week
or next time we'll get into uh what let's just do the Ale Central get
that out of the war. Thanks for hanging out with us and getting moddy,
getting dirty. I'm going to uh, I've got to do the final
tally on the AFL ROTO League. I believe, I believe, I believe
I may have won that. Yes, nice, nice, So Dylan White,
eat your heart out. You ain't got one of these. You might,
NBC schmim FBC. You have no AFL Roto titles on your shelf.
I don't think. Yeah this is the big one. This is the one
you bet on the shelf. Yeah, at least I won some league this
year. But right on, all right, so thank you and we'll let
Chicago Farmer take us out. Be well later. Rotten too is head.
You hop it down first with the lumpbonius face, and the very next pitch
he up and stole second base with greatst speed. He wasn't born, he
had dead Yes, uniform