Nine and five miles an hour riding to his head. He hopped down first
with the lump bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and
stole second face with gretest speed. He wasn't born. He had the yes,
uniforn well. Welcome back Episode ten of Prospect B Sides Podcast. I
guess, I guess technically it's a podcast, Matt, but so far it's
just been you and I on a video conference call because none of them have
come out yet. But we are a week later from the last episode.
I'm excited because we're gonna talk pictures. We're gonna we're gonna get into our
B side pictures draft. You guys know that I love pictures because they're superior
in every way, shape and form. Hitters. They're more successful, they're
mostly better looking daggers. This is this is hurtful to the former college hitter
and me. You know, as we were talking about prepping for this,
I was like, yeah, you know, all pictures are the worst.
They're not even athletes like we have them in this game because we have to
and that's the only reason. So all of that you can disregard and and
Nate tells me He's going to wipe the floor because I'm wipe the floor with
me in this draft because he appreciates pictures. And I'm just like, I
don't think so. I think I could hit off all these hitters actually actual,
but I am nate. I don't know if I said that. And
this is the rookie, Matt the rookie here again. He had me back
after last week. Must have been because we had such good feedback from from
last time. All the we had all the listens and all of the B
side pitching. Last season was the first time I like sort of picked some
names and put them out there. By no means was it the first time
first season I did pitching B side, put some stuff out there, and
it was a little tricky. I wasn't really sure sort of what roster percentage
is would be the right range to look at. But what I discovered we
picked thirty thirty arms last year. I'd say we had some success stories.
Three four, five had a lot of guys injured. We'll talk more in
depth about some of those guys in future episodes. But what I found was
that even as far as roster percentage goes, even a success you go from
like zero one percent to like four is that where I think like Julian Aguar
was at and Kyder Montero probably the two best B side selections from last year.
Both great picks, by the way, just chiming in here as a
former fan and now co host with Nate, those were both really good picks,
and I like both those guys. Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting
though, because you know, like I've said this before, they were If
I would have done a draft with you last year this time, those two
guys probably wouldn't have been on my list my draft listing. Why is that
Montero's just seemed like a guy with like a decent fastball and an unharnessed slider
that they looked good. You know, that was based my generic why I
picked them. Agure was kind of the same story. Fastball, slider looked
good. Maybe if you can put some other things together, maybe it'd be
good. I didn't like anybody else in the orgle that much. It wasn't
like some super wicked smart call on my party like that. A lot of
the guys that I probably liked the most, most of them got hurt and
didn't really play too much or got traded but I do want to say something
about B side pitching B side stuff. Last week I spoke about that team
a little bit where I was like seventy five percent production off of free waiver
wire pickups. Right, large majority of that was was trading pitchers. Really.
Now, of course we've talked about very league specific kind of stuff,
but especially in a thirty points league, two thirds to seventy five percent or
more of the league was kind of the same mindset that, hey, we'll
figure out pitching. Hey, I don't want to invest in the volatile pitcher
and all that. I believe that leaves a great opportunity to do some B
siding there over the last two seasons. I just looked at two of my
thirty teen points leagues over the last two seasons. These are all pitchers that
I picked up for nothing and ended up trading for some Ain't saying I made
great trades. Ain't sandy these guys are great or bad or anything like that.
But basically this was me walking into a casino and getting a free tray
of chips, so to speak. Kinder Graham's Roansy Contreris, Mike Burrows,
Luis Pelacio's Cole Reagan's, Kyle Bradish, Jury Perez, Randy Vasquez, Hayden,
Wesnesky, Bailey, Falterdx Fulton, Porter Hodge, DJ Hurris, Sean
Burke, Justin Jarvis, A J. Smith, Shauver, Jared Jones,
Christian Mana Kaider, Montero, David Festa, Marcorea, Ben Brown, Bailey,
Ober, Luis, Luis Devers, and Matt Brash. That's a fire
list there, that's just all free stuff. And both of those leagues,
you know, you can never have enough pitching, right But no one,
no one, no One's minor league rosters are full of pitchers. They're definitely
looking. That's why I'm trying. And it's it's easier sether than down,
but I'm trying. In those leagues, I'm trying to keep I don't know,
they're like thirty to thirty five niner spots and I'm trying to go through
third seventy five percent pitchers if I can. But AnyWho, there is value
in B side pitching, I think, and you know, former college hitter
here again, I hate all college pitchers. I hate all pictures everywhere,
but they are necessary evil And Nate makes a great point in your points leagues,
and even in your rotos and your cats leagues, a good free or
cheaply acquired pitching roster can really free you up. So if you get even
a little bit of an edge from your pitchers, even in a league that
sort of devalues pitching, as you know, a real league probably should,
it's still worth your time to dive into these hidden gems that might be stuck
in the in the mud. So that being said, I don't know.
There's maybe a few guys that I'll talk about tonight, maybe a couple that
I probably that I roster right now. But for the most part, this
sort of level, this sort of depth to me, even in the in
those deep leagues, it's more right now at this juncture, watch list kind
of stuff. I don't know if I'm going to draft any of these guys
in my upcoming draft in those leagues, maybe a few, just some guys
keep an eye on pitching can change so quickly, in my opinion, for
some guys, a little tweak here or there can make all the difference in
the world. I was just listening to a radio show. They were talking
to Paul Seawall, and the Mariners picked him up and they got him to
throw his fastball up in his zone and that went from potentially his pro baseball
career being over to being a closer in the playoffs right now. So yeah,
I don't know Matt anything, anything else you want to add before we
get into the draft. As a as a Mariners fan, go Paul Seawald
and go d Backs tomorrow in their Game seven. We've had some fun CS's
this go around, and you know, I think that if we do our
job well here in this draft, we might find some guys that end up
on on these kinds of rosters. Because in my deep leagues, I generally
take the sort of call it conventional wisdom approach of like, you got to
spend for your hitters, So I definitely pay up for the performing hitters in
the minors, in and in the majors, and then I try and find
off the wire these guys that might accruse some value. And so mat league
guys that I've traded are like your Bryce Elders, your JP Francis who nobody
wanted, got super late in drafts or picked up for free off the wire,
and then turn them into other things and then see them have success,
and you know JP France pits few innings here in the game seven for the
Houston Astros. So some of these guys if we if we do it right,
they might be on a CS or a World Series team next year.
You had brought this up a few days ago to me, but you can,
like potentially, I don't know if it's quite this level of lack of
popularity, but I drafted in a in a first year player slash unowned prospect
draft Justin Steele in the first round and got a lot of grief for that,
and not in no way, shape or form that I think it would
this season would turn out like it did for him. That's an unowned,
unrostered potential, sly young winner, which love that. I think we're going
to talk about him again. Very different feeling than B side hitters anything.
I think that's right. No, I I think you're right. Pitching as
wild it is. And I think you mentioned this too when we were talking
leading up to this, that Dynasty players are definitely getting better. It's harder
to find these guys that truly are unowned or really really low down prospect lists.
It's hard to fake hitting, like it's really really hard to fly under
the radar for very long and even when even when they are not performing,
say someone like Roman Anthony at low A this year. You look ato the
service numbers and traditionally people be like, who's that guy. He's not a
prospect. But the smart Dynasty owners were like, no, this is real.
He is very, very good, and he's exploded. You know,
he's top twenty prospector basically everywhere. That happens so rarely now for hitters,
but I'm so on board with either that happens all the time for pitchers.
They are a tweak away, or they add two miles an hour on their
fastball because they went to drive line, or they add a new pitch and
tack it on to the rest of what they've got, and all of a
sudden, you've now got a guy like somebody who nobody thought was anything,
and he's now performing in the major leagues. And I think that's that's why
it is really fun trying to identify who might be those guys in the minors
like that nobody's really interested in but they're a tweak away, or maybe they've
already made the tweak and people just haven't caught up yet, or health away
we were talking before. I feel like they're both craft, but the craft
of pitching just feels very different to me than the craft of hitting. I
don't know if it's because you're starting the action or whatever it might be,
but there seems like so many, so many more avenues to being a successful
pitcher than perhaps there are to being a successful hitter. Do you think that's
fair to say? I do, and I think that that's something that we
in college we definitely intuited this. We would face a picture that we'd call
Johnny right hander who he was just like eighty eight to ninety two from the
right side. It was going to be a straight fastball, a slider,
and a show me change. And we saw that so many times that every
time we got we are facing, and that's the guy on the scouting report,
we'd be like, hell, yes, this is exactly who we want
to be facing. And then we get a scouting report and it's like it's
a lefty, it's three quarters, it's eighty three to eighty five, and
we're like, oh, this guy's going to be so easy. Look at
that velo. He's not gonna get it by anybody. And then he chopped
us. You know those guys because they look weird, they're funky, they've
got movement and deception, and it's because they don't look like anything else.
You know. There's a famous study that was done a couple of years ago.
I think, I think on Fangrafts. They looked at why are left
handers like Clayton Kershaw, you know, one of the greatest left handers of
all time, but stuff wise, he's worse than Justin Berlander or worse than
Max Sures are like throws slower, his pitches move less, all of that,
and so they're asking, like, in the population of pitchers, why
is it that even the very good left handers always have worse stuff than the
very good right handers, but they perform at the same level, like their
numbers are the same or better. Eventual summary was it's because they look different.
There are fewer lefties in the population, so coming up, hitters don't
see left handers, and so left handers can quote get away with the same
kind of a fastball or the same movement on a slider, but because it's
coming from a different place, the hitters they don't have that in their mental
library of what pitches look like and therefore it works better. And I think
that that's true across all pitchers. If you look different than Johnny right hander
or Johnny left hander, you're going to be more successful. And I think
that this is still something that we're understanding about pitch shapes better. But you
look at an organization like the Giants, who all of their relievers threw from
different armslots this year. All of their starters are kind of weird, like
they're all they're all throw from different places. And I think they do that
on purpose because that effect is magnified even within a pitching staff or within a
bullpen, and there's there's something to that, like that being different not just
from all the other pitchers in the populace, but also the pictures on the
staff that you're in, that that helps your stuff play way up above what
it otherwise should. Amen, Matt, I just had like I had a
very profound sense of deja voo. Just now, Sorry I got I got
lost in my de Is that a good thing? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
I mean it again. I think it might just be my b siding
soulmate, Matt, but I don't want to dnx things just yet. I
love it I love it, Nate, and and you definitely have the edge
here and in pitching, both in in your willingness to sit through all those
dumb pictures throwing their stupid pitches, but also you've been doing the song or
so I think I have the first pick in this in this too, because
you're doing the rookie and I'm way worse at this than you. God,
I know who you're taking, I know who this is. Do it.
I was gonna take who you think I'm gonna take, But because I know
you're a good guy, you're not gonna take him with your first pick,
I don't think. But now I'm nervously going to take my guy. So
I'm going to go a different direction with my first pick, and we'll definitely
get to my guy next. But I'm taking Kaiwai Tang with my first pick.
Yeah, okay, all right, this is I think this is a
guy who is greater than the sum of his parts. Stack cast. He's
a Giants pitcher, starting pitcher. He's made it up to Triple A,
had a decent showing in Triple A. His numbers were not good there,
and that's one reason why nobody's on him. But they were pretty good at
his levels. At the levels below that stack cast, we got some stack
caass numbers because he did pitch in the PCL and so that was nice to
dive into. Says he has a full six pitch mix, and when it
says six pitches, like he literally does throw six pitches. There were a
couple of outings where every single one of his pitch types were at ten percent
or above, and like four of them were at fifteen percent or above.
So that's like he's a guy out there throwing the kitchen sink, you know,
four seam, two seam, cutter, slider, changeup, and curveball.
He's kind of a bigger guy, you know, six' four,
Like he looks maybe like two eighty, Like he's big. He's a big
dude. Not the best on man athlete, and he I think has some
control problems because of that, Like he doesn't command the ball as well as
I normally like to see in these B side guys. But he does a
few things that I really like. He was getting strikeouts a lot of them,
like, way more than anybody I think would have expected given his total
lack of profile. Nobody talks about this guy. His ownership is one percent.
When I pulled this on fan tracks, it's I think because he doesn't
throw hard. He is throws in the tops out at like ninety three I
think on the four seam, but it's mostly like eighty nine to ninety two.
And he's a righty and so you're like, ah, that's not very
good. But he punched out almost thirteen per nine in Double A this year.
He's twenty four, so you know, like that's age appropriate. Yeah,
and he walked three point eight, which is higher than I like even
like that's but if you're punching out almost thirteen per nine, like that's still
a pretty good fit coming out of that gets a decent amount of ground balls.
Not great. At Double A it was just forty percent, but when
he was up in Triple A it was at forty four, So like hovering
right around average. But I also don't think he gives up a ton of
loud contact. Like I watched a couple of his starts in Triple A when
he gave up a bunch of runs and they were funny. It was a
lot of soft contact that found a hole or a flare because a couple guys
were on because he walked one, hit one and thrown a wild pitch.
Like his starts are roller coasters, but he's got this slider and cutter and
curveball that I kind of think he should just pitch off. And I even
wonder if, like dropping the four seam all together is the way to go
for him. But he seems like a man step forward away from being a
really useful fourth or fifth starter in maybe the best part to pitch in in
San Francisco, and he's already at Triple A. They've got an aging rotation
by and large there. I mean, you know, you've got Logan Webb
and Kyle Harrison and then after that it's a bunch of older guys that they
might have around for another year. And Manayah and Cobb, I think that
they're not going to keep signing a bunch of those guys, And depending on
what way the big league club decides to go, you know, they're kind
of straddling competitiveness. And we'll see whether they make a splash with Otani this
offseason, like some have rumored. I kind of think there might be a
spot for this guy. I think he could succeed, you know, if
he's not given up a ton of homers, and he's got a decent defense
behind him. Because that defense for the Triple A Giants I don't think was
very good this year. Watched the decent amount of them. He might be
a guy and he might come up, and so again, going for some
of this is sort of gaming our game. Like if he comes up is
a starter and gets some run, I think that one percent is going to
turn into fifteen pretty quickly. Now he might be a relief guy there.
Like I said, the command at Triple A was poor, and the command
at the end of last year was poor as well. But I think he's
an adjustment away, like he's tinkerer. He's got six pitches seven sometimes,
I think, and he'll change how he attacks hitters, like some starts he
just uses three. Some starts he's using all six. And that tells me
a little bit to the point you were talking about earlier, that he's a
craftsman. He's trying to perfect this craft and if he can rain in his
command just a little bit and hone in on these pitches that I do think
play way up, like his cutter and his slider I think are both actual
plus pitches. His curveball could be, but he almost never seems to know
where it's going, and then his two seems okay. I think those are
his four pitches, and if he can hone those in and throw some strikes
with them, this might be an actual fourth fifth starter, kind of along
the lines of like like a Bryce Elder, like that kind of guy.
You know, Bryce has better commands, but similar range of stuff and similar
sort of large repertoire that he uses to keep people off balance. And I
think that that might be the kind of guy that Kaiwaitang could be. So
that's my first pick right on. Very interesting. I won't lie when you
made that pick. It took me a minute to get that picture in my
mind. Do you happen to be a listener of Dynasty Sports Life? Two
years ago or so, there was somebody on a podcast talking about him,
who me I was, ah, I love it. I think he had
knuck onto the back of like some top one hundred pitching list that I did
back then. What I remember, And I won't lie, I haven't.
I don't think I've watched him at all the last two seasons. So at
this point, he was still pretty sure maybe it was Higa but I think
he was still giant San Jose, right, Yeah, it might have been
high. And remember like just he could spin it, he could spin it,
and and I it's hard, it's so hard to tell, especially with
our vantage points that we get on video, Like, but I suspected that
even back then he was playing with some of his spin adding subtracting someone his
slider. Well, and that's how statcast approaches his slider, Like, I
think, you know, it did look like they were calling separate pitches when
they were when when he was out there, But like his slider, his
cutter, and his curveball really are on a spectrum. And I do think
that he manipulates that that and at times pretty well. So that's I think
I think your intuition from years ago was right on. Well, that's and
it's tricky, you know, especially down on the lowers when you watch sometimes
it's just inconsistent some you know, sometimes sometimes we're just inconsistent. But some
every once in a while you get a guy who you're like, I think
there's some purpose behind this. I've written about this before and chat about this,
and this might be kind of silly, but this is this is legit
something that I look for on a daily basis in minor league baseball, and
that's that's what do I call it FQI or some fqoh, And that's go
six innings, give up three earned runs or less, two walks or less,
strikeout more than six and then you know, don't have like a super
crazy whip for the game or whatever. And on August thirtieth against Albuquerque,
he went six, struck out seven, gave up four hits. I don't
know if that's probably not his most recent start, but some triple a success
there for your guy. Yeah, and it wasn't the easiest go round,
Like we were talking about at the outset, the PCL is a nightmare,
and he does some things that make that even worse, Like he threw ten
wild pitches this year and I saw probably five of them. They were they
were not close. And he walks a lot of guys. He hits a
lot of batters like he doesn't have the best command, and that is unusual
for the kind of guy that I'm going to go for in a draft like
this. But his proximity and the fact that he does have some plus stuff
in there, like the slider and the curveball, I think those are plus
because he really does spin it. I think that that combination might might return
some value, and I like that. I think that's a good call to
sort of game our game, because I mean, any starter who gets a
chance to start in the BIGS is going to get a jump in in percentage.
We'll see down the road, how many years down the road if it
sticks. But yeah, indeed, all right, sang okay. I got
nervous for a second there when I thought you were going to take my guy,
especially given what we were talking about. I want to hop into a
time machine just real quick and go back to the dark ages. Especially now
what the Rangers are up eleven to three in the bottom of the eighth.
It looks like they're going to the World Series. So I don't go back
to twenty twenty draft and give the Rangers some legit B siding props, because
they were real life b siding, especially on the prep end. Obviously,
Evan Carter right took him in the second round. People were scratching their heads,
who's this guy? All that stuff? Right? Perfect Game had him
unranked slash five hundred, tied with like five hundred other guys at five hundred
Thomas S. Gasey was not ranked to Roby was ranked seventy seventh by Perfect
Game. They took him in the third round. Stealan McLain was four hundred
and eleventh. They took him in the fourth round. And then these guys
crushed some prep undrafted free agents that year. They signed Aiden Curry, Josh
Steven and then my pick here, DJ McCarty. Good one cardy is he'll
be twenty one to start this season from one of the minor league towns in
California. I don't remember which one. He got in seventy four single A
innings this past season. He's listed at six to two and one hundred and
forty five pounds, which is not correct at all. If he's six to
two, i'd probably say he's two hundred pounds or close to mid September Fan
tracks raster percentage was zero. Matt. We were talking about a different look,
right getting a different look from a pitcher, and I feel like McCarty
drips with that. So he's right handed pitcher. I don't know if I
said that he's got a slider that I think he plays with a little bit.
We'll throw it a little bit firmer, a little bit softer, take
a little more on and off, but it is it's a freak pitch and
I don't necessarily mean it in this context like freak good, but it's just
a freak outlier pitch. Bye bye by the good juicy under the hood metrics
too. I spoke with an amateur scout with the Rangers about McCarty a little
bit the other day, and he's he's different, and he's got a different
release He's got a kind of a a different sort of like old school motion.
I love this. This is arbitrary, it means nothing, but I
love guys who bring the glove over their head and their wind up. He
does the like super extended and you know, you hear like Tom House talk
about how it's unnecessary and all that stuff, but there is some functionality to
it. If you're a guy who's setting your grip behind your head, that
could be some function to it. But he like kind of reaches reaches real
far back, and he's just he has a different sort of release point.
It's not even like great extension or anything like that, but it's a different
look. And he's got this slider that I'm watching on at bat right now,
first pitch, this thing is starting at the right hand hitter's hip and
ends up six seven inches off the plate outside velocity wise, on the slider,
I think you can go from high seventies to mid eighties. I believe
you know. I like guys with three different speeds fast, medium, slow.
I think Cardi's medium speed is a big question mark to me. And
he's got a sinker he throws throws a couple of different varietals of fastball,
but the sinker as well is a very different pitch. You're not going to
find a lot of pitches like that. Now on video, I can tell
that it has has some good late late movement and there's some inconsistency with his
movement. He pitched at Augusta early in the year. That's the best view
you're going to get of his stuff. But it is speaking speaking to the
amateur scout. With them, it is different, and that's and kudos to
the Rangers because I think I think they're onto something. They're on the very
much what you were talking about, Matt, and they they're finding some pitchers
that have some very different and unique traits and they're valuing them and going after
them and trying to mold. But actually, what I like about McCarty and
the most, he's a freaking robot. His motion. I mean he looks
like a robot, dude. I mean, look, it's like kind of
awkward looking, but all that stuff, but it's so repeated and he's so
calm and just gets the ball, does the same thing every time, boom
and and and you can see that in the execution he's got. He's got
some pitches with some wild movement and he spots some extremely well, especially for
you know, a guy who's just getting into full season ball. I'm looking
for that middle. I'm looking for guys with the plus execution and some plus
weapons. And when you can get those two to marry, then you really
got something. And out of all the fifteen hundred arms I started with this
process, mc cargy's my first choice. Now, I love it. I
love it. That's a good pick. If you look at his season numbers
and speaking with the scout, Yeah, you know, like all these guys,
Oh, he's probably a reliever. Yeah, well they're all probably relievers
unless they're like really good. Yeah, and I get it. There's there's
maybe not a medium speed, there's maybe this kind of like outlier pitch that
you know, maybe it plays well and gives guys trouble for an inning there
two, and that's fine. That's especially this level. I'm okay with a
little bit of question about that. But I don't think there's a question that
they're going to give him a go at trying to start and that it goes.
If you look at his game logs, that might seem a bit contradictory
because he started off start more going to seventy close to eighty pitches and then
they kind of like tapered them off a little bit. But it's like last
fifteen games, fifteen appearance, no excuse me. His last four games,
his last fifteen innings one point two ERA, point six WIP, thirteen point
two k per nine, one point two walk, strike percentage of sixty five
percent, gave up one home run. He didn't give up very many home
runs all year. You know, all the surface levels he put up some
gaudy looking surface level stats three eer well that stuff K for nine over ten,
walks were a little bit higher, But I mean, for a guy
with as much movement as he gets, I'm pretty impressed with his walk rate.
To be honest, I liked all the looks that I saw of him,
and I don't know, I don't know how much more gushy I can
get on DJ McCarty here. I think the other thing that it seems like
his stuff does well is he keeps it on the ground there. He's not
giving up a ton of fly balls. He's that two seamer or the fastball
really does seem like it's got some good run. And that slider, you
know, a lot of times like a slider, if it's getting hit,
it's getting hit in the air and hard, and his does not seem to
be that kind of slider. So yeah, and on my list too,
and I thought I thought he was impressive as well nice And you know,
of course all these guys will have to see how some of this stuff plays,
and he's got some different stuff. But I like my chances here.
If it goes well, it could it could get gaudy fairly quick. I
think, now there's some downside. And he throws, sorry, he throws
a fast fastball. You know, it's funny. I talked with his scout
for a good minute and we never once brought up fastball velocity. And I'm
not even totally sure what it is. I'm going to guess ninety two to
ninety four. I don't know. But the way that just from the video,
the way that it looks, the way that it plays, I don't
think it has to be really hard to be effective. Obviously, if it
is really hard, even better, right. I don't like that he has
no change up. He didn't throw one change up all year, So,
like I said, maybe he does just end up as this kind of like
weirdo reliever. But for my B side, draft DJ McCarty. Now we're
going up to hi A, you know, because if there's one ding on
a picture like McCarty, it's that he was good, not great at a
lower level. And as things as you rise, like you see this trend
when you look over guy's numbers and you run any analysis of it, is
your strikeouts go down, your walks go up, your ground balls go down.
As the hitters get better, right, like the hitters start dominating the
pitchers, you know, because pitching is it's hard. I feel for those
poor bastards on the mound. But this guy that I'm picking next, Nate
knows my deep abiding love for Red Van Scooter read Van Scooter, and he
spells his name funny, but I'm pretty sure it's Van Scooter. That's how
you say it. When I first read his name, I was like,
Van Scooter, van Scotter like, but no, I think it's read van
Scooter. He is with the Mariners, one of my favorite teams, and
this year he spent the full year at at High for them. He was
a twenty twenty two draft pick, fifth rounder out of college. He's just
one of these guys that I have a lot of respect for from when I
played. These were the guys, especially early in my career. I'd play
against lefties and occasional rightings, and this was the kind of guy that I
had to face. I was telling Nate at the as we're getting set up,
like having a different look and having to deal with a pitcher that actually
knew how to pitch, that had three or four pitches, could command them
to both sides of the plate. It made these really good hitters look terrible
because it was so different to me. I don't think any pitcher in the
minor leagues was more like that than Read Van Scooter. You know, compare
him to someone like a mayor who at a mazer rather who has really good
command? Right, this guy might have the best command in the minors given
the stuff. He walked two point two per nine, struck out nine point
eight six and I give him that eighty six and ran a two point nine
to four FIP. And yeah, he's a college arm, he's advanced,
he's a lefty with some deception. But he dominated hi A. And there
are some pitchers parks in that league, you know, Everett, his home
park was not an easy place to pitch. Spokane not an easy place to
pitch. Even the parks that play a little more neutral in that in that
league, like Hillsborough and Eugene still not easy. It's not like this was
a It's not like this was the Sally League where half the parks are really
really good to pitch in and then you've got Ashville or whatever. You know,
this is like this is the big boy. It's it's tough there.
And there were some good players around that league throughout the year. And he
threw one hundred and forty three and a third innings, So I love that.
Like, again, you want to talk about predictors for future success.
If you throw a lot of innings. A. That means the organization believes
in you as a starter. B. You've got a floor to build on
the next year. You know the fact that he's at high A already,
He's going to start next year at double A for sure, and he might
pitch there the whole year. And I gotta be honest, like, if
this, if they're if the Mariners deal with injuries and they're starting rotation next
year, the Evan Scooter might be their pick, Like he might be the
guy who was pitching for the Mariners next year. You look at the guys
that they've given a lot of innings to over the past years, like Marco
Gonzalez, they share a lot of the same traits, lefties with good command,
not plus stuff. For Van Scooter, you know, he's kind of
a three quarter slot, maybe even a touch lower from the left side.
His fastball doesn't look like it has a ton of run, but certainly some
movement, and he manipulates it around the zone enough that he'll get whiffs up
in the zone. He'll get strikes taken on the inside part of the plate
because it froze a right handed hitter. But his money pitch is his slider.
And he manipulates the spin on this a bit. I think like it
might bleed into his curveball a little bit, certainly in the broadcast, as
Nate knows for this, particularly in the Northwest League, it's tough. They
don't have velocity, and a lot of the angles are pretty tough. So
there were times when I'm like, Ah, is that a slider or is
that his curveball? So they can bleed into each other a little bit.
But both are good, Both get it strike swings and misses, tons of
ground balls from both of them. I think he ran, yeah, fifty
seven point five percent ground ball rate. That's not the highest in the minor
leagues, but for anyone over one hundred and twenty innings, I think it
was in the top five. And he didn't walk anybody, and he still
was getting people to wh like this to me is a dream kind of pitcher.
Like in all the ways that I was hedging with Tang like he's at
a higher level. There's more to work on here. I'm a full believer
that Van Scooter could pitch in the major leagues next year. He might not
be great, but he's got more in common with a guy like justin Steel
than you think. And again, like I brought him up to some of
my contacts in the game, and the Mariners really like him. A couple
of my friends that work for the Mariners are like, they gave him Pitcher
of the Year for their organization, and this is an organization that has some
pretty good guys, the guys that I think there's more helium on. But
for me, Van Scooter is maybe my single favorite pitcher that I saw this
year in the minor leagues, and I think he's one that you PLoP him
down in the big leagues and he's gonna pound the zone, he's gonna hit
the edges, he's going to get weak ground balls, and he's just a
competitor too, Like the guy pitched them to the title. I'm pretty sure
Everett won the Northwest League title this year, and I think he pitched their
first game there and did great. Like he's he is just like you were
gushing over McCarty, like Van Scooter is my guy, Like he is someone
that popped on a couple of leader boards early in the year. I was
like, who is this guy. I've literally never heard of him, and
he is chopping everybody and yeah, so I'm taking with my pick too,
but really he's number one in my heart. He's also got a great mustache
too, so he brings a little bit of flair. He's a really good
pitcher. Like sometimes this gets a little lost in my opinion in the Dynasty
world. Like he he knows how to optimize what he's working with. How
many f QoS do you think Van Scuter had this year. I'm gonna guess
ten eight and that's close, yeah, very close. And that's uh,
folks, don't get close to that. Yeah, I'm telling you. Like
this guy, it was just metronomic the way that he did it. Just
every time out. You knew that he was going to be in the mix.
And like when he gets pulled in the middle of an inning, he's
pissed. He's like, I've got this, Like nobody's gonna get to me.
He didn't have blow ups this year, like because he didn't walk anybody,
and when he did or he hit a batter like double play next next
play, you know, and he had a good infield behind him. Coley
Young plays pretty good shortstop and they're they're AFO could run it down a little
bit. So you know, he had some defensive help too, But man,
I'm on it like this guy, I think he's gonna chop in double
A next year because that's that's a pretty good pitchers league down there at Arkansas.
Whether they bring him up to the PCL like that, Mariners kind of
generally don't do that, or especially with their top guys like Wu Miller.
I guess Miller pitched a little bit in the PCL this year before he came
up. But Wu was double A only, Kirby was w double A.
Only Gilbert was double A only. Yeah, so you know they've got a
ton of pitchers. So again, most likely he's gonna spend the whole year
in double A and maybe maybe the hitters are going to catch up to him
and he's gonna see some stuff regress. I'm betting that he runs almost the
same line next year, Like it's gonna be nine, it's gonna be like
just under nine k per nine. He's not gonna walk anybody. It's gonna
be two five walks per nine. It's gonna be fifty four percent ground balls,
like it's gonna be this line, but just the next level up,
and that double A line translates pretty freaking well to the to the big So
yeah, now, guys like this, at least for me, the biggest
question is always all right, well, how is your stuff going to play
in the zone, you know as you move up? And I think,
uh, it's just because we're you know, under the fantasy context. Here,
a lot of the pictures that I really like a lot that I want
to marry, so to speak, guys that are aggressive in the zone right
and not always necessarily have this big overpowering stuff. Point being, there are
also guys that I don't like right out of the gates in fantasy because chances
are they're gonna get their tits with for a while until they learn how to
pitch aggressively like that against the best hitters in the world. So it'll be
interesting to see with him as he moves up here totally, and I think
that like, this is a guy that you look at his fastball and you're
gonna see some velocity readings when he's up at double A that next year,
and it's not going to jump off the page. I think the scouts that
I talked to, they said that he was like topping out at ninety one
ninety two maybe, but it was mostly like up eighties to low nineties.
I think the way he's got sort of a flat approach angle with his arm,
because it's sort of that three quarter he might throw a two seam and
a force. I think I've seen both out of him, and he I
was encouraged by the kinds of guys that he was getting to with too.
It wasn't like he was feasting on bad hitters. He was really taking advantage
of guys that had really good years in the Northwest League, and he made
him look silly. Love it. And You're lucky that I'm a nice guy
because you passed on him on the first pick, I would I should have
jumped on that, but you could articulate any But yeah, all right,
so my second pick, I want to stretch. This is not a homer
pick. I was a fan of Tyler Schweitzer. I mean, not that
I'm a huge follower of college baseball or amateurs these days, but Schweitzer was
a guy that got my attention in college. It just so happened that the
White Sox drafted him. It just so happens that I wasn't really thrilled about
that, But now I think, But now I think I might be a
little bit. It might be oddly a weird fit Tyler Schweitzer at not super
big six foot, I think, you know, and like sort of a
skinny athletic six foot. I don't know what they what do they have them
listed at? There we go. This is a type that dynasty players,
I think can let slip through the cracks sometimes to folks like us. Last
I checked was zero percent rostered. He'll be twenty three next season. He
was a fifth round choice, like I said, out of ball State twenty
twenty two draft. He got in sixty eight A ball innings and forty high
A innings this last season, you know, his amateur career. It was
really like kind of his last season that he came on and he was he
was billed as the command guy, like you said prior, some of all
its parts, right, some of all his parts sort of guy. But
he went on the developmental list three times this season. And I know there's
we've had some chatter in the dugout and I don't This checks out to me
in several different ways, But I think the White Sox like the tinker with
guys. But you know, to go on the developmental list. Schweitzer has
to agree to it, and he did, and I think he came back,
at least this last time, with a little bit more teeth on the
fastball, perhaps even the whole arsenal. His fastball is probably fits ninety two
ninety three, but there you can get up there three four more clicks from
time to time. I don't know if that was really going on at ball
State. So one hundred and seven innings this year, which is nice,
you know. I think the way, especially that system too. I think
Schweitzer is going to get a chance to be a starter, perhaps relatively soon,
perhaps before he's even ready, perhaps out of desperation. They had like
a eer just under four, you know, surface number stuff, not too
crazy, ten k for nine walks for a little bit higher. But mind
you, all three times when he came back there was I think this is
a guy working with a little bit different tools than he came in with.
And he's kind of like a fifties across the board guy with the full starter's
mix, but like a fifty five sixty command coming out of college grade.
Then you know, I'm not a huge like grade guy. I thought it
interesting watching him like man this doesn't look this doesn't look quite like a super
high command guy. But he's also I would say, like the level of
difficulty of his sequencing and what he was working with is higher the most.
But this is very much a guy that I think can be a major league
starter. He's got all the tools. I want to see the execution get
a little bit better with perhaps his shinier tools. But you know, a
lefty like you were saying that these stuff doesn't always have to be the most
eye popping. His splitter good. He was actually a bit better versus righties,
which is nice to see from lefty. Like I said, he's got
a curveball, slider change. I think he knows that he used them fairly
well, can locate them fairly well. And you know, one thing that
we don't really talk about a whole lot, or at least I don't hear
folks talking about when you say, like a guy's guy. You know,
he's got a really good slider And this is the great part of video to
me, But like, is the slider great just like in one spot or
is there a couple of spots? Can you hit it? Can you execute
it there? Often? So like you know, within one pitch. I
feel like you've got several different pitches, right, Not everyone has all three
of them in there that if that makes sense. But when I watch him,
I liked the theory of what he's trying to execute. Maybe that's the
best way to put it, and I think he can get You're not worried
about the other pitchers sort of ahead of him in the pecking order and the
White Sox system. And I think for me, you answered the question that
I had because I didn't watch any of his stuff because I saw that walk
number and I was kind of scared off, you know, given where he
was. But it sounds like he had stuff to work on, and you
think he can leaplog leapfrog guys like Mana or Nistrini in that system most definitely.
I mean, am I gonna bet that he does? Yeah? Well,
I don't know about the streaming I'm not a fan of. Maybe it's
the best to answer your question. Do I think that too much talent is
gonna get in the way of his opportunity? No, I do not.
That's a good way to put it. Yeah, Like I said, I
think there's a lot of tweaking and stuff going on here, But like his
last seven starts thirty innings, he had a three e R O a e
R A one point three whip and the walks were five point four. I
mean his whole five point four per nine. I mean that's that's two three
more walks per nine than the rest of his season. Like I said,
I'm and I could be wrong, but I'm I'm banking some of the high
walk rates on on some changes and some new things going on with Schweitzer.
Back to me for my third pick, I'm gonna go to a guy in
the newly defeated Houston Astros system. If you saw they just they just lost.
Whoa, whoa, Okay, Astros. This is I'm super curious because
there are so many b side type guys in the Astros system. In my
opinion, there are, and a few of them are on my list.
I watched a lot of Astro's arms and you know, like I mentioned earlier,
I'm reading Evandrelic's book that winning fixes everything about the Astros. Fascinating read.
But you definitely like there were a lot of smart people there who have
gone on to other places too. Yeah, And one of the things that
I think they're way ahead of the game on is their minor league development.
I think they really are doing something right here. Every year the big publications
are like they don't have a system anymore. They traded them all they have
like two guys and they're not any good, and then they promote them and
like they're a useful big leaguer. You know McCormick, Like who was he
And he's like a two win center fielder that they got for nothing. And
they're the worst. They don't know what they're doing. They're awful. Yeah,
they're the worst. I mean they are the worst, Like they cheaters,
and they seem pretty terrible in lots of other ways. But they are
smart, and I think following some of the things that they're doing might prove
useful for dynasty owners. So I'm going to go with right hander Tyler Gilfoyle.
Tyler was college right hander for the Atlantic Sun Lipscomb. For Lipscomb and
Lipscomb actually popped up on a few of my B side selections as we're prepping
for some of the team by team stuff like surprisingly good little program they've got
there. He left in twenty twenty one after twenty one to go to Kentucky,
So he spent a season in the SEC, but he was a reliever
the whole time his whole college career at Kentucky. He sort of is like
a fireman reliever. You know. He threw fifty some innings over twenty one
games, so like a lot of those obviously were multi in outings, and
he was good, I would say, like solid number, solid k per
nine, little bit of a walk problem, you know, pretty good at
Kentucky. I guess he got his walks down to three per nine, but
six before that four and a half six, Like he never won that.
You would say, has has good control. And again he's doing this in
short stints, like he's probably max efforting it. Eighth rounder in twenty twenty
two. Eighth rounder, So two hundred and fifty two picks went before this
guy, and he's my third pick in this this little draft. His current
ownership on fan tracks is one percent. He was at High A this year.
I think Houston have something here, like they turned this closer into a
starter. And my first look at him, I was like, who in
the f is this guy? Because it was you know, like maybe ninety
one to five on the fastball, so not overpowering. But guy, we're
just getting blown away by it. So I suspect I don't have confirmation on
this, but I suspect that there are some good looking traits. He's a
big guy, you know, he's six' five, I think six'
four. They have n't listed, but he looks big, kind of looks
like he is overpowering these guys. I also think I read that in college
he was mostly fastball, curveball, but I think Houston have changed that breaking
ball into a slider and it's nasty. Dives it down in underneath lefties bats
and they aren't close. He gets with in and out of the zone to
Righty's. Really was impressed with how he's working on his change up, like
he actively. There was one start that I watched where he started an inning
with a change up, left it over the plate, gave up a hit
through another change up, next pitch, through another change up, missed off
the plate, in through another change up, three in a row, gave
up a hit. So given up two hits three pitch, and he'd missed
a phone. So bad execution on the change up. He kept going back
to it that inning and got a double play and a strikeout. I think
the strikeout was on the slider, but he threw a change up from that
bat, and I was like, that's a guy to go back to our
earlier point, that is working on how to be a starter. Like these
were right on right changeups that he didn't need to throw. He's got a
good fastball, okay, command, it's not great yet, he's got four
pitches and he was throwing his worst one in important innings because he was working
on it. And I think that that was a sign. It's a sign
of he's he's a guy who is still growing into being a starter. So
all those caveats right, the guy dominated Hi a for the Astros. And
if you know the high Astros play where and is that a good place to
pitch? I've heard that No, No, it is one of the very
worst places outside of the PCL to pitch. And he over thirteen per nine,
walked three point seven per nine, so a little higher than you'd like,
but not awful. Again, if you're striking out more than thirteen per
nine, give up less than a homer per nine eight point three three point
fifty babbep and he's still put up a four or five Era four, five
seven, But it's FIP three three six and none of these are park adjusted,
and I'm pretty sure that if you park adjust those things like this is
a ridiculously good pitching line for where he was. That was just like his
last few starts. He also dominated at low A for Houston. He started
not every game. I think they were piggybacking him early in the season,
but towards the end of the year he was starting more often than not.
Still through eighty four innings on the year, so not as much as like
a guy like Van Scooter, but there's a platform there and I think he's
shown enough to continue success. But I'm way into it. I think there's
there's still giving him run as a starter. I think he, like Van
Scooter, is going to end up in double A next year. And I
am really really impressed with I love right on right change ups. I think
it's a super underutilized pitch. I love that he throws them in weird counts
more than a lot of the guys that I evaluated, But like that we're
flying under the radar. His stuff seems good, like he runs it up
to ninety five and the fastball is good, you know, it looks like
it's got that kind of ride that you want to see. His slider is
a swing and Mitch pitch, and he's still working on a change up and
his kurb ball that he'll show sometimes. I'm I'm way in. I think
Tyler Gilfoyle is going to be a guy, and maybe more than even my
first two picks. Like, I think he's one that the strikeouts might stay
there, like that he as the levels go up, I think he might
keep punching guys out. And so it's about canny hone it in on the
walks a little bit, and he's going to give up some homers. He
hasn't up to this point, but he's the kind of guy that, like
he's going to pitch at the top of the zone, He's going to give
up a lot of fly balls. I think he is going to give up
some homers as he raises, as he rises in the ranks. But I'm
kind of buying it. I think that there's a real picture here, and
he's again one percent. Nobody owns him in any of my leagues, Like,
but he's someone that I'm targeting pretty early on in in my drafts this
offseason. Yeah, that's a that's a great call, Matt, for sure.
I've been ready for this draft for several weeks now and it's been a
minute since I watched him, and I'll speak on him a little bit when
we talk about the Astros. I don't want to blur him together with some
of the other guys. When it came down for my choice for the Astros,
I mean a lot of orgs, I'm like, okay, all right,
I guess so, and then you get to the assrooms, like I
got a dozen guys here that I like all of them, and it's such
I have like four more still on my my list here that are from the
ASTROS that I'm like, yeah, I think this might be a guy you
know, yeah, yeah. It's it's such a great b siding hunting ground
of both and pitchers that organization. It's funny, man. You know,
you're in some chat rooms or whatever and listen to some other podcasts and stuff,
and people will talk about great like pitching development. Dude, they'll name
like five organizations and maybe they'll mention the Astros. They just have like a
totally homegrown staff that won a World series, I mean, other than Verlander
or whatever. But yeah, good stuff. I like it all right.
Round three. This is a bit ironic to me because I am that shy.
I do like to throw shade on Dodgers pitching prospects. De siding with
Dodger pitching prospects. It's difficult because they're also dang popular. I'm gonna go
with now. They call him German Rosario on all of the broadcasts, but
the last I checked, Jay's are silent in Spanish, right, I mean
they're not chilopano y. Yeah, it should be yeerming rose A. Right
he is. That's how I'd say it. Yeah, right, Jerman Rosario,
j E R M I N G. Rosario right hand pitcher. This
is the most popular guy that I'm going to select to talk about tonight.
He's at one percent listed at six to one, one hundred and seventy five
pounds. I don't know. Maybe you give him a little bit more,
I don't. I don't know if he's that tall though, and maybe take
the under. He's not a big guy, but he was a twenty eighteen
international free agent out of the Dominican He will be twenty one s already next
season. He got in twenty five a innings and sixty seven high A innings.
Now he is Rule five eligible this year. I think he's the only
only arm on my list that is. I don't know if anyone would take
him. I don't think we're quite there yet. What do I know.
Ninety two innings he got about almost four innings a game. There was like
some you know, longer relief stuff, which is, you know, pretty
par for course with a lot of these guys, especially in the Dadge system.
On the season, eleven point one five k per nine, three point
nine to one walk per nine, which is higher than you know you'd like
to see. Didn't give up very many home runs. Strike percentage was like
sixty three percent, two point fifty four average against. He did have one
hundred and fourteen strikeouts, came in like sixty two pitches a game. Looking
at his game log, he was getting a little bit more ramped up at
the end, higher pitch counts. But they still they probably capped him at
about seventy I would say for the whole season. But check this out.
His last four appearances eighteen innings, and one of these was a was a
playoff game too, eighteen innings point five, ERA point six to one whip
a ten kper nine, a two walk per nine, strike percentage at sixty
five percent, gave up one home run his last sixty innings. It was
era was two point eight five a whip of one point two kper nine at
eleven walks were a little bit higher. Point being is that there was a
progression as the season went on. I would say the beginning of the year
he looked kind of a fairal fastball slider type of guy, and then when
we got towards the end of the season, he very much looked more like
a starter. To me. His fastball can touch get up to ninety seven.
He throws both four and two seamers. He probably sits around ninety four,
and then you know he's the younger guy. But I do have questions
about the velocity holding through starts, as it didn't he throws a change up.
I think, I don't know. Towards the end, I started digging
the change up, maybe even more than his slider. So that's nice to
have two secondaries and you're not totally sure which one's the best. The changeup
was came in probably about high eighties, low nineties. I did see him
get it down to like eighty seven eighty six a few times, pulling a
good parachute. He's got like a gyro slider that's eighty three, eighty four,
eighty six, you know, the mid eighties. And then he does
throw in a softer curveball, the sort of tan it's lighting north south kind
of attack that's very popular these days. He's got a fastball that gets some
ride and would play does play well up in the zone now. He does
still have even when he was a bit more polished and cleaned up at the
end. You know, every once in a while he just had this very
unprofessional pitch, just something flying egregiously out of the zone, just over someone's
head or something just you know, it still has those moments. I do
question him getting away with. You know, these guys can just throw their
nastier stuff just right down the middle and get by at these levels. It
did seem like too many offerings that were just kind of generically down the lane,
so to speak. Like to see him get a little bit more sophisticated
with that, and as his change up improved as the season went on,
the lefties, the success versus the lefties got much better. His season long
splits they hit two eighty against them versus right as they hit two nineteen.
This is a young guy in a system that has helped some guys along,
has has got kind of the in vogue repertoire that I think could work really
well. One percent owned so Jerming Jerming Rossario was also on my list.
I only watched a little bit of him and I ended up backing away just
because they kind of played with the is he going to be a starter kind
of thing? That was really my only qualm with him. But I agree
with you. I liked the change, and I think there is, uh,
there's something something pretty nice to like there. And and the Dodgers are
one of those orgs they developed really well out of anyone else. And I'm
going to draft in total. Probably has has the in vogue teeth, you
know, it's probably what we talked about some guys that had different looks.
Right this this might be more in line with with what is is effective in
the bigs right now. It's interesting the Dodgers, man, they have these
guys, uh well, what was it the their their double A team had
like a ridiculous quote starting five at one point this year, right a ridiculous
rotation. But those guys were only pitching two three innings at a time.
No one's like really putting in like starters innings, astros are the same.
The guy guy's pitching three four innings for those guys, like that's that's their
status status quo. That's which. And to be fair, he's still threw
almost ninety innings as a twenty one year old across the best season ball Like
that's pretty good, Like that's yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. I
think he was twenty I think yeah good. Since he's twenty one now twenty
one, it looks like he turned twenty one during the year regardless in pitching
the years, he's a newborn nuby nuby like me. And what how abou
was there a good dadger pitching prospect that's only one percent roster that I don't
get that is surprising. I mean, he was pretty wild. I think
like twenty one and twenty two he was pretty wild and bad, Like he
just didn't pitch a ton and when he did, he was pretty wild.
So I'm guessing that's it. And there were probably ten names ahead of him
coming into this year at least, and they traded, some promoted to whatever.
But you know, we were talking about how things can change so quickly
with pitching and all that stuff. I do kind of have a rule,
but maybe it's more so with college guys. And maybe that doesn't make any
sense, but kind of feel like when you're kind of out of control,
there's only so much control that you're going to improve. Now. I give
the benefit of the doubt, like I said, to teenagers and younger guys,
especially when they're getting like pro coaching and stuff like that. So maybe
I hope that is the case. I mean, there was I feel like
if you watched a start of his or an appearance with his in April and
then watch this playoff start or appearance, the change is pretty clear. But
anyh h, now we're getting into it where I think a lot of these
guys are not interchangeable. They're sort of of the same level. Yeah,
I'm going to stick with the Houston organization here. Like there were a few
guys that and I still have a couple more from Houston in this list that
I was pretty intrigued by. But I'm gonna go with a guy and he
was one percent owned, wasn't owned in my league, but we had an
owner dispersal draft for our new owners that are coming in in this thirty teamer,
and he was the last pick of the dispersal draft. So I'm sort
of breaking the rule that like all these guys are also unowned in my league.
So he did just get sniper. When I pulled this list, he
was still available. We're gonna do Trey Dombrowski. Dombrowski's gotta be a nate
guy because he's a lush polish but also the man is an execution wizard.
Yeah, I would be shocked if his fastball is over ninety, like unlike
Vin Scooter where he was getting whiffs because it looked like his fastball was getting
on guys. Dombrowski his fastball, you know, we used to say,
can it break a pane of glass? I don't know, maybe not.
He knows how to pitch. I have concerns about is the fastball gonna play
as he goes up because he's still does pitch off the fastball a decent amount,
but he pitches in spots like he'll get calls on the edges, He'll
run it above the zone and get pop ups or whiffs up there not a
lot of en zone whiffs you're gonna see with it, but good enough for
now. If he gets any velocity on this like look out, because the
rest of his stuff is good. He mostly pitches off his cutter, bores
it into righty's, gets soft ground balls, gets whiffs with that pitch,
pitches off the plate to lefties, but he'll bust it in and get that
hip moving out of the way, but dives back over the plate with that
little bit of cutting movement. His change up in his curve are both weapons
as well. You know, I don't have his pitch percentiles breakdown for the
year, but the starts that I saw he was using any pitch any count.
He throws strikes. He throws balls with intention, so when he misses,
it usually looks like he meant to. For reference, Like all the
other guys that I have talked about, they'll have their bouts of wildness.
They'll hit a batter, they'll walk guys. Even Van Scooter, you know,
the way he pitches like he really likes going in on righties, and
so he has a few hit batters. One hundred and nineteen innings this year,
Dobrowski hit two batters. He had eight wild pitches, and I saw
a couple of them and I thought they were actually pass balls, like they
were balls executed in a good spot that his catcher just didn't catch. I
don't remember who's catching for him then, but I was like that, actually,
that was a pretty good pitch, Like you should probably block that.
Two point seven walks per nine, so right down there with Van Scooter in
terms of like the fewest walks per per nine in the league. He was
at low A and struck out eleven over eleven per nine, so again both
a little bit better than that's a little better than Van Scooter, but a
level lower. Twenty two. He was a twenty twenty two drafty fourth rounder.
Again, there's a lot in common here with Van Scooter, but they
do look different. Dombrowski is a little more over the top. It's a
little more like straightfor seem fastball. He's not trying to sink that thing and
isn't coming from the side like Van Scooter is. Is even more of a
like a pitcher's pitcher. He picks his spots, he picks his pitches.
He's the definitely the one calling the game, not the catcher. Like you
see him the catcher cycling through four pitches and they're like, nope, nope,
nope, nope, yes that pitch, that location, and then he
just executes. He also is something that I think is is had been sort
of underappreciated aesthetically. He works really fast. Now that's less of a concern
now with the pitchclock, but I loved watching his starts. I was like,
this guy is reminding me of Cliff Ley coming in cutters, change up,
going right at hitters, Like as soon as he was ready, he
was going like all these hitters were trying to slow him down, messing with
the pitchclock, and he just doesn't care. He's ready to go. Really
taken with both the how he pitches and the results, and with Houston's penchant
for pitching development. He's a guy that if there is any velocity uptick,
you know. He he's six' five two thirty five. They listed him
at but I thought he looked a little skinnier than that, So maybe there's
a little more power to be unlocked, maybe a tick or two on the
fastball velocity. I'm not going to bet on it. You know, he's
a college guy and at that point like, he probably is what he is
as far as far as Vilo goes. Maybe not, though, And if
there's an organization that can unlock it, maybe it's the Astros. But if
there's an uptick, he reminds me of pre velo increased Joey Cantillo, who
I think was a guy who wasn't running fastballs up there very hard, but
then he did. I think he went to tread maybe and got his his
velocity up into the mid to upper nineties. Now I think he can run
up there ninety eight. He was a guy that was getting strikeouts with everything
and then got a little more velo and now looks like he's going to be
a guy in the major leagues, although his control seemed to desert him last
year and a half or so. But anyway, if Dombrowski can do something
like that, like maybe Cantillo is a comp there, I like it.
You said this is a Nate Handy pick, and I agree. He was
just a little too soft tossing even for me to put him, just to
put him as my at the top of my Astros B side, But I
think it's a fantastic B side choice. Though he is he is a pitcher,
he is gonna get guys out. I just don't know. I could
see him getting all the way up to triple A, putting up great numbers
in triple A, and then just not being able to do in the bigs.
Right, he wouldn't be the first guy like that. Yeah, no,
I think I think you're right. But I do think for at least
the next couple of levels. You know, he was at low A this
year, definitely probably start next year at Ashville, and then as he goes
up into double A, Like, I think he's gonna keep doing this,
Like even if there's no more Velo, he's still gonna be this kind of
a picture, just because you talk about the different weapons to get different guys
out, Like, he seems like a really smart pitcher. I think he's
gonna keep performing. And so maybe his trajectory looks like a human Lynn from
this year or Ricardo Yan something like that, where they start to get up
into upper levels and like you just stat line scouting him and you're like,
Wow, he's still getting strikeouts and he's not giving up runs, like maybe
he's a guy with the capitol g uh. And then you see him pitch
and you're like, ooh, that eighty nine mile an hour straight fastball like
that might not play, But I think he's not gonna be at one percent
for very long. I think is my my bet here. I think that's
a good call. All right, Well round, are we on four?
Yeah? I'm gonna go. Some folks know this is this guy has super
caught my attention this year, and I'm gonna go with a CJ. Coulpepper,
right hand pitcher of the Twins. Buy it down as one percent raster.
He's listed at six three one ninety three. I kind of want to
take the over twenty two years old heading In the next year. He was
a thirteenth round in the twenty twenty two draft out of California Baptist. He
got in forty six single A innings and forty high A innings in twenty three
so twenty one total games, eighty six total innings, three five six ERA
one point two whip Kpro nine that was at nine point three walks for a
three point two. Didn't give up a lot of home runs through a lot
of strikes, blah blah blah, right, but tallied a few fqos,
went deep into games, showed some horsepower, showed velocity and stuff that would
hold for the most part. A guy who's fastball I think average ninety two
to ninety three, but he can get it up to ninety seven. And
yeah, he I would say that he pretty much dominated at least as his
final stretch and a ball, and then he got roughed up some when he
moved to High A, which kind of makes a lot of sense to me.
He's the guy who's trying to pitch aggressively and fill up the zone.
For the most part, he likes to sneak his his sinker out of his
own. He tries to get chased there. The numbers at High A total
numbers might not look all that great, but if you look at his game
log you might get a little bit of a different perception of those. It
was kind of like really good to dominate a start to kind of get your
tits lit. Like I had said prior, That's kind of how it goes
for a lot of guys that I'm drawn to when they jump up a level.
This is a guy who I think I think his execution ceiling, if
you will, is fairly high. One of the things that I like the
most about him is when he misses a pitch, this is the location by
a distance that most pitchers would be pretty happy about. Like, he can
get pretty pissed off at himself. And I like that two seamer, four
steamer, sinker, whatever, slider, curveball. There might have been a
few change ups, so if I were able a few cutters, I'm not
totally sure about that. But and he may not have like this big like
whiff pitch right more some of all the parts, although I thought his curveball.
Now, of course, if you don't throw a pitch a lot,
you know, some of the whiff stuff can maybe get a little a little
bit misleading. But I think the development of the curveball was fairly nice,
and he got a lot of whiffs and k's on that thing as the season
progressed. But he's a guy who I think could have a good enough arsenal
and sort of that high level execution horsepower guy who go deep that could be
a legit or at least get a shot to be an MLB starter. Now,
I have had somewhat of an infatuation with twins college arms that they take
later in drafts and they you know, they show out pretty well and then
perhaps kind of fade away as they get up into the uppers, and a
lot of folks will point and be like, oh, the Twins can't develop
pitching. I'm like, well, that's not really fair. Those guys weren't
supposed to be, you know, major league rotation guys, but they did.
They did well, finding some some talent in later rounds. But I
like to look at cole Fever. He is, He's very much a my
guy. I think that there's a mix there and I know how and high
level execution that that could get it done well. I like a lot of
the things you're saying about the the Twins, and Culpepper definitely popped on one
of my lists to look at. I ended up not watching any of his
any of his start, but you called it. You got me intrigued about
what he might be, you know. And and one thing that I like
that I like about him a lot, and this couldn't I don't know,
it's tricky. Maybe maybe this feeds into some maybe like false success at that
at this level. But when he gets to a fastball count, guess what
he doesn't throw. He does not throw. He does not throw fastballs.
And fastball counts. So maybe this is a guy who doesn't have big k
upside but is getting some getting some k's now because of that, And maybe
that doesn't play so well when you get the better hitters. I don't know,
but at this level of prospect, there's a lot of ingredients here that
I think, like I said, could be a real could bake into a
real starter. Well why don't we stick around with those Twinkies? Ooh,
now I've got some affinity for the Twins as an organization. I spent my
college summers playing in Minnesota in the Northwoods League. And oh, yeah,
you ever fall across Sorry I wanna interrupt you. The Loggers. The Loggers,
yep, dude, The Laggers started when I was in college. They
used to have us. I went to college lacrosse. They had a special
or you could get in twelve dollars to twelve dollars for a ticket, all
you could drink. It wasn't old style anymore. Whatever. It was called
Lacrosse Logger, and then all you can eat hot talks for twelve bucks.
That dude, And that that little area was right by the visiting bullpen.
Now, yeah, there were some things that happened. But I went to
so many Loggers games, dude, that's that's awesome. Yeah, the Laggers
were a fun place to play. Madison was a great place to play.
I might not have been twenty one when I went out to that one because
I think we went there. It's Wisconsin. The sophomore year they round up
and down and all around it. Yeah, yeah, that but that that
was one of the best places to play, just because of the atmosphere there,
and then it was really fun going out after there. So anyway,
all that to say, I've got an affinity for the Wisconsin in Minnesotan's up
there and my host family that I lived with for three years there are huge
Twins fans. You know. I talked to him a couple of times a
year and they're they're still huge Twins fans. All right, So I'm picking
a Minnesota arm two, but I'm going with Pearson Ol. Pearson Ol looks
like a grocery store clerk. He looks like he just rolled out of college
and is you know, he's got his wispy blonde mustache. He's maybe he
works at a record store. Unassuming at like six foot and maybe one pint
eighty like he you see him on the mound and you're like, does he
belong there? Is this today's starting pitcher? Like I don't know is out
of Grand Canyon University, which gotta be honest, Like I played in Arizona
a lot. I did not know that that was a university. I think
it's kind of like Ritzy is it? And it's in the whax, so
it's like it's not nothing, but like I didn't know anything about it.
And his numbers were really good in college, but again it's the whax,
so it's not like that. It's not the best college conference. But his
numbers were good, good enough to even as a mid major. Gets popped
in twenty twenty one by the Twins as a junior in the fourteenth round,
not a high draft pick, one hundred thousand dollars signing bonus reportedly, And
all the man does is pitch with an effing scalpel, like he doesn't walk
anybody, And I love that. I think walks are really dumb and pitchers
should do it way less. He led the minor leagues for whatever his mining
minimum innings were this year, let me pull that up. I think it
was three point five percent. Again, that might have been just at double
A that I did it. But he through eighty seven innings this year at
double A. Started the year in High A and then and then graduated up
to Double A. He was even better in High A at Double A one
point three four walks per nine. That is so few batters. To put
that in context, there were three pitchers in the major leagues that were better
than that. I bet you can get one of them at least. Who
doesn't walk people? Oh, h merle Kelly doesn't walk a lot of people,
does he? He walks more than this, more than that, I
don't know. I'm not sure. George Kirby, so he famously led the
majors in walk grate this year because he was down at like one point something
percent, Like he was nuts. He just has an allergy to walks.
Zach Eflin this year again like new organization. They basically like, throw the
ball down the middle, stop walking people, and you're gonna be good.
It was really good. Zach Ltel who kind of came out of nowhere right
and stopped walking people and had I think his best year of his professional career
this year. Ye, And you know Kirby and Eflyn not good comps for
all because they both have better stuff. Pierson ol He's like, maybe he's
a righty. He's undersized at six foot, so it's not great extension here.
It looks kind of like Johnny right hander, like the thing we were
talking about before that isn't great. He really knows where that pitch is going.
And so I wonder if even though his stuff isn't overpowering at all,
I mean, like again, like maybe he's hitting ninety, but he is
painting. He is like around the zone. He's got a fastball. His
changeup has a ton of movement, and he really knows where to place it
just below the zone, looks just like his fastball, and then guys are
ass out tapping it to the second basement for a ground out. His gyro
slider has really nice downward action. So he's got sort of if you think
about those three pitches, like that nice triangle where the fastball looks kind of
straight and like, yeah, I'm gonna spats that pitch, but actually it's
the changeup that's heading away from a lefty, or actually that's the gyro slider
that is heading down and away from a righty. So that's sort of tunneling
change up, change up slider off of the sort of not a good fastball,
but I think that it's good enough when paired with those other pitches to
keep hitters honest. And then he also has a slower curve that he'll spot
wherever flip it in early in account for strikes bury it and you think it's
the slider, and so you're swinging at it, but it's actually already on
the ground. He really really knows how to pitch. And this kind of
guy gets underrated. Again, is this going to last as he goes up
levels? Like he was significantly better at striking guys out and walked even fewer
at high A, but he made it to double A, And like double
a's real baseball, right, Like that's sort of make or break on the
hitter side or the pitching side. Like, no matter where you are double
A, you're starting to get to competition that they can hold their own if
they make it to the majors, you know, if they've just dropped in
the majors, Like that's when you start to see these minor league translations look
like pretty close to what they're doing. He still refused to walk anybody.
He punched out only seven and a half seven point six per nine, so
he's not going to strike out a lot of guys. And again, a
lot of that is because his basketball just isn't gonna miss bats, and so
he's got a nibble and get soft contact. But he is very, very
good at that. And like we talked about with some of these lefties in
Dobrowski or Van Scooter, if he gets any more velocity because he knows how
to pitch so well, this is a guy that with that small tweak like
maybe he is a big league starter on the order of latel Like, if
you don't walk anybody, you don't have to strike out a lot to be
a pretty useful starter, even at the major league level. So he's somebody
that I'm not confident that he makes the major leagues, but he's someone who
I like the underlying pitching skills enough that he might be a touch of velocity
or a tweak or two away from being a zachly Tell kind of guy.
So again, not super exciting, but fun to watch. And yeah,
I was just looking at his game here. This is pretty wild to me.
Just to talk about efficiency. He had eleven starts with over a seventy
percent strike percentage. That not a lot of guys do that. Yeah,
he really strike percentage is it's kind of a hairy thing to me. I
think I think it's really important, but I don't know if it's always like
I like to look at it from a game by game basis. You got
a guy who's throwing a high percentage of strikes a lot, you know,
Priori, and then he has a few you know whatever, fifty nine,
fifty percent whatever. Let me let me explain this better. I liked the
mode of strike percentage over the mean, if that makes sense. But yeah,
I want a tight standard deviation. Yeah, I don't know. That
sounds way smarter. I'll use that. I've peeped on him a little bit
again. Whatever, I think you nailed that. Fine, all right,
I'm gonna get I'm gonna get wild too here, Matt pick And I know
as soon as I mentioned the organization, most folks will turn their ears off.
And I'm getting into my not created yet on fan track's territory. This
guy's not created yet. But Jared Candy of the Rockies spent the whole season
in the Northwest League do you see him live? Yeah? Okay, all
right, I did not. I didn't see him live. Oh you didn't
see him live? But okay, this dude's good man. Twenty four year
old. He'll be twenty four next season. Twenty twenty one, seventeenth round
pick out of Florida Southern one hundred and five high innings this year. You
know, for all your folks who talk about the Rockies can't develop anybody,
here you go, here's one that has gone well. He's listed at six
' two two point fifteen. He's a strong, strong, bodied, strong
body guy. I like the size, I like the strength. Nineteen starts
e are of three two five, a whip of one point one six nine
point three to one, k for nine two point two to walk for nine,
one hundred and nine strikeouts, two forty one batting average against on a
two ninety four babbitt. He was a horse man. He pitched. His
pitches per game were at ninety three fqos on the season, including probably his
best outing and the best look that we get was at Vancouver eight twenty two.
Now he ended the season on the IL. This might be a little
risky. I don't know what the injury was there's not a whole lot out
there on Jared Candy, and there wasn't a ton of It wasn't a ton
to watch in that league, but but a decent amount. Now, this
guy, I think he's got a chance to be a starter in the Biggs.
Now. I think this was his first full year of starting. I
think I think it had been primarily a reliever in their system. I think,
I want to say, in college he was kind of in between.
Don't quote me on that though, And you know, maybe this is just
any eating type of stuff. But he was effective over his last nine starts
fifty two innings, two era one whip, ten k per nine, sixty
five strikes, five real quality starts. His fastball sits about ninety two ninety
four, but he he relies on it. He will throw it in fastball
counts. I don't know, you want to say he overuses it, but
he gets whiffs on it, and I don't really know why. I can't
really tell. It doesn't look to have crazy movement. Again, we don't
have we don't have great angles and looks. But he's got the full repertoire
slider curve change, and he locates him all really well. I forget Rocky's
catcher, the guy who seemed to catch him the most. I can't remember
his name. Is it Quintaro, I don't know, whatever. Not a
very good catcher, it doesn't matter. But he's very demonstrative and what he
wants Candy to do over the top, over the top kind of like framing.
So he's actually quite annoying to watch. But Candy, I mean,
he will, he will. He does everything he asks, does everything that
that catcher asks him to do, almost almost too well. To be honest,
say what you will. Rockies pitching prospect. Obviously for fantasy there's a
big bug big bugaboo at the end. But if we're talking deeper leagues thirty
where anyone starting can come into play. I mean, if this guy was
in a different organization, he would have been I probably would have had him
up there with like Schweitzer. Well, I think this is a real starter.
I think he's got a full repertory, commands them all, well,
can throw them all, and does throw them all in different accounts. But
like I said, he relies on that fastball, and you would think,
you know, he's he's getting three four times through the lineup on some of
these guys, and yeah, it's high a but how his ninety two to
ninety four mile per hour fastball plays as well as it does, I don't
know. I don't know. But Jared Candy, Rockies. It is really
interesting that you say that about Candy and the Rockies. Candy was on my
short list and I was looking at besiders for the Rockies, and after talking
through him with you, I think I might have been a little low on
him. Like I hear what you're saying, and I think that what he
did at Spokane primarily this year is pretty impressive. Like that's not an easy
place to pitch there, and Aaron Everett, like I mentioned, both have
you know, twenty twenty five percent worse than league average for pitchers. So
like all the bigger names were getting their tits lit there and Candy's just humming
along like freaking look look at it. Look at his inning totals from six
five seven, seven, six, six, seven, six point two six,
six, five point one seven, like it was it was good man.
Yeah, And like you said, like listener, your sole listener at
home, go look up all the rest of that Spokane Indians team and their
pictures were terrible because I think the park is bad and they are. It's
a very hard place to pitch. But I say that as props for that
pick because I'm I'm kind of intrigued now too. But I was actually really
taken by a bunch of Colorado pitchers. I watched we create other guys not
not named Candy that are all zero one percent owned from the Rockies that I
was like, this looks like a guy and there are some guys that you
know, like I'll mention, what's the name Joe. Joe Rock is like
a Chris Sale lookalike. You know, he's six' eight or something, all
limbs and it's big stuff and he doesn't really know where it's going. But
it's like, man, if that guy ever throws strikes like he's a real
dude, like Cores or no like that, if he ever throws strikes like
he might, he might. He's one that I considered Candy. Again,
maybe I underrated him a bit, but that's a Christine line at a really
tough place to pitch for a full year, like there there might be something
there and if you think like this would this would be like so like Rockies
in the sense like I don't eat. I'm not totally sure if the plan
was for him to be a starter this year necessarily, but it kind of
just happened that way, and like, you know, maybe he's some injuries.
They had a lot. I mean, they had a ton of injuries
from guys that they were expecting big things out of. Whether like like what
Vargas got hurt for this year? Who's the guy like Chris McMahon who had
been interested in previous series, like he was hurt. Yeah, they had
a few times, like six guys to go have Tommy John to get together.
Yeah, probably at the same time. I saw that hopefully hopefully not
with the same scalpel. Yeah, clean it at least in between. But
you know, like just for symmetry's sake, I'm gonna stick with the Rockies
because they don't get enough love again, Like I'm not. I'm well aware
that Colorado is a terrible place to pitch B. The Rockies rarely make trades,
so these guys likely are sticking in their system. Like it's they really
don't trade very often. We're pretty deep down in the B sides here,
Like, yeah, there's a few few guys here that are on my list
that I'm looking at that I could go one way or another. A lot
of these guys are kind of all in the same tier, and we'll likely
talk about them as we get to their other orgs when we go team by
team, But I'm gonna go with Michael Proseci. Proseci kind of similar in
some ways to Tyler Gilfoyll I talked about earlier in that he was a college
reliever at Louisville the for three years. Pretty tall, lefty, you know,
six three, two hundred pounds like pitcher, like he looks like,
you know, the classic lefty pitcher. But I think he looks totally different
to how he was in college. Checked out his numbers and was really interested
by the season that he put up this year after being drafted in the sixth
round in twenty twenty two. He was a good reliever in college, you
know, for a good program. Obviously Louisville really good. He was their
closer eleven saves in twenty twenty two three three er Ray wasn't given up hits,
struck out ten point six per nine, walked a bunch and that was
sort of his hallmark that he was a little bit of had some command issues,
not a lot of length, you know, thirty seven innings in twenty
six games, so he's like one two an inning and a third for most
of his outings. And then they gets drafted by the Rockies, who don't
know what they're doing. There's no development to speak of, according to everybody
in the know, right, and he's a reliever in rookie ball on the
complex at the end of last year, shows up this year and they're just
like, you're gonna start. You're you're now a starter. Started all twenty
one games this year, twenty one straight starts, struck out ten point three
per nine, so matched or exceeded every strikeout rate that he had in the
SEC as a reliever, and stopped walking anybody. You know, not quite
the command and control artists of some of my other picks, but three three
nine after walking five plus per nine as a reliever. So you're asking him
to throw more innings against better quality hitting in general, you know, still
low a but it's like that's not an easy place to pitch, and he
just goes out and posts a really ridiculous two seven er you know, three
six fit behind it. Like again, he walked maybe a few too many,
and wasn't punching a ton of guys out. But to me, he
looked like a different guy. So I went and looked at some of his
video I could find from him in college, and he looked like he had
more of a head whack. It looked a little more out of control.
Now he looks smooth, mixing his pitches really well. The fastball as a
lefty, like it was up to ninety five, and the looks that I
got that had a gun. I think he was pitching off of this cutter
slidery thing that I don't think he used very much in college, or if
he did, it lacked less, it had less bite. Maybe it just
looked like a different pitch to me, like he was getting more movement on
it, and he was getting more whiffs. He's throwing it to lefties and
to righties, and it didn't seem like either of them had any real sense
of barreling that pitch up. And then he has a curveball in a change
up. So he's got four pitches and they he was throwing them for strikes.
He was mixing up counts, which I love to see, and unlike
some of the other guys who might have better performance to date. This is
a brand new arm maxed out in college at thirty some innings, and he
just threw one hundred and nine in Lowa this year is up to ninety five.
So the fastball sure looks like that's gonna play as a lefty and has
four pitches that all looked relatively well polished, perhaps even more than some of
the sort of command and control artists that I picked before him. He's someone
who you might see even greater upside in. Again, all the caveats about
Colorado, they're real, and it's probably part of the reason why he's not
well regarded, whether the credit is to Michael Proseci himself or the organization or
some of his coaches. He seems like a different pitcher than he was in
college and way way more interesting. So even if nothing else changes, I
feel like this is a developmental win for Colorado and there's something here that you
know, like Nate with your pick Candy, like there's a couple of guys
in Colorado that maybe they do have something brewing, and well, I'm super
interested to see how he does it Spokane next year and maybe beyond made I
watched a good amount of Prosecu during the year, and you you made me
more interested, that's for sure, not that I wasn't interested already. The
Rockets are kind of interesting, you know, b citing at this level because
they're gonna be starved for starters. They have guys who can identify talent better.
Now they're identifying better talent than they did in the past, and it
seems like it. I mean, I mean Candy, Prosecue and like I
said, Joe rock Like those are three arms that people aren't talking about a
lot, I don't think, and I liked all three of them seeing them.
And then they've also at the higher end, like people really like Vargas
and I think a couple of their other ones. I'm a little less convinced
on some of those guys, but they've had some guys that really showed out.
Now hopefully they can keep them healthy. Like that's that's another possible red
flag. You mentioned the six or seven guys that all at the same time,
And one thing that does seem to be true is big innings jumps year
to year might increase the risk of that. So again there's perhaps more injury
risk for a guy like Proseki who just now started starting an he threw modern
and ten innings and nine innings any year like that might be someone that there's
a slightly heightened injury risk. But I was about as impressed as as with
him this year as I was with anybody. It's just like a few more
question marks for me. That's why I picked him sixth I dig so yes,
sixth round, last pick right for you. Yep, I'm gonna stick
with the not yet created in fan tracks realm. I finished off the hitter
the hitter draft with a bit of a hail Mary. Maybe this is a
bit of a hail Mary. But I caught a guy at the end of
the year, very end of the year in Hya with tricity by the name
of Hamilton Mendez. I don't know at all. I don't think so two
outings. I think a total of like four innings the glimpse. Yeah,
okay, so Hamilton Mendez right hand pitcher angels, not yet creating fan track
six to one, one hundred and seventy seven listed. I think he's a
little bit bigger than that. He's a nineteen year old. He was a
twenty twenty one international free agent out of the Dominican this season. He went
twenty two innings in the DSL, twenty six innings a complex ball, and
then five innings in High A and you only get to there was only broadcast
of one of those two appearances. So this is just this is a snapshot
video, real deep cut here. Yeah. Yeah, but Mendez so athletic,
athletic looking, good sized guy. He's got a short arm action not
I don't know, maybe Giolito esque, and he threw he came in,
he was throwing a ton of change ups. I don't know. In those
few outings the change up usage might have been like sixty six percent, like
just something silly, right, So I'm guessing that's probably what they think is
his best pitch, or what he thinks is his best pitch. And I
don't have any v LO on him. But the fastball looks it looks zippy
the few that he did throw, and then he could spin it as well.
So this is very speculative. But the last guy that I picked that
was like this end up getting traded to an organization that was very interested in
him as a low risk Kyrie Ward type of thing. And I don't know
it's interesting to go from the DSL the high A. Even if you're just
I don't know, with the position players you try to maybe that's just like
a fill in for a few days, but do you really do that with
pitchers? And I know it's the Angels and they go fast, and I
was very intrigued, Well why he was there? The outing that you get
to watch. He comes in in relief and I think he comes in with
some guys on base, and he strikes out the next two hitters, and
then he comes out for the next inning and then he kind of gets kind
of gets lit up. The command is loose, and he leaves like some
change ups over the middle and what have you. But Hamilton Mendez, let's
let's take a little big swing a perhaps projectable guy who might be moving along
fast here or I don't know if the Angels are probably changing things up now.
So we'll see how that goes. But we'll see. I mean,
they're they're pretty aggressive with their promotions, and even if Tommy leaves like they
still might still might do it because the organization as a whole is not not
great. So they're gonna have bullpen rolls available and we'll see if this fills
out. So that's an interesting name. Yeah, I never never heard of
him. You know, we've talked about when you every once in a while
you turn on some video and there's like, Oh, who's this guy?
That was definitely my reaction to the Mendez. I'll leave that as my as
my last pick of the draft. Mister irrelevant perhaps becomes relevant. Oh,
let's let's help. Let's hope that's an interesting one. We have spilunt we
I mean we were talking. We're talking about Rockies pitching prospects. I'm like
a I know fantasy show and I just spent two hours talking about pictures period
Like that? Is that just getting much love to tell the pictures? Like
my couple of my best buddies from from college, we're our pictures. So
still keep in touch with them a lot. You gotta you have to play
with them. Huh. All right, So I think that I think that'll
do it for episode ten of Prospect b Sides. Next time, I think
we're going to start getting into organizations and and what our deep digs have found.
Last week, I probably did a bad job of this, but you
can follow me at Pitching Specs on Twitter. If you like. I don't
know, Matt, do you want to be followed? I don't know what
you do? No? No, you can find me on the on the
Dynasty, Dugout Discord, occasionally the odd posts here and there on Reddit Matt
at bat twenty two. But yeah, I'm not a I'm not a promotional
person. I'm here to support Nate and beat him in the the silly little
drafts we do. Yeah, well, I follow Matt on the Prospect besides
podcast that too, the show. But thank you, thank you for following
along. I hope you made it. I don't know. I think let's
say, let's see, we did twelve. I'm gonna say at least two
of these guys if we do well, if we shoot part for the course,
two of these guys are going to become much more popular. I think
you'll probably do better because the type of guys that you picked, I think
we'll probably do better well. See, I mean, like all these guys,
like they have words, there's reasons why other people aren't on them.
But they're also the kind of guys that like one little thing changes and they
get an opportunity. Who knows, But thank you, be well and we'll
talk to you next to mouth. And now pace Stratten is him. You
hop down first with the lumpbonius face. And now on the very next pitch
he up and stow second things with greatst speed. He wasn't born. He
had dead. Yes, uniform