Ninety five miles an hour riding to his head. You hop it down first
with the lump bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and
stole second face with gretest beeed he wasn't born. He had the di Yes
uniform. All right, Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to episode seventeen
of the Prospect B Sides Podcast. I am Nate Handy, joining me as
always is rook Vin Rokster. How are you's right? I am excellent.
Happy New Year to you, twenty twenty four. May all of your dynasty
dreams come true. Well, one of those dreams is kicking your ass in
the league, So let's hope that happens. We'll see, I'm making moves
and you're sitting there just saying you're not getting offered enough for Freddy Freeman.
But I'm not here making moves for aces. I'm marinate man. You gotta
let things bake, you know. I just make as many trades as possible.
I'm out here like Jerry Depoto, a j preller. You got a
trade, you get a trade, you get a trade. Well, we're
gonna start off the new year with some first year players. We're gonna get
into first year player. That's first year player drafts. Matt. I hear
you've got a soapbox to get on. Well, I mean, I'm gonna
try not to, but I guess I have so many little berks. But
first year player drafts, guys, dynasty players, this is your time to
like really express yourself, have fun, get your guys. This idea of
chalk and value in a first year player draft, Matt, it really just
kind of drives me crazy. Well, you got you got to tip the
top of a draft right where there's probably I don't know, five to ten
first year players that are probably the more logical responsible bets. But then I
don't know, after that, go get your guys your every draft, I've
been doing this for a little while. Every single draft there are guys that
are complete busts at the top, studs throughout studs at the end. Even
even a thirty team, one hundred and fifty two hundred player draft, and
you can still get Ty Francis and Edward Julians at the end of the draft.
I just want folks to loosen up a little bit. Here. So
many, so many first year player draft boards and ranks, and I'm not
and I'm not knocking anyone who does this, but they all look so similar,
and I'm just always very suspicious of a league when everything is going as
consensus. I mean, where does consensus come from in first year player drafts,
Matt, how does it come to be? And we have I think
it's like it's like anything in when you've got public analysts, right, you
see what other people say, and there's a little bit of the natural tendency
not to want to separate yourself from the herd or the hive mind. And
I do think that it coalesces. And then there's also just only so much
space that everyone can devote to this, and so it's pretty easy to look
at and say, well, this person was picked in the first round,
this person public guru says x y Z, And I think that for a
lot of people were looking at some of the same things. And you know,
I said this yesterday when I wrote that little article for Cleig that it
was ranking prospects is super hard. Even when you have quite a bit of
data from minor league, right different from many minor league seasons, there just
isn't as much information for these guys, and so I think some of the
like clumping tends to happen maybe a little bit more because there's more uncertainty,
right, No, I agree, I feel like there's a lot of false
confidence in all of this. Like so, and then again, I'm not
I'm not knocking anyone. This is this is hard stuff. There's so much
unknown, there's so much more gauntlet for these players to have to get through.
But like, no one in the dynasty world really there's a few are
like following amateurs year long, very focused, strictly, strictly looking at amateurs,
right and yet, so then we have a draft in the summertime,
and then first year player draft ranks come out a month or two after that,
and then that like kind of sets it, and then it's still without
there's so much more still to be learned till you know, whenever most drafts
are January February. Got players that start hitting pro ball, we can start
watching them against other pros. You know, there's think of like Evan Carter's
of the world, who no one really saw coming in the second round.
We can still learn about these guys we didn't know about them before. I
feel like it just kind of perpetuates itself, and well and on the other
side of things too. It's like you maybe did pay attention to a conference
or a school, or you saw a lot of a guy in college,
and these guys are the best of the best, but then they hit pro
ball and they struggle or they aren't as good as they seemed. That for
me was a big wake up way back when I was playing, where we
would sit there across the diamond from some elite prospects and be like, this
guy is great, this guy kind of sucks, this guy's overrated, and
then see them get drafted in various places and then a lot of them really
struggled. I mean, I remember Ike Davis was I think had the best
batting practice that I had ever seen in college. He played at Arizona State
and we played against him, and this guy went just line drive over the
shortsteps, head line drive over the second base, line drive over the second
baseman's head in its first swings in batting practice, then line drive off the
opposite field wall, line drive off the center field wall, line drive off
the right field wall for his second round of batting practice, and then his
third round of batting practice, opposite field home run, center field home run,
pulled right field home run. It was some insane shit. And like
I played on the same field as him many times, and I was like,
I can't do that. That guy's incredible. And he went in the
first round and had an okay career but ended up playing out after a couple
of years, and I was like, that's the best hitter I've ever seen,
you know, Yeah, And so like even those kinds of things,
you can follow somebody pretty closely in the amateur side of things, but until
they're facing really great pitchers day and day out, you know, Iron Sharpen's
iron, right, and you don't really know until you see him on the
highest stage. So I think there's some of that too. And I think
we'll talk a little bit about this with some of the guys that we've both
flagged where we really liked something about their either prep or undergrad careers. But
there's more information to be had as soon as you see him in pro ball.
You know, this idea of like getting the most value out of your
pick in the first year player draft, Like this isn't NFBC. This isn't
like super scientific NFBC redraft stuff. There's more of a science to it.
There's more numbers that can be applied to it. This stuff. Like so
many times earlier in playing Dynasty, I'd feel like, well, this guy
was the first rounder. I've got to can't I can't drop him to hear,
I've got to pick him if he comes to here. I say,
screw all that. You do not have to pick a player just because they
were drafted high or given a lot of money. We have seen plenty of
dudes just absolutely suck and never be anything. Yeah, And I think that's
something that's something that I've learned, even just in the last year or so
talking with you, Nate and listening to you, because being in on your
guys and having a reason for it and like you know, do your own
research, or you really like watching somebody play, like put your flag down
and actually buy in. I mean, I'm guilty of this a lot.
Like I do try and run the numbers. I do try and make sure
that I'm advancing something about my team with every trade that I make, even
if some like I lose, but it works for me because I made a
roster move that helped out my team in the long run, or I had
a roster crunch and I needed to get something out of it. I'm always
trying to read paper clip with trades. I rarely am trying to do a
trade that helps somebody else more than me, and that sometimes for historically,
I would hw too closely to prospect rankings and say like, well, this
guy's ranked really highly, Like yeah, i'll take him back. One that
I remember from last year was Dowdy was Toronto second baseman. He was in
college performer and all of this, Like he was like a second round pick
or something and had a lot of helium and was like back in top one
hundreds for a couple of people, and so I like accept did him as
one of the main pieces back in a small trade that I did, And
after I watched him, i'd already made the trade. I watched him,
I dug into it. I was like, this guy's terrible, Like he's
never going to make the major leagues. I'm way out. But I fell
for it because he was a back end top one hundred guy for some people.
And that was because he got paid a decent amount of money and was
a relatively high traffick. And I think I'm much more likely now to make
a trade that might look to an industry person or some talking head or some
loudmouth, and our discord like, hey, you got taken for a ride
on this trade, Like what are you doing? Because I'm like, honestly,
I disagree. I think this guy is going to be really good.
And I've made a couple of those trades in our league. You've refrained from
calling me an idiot, Nate, but you know, I think some of
the people in the league were chomping at the bit when some of my trades
went through. They're like, you traded what for? What? So I'm
more willing to look like an idiot now because I find my guides that I
like and and I think to your point, seeing that in f ypds,
like have your own lists, you know, if you've got especially in these
this is when this is when you get to do this when there's not what's
what's the repercussions? What what if you what if you didn't take Austin Martin
in the top five or top two like everyone said you had to, like
especially in leagues where you can pick up prospects during the season, like in
my opinion, you don't have anything to lose. Your guys, is the
guy that you wanted to go for ends up sucking cool. Now I got
a spot that I can fill with some Christian Scott or whoever. Right,
I mean, you don't have anything to lose. Man, Like I missed
out on a stud. You're you're gonna miss out on a stud. It's
gonna happen. Someone's gonna pop that you weren't on. Somebody that you pick
is gonna suck like. It's just that's going to happen. You're not batting
a thousand here, So I don't know, I just I a little too
unreasonably so, just annoyed when people talk about chalk in first year player drafts,
there is no chalk, no, you know, like this is like
the dude the White Sox took Gonzalez, Jacob Gonzalez off my board fifteen old
well pick not taking him like under no circumstance. I don't care if I'm
in the fifth round of my thirty teamer. I'm just not and I'm not
going to lose sleep over it, even if he turns into some stud which
I would never bet on. Just have more fun with it. It's nice
much. I think I think that's I think that is a great perspective on
this of like have some fun with it. This is a chance to reach
for somebody, you know that that might be great. And also like if
you do some homework and you end up finding yourself way higher on somebody,
like it's a great way to trade back. I did this in one of
my deep dynasty leagues last year, where I had already traded away a couple
of my earlier picks. And the way that that league does it, even
the first round of that draft is like thirty picks deep already, so it's
like if you have the first pick in the FYPD, it's actually like the
thirty first pick of the draft. H and so it's already super deep.
My guys that I was looking at, I was like, nobody cares about
these guys. So I was just trading back and trading back and trading back,
and ended up getting a few guys that I turned into other pieces like
that I was able to trade away later in the year, and then a
couple that never panned out. But like that happens. You know, that's
just that's just the name of the game for sure. And you know,
I wanted to ask you too. So these players that we're going to talk
about they were drafted in what July now, right beginning of July. Then
they get you know, they get up to like one hundred and fifty played
appearances in pro ball, some of them. Right, what's your what's your
take on this? Two players in particular, I think are a good example.
So you've got Tase Davis, who's drafted in the first round, right,
A lot of buzz, a lot of hype about him, right,
people had him initially very high on their first year player draft ranks, and
he hits the Florida State League and just quite frankly sucks. Right. Then
you got a what Chase Boafran, who I've never seen play because he hasn't
been televised, but put up amazing numbers, right and has gotten some love
from people who have more and sophisticated information than I same league crushes it.
But he was drafted in what like the sixth round or something, I don't
know what it was. Okay, So now today, like, how much
weight do you put into that, Like, would you take Boafron over Chase
Davis? Yeah, that's a tough question. And I think we'll get into
this with some of the guys that we've we've lined up to talk about,
because there are a couple of guys that I'm really interested in that were more
like Chase Davis if they had sort of underwhelming debuts and if you go on
their fangraft, you're like, oh, this guy debuted wasn't very good.
But if you don't do the extra step of like how was he in college
and who did he play and all of that, it looks like a terrible
player who's flopping already. And so I think generally you want to put more
weight on the bigger samples, so like you really should care about their college
career. There's more information that you can glean from that, especially with some
of the reporting that you get from Baseball America and from Chris Clegg, Like
they report some of the things that are a little bit more useful looking at
their ninetieth percentile exit velo stuff, and then you know you can infer a
lot about their competition based on what kind of conference they're in. That said,
I think you want all of the information, and so if you do
see some red flags that pop up in their pro debuts, it's worth paying
attention to that, Like, it's worth seeing that and Chase Davis. He's
one that I think there might be some signal to the bad debut in the
fact that he wasn't very good on the cape and was just downright awful and
pro ball like he might be a guy that he's just not that good with
wood bats, and that some of the things that he was doing maybe were
inflated by some of the things that college programs can do. I know that
this is something that I've heard from one of my buddies who's a college coach,
that there are programs that fully exploit all the things they can, and
sometimes that means that rolling to try and break the BSR, the sort of
limiting the impact that the bats can do. So those sort of unlocked bats
add to the exit velos that are reported and of course the performance that comes
out of that. And then when you can't do that and you're hitting with
wood like some guys, I think it's a big red flag when they don't
hit the ground and perform. And someone whose whole profile depends on hitting for
power like that poke some holes in him, and it certainly made me pause
because I thought he was like a really interesting guy coming into the draft and
seeing just how poor he was like, I think you gotta take that into
account. Yeah, yeah, I don't disagree with anything you said there,
but I do have to say, over the years, I admit that I've
become and I'm just way more like, prove it right this. I understand
you're drafted in a different place, you're paying a different amount of money,
and I think that says a lot in regard to what the organization thinks about
you and what kind of opportunity you're going to have. But for me,
it's like once they hit pro ball like that, that matters a lot more
to me than I think it used to. So I'm much more likely now
today to just say, yeah, Chase Davis, I was, I was
interested in you made a lot of money. Cardinals are very hopeful you have
a lot of skills, But like this, dude, Boafron has been kicking
your ass, and I don't think it's that much of a worse gamble to
take a chance on you. So I don't know that's It's just something that
I've noticed has changed for me to some degree over the years. Yeah,
it's a balance, right, and I think you do have to do it
on a case by case basis. There are some guys to their performance is
just so exceptional that you can't help but be like, wow, I'm a
hater and I can't find anything to hte about this. You know, you
look at just how incredible Why at Langford's debut was. You know, he
had the great college performance. He was sort of statistically like scouting wise,
right up there at the very very tippy top, and then he hit the
ground and just absolutely destroyed the minor leagues. This is like a no doubt
number one prospect for me. Like everyone's so excited about your Jackson holidays and
even your churios. What Why at Langford just did is like, to me
more impressive than what they've done, and is like he kind of earned that
again, like he had a lot to like coming into college, Like the
body of his work before hitting pro ball was really really great. But what
he did once he got to college, and even if some of it is
a bit of a mirage, it's still just like, holy crap, that
was incredible. There are some other guys that are like that too. You
know, obviously you know your boy Colt Emerson, like I know how you
feel about Marini's prospects, and like that just impressed you so much that Cole
Emerson's probably like top top four pick, top three pick for you now not
quite dark. Yeah, so I you want to follow me on Twitter at
Pitching Specs. I shared a Google sheet with about forty four guys that kind
of got my hitters that got my attention in full season ball doing my video
review for this. There's also a tab on there see this, man,
I could never do like first year player draft rankings because I have guys on
there where I don't have guys on there that probably have value but not for
me. But there's also a tab on there where I think I listed about
sixties No. Ninety nine first year player domestic bats and very loosely arranged them
how I might be coming to the draft table with my ideas. We can
talk about this list for at least four hours. I just like, I
love so much about it, and I like it down that it's almost more
exciting the people that you left off the list than the people on the list.
So we're going to be mostly positive today. I think, yeah,
let's do it. Let's start the guys that we like. Yeah, I
still have I still have two hitters from our b side selection organizational thing that
we did that I have not talked about because they were first year player draft
bats. Now, both of these guys, I think on my list there
I've got like around fifty, so I'm not like going to be super aggressive
about them in first year player drafts, but interesting enough to me to be
a B side selection. And you know that range from shoot, I don't
know, freaking twenty to sixty seventy. The rest of the yes, it
was just pretty much the same glob For me. It's more about what kind
of player do you want to do you want to go after, what kind
of opportunity, how much more needs to be you know, developed for them
to be an everyday player sort of thing. And I'm still very much in
the process of learning about a lot of these players and watching a lot of
them still, So it's all it's all very rough draft until I'm on the
clock. But the two bats I wanted to talk about two B side selections
quickly. My Baltimore bat was Matthew Etzel. I like it. I like
it, yeah, And I know he got a little bit of popularity.
I think he got some good pub but he was a tenth round pick out
of Southern myst The Orioles debated him about one hundred and sixty seven K signing
bonus between A and I A. This year he got in one hundred and
twenty four plate appearances. He hit two home runs and stole twenty one bases.
He's a lefty, who I think what? I don't know? What
do they have him listed at? Isn't that super big? Maybe not quite
small enough to join your crew? But getting there? Hey, he's six
two two eleven, strapping young fellow? Is that what they hadnam listening to?
Really, I'm going to take the under. But okay, all right,
I think you're just taking the younger under because he looks awkward. But
he's a good athlete, like he's a he's a strapping young fellow. I
mean it could be that this gift that I'm currently watching, the homeplate umpire
is seven foot four. I mean that could be. So what his walk
percentage was sixteen point nine percent, struck out eighteen and a half percent.
So you like that sort of thing, mat, sure? Do? Uh?
He slashed three twenty three, four fifty five five ten the one eighty
eight ISO That was good enough for one hundred and sixty nine WRC plus in
the bad ball profile. There's I think a lot to like there, pulls
the ball forty six percent of the time, doesn't hit it on the ground
too much. Watching him, I would say he does have no no,
there is something I can't quite articulate it, but there is something a little
slightly awkward about his swing, Matt, do you think so? Definitely?
Oh, yes, my notes, because I articulate what it is well,
I can try. I liked Etsel a lot too when I was evaluating the
Baltimore system, and he kind of reminds me of a guy that I played
with who had sort of similar a similar swing where he makes a lot of
contact and is really fast, and I think has leaned into that in his
career, and so he is sort of staying really short to the ball,
like he had a coach that was like, you need to stay short to
the ball over everything, unlike another guy that we're going to talk about.
Any think he's trying to be as short to every ball as possible, and
that means that his hands are sort of always inside the baseball, which you
hear old school hitting people talk about that is like such a good thing,
but for somebody like and for someone like him, it works, but it
looks kind of awkward, whereas you look at someone who has sort of a
i'd call it like a modern optimized swing like your besios or some other guys
that we talked about like this that really get their arms extended. You know,
this is this is the your Don Alvarez swing of like you're clearing your
elbows and then getting the barrel out so that you can pull the ball in
the air. Etzel. Despite his pull, you know, forty six percent
is solid for a pole. He's hitting a lot of line drives, and
I think a lot of that is like, even when he's pulling it,
he's still keeping his hands inside the ball. And so I'm betting that when
we see his exit blows as he gets up higher, that they're going to
be underwhelming, even though he's a strong athletic guy, because of this kind
of awkward tendency to stay really inside the ball. So that's that's my best
way to describe it. Yeah, that makes that makes sense. Thank you,
Thank you for that. There's something about him too, especially like the
way that he turns on inside pitches that kind of reminds me a little bit
of Brett Wisely too. Well, Yeah, I've liked in the past,
who just hasn't found the major league success yet. Yeah, so excellent,
And I do admit if he wasn't in the Oriole system, I probably would
want to be a little bit more aggressive with him. I just think he's
going to have to be really freaking good the rest of the way. So
I don't know. I don't know if that has played into it for you,
Matt, as far as you might be valuing him these upcoming drafts,
but it has for me a little. Yeah, And you know where,
You've got him ranked as pretty similar to where I had him, which is
way higher than I'd seen him anywhere else. Like, I think that this
kind of profile gets under valued in the Dynasty community, Like this is sort
of a kind of a Brett Gardner starter kit. Like he's speedy, He's
going to be able to play the outfield reasonably well. So seeing him as
a left field or fourth outfielder type who makes a lot of contact, has
some speed, I think there's more power there and it might take a swing
tweak to get to all of it. But I liked him a lot,
and I was a fan, even despite sort of the awkward swing. I
think there's a real player here. Yeah, he's got he's pretty, he's
pretty smooth up there, a smooth line drive stroke. So yeah, so
that's so, that's that's the oriole I went with. And then what was
the other organ Oh and then I needed to talk about my angel. So
there was very little to see of my choice Joe Redfield. There was an
injury, he was playing some series that were not broadcast out there in the
Northwest League. But this was an organization. It really came down to two
first year of players for me. But I decided to go with Redfield more
out of curiosity. He didn't really like blow up the statuet here. Sixty
five played appearances between the complex and Hia hit a home run, he stole
three bags, walked nine percent of the time, struck out seventeen percent of
the time. He slashed two forty six, three thirty eight four h four.
But red Field, Matt, I just I kind of have an infatuation
with this and I don't tend to understand it all that well. But he's
got super wide bass, super wide standard. I don't know, bagwell style
like my guy Canceal does with all those hitters in the Rocky system's and he's
really you know, baseball uniforms are not the most flattering all the time,
but you can like just tell that this guy, he doesn't he doesn't miss
like upper body days. He's strong, and he's got some speed, and
I think he's a true center field prospect who I just want to see if
he can hit hit enough to uh get a major league role, but perhaps
a little bit, perhaps a nice little blend of hit, pop and speed
might get dynasty. Dynasty interesting that you know, this very deep level interesting.
I'm gonna make a note and watch a little of him. He's not
one that on any of my lists. He's very simple up there. He's
you know, like I said, standing really wide, lifts the foot up
a little bit and then unleash is what I think is a pretty pretty good
looking line drive type of stroke. And like I said, I think he's
pretty strong. Interesting. You know, fourth round pick isn't anything, uh
take too lightly. You know, would they pay him about half a million?
Yeah, I'm pretty solid too for a mid major guy and one who
was you know, fine on the cape, I'd say, you know,
yeah, I'm just, but I just, I'm just I don't get how
people can hit like this, how they can generate so much pop. It's
fascinating to me. I'm watching his gift right now. The one I got
is just from behind home plate taking Hayden winder yard. But there's there's definitely
some video and some side views of him out there. I just haven't cut
him up. Interesting. He said that was a homer. Yeah, nice,
Yeah, that was his one home run on the season. Nice.
All right, nice, Paul. Here, let me let me show you
something. I have a picture of him from the side here. That's how
wide. Oh yeah? Nice? All right, Matt, So those are
the you didn't have any uh first of your player B sides? Did you
you did? I did well? The floor is yours, my friend,
I did well. Just to rehash the couple that I had touched on CJ.
Kafis was, oh yeah, I picked I think seventh in our in
our initial draft, and I again, he's one of these like really interesting
profiles where he's a first baseman, but he's played a little bit of outfield
but has some speed, so it's not clear to me why he couldn't play
a little outfield and pros, and he just had one of the most impressive
debuts of any draftd absolutely crushed stole bases, crushed home runs, a low
babbb and still put up just an incredible triple slash. So Cjkpiss is one
that, like, I was so pumped on. It's like, you look
at him, he walks, he doesn't strike out that much. He lifts
his pulled fly balls and gets homers that way. It's like that is you
know, there's not a lot of projection. This isn't someone you're looking at
and say like, oh, he's going to be XYZ kind of guy.
But I think he's good enough that he's going to hit and become a real
prospect to at least given what he's seen so far. Is there any concern
that to you that he hit line drives at a six point three percent clip,
I think it's pretty small samples. And he hit a lot of flyballs
and pulled them and they got out, you know, so like there's there.
I was looking at somebody else who had a similar really low line drive
rate. Again small sample, but as like, this guy's awesome. He
just didn't hit many lines drives, but it didn't matter because it was like
homers. Did he legit spray the ball evenly Pool Center and APPO thirty everywhere?
Did he That's what I got down here. I think he might have,
but I think when he hit the ball in the air, it was
pulled like that was at least I watched a lot of him because I you
know, saw the line and then was super intrigued because I hadn't heard anybody
talk about him at all at this point back in September, and his like
watching watching this guy just nuke balls. I was like, this is a
real hitter, Like how did he only get seven hundred grand in the third
round from a big program like Miami. And it's also sort of an interesting
guy for Cleveland to go after. He's not doesn't really seem like their type.
Although his his U college numbers were not quite as gaudy as he as
he was in No, you're right, he was like thirty three percent each
way. But I think it was just like the dude when he was pulling
the ball, it was in the air and hit four homers in seventy seven
played appearances. That's ridiculous for a guy like this. Matt we're somewhat becoming
accidentally like a Miami Hurricane podcast too, I know. And the other guy
that I'm going to talk about is my He was my NATS hitter, also
from the Hurricanes. This He was a comp pick or early second rounder I
think this past year, and I feel like he kind of fell in the
draft according to some Yeah, he did, and he ended up not having
a good debut. And I think this is part of why I wanted to
talk about him, because he's a pretty boy, like he was a I
think a top thirty prospect for a couple people coming into the draft because he
basically did nothing but astely rake in college, you know, as a freshman,
went two eighty four, three forty three, five thirty one in the
ACC which is not a poverty conference, Like they're pretty good, and then
stepped it up for a one thousand and sixty one ops in his sophomore year,
and then a one thousand, one hundred and eighty seven OPS in his
junior year, which included twenty homers. Like that's a pretty good hitter,
you know, nineteen percent strikeout rate, ten percent walk rate. So maybe
the approach isn't like as pristine as some, but I was like, this
guy is going to hit for power. He's a really interesting prospect, and
like I think a lot of the knock on him was can he really play
third base in the pros? Like if this is a right handed hitting first
baseman, like then it's less interesting and that might be part of why he
felt. But his debut was interesting in it he hit zero homers. This
guy appearances yeah, and like fifty homers in his college career and then didn't
hit a homer over almost two hundred plate appearances in his debut. He still
hit well, like, struck out at most twenty percent of the time,
was walking ten percent of the time, again very similar to his college career.
Was still hitting for power, like what did he have sixteen doubles,
four triples, you know, showing off a little bit of speed, like
and watching him, it seemed like he, I don't know, was maybe
just hitting the ball on the ground a little too much, or was like
trying to hit line drives too much and wasn't hitting fly balls. But I
thought that power was still there, and so he's one that I thought like
despite pedigree and seemed like visual evaluation was that he was going to be a
real power hitter. He is going to fly under the radar a bit,
So he's one just I wanted to highlight. And then the other thing that
we talked about a bit is like I think the NATS system is poop.
It's really bad. So he was like the only guy that I was like,
Okay, I'm actually interested in him, and I don't think he's quite
getting the love that maybe maybe he deserves, so it'll be interesting to see
him. I'm guessing he's starting next year at Double A. That's where he
ended last year and again had a really solid line, just wasn't hitting for
power. Again, super small sample at Double A, but I think that's
where he starts next year, and I wouldn't be surprised if he turns in
a twenty homer season next year and with decent contact and decent average. So
yeah, I'm interested, and I think we're talking about like kind of a
mid first round talent in the eyes of many heading into the draft, and
like, you know, dude, his name is Yo Handy. I'm into
it, Yo Handy Handy, all right, Morales. Yeah, And then
I guess I had kind of forgotten in the first year player draft, I
did take a couple of I'm sorry, excuse me. In our B side
hitter draft, I did take a couple of ye first year of players,
I think second. My second hitter choice was Trevor Werner, who I saw
he has gotten up to about ten percent ban Track's roster percentage, which is
still I think fairly low. And you know, going off of what we
had talked about earlier, this is a guy that this is hard for me.
I mean, he I know it was a ball, and I know
I didn't notice Matt in that league. There were a lot of college hitters
that came into that league and just scorched the ball, which does make me
question is there maybe a lesser quality of pitching in that league down the stretch
of the season. But I liked Warner enough. I liked the look of
him, I like what he did that I'm having a hard time keeping him
off the top of my domestic bat list here, Like, I don't think
it's crazy to bypass a lot of prettier names, and I don't know,
pop him in the top fifteen. That's the problem. I'm right there with
you, like that. Werner is a guy that I mentioned to you in
this auction that I did this offseason thirty team Super Deep Roasters, Super Late.
Nobody else was interested in him, and I was like, gimme Trevor
Warner, especially in that format where power is really really rewarded. He's a
guy that's going to hit for power. You know. He slugged almost seven
over seven hundred, I guess in his debut in the Complex and a ball
combined. I'm pretty sure it was real. Like he's hitting oppo tanks that
are just laser line drives, so like sure, I feel like a little
soft. I feel like everything he hit was was really hard. Yeah.
I mean he's got that kind of swing, like he is big was he
like six' four kind of lean looking, but you see just he keeps
his arms way away from his body as he's swinging. He's getting all of
that leverage and made enough contact. I mean the strikeout rate was maybe a
touch high, especially at the Complex and that super small sample, but yeah,
like for a seven one hundred slug strikeout thirty percent of the time,
I don't care. He's one you want to see more of, right,
a college guy just at a ball. I think we talked about this with
respect to a couple of other guys that we were like, oh, this
might be a pretty interesting hitter, but why was why weren't they challenged at
a higher level? But yeah, I was going to start at High A
next year and I'm super into it too. I was also a good hitter.
I was also noticing, as I think it's three years later, but
I think there is still some I don't know, transition or maybe a shift
in thinking about this that maybe hasn't totally taken place. But like a lot
of these college guys that were in a ball, there was still pretty much
league average age, and I kind of feel like maybe that wasn't the case
in this league, but I kind of feel like a ball is pretty equivalent
to your better college conference pitching. I was just something that much. I
was reading something about this recently, and I think that there is some truth
to that. It's variable though, right like looking at the weekend starters for
sure, like in the SEC or your Friday night guys on a given you
in the ACC or in the pack, like, there are gonna be some
dudes that are like those are double A pitchers easily. Right now, you
could argue that some oftimes it's those are guys who belong in the major leagues,
so that depends. But then you also face a lot of guys that
are like this guy's gonna go on to be an accountant and is not a
pro prospect at all, especially in midweek or a Sunday game, so that
it's just pretty variable. So like we always used to say, you're super
elite college pitchers that come into pro ball and get their tits with oh for
sure, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's kind of fairly appropriate
competition for these guys in their draft year to come into a ball I don't
think they're bulling too often. I mean, you know, there's plenty plenty
of guys who can't do that. Chase Davis, like we talked about,
you know, yeah, definitely, definitely, And this is no doubt a
hot streak, right, Like, he's not a four hundred babeb guy and
he babeb to what like four thirty on the season this year, Like that's
not that's not him. And I mean this is if this is really him
when he showed I mean we just this is the greatest b side of all
time, right yeah, right, And he's he's not a thirty percent home
run to fly ball guy. But I think what this is saying is like
you look at this really great debut and you look at his solid college pedigree,
and you're like, I'm going to round up a little bit on this
bat, and so for your leagues, that really reward power. I'm way
more interested in Werner than I am. I think some of the other guys
will we'll talk a little bit about, but think there's real reasons why,
especially if you know your format well, you should rocket someone like Werner way
up your board and wherever your cutoff is where you're just like, Okay,
now this is really opened up. That's why I'm sick of him. That's
where I'm going to take a stab at him. And then where you slot
him in in this Oh I don't where I think I got him like twelve
twelve, Yeah, there you go. Yeah, but that's not like do
I Yeah, I mean, like I said, this is it's a blob
however you want. But ever said, it's definitely above Werner for me,
just for the for the record, but Werner I'm very excited about. Okay,
do we want to talk about Emerson? Here's here's my here's my thing
with Emerson. We're not hating them, the pretty boys and this, okay,
all right, all right, guys that we like. I was just
I was just giving you our time, because that's a take. Also in
our B side hit or draft, I took Ethan O'Donnell, who's a left
handed hitter from Virginia who I still want to see more. I know he
didn't fare too well against lefties, and that might be kind of a thing,
but I think he's a true center field prospect for them. I just
really liked the look. There wasn't a lot to see, but I just
really liked pretty much every at bat that I saw from him. I just
thought he was very much in control, and I liked his stroke. I
got him sitting probably I don't know, like thirty seven somewhere in there on
the hitter list for yeah, like I don't know, Chase Davis, I
don't know. I'd maybe take a swing on O'Donnell over Chase Davis. That
depends on a lot. And you convinced me. You convinced me on o'donnald.
I took a swing on him in that really deep Diynasay leaguehere, I
ran out of money and just was trying to take prospects that nobody else had
ever heard of. And so I grabbed a share of o'donnald On. That
way, maybe maybe he can be the next Virginia guy who's a better pro
than than amateur. That's a real thing, you know. One thing that
I think it's wake right, that that's a place where you should round down
on their pitchers because they do a really great job of optimizing at wake,
and then there is in a lot more projection on the vine. And Virginia
is the opposite for hitters. Like you see a Virginia hitter and they go
into pro ball, like you might round up, because Virginia is a terrible
place to coach for hitters because they just don't tell their hitters how to be
good pros. And then the last bat that I had taken then I got
sitting in about the same range, and that was a guy Charles Macado.
Mac Yeah, I don't know, dude, you think that's fair. I
was just curious where you might slot him or be thinking about him. I
like it. I actually really like slotting him near Geno Groover, which you
have in a really similar range. I think that they have a chance to
be really similar kinds of players. They're both big, physical, strong hitters
who were you know, like Groover wasn't where do you go to school?
Again? Like, uh oh, what's Virginia Tech? Groover? I can't
remember where he went, but I don't think it was like a SEC power
school. And McAdoo was a mid major guy NC State, that's right,
acc Yeah, So I those are like good college performers, but both I
think have some similarities. Mcadow had an insane start to his his pro career.
That's not the guy that he is. And I do think there's some
funk to his swing. I think when we talked about him before, I
comped it a little bit to Marcelo Zuno, like he steps in the bucket
a little bit, his hands maybe stay inside the ball a little bit longer
than you want, so maybe there's like a little bit of side spin even
though it looks like he's smoking the ball. So I think there may be
your crackization. Yeah, Well, one difference, Matt was Macadow hit five
home runs in the Florida State League. Well, Groover hit one in the
Northwest League. Yeah, and I saw a Groover. I've one of the
games that I saw him, he hit a laser off the left center gap,
like really well struck backspun ball, he moved pretty well. I think
that they just have some swing and body similarities that make me feel like,
yeah, they're they're sort of in that bucket together of like there might be
more here. Because Grewer was like a fourth rounder or third rounder or something,
Andover was a second rounder. He was the second rounder, and then
McAdoo was like eighth round. No, so Groover was second round he got
one point eight mil and mcado was thirteenth round and he got one hundred and
thirteen. Yeah, so I mean, like, I think that McAdoo has
a lot of the same tools and skills as Groover, and so they're sort
of similar to me. But again, like McAdoo is going to be cheaper
to draft, so like you miss you like Groover, it's a good fit
for your league, Like, Okay, take McAdoo thirty later or whatever.
So I'm a big fan of mcdew. I really want to see him succeed
and continue to succeed because his debut was so fun and as a guy that
I think has some real skills that it's fun to see those mid major guys
break out. Agreed, all right, And then I had one more that
I wanted to touch on before we dive a little bit deeper. And that's
another guy that you've got ranked pretty highly. But he's another one that popped
for me looking at the Baltimore system, which is just an embarrassment of riches,
but it's a Mac Horvaff And Horrvaf's a guy that you ranked really highly,
and I am right there with you. He was a just missed for
me in our B side hitters draft. I think if we've gone to ten,
he might have been my next pick. I think he was a second
rounder as well out of YEP. And this is the kind of guy that
his approach. Oh, I think this is who I was looking at when
I was talking about someone with a really low line drive rate. You can
double check me on this, but Horvath is the kind of like modern three
true outcomes hitter. Like he walks a crap ton. He does strike out
some of it because he's pretty passive at the plate, but when he swings,
he swings really frickin' hard and he pulls the shit out of the ball.
So I think his fly ball rate was like in the sixties at one
of the levels this year. Let me pull it up because his plate approach
is like an extreme version of what you want to see and he brings patience,
power and speed to this. And I think he's one of these guys
that, like is, has a questionable home on defense. Might not be
like they list him as a second baseman, third baseman, but he might
shift to the outfield outfielder. It's just he's not great on defense, is
what I can gather. But yeah, he pulls the ball sixty percent of
the time in HIA. He didn't hit a line drive, but he hit
seventy percent fly balls, so he was just yanking the ball and putting him
out and it was good for a one to and D four WRC plus.
Again, small samples, but I watched every game that this guy was in
HIA, and he looked so good. At the play he I think was
there with Basaio at the same time, and watching the two of them hit
back to back, it was like, these guys are actual big league hitters,
and everybody else around them looks like college hitters or minor leaguers. And
I was so taken by by this guy. I think mac Krvath like he
had a crazy debut. I'm really excited to see him next year. But
this is the kind of guy that I think in that Emmanuel Rodriguez kind of
vein where he's going to be extra patient, gonna absolutely torch the ball when
he swings, and has enough speed to do damage on the bases that this
this could be one of my steals of the draft. Like I'm I'm as
excited abou him as anybody. I like it. Horvath was I don't know,
a rare dozen two dozen college hitters that I kind of tracked and followed
this last season. I was. I wasn't super pumped he guy drafted by
the Orioles, but it was nice to see his pro debut go pretty well.
I feel like Horbat and like the athleticism of him, But I feel
like Horbath is the incarnate of how I used to hit playing video games.
Yeah yeah, wait for my pitch and then I'm just like airing the joystick
off of the controller, trying to hit that very far. Yeah, and
you know he's second rounder, so like he got that's decent. I wonder
if he was a second rounder largely because he was pretty bad in the Cape
junior summer or his sophomore summer, rather like he barely played. No.
Homer's kind of a bad triple slash. Maybe this is maybe this is a
poor on my part, but in my mind, if a team takes a
player in the second round, they most likely had a first round grade on
that player. Oh, definitely, yes, Yeah, And to your point
though, like this is a tough system to be a player in, and
oh will seem intent on keeping all of their prospects blockage be damned. You
know, if I were GMing that team, like I definitely would have traded
from some of their depth to get some actual pitchers in there. But yeah,
they have so many hitters that are so good, and Horvath is right
up there with him, Like, I don't think it's crazy to prefer him
to someone like Norby right now. Norby's a back end top one hundred guy
for a lot of people, and I I don't think he has the upside
in fantasy that Horvath does. And yeah, so he's someone to be I
think really excited about. Yeah, well we've been talking about college hitters.
If you don't mind, I just want to talk about two prep bads that
I'm shoving up my list please that I am like I want. I want
these two guys in every draft that I'm in. One is probably a bit
of pretty boy territory. But like, I think he's prettier than people think.
And that's uh, Kevin McGonagall. I don't know what for me,
there isn't like everything that I want in a hitter like this. This kid
is kind of exuding and has the look of other than he's not the biggest
guy around, and people for my little man thing that this guy is like
tiny? How tiny is he Isn't he like five seven? He's listed at
five to ten? I know, but it's isn't that like I had seen
some other reports that he was like that the five to ten was with spikes
and his hat on. Well you're gonna play with those, huh. But
I don't know. I don't know how much you've seen that. But as
far as like mechanical stuff that I know about and technique, like McGonagall looks
like perfect to me from the left side, and I love his attitude about
hitting sea strike, hit strike. And yet this is a guy who did
I think he walked as much as he struck out in his fifteen A ball
games this year. He did hit a home run or he did had a
great walk to strike at rate. Okay, did he did he walk more
than he struck out? Way more? Yeah, but he's still but he's
still an aggressive hitter. He likens his game and his swing to Chase Utley.
Chase Utley was one of my all time favorite Fantasy baseball players. I
think the defense is fine. I know, oh, I always forget what
twenty it was. But one of the one of the BA guys is a
big fan. He probably ends up at second base, but I think he
can play shortstop at a high level. And I'm just I'm all in.
So he's smaller, and he might not be Aaron Judge home run wise,
but I think this is the guy. He is unbelievably polished for an eighteen
year old hitter. He's gonna hit. It's not gonna be a wasted pick.
I don't think. I mean, you never know, but I just
feel so. I don't feel I don't think I've ever felt as safe with
a prep hitter as I do trying to be aggressive with McGonagall and I see
folks have him in like the thirties and forties, like, this is a
top ten bat for me this first year player draft season. That's bold and
I like it. I think the knock that I've seen is that his exit
filo's are really low. So well, I just saw I just saw a
tweet wherever he's working out, he posted like one hundred and six points something
exit velocity. He's eighteen years old, and what do you say they're going
to add a few more. I don't know if that's the one thing.
If that's the one knock, I'll take it. I'll take that right now.
Yeah, and listen, I'm with you. Like guys succeed because I
think what I had seen is that his ninety effects it. Vili was like
down at one O two or something. But as we've talked about, there
are guys that do succeed with that profile, especially when they exude these kinds
of traits where they don't strike out, they walk, they hit line drives
and bring value on the bases, like your Stephen Kwan's, your salf Relicks,
your Luis Rises, like those guys, especially depending on your league format,
might be some of the better players in your League. And if McGonagle
can do that and you project even a couple miles per hour and he optimizes
his launch angles and all of that, who cares right, Like, yep,
that's Alex Bregman, That's yep, Stephen Kwan. Like those guys can
be fantasy stars. So he's someone that I'm really interested too. I watched
a good bit of him and think he does have a really nice swing.
He does seem undersize to me, but some of that, like also kind
of doesn't matter if you perform, Like I've taken a bunch of these guys
that look small and are underrated, I think because of their size or physique,
and I think that that pales in comparison to your actual performance. And
sometimes we go back to looking for fabio when we should care about like can
he hit? And I think McGonagall can hit. And I think he was
very much an integral part of the Tigers decision making with their top five pick
there taking Max Clark and then McGonagall in the second round getting the money right
to make that happen. Yeah, but I'm in. I mean, there's
especially first year player draft stuff like I don't know, it seems like every
year, they'll be like three or four hitters. I'm like, just Kylee
jam Prep whatever. I'm like, Okay, I'll commit to this. I
will, I will marry this, this uh this prospecting idea here, and
like, I'm not I'm gonna get those guys if I can. You know,
obviously, if they're the top four guys in the draft, you can't
do that. But uh, yep, I'm gonna get him. And then
the other prep bat that I wanted to mention, and I admit this is
this is a fairly new discovery and affinity for me. And I'm not even
sure what his name is. But the Phillies took DJ or is it ta
Von Walton? I see it listen, is what I've said. Sorry,
it's I see it listen as Shawn and also TJ J A y y.
But DJ Walton Prep from IMG Academy down in Florida, who's young for the
draft. I think the Phillies feel like they got an absolute steal here and
are thrilled that they signed him away from guess what university? Met where Miami
Olo guys. I know, right, you look at this, look at
this happening, But I don't know. I don't know if you've seen him
that, but he is. This was a fun poll. He is a
physical specimen. Like if you you took some of his videos, put like
a Dominican flag and some some palm trees behind him. Weeded those out there
when he was seventeen eighteen years old. I think Dynasty owners would be all
over him right now. Love his right handed swing. Like I said,
a physical specimen. I'd like to pit eighteen year old Walton versus eighteen year
old Dominga's Jayson Dimingez. That kind of solid build, except Walton's much bigger.
You didn't chop up his gifts though, I didn't know, because there's
nothing from full season to see. He only got in like five complex games
this year. But you want to talk all fields, hitter and backspin to
all fields, the right kind of spin, full line drive, he can
run. I gotta imagine. I don't know, a guy's eighteen and is
sort of physically mature as he is. Maybe he slows down, but this
power speed potential here, I think there's if he would have went to school,
I mean, we could easily been talking about a much higher draft pick.
But I've heard nothing but high praise and I'm in, let's go.
As soon as you feel like all your responsible bets are are made or not
available. That's when I'm like, top five prep bat for me in this
Verson that's so bold and I so love it. Why not you take a
shot here? I don't know like Emerson, I think I I think I'd
take a shot on Walton over Emerson, just because I think the athleticism,
the physicality and what he's a grown man. Emerson's like em He's like win
Man. It's like this a little wimp. Oh, I love I love
it. That's so good. Yeah, the guy with well above average MLB
exit velos as an eighteen year old and just scorching in a ball like your
boy man, though he may be struck out thirty five percent of the time
in his five games. I'm just saying, what you slug? What was
this? What was this? WRC plus his babbit was seven hundred, so
like his babbit was seven hundred and he still only hit three eighty five.
Like that doesn't even seem like it should make sense. And you're gonna your
babit is gonna be seven hundred when everything you're hitting is off the wall if
you hit it. Oh, that is just such a wild take. Listen,
Like, I'm not gonna say for the cult Emerson slander that guy is
I got him right next to each other. I got him right next to
each other. Yeah, you have lots of the head Oh my goodness.
Who whoah. Yeah. Yeah, Like I know, I know that we're
we're having some fun here and stuff too. But like, talk to some
Phillies guys about Walton. I'm not just just making stuff up here that that's
but obviously they're biased. They drafted him. I think Walton is very,
very overlooked here just because and here's why too. He didn't doesn't have a
long track record because he had injuries and did not get to participate in a
lot of the showcases. And I think most folks thought it was a for
sure thing that he was going to college. But I don't think they really
messed with him too much. The Phillies did well. I'm definitely interested in
Walton, but I think it is flat out bonkers to not respect what Emerson
did. So at the same level, person outslugged him, struck out half
as much and then went on to a ball and was like the best hitter
in that league for the month that he was there, the three weeks that
he was there. Okay, maybe I'm putting too much into the physical stuff,
but it's like Bo Jackson walks into the room and like, I don't
know who's how tall is Emerson? Two? I think, oh is that
tall? I don't know? And then like Ryan Samberg walk into the room,
like who are going to be more impressed with? Yeah? But I
mean like, are you impressed with Joe Adell? Like are you are you
impressed with? Right? Like Joe Adell looks like an absolute athletic but hard,
but he strikes out all the time. So I'm just saying, like
the tools that Emerson has showed are better than what I'll take, really,
any of the high school guys have showed. I'll take. I'll take Holton's
mechanics and technique and his swinging over Emerson all day. I do not agree
with that, but I think it's at the costs. Like you're gonna be
able to get Walton anywhere with a first round pick, probably a second round
pick, maybe a third round pick, and that's great. Like I'm gonna
get zero shares of Emerson, which is a bummer because I do really like
him. I like Emerson. You can't argue with what he's done. There's
a free there's freaking Walton. We like freaks. What we say laughing at
me about Walton? Dude, I'm excited. I'm excited about Walton. I'm
laughing at you at Emerson, like the guy is legit, and you're like,
poo, I'm not poom. I value him very highly. I just
don't know what's the what's the major league upside? You think, like,
what's what's the what's the staff? Emerson? Yeah, what do you think?
I mean? I know that's we're talking about. The high schooler had
a little taste of pro ball. And I know that's hard proposition. You
know, anyone out there that might think that I'm off my rocker being ridiculous
about this, you got to understand that some of these some of these prep
moves that teams make trying to be smart, trying to take gambles on guys
who these high school kids that may very well just be one year away from
being a much higher sought after draft selection. Right, Socks did that with
walk Ow. That's very much I think was the Phillies mindset here. Of
course I could look like a fool, but I mean Elijah Green was a
top five pick, and if you weren't valuing him highly in first year player
drafts, you were ridiculous. Same same high school. By the way,
Ah yeah, you know Khalil Watson, like so like you missed concern.
It can easily sound as ludacrifs or as wild. In my opinion, here's
my irresponsible comp for Emerson. I think he can be a better version than
Gunner Henderson. Like, I think the exit velos are within spitting distance considering
he's eighteen for another like six months or something, because I think his NINETIETHH
was like at one oh six or something. One of yeah, I think
that's what BA report was like one oh six, So as an eighteen year
old, call it two to three to be conservative off of that. Henderson
was in twenty twenty two in his you know, one hundred plate appearances or
whatever was a one oh seven, So like he's one mile hour per off
on that and at a ball while being two years younger than Henderson was at
the same level, he was had way more walks, way fewer strikeouts,
hit for more power you know, more slug anyway. But so, I
mean I think that there's Emerson is number one overall prospect material three years,
Yeah, in two years, yeah, fair enough. I don't disagree.
I think he's going to go to Everett and mash there like that's a hitter's
park. I think it maybe his inflated Cole Young and Harry Ford's value just
a little bit and be locklier a little bit too. I was thinking about
that as going through Clegg's right up of the Mariness system that Beck had posted
about how Ford's home road splits and Everett were pretty pronounced. So I think
Emerson's going to go there and just demolish the ball and might have that kind
of helium where he's a top ten prospect by the end the next year,
and if he keeps performing at double A, like he could enter whatever that
is twenty twenty six is like the number one overall prospects. I think he
is that kind of upside Okay, yeah, yeah, you know maybe maybe
uh you know, could very well be for me a disconnect between video and
you know, the good data, because video he doesn't. I don't know.
I wouldn't have thunk that he hit the ball as hard as he does.
And I think that's because he has a really efficient, good swam whereas
like some of the guys like you know, my boy JDP host way to
Paula. He swings and makes contact really well. He has a strong contact
skill, but his swing sucks because he isn't getting to the power that he
should be able to because of the direction of his swing. And I think
Emerson, well, you know that's yeah, I think better. I think
that's it's also a testament to man, especially at that at that age,
how quickly some things can change, because I don't know, if you watched
Emerson's National Showcase batting practice twenty twenty two, I was not impressed. Yeah,
not just from mechanical standpoint, balance standpoint stuff like that. Like I
was like, oh, okay, players can improve, and players can be
coached, then players can get better, especially when you're eighteen years old.
Yeah, and you know Emerson's also six months younger than Walton, so yeah,
no factor that in h to level nay age to level level. Well,
Walton would kick Emerson's ass in a fight. I know that probably true.
One of the ones that I wanted to touch on was for Enrique Bradfield
Junior. I think he's one again, another Baltimore guy, maybe round down
a bit, but I think he's one to really push up in your roto
leagues and your categories leagues were steel matter, yeah, because he does so
much. A format dependent guy, yes, definitely, He's not a guy
that I'm taking in my points leagues or power focus leagues because he's off my
board for those leagues. But yeah, but for your categories dynasty leagues,
this is I think he might be Estuary Ruiz, but actually a good hitter
like like as in like he's gonna have really high contact rates. I think
get on base more than Ruiz does, which might lead to even more steals.
Like he's a very good base stealer, and his contact skills seem legit.
So Bradfield's one that I think is worth again knowing your league, knowing
whether that's useful, and valuing him accordingly. I think taking Bradfield ahead of
like Werner Kishol Horvath like in your rotal leagues, like he could be a
true difference maker in those degree I agree for sure. One guy I wanted
to touch on just mentioned Luke keishel Man, the video. I came away
pretty impressed with him. He's one that I think I am valuing much more
than the consensus, especially in the Twin System. I'm rounding up with hitters
in the Twin System. Why is that because I think they maximize I think
they maximize hard contact and home runs well with their hitters. But before I
watched them, I was like, Okay, they took this guy in from
Arizona State, took him in the second round. I kind of felt like,
I don't know, the reputation was like, you know, potential,
nice utility type player or whatever, but I just found him to be more
dangerous hitter or potentially a more dangerous hitter, I know, grading out wise,
he's getting like fifties across the board, and like, I'm I kind
of want to bump that up. Over one hundred and forty played appearances,
he hit in or was he in A and Hi A hit three home runs,
goal eleven bases. He's more athletic than I thought too. Like it's
his frame too. You might not necessarily think it because he's kind of he's
kind of like fin up top, but like thicker in the bottom. But
he slash two eighty eight four, fourteen, four seventy seven, walked fourteen
percent of the time, struck out eighteen percent of the time, good for
a one forty five WRC plus hits. The ball in the air had a
nice clip pulls in. It's an opposite field, just a lot of nice,
good looking strokes, I thought, And like I said with the Twins,
I think well, I think consensus he's he's kind of buried. I
think Clegg has him sixty six. Yeah, there's a there's not going to
be so well, that'd be like forty hitters. There's not forty hitters.
I'd rather take a shot on than Luke Keishael. So I watched a good
bit of Kishel too, and I tend to agree. I think he's a
sneakily athletic guy and there might be more speed there than some of the public
grades are giving him credit for. So again, in your categories league,
this might be a fifteen homer thirty steals threat, which is super valuable,
especially considering I think his approach of the plate is one that might lend itself
to a lot more line drives and therefore a bit of a higher babbep as
well. So I think he sprays the ball pretty well. I do think
the power is going to be a little more limited, I'm not I don't
think he's going to be a big homer threat, like fifteen is probably upside,
but thirty steals seems pretty reasonable in the playing time. So I liked
him quite a bit as well. It feels a little bit me like like
a showbal but with like an umbrella and some nice condiments. Yeah. Yeah,
my notes when I reviewed the Twins system, I said that he's being
taken too low in FYPS, and I think that's true. I'm not sure
I with stuff him quite as high as you, just given that it might
be like a sort of limited power impact. And yeah, I'm not sure
where the speed is going to play totally, but I like him quite a
bit. That's fair, that's fair. Yeah, there's a like that's a
big chunk of players that are all pretty much the same sort of value to
me. But yeah, yeah, and for me, he's probably in that
like late twenties range, Like I think that's where I start bucketing, because
I think the top twenty or so again, format dependent, are you talking
just are you talking just top twenty hitters or top hitters. Yeah, yeah,
so so like and I think most of the best picks are hitters in
this draft, Like it's a it's a pretty deep draft, but I think
he's, like, yeah, in that the beginning of that pretty large chunk
of hitters after sort of the top. Who else you want to touch on?
I know we've talked about Jonathan Long before. Yeah, I want to
talk about Jonathan Long. Unfortunately he's a Cub, so this is a little
difficult. But man, I don't know. I don't know if you watched
any of Long, but I did hard to not be impressed at least to
some degree. Yeah, so Long. He was a ninth round pick out
of Long Beach, eight corner infielder. I think he played more third base
than first base. Again, he was in he was in this league here
where a lot of guys kind of walked in after college and hit a lot
of home runs. And it's not a home run atmosphere at least Myrtle Beach
isn't. One hundred and two played appearances. He hit seven home runs,
walked fourteen percent of the time, struck out eighteen percent of the time two
seventy four four h two, five seventy one two ninety eight. ISO won
sixty four WRC plus pulled the ball sixty two percent of the time swinging strike,
right around thirteen percent per Fangrass. I cut up that video that I
shared with you, and you notice who he was taking the yard in that?
Yeah, a couple of our guys. Yeah, yeah, he got.
He got quite a few of our B side pitchers here, Andrew Taylor,
he got. It looked like I think on a breaking ball, Trey
Don Browski, my guy, Felix Aronde, and a couple other relievers that
were televising on here. Who's perhaps a decent pitching prospect for the White Sox
that they drafted this year. But yeah, I don't know, man,
interesting interesting mid round selection by the Cubs here there, and that they had
a couple of those Shoot, what Langford hit ten home runs? Right?
There was another first year player who came in and hit ten home runs,
and that was Brian Colmer. Did you watch any of him too? There
was a lot a lot of games where Comber and Long we're hitting home runs
at the same time. Yep. But he put together interesting introduction. He
was the eighteenth round pick out of Gonzaga. Like I said, he hit
ten home runs and one hundred and forty nine played appearances, struck out twenty
percent of the time. You know, ridiculous, ridiculous line. But he's
a bit different than me. I do see some folks putting some value on
Comber. I don't know if if I'm quite there, though it very much
seemed like maybe not the most athletic guy, maybe not the most athletic swing,
and a lot of his home runs were you know, and a credit
to him, this isn't really a knack, but it makes me question how
the home runs total's look as he moves up. But they were like,
you know, the line drives that eaked over the wall. I so interesting
guy in that one. I'm going to be too aggressive on. Yeah.
I saw him in college shit at Gonzaga, and he was really good for
that league, Like he was one of the best hitters in the West Coast
Conference. But I'm not sure I see a pro like, like a major
leaguer out of him. So I think he's going to be an interesting one
to follow. And he did hit the ground running. So he hit twenty
five homers this year. When you add in his college stats too, which
is a lot, and he hit twenty the year before at junior college.
He was in Arizona, sy guy that he didn't get to play, and
so he transferred to a junior college and then ended his career at Gonzaga.
But he was good. He was far and away the Zag's best hitter last
year. They're more of a pitching school these days, but he was their
main offensive force. So definitely, definitely one of the best hitters in the
West Coast Conference. But I think he's probably over his skis so far,
but we'll see. Ultimate point. Was a much more interested in long than
I am. Calmer. Yeah, another guy we were chatting about a little
bit in the dugout today that I probably kind of have in the same little
clump is Andrew Pinkney. With the Nationals spread across three levels, ah,
well, actually four. He did play in the complex a little bit,
but he did get up to double a one hundred and eighty eight played appearances.
He hit four home runs, still eleven bases, struck out twenty percent
of the time, walked ten percent of the time, only a one thirty
six ISO on WRC, plus hit ground balls at a high clip sixty three
percent. But Pinkney was a little bit on my radar. I pay a
little bit of attention to Alabama, but I was impressed. I was impressed
with his ability to hit hip balls over the fence to all fields. And
I know we were chatting today and the dug out, like I said,
and I didn't know this, but he he kind of owned beans in college.
Yeah, he did. I know. There was some talk about,
you know, maybe he's not the greatest breaking ball hitter at this juncture,
but a potential interesting power speed combo. I think he was like a fourth
round pick, so he's not He's not a nothing in a prospect that like
we've said, or in a in a system like we've said that might not
be the richest. I think Pinkney might be a nice, laid around gamble
in some formats and leagues. I tend to agree. I watched a decent
amount of him as I was diving into Morales. They were on a couple
of the same teams this year. He was a guy that, even though
the performance was pretty solid, I came away with wanting to round down because
it is like kind of goofy swing. It might be I couldn't really put
my finger on what it was, but it seemed like when he was really
getting into a ball, it wasn't I don't know, the ball wasn't carrying
as much as I sort of expected. And again he hit some homers,
and like I think is A is a pretty good player. It seems like
he could play the outfield pretty well. But I don't know, there was
something about his performance that just told me, like, uh, maybe pump
the brakes just a hair on pick me. Well, we'll see I again
at you know, post pick fifty. Like that's a reasonable take, especially
in a categories league. I think he's got some speed, he's got some
power, he might be a real hitter, but I don't know. He
was one that I wasn't enamored with. I'd say that I even noticed watching
him just a little bit of him in college too, And then this season
is there's like there's kind of some inconsistencies, like kind of in his step
at the point that I don't like. Sometimes he's like a higher leg kick.
Sometimes it's not much one. He starts open, and I don't know,
sometimes I wonder if he doesn't stay the most balanced. But you know,
It's not the only hitter I've ever seen that does stuff like that.
Tovar was very much like that. But yeah, I know he was just
better than I sort of expected when I turned on the video to two colleague
guys, Bryce Elridge for San Francisco. I know that he's a Jeff Ponce
favorite. Jeff has talked about him a couple of times at BA that he
really thinks that Leridge is good, and I agree. His performance was fine
in his colleague debut. He's, you know, in high school drafty first
base, outfield. I think he played right field mostly, but he's also
a pitcher, though I don't think I saw him pitch. I'm not sure
if he pitched this year in his debut, so maybe a two way guy.
But as a hitter, I think he's pretty good. He has a
lot of the mechanical swing markers that I really like to see. And when
I was doing my cow league deep dive like five months ago at this point
now, and I was, you know, hating on Jess Way to Paula
and really like John cel Luis. Elridge was another guy who had a lot
of the same things that Luis does in that his he clears his back elbow,
he's a lefty, clears his left elbow away from his hip, and
then drives through the ball. So even when he was sort of like mishitting
a line drive, he was still getting that good back spin. And I
think we're going to see a lot more power from him next year. It
was a pretty small sample this year, but I saw enough visually that I
I was like, oh, yeah, I think the Giants might have found
a pretty darn good hitter there. So I'm pretty excited to see him next
year. And he's one that I'd be really happy with in anywhere in the
teens in this draft class, Like whether you're talking about categories, roto points,
whatever, I think he's just going to be a really really good player,
and there's the upside potential if he's a good pitcher as well, then
maybe he's a proto Otani, although that is wishing upon a star for sure.
But Elridge is one that I was like, Yeah, I like his
swing a lot. And then the other guy in the calleague that I watched
a lot of as a Mariners fan was Ty Pete. And I see you've
bumped Pete down pretty far. You're prefless, and I tend to agree.
I actually would probably push him even farther down. You've got him in like
the mid fifties. He's not someone I'm interested in buying. I've seen people
describe his swing as really pretty. I've seen him described as a really athletic
defense, and I don't think either of those things is actually true. He
played a pretty bad third base from what I saw, and again he got
pushed off short You know, he's drafted quote unquote as to shortstop, but
Emerson played basically all the innings of shortstop in Modesto when they were there together,
and Pete wasn't good at third base in my estimation. As a hitter,
he had one pretty spectacular game where a hit like he hit a Grand
Slam and another home run in the same game. It might have been two
Grand Slams, and I'm remembering that, but that seems crazy. But it
might have been two Grand Slams in the same game, and I think those
might have been the only two homers he hit in the Calleague. Again,
he wasn't there a long time. I really didn't like his swing. He
was really inconsistent with his stride. He sometimes had a leg lift, sometimes
had like a toe tap. He swung and missed a lot. I for
somebody as highly touted, you know, he was a camp round pick and
got a couple of million bucks. I was pretty impressed and unimpressed with some
of the important tools for him. And he seems a lot more like a
developmental project than someone like Emerson, who I just like I said before,
I think is this point, there's not much else he could have done,
and Pete I'm like left with a lot of questions. So he there's still
some bones of a pretty interesting prospect here, but he's got a long way
to go, in my opinion, and I would hunt elsewhere because I think
he's going to struggle next year. I can't win with you. He's pretty
much off my board type of guy, but I wanted to put him on
there because I didn't want to yelled at we're not ranking a Mariner high enough.
He's the He's the one I'm I'm lower on and Farmelo I'm pretty interested
in. But he didn't debut this year, so he's one that like.
Again, he seems like maybe it's more of a categories play. I like
to look at him. Yeah, I watched some of his like prep prospect
hype videos and thought it looked pretty good. And you know, the Mariners
are tuning him as like a plus plus center fielder, So if that is
true, he could be really interesting because even if he doesn't hit a lot,
like he might move quickly and be a guy that they want to see
in centerfield, although obviously Julio is going to be there for forever and is
a plus center fielder for the moment. Like if Formelo is what they say,
like, maybe you see in four years or so that it's Formelo in
center and Julio's moved over to right or something. So right on, I've
got a little clump here of one to four hitters that I knew nothing about
and talking very deep. Maybe just watch list type of bets. The first
one is a first baseman that I don't see ranked on any first year player
or anything like that from Oakland, Will Simpson. So they took him in
the fifteenth round out of Washington, your neck of the woods, boom.
You know you don't like those guys. I thought you'd be over sign him
for one hundred and fifty K. He's a right hand hitter, might be
a little sometimes looks like there's some effort in it. But he popped six
home runs in one hundred and fifty played appearances, stole three bases. Did
see him run a little bit, And he's not like he's not like a
stiff, big first baseman, you know. I mean, he's good size,
but there's some athleticism to him. Struck out twenty three percent of the
time, walks seven percent of the time, slash three nineteen three, sixty
seven, five forty three two twenty five ISO hit the ball in the air,
I don't know, one thirty six WRC plus. Seemed like a guy
who could hit a little bit. And then uh, Quinn McDaniel's a fairly
high pick with the Giants. I think they took him in the fifth round.
Now he's he's goofy, fifth round out of Maine. Jeremy peney Land,
he's a little bit goofy. He's got a really kind of high leg
lift crouch like really kind of gets into the swing. Not typically what I
like to see, but he hit the ball hard when I was watching him.
Six home runs in one hundred and twenty five played appearances. He struck
out twenty eight percent of the time, but he also walked twenty two percent
of the time two fifty eight, four twenty four, four ninety five,
two thirty seven ops, hit the ball in the air over fifty percent of
the time. I don't know. He's a little interesting, kind of like
second basement and not real big, but packs of punch. And did you
watch any of him? I did not, or if I did, I
didn't note him. Yeah, the Angels too, I was. I was
kind of on the fence with maybe going with Cole Fontinelli as my sort of
official B side choice third baseman they drafted in the seventh round out of TCU.
He's a switch hitter. I haven't quite gotten until I digging into his
splits yet, so I'm not sure about that. But one hundred and seventy
four plate appearances, he had four home runs, stole seven bases, struck
out twenty three percent of the time two sixty one, three thirty three,
four h five slug all fields. Sort of like line drive hitter, I
think, but hit it over the fence from the left side. I think
I liked his his swing from the left side yet Yeah, yeah, his
left side stroke is pretty nice. But he caught my eye, and again
in the system that maybe not the richest in bats. And then the Marlins
had a bat that I kind of came on to just the other day.
Perhaps a little power speed combo here, Mark Koley. The second they drafted
him in the seventeenth round out of Rhode Island. He played center field.
It's a little bit leaner, but I think he's still in what his max
TV was one hundred and sixth His ninetieth percentile was one hundred and four barrel
percentage of twenty one percent, end zone contact to eighty two percent, chase
twenty six percent of the time. Again, not a ton. I think
there was two series to watch with him. We hit three home stole nine
bases, struck out almost thirty percent of the time, walk thirteen percent of
the time. So okay, this will be a thing to watch, But
I don't know, interesting potential center field prospect again in a system that might
not be the richest in bats. But those four guys were kind of way
off my radar, but video got my attention. Those are all super interesting.
Yeah, I'm just tagged a couple of them in some of my deeper
leagues to follow and if I get sniped on all my other targets this offseason,
I'm gonna pop one or two of them. Yeah, you know maybe,
and ends of your larger league drafts off. One of those guys are
sitting around want a college bat. They all kind of interest me too.
One more guy. This was just more of some interesting savant stuff paired with
a little bit of a video review. I think there was only like one
series of Kobe Morales played left field and center field with the Yankees down and
a ball. They drafted him in the eighteenth round out of Washington, so
I know you want to get into a lot of Huskies here. But a
big, big left hand. He's pretty tall, He's probably like six or
five and guessing strong left hander. It's kind of looked to look at his
stroke. He had a max TV of one hundred and ten, average of
ninety one, hit line drives at a thirty six percent, clip barrel percentage
of twenty three percent. He hit one home run. I think I got
that on video. You know, you strikeouts, you might be a concern.
He did walk sixteen percent of the time though, too. But just
a guy that I'm going to keep an eye on all right, all right,
I'll we can't leave on a husky, so let me talk about just
a couple more. I saw Jack Hurley in Hillsboro, Virginia Tech college grad,
pretty good college performer, canna say. I was a little bit underwhelmed
watching him live. I thought his chase maybe was a bit more. I
think one of the games I saw against Hidden Wind Jip. I know you've
watched a fair amount of two and Winje just seemed to have his number that
day. And then one of the other days that I saw him, he
was just a non factor. I don't think he had really good at bats,
and he was hitting behind Groover and Tommy Troy and like those two looked
like real minor leaguers of note, and Hurley didn't to me. So it
might have been I just saw him live on a couple of off nights,
but I don't think he hit the ground running. So he's one that I've
rounded down a little bit on, even though he did a pretty good performance
in the ACC. And then I'm intrigued by Aiden Smith. He's one that
Chris Clegg has talked up a bit. I was just going, oh,
you were interesting. I Clegg has tucked him up and I think has him
stuff pretty high in his FYPD lists. I would say the tape is at
least what I saw, maybe didn't quite excite me as much as it did
Chris. But Smith is what I'm int sit in following. Good frame.
His swing looked okay, just the results were not really there in the small
sample that I saw in Modesto. So he's one that I'm interested in following,
kind of like Farmelo. I want to see both of them over a
larger sample next year. If I had to guess, Smith might start back
in Modesto, and Farmelo they might just start in effett at hi A.
I don't know why he didn't debut this year. Must have been an injury
of some kind, but I can't remember hearing that reported. But anyway,
he's one that I'm intrigued by. There might be a decent player there,
but it was he didn't jump off the page. I'd say watching him in
his debut, but you were gonna poop pull him a bit? What didn't
you like about him? His full season debut is first that bad? He
hit a home run and you got a side view of it. You know,
home run, well done, But I don't know if I can really
articulate it, but there's just like an awkwardness in the swing that was that
kind of call my attention. And he comes around the bases, he blows
some kisses to the fans, thes like, come on, man, yeah,
I don't know, Like like you said, it is for a prep
guy that you know you hear people talking about. And I don't know,
I didn't really but he was a fourth round pick out of Texas. I
guess they gave him a one point two million not like real like physically imposing,
not that that's a huge deal. But yeah, he's tall. But
I think the thing about his swing that looks a little awkward is he seems
like one that pulls his hands across him a bit more. I think we've
talked about this, but and he finishes kind of low, like if you
see where his hands finish on the swing, but in this swing, like
you see, his finish is a lot lower, so his like both his
hands end up at his left shoulder below And I think that looks a little
bit awkward. And I also think they are cutting in front of him just
a little bit. I will say the pitch he hit out there is on
the outer half and you hit it out to center. So there's some extension
that's happening there to hit that ball out in that direction. But I think
it might be like, shoot, who's the guy the latter? Chase Delatter?
He has a sort of similar abbreviated finish to this, although his is
a little bit higher, like again he kind of like stops his hands,
but they're a little bit higher than But I wonder if that's like the visual
awkwardness that we're seeing here could be right, Uh yeah, I don't know,
Like, you know, prep guys, I gotta get you got to
get real excited. And I just wasn't getting real excited with Aiden Smith here.
And you know, going back to your opening opening diatribe, right,
like, if you're not excited about a guy, pass on him, let
somebody else float that risk, Especially for a high school draftee. You know
it's going to be so long before they're relevant. I wanted to ask you,
Braden Taylor, No, you know we're talking. Well, he was
like a mid first round pick, right, He's another one that Jeff Pons
was pretty pretty on. Really Jeff likes him. Oh no, I'm pretty
sure. I think I read that in one of the one of the BA
articles that he was like, this is a guy that I'm planning my flag
on. I don't know. I was like, maybe one to take him
off my board completely, Okay, I mean what, he had five home
runs and one hundred and eight played appearances and he stole eleven bases. That's
that's pretty nice. Now he's not going to be a shortstop, right,
He's going to be a third baseman. From what I've gathered, you know,
he struck out thirty two percent of the time. I don't like that
hit a lot of line drives, pulled the ball sixty one percent of the
time. I don't know heavy heavy pool hitters with strikeout concern. Maybe maybe
I was just overthinking it, but he's a tough one for me. I
probably won't have any Bradon Taylor shares, but Jeff likes him, so he'll
probably be good and I'll look like an idiot. I didn't watch any of
Taylor, so he's one that and I don't know whether there was a ton
I guess he was at a ball for a decent clip and did pretty well.
Yeah, he did strike up, but you just don't get a trusting
feeling, you know, and you know, thirty two percent strikeout right at
a ball is not great for a college bat, right, Like I know
mid first round of college that, yeah, you're all about Walton and his
thirty plus percent strikeout right games five we have like a butt, No,
this is this is this is twenty two games in a ball for a college
bat. Again, like we talked about, we're looking at Werner and a
couple of the other guys at Able, like you want to see him do
well there. So that strikeout right would give me, would give me pause.
But any raised prospects too, I hate investing in raised prospects too.
I'm just I'm coming to that acceptance. Why is that there's just too many
of them and they don't give a shit about your fantasy team. They're not
the Royals who are just plug and play somebody. Yeah exactly, No,
But you know they're like I'm not knocking the way that they do things.
I think it's they're awesome in what they do, and they do what they
have to do and they optimize what they got to work with. But you
know, like, okay, so we're going to add another infielder to the
mix here potentially platoon or something. We've talked about their pitching before too.
I don't I don't really how they develop a lot of their pictures, Like
I don't know the price that Bradon Taylor is going to be in my draft,
Like, I might as well just take them off my board, so
I'm not going to get them. It is interesting that for someone that was
lauded with such a great plate approach struck out as much as he did in
a ball And it wasn't like he walked twenty percent of the time either,
which you know would be impressive. You know, he walked fourteen point six
percent of the time, which is above average, but I wouldn't say it's
like super plus. It's a small sample still, like, you know,
not quite one hundred plate appearances. You know, even k raid and walk
rate, those are probably still a little noisy at that level. And you
know, five homers and eleven steals in his JBU was interesting, right,
Y's not bad. But yeah, okay, you know it's fair to have
some questions about Taylor. Well probably just not my guy. But oh hey,
you like the you're talking about the Orioles Riches. Did you happen to
see any of their twentieth round pick, Jalen Vasquez out of some small school
somewhere in South Carolina or something like that. But I'm not ringing a bell.
He's kind of a fun guy to watch, you know. We talked
about like Javier Sinoya. Yeah, I get like little vibes from Vasquez,
just like dude is going to maximize everything, and he's athletic and he can
he can run. I don't he didn't hit a home run. I don't
know if that'd be part of his game. But it's kind of a fun
just a fun player, I think, a guy that you just kind of
want to root for. Nice well in the clothes here, there were a
couple names that I noticed were conspicuously absent from your from your list, can
I ask, Okay, Yeah, for sure, I noticed Kyle Teal not
on your top one hundred. That's true. He's not fourteenth overall pick for
the Boston Red Sox catcher. It's it's not again, that's not a rank
sheet. I just there's no way that I'm gonna draft get Teal in any
draft. There's no way. And is that because of the position risk that
most catchers have, or what is it? What is it about Teal that
is turning you off? I mean, I don't have any of his stuff
pulled up, but I don't think he's as good of a hitter as everyone
is saying he is. Just generally speaking, people really love him, not
nearly as much as I'm going to pay for him. And yeah, I
don't know, maybe that's just really cheap and generic and boring. But I
don't I don't get it. I don't get all the love for Kyle Teal.
So this is one that you and I agree on. Like, I
would probably rank him in a top hundred just if I was doing a rank
Maga something, he would be in there. But I'm with you. I
don't think he is a special enough hitter to be worth the price to hold
a dynasty catcher. You got to be a special hitter that catcher. Yep,
I agree. Just in general, investing in minor league dynasty catchers is
I think a path towards madness because they just bus so fast, they get
hurt. Even if they are good, they'll come up and maybe they won't
play, or maybe they won't be good while they're learning to catch big league
pitching as a hitter because that's their main job. And then you're holding this
guy that gets three hundred and fifty played appearances and is met and you're like,
oh, I held on to this guy since I drafted him. So
just as a class of hitters, that's not one that I'm really interested in
buying generally speaking, even though I think he seems like a pretty decent defender,
especially in the catch and throw department. He seems special there. But
he hit the ground running for his debut, but it was in the way
that you should look at very skeptically. Skeptically, it was a super high
babbit across all the levels that he hit some power, but not a ton.
If I remember right, his ISO was below one fifty, and so
it's not like he's, you know, running some impressive statistical line. It
was really buoyed by his babbit and that is so fickle. So I he's
one like he might crater next year and you can acquire him for cheap in
July when his babbeb comes down to two ninety and he's catching in double A
or triple A, and he's like, oh, well, the luster is
off, and you could acquire him then, but he's not one I'm pumping
up draft boards either. So that was one I wanted to agree with you
on. Yeah, yeah, it's it's not so much I find him not
to be a nice prospect or anything like that. It's just just a fantasy
game thing. I also don't have Namaua on there. That was the other
one I was gonna ask about. Have you watched him and you're you're just
or bit and I get it, and I say, and it's just the
same thing with Teal, like I'm just he's gonna go well. Before I
think about him, I think he's a very nice prospect. I know he's
really young. I do, and typically I'm drawn to guys who have seemed
to have just like really fast hands and really good hands, and I think
he does have that, uh, just from what I've gathered. And I
feel like he's kind of stuck in between a short stop that's gonna like hit
a lot, or a third basement that's not gonna hit enough. It's kind
of what I'm thinking. And I also I don't trust the Blue Jays.
I don't. I don't like Blue Jays hitters as a whole, especially ones
that they draft high. It hasn't gone well and not that you know,
I don't want to make too much of that. It's about the player,
but yeah, just where he's going to go, I'm just he's not going
to be. It's not going to be in my cue at any time.
I think it's interesting. In fangrafts, they gave him plus to double plus
raw power, which I was surprised about. They were like they put a
seventy on his future raw wow, which watching because I watched some of his
video. I didn't see any of his I don't think any of his complex
games were broadcast or whatever, but I watched, you know, a decent
amount of it. And actually, fun side story, I grew up playing
cricket, so I still occasionally watched cricket. And during the Cricket World Cup
in India this year, Nimala actually went to India because he's his family's Indian
and so he went to India and met with one of the Indian national cricket
team players and like tried to hit off of a bowling machine in the Indian
national team facility and did okay. You know, like I think I think
that sort of like cross skill. There's some overlap there, but it's surprisingly
difficult, and he showed at least some aptitude to hit a cricket ball as
it was bold off of one of their pitching machines. And then the other
guy I'm forgetting his name, the Indian cricket player, then hit off a
baseball machine that they brought for the thing too, and did not do very
well because they're pretty different. But anyway, it's like, so I see
some decent hand eye coordination, Like I think he might be a hit overpower
guy. But I just thought that was so interesting that they projected such impressive
power off of a guy that at least my like limited looks. I was
like, oh, he seems more of a hit overpower kind of guy.
And BA some good vs for a young young player like himself maybe, but
BA gave him a fifty five power, so I don't know. It's sort
of a weird guy. Like, I'm interested to see more of him because
I like you and sort of skeptical, i'd say, of Namala, and
he's not not what I'm clamoring to get. So I mean, if you'll
see, we'll see. My years of playing Dynasty, there's never been a
year where there's some first round or highly saw after prep bat that a year
later nobody wants anymore. Yeah, So now I'm not saying that's gonna be
him, but I don't think it. I don't think you're wrong if you
just try to pick out a few and who those may be and just completely
avoid them. Also, going back to one of the points you made it
earlier, is like, if you miss on a guy, you're gonna get
a chance to acquire him again, right, Like maybe you have to pay
up to do it. But if you really like somebody next year and you
missed on him in this draft, like you're gonna be able to get him
in some way. And that's like I made this point in that article about
pictures that I wrote and why pay up for quote unquote the market price.
If a guy's pumped as a mid first round FIP and you're like looking at
that profile, there's going to be some bumps in the road, you're going
to be able to get him later on. You if you really believe let
someone else hold the risk, Let someone else hold and watch them struggle and
then target them into trade like you're always going to be able to do that
at least in leagues where people are interested in trading there. I've been in
leagues before where people don't really want to trade. In one of my leagues,
like the league just flat out said that nobody's allowed to trade with me
because I'd won the league like seven years in a row, and they're like,
just stop, just don't trade with them anymore. So I finished second
for a couple of years in that league, but I wanted again last year,
so suck it, my homeble league. But so most leagues, though,
especially in the dynasty format, you're going to be able to trade.
You should actively seek out these guys that you coveted or wanted to follow and
follow up if they do turn out to be something or you still believe in
that another like just quick dynasty story. In my longest running dynasty league,
the league is a team based league, so I have the Angels, but
when we started the league, we went through a draft to pick which team
was your namesake. When it got down to my pick, I was between
the Angels and the Red Sox, and at the time, the Red Sox
had a much more highly rated minor league system and some young players that were
pretty good, like some present value of like Chris Sale might be an ace.
Rafael Devers at the time was like a twenty three year old phenom who
was like already succeeding in the major leagues, and a host of other pretty
good players around them, and then their minor leagues were really well regarded,
whereas the Angels had trout Otani, a couple of other like decent major leaguers
like Rendon before he had all the injuries, and a couple of their pitchers
were kind of interesting, Sandoval Iglesias. And then in the minor leagues they
had like Reid debt Merz. I think that was the year he got drafted
and that was it, and everybody else in their minor leagues was poop.
And I was like, oh my god. Joe Adell was like their number
one prospect at the time, and he's awful. He's so bad. But
in the Red Sox system they had all these highly rated prospects, you know,
at the time, it was like Bobby Dolbeck, Tristan Cassas. This
might have been the year they drafted Marcela Mayer to Nick York, like all
these guys that were quote unquote top one hundred lock prospects. Now looking back,
one of their prospects panned out from that crop, who was like very
clearly like a top five prospects of stem one Cassas, and everybody else is
bad or at least might not even make the major leagues as a regular.
So all that to say, like the prospect side of things, the error
bars are huge, and in FYPD, they're the biggest, even at the
top, you know, to the point earlier, like Elijah Green was a
can't miss, tooled up five tool guy a year ago. Drew Jones was
even better, and you couldn't pay me to roster those two at this point,
right, and like that was the consensus a year ago. Now,
I think this year is uncommon in that the top of this FYPD is actually
very very good, even down to like number eight, nine, ten,
Like I think there's a pretty clear the top two I think are incredible.
The next chunk till about ten are like very very good. These guys are
going to be big leaguers. And then the next chunk down to like twenty
twenty five are exciting, like ones that you'd be happy to land. After
that though, it's the wild West anything could happen. The airbars are enormous.
We do not have enough information to actually know. So take the guys
you like, take the ones that excite you, and if you miss on
somebody, you miss on somebody, you'll be able to trade for somebody else
later. Sure there's plenty efficiency. We're gonna be b siding all year trying
to find all those muddy catfish down at the bottom. They're going to turn
into something. And the only regret that I ever have in first year player
drafts is when I'm not aggressive enough on somebody that I wanted and somebody else
gets. I've never been sad because I missed on a star that I didn't
get whoever, only been mad when the guy I wanted it turned out good
and I was just too passive about it. That's it, preach. So
AnyWho, thanks for joining us, Episode seventeen of the Prospect B Sides podcast.
You can, like I said earlier, follow me on Twitter if you
like. At pitching specs. I've got this Google sheet up with videos of
many of players that we talked about many more. But yeah, we'll let
Chicago Farmer take us out and next time we will talk first year player.
Pictures. Pictures gross eel. It be so much fun. There's so much
more diversity and adventure and different styles and possibilities with pictures. Well, we'll
talk to you next time. See five miles an hour. Riding to his
head, he hopped down the first with the lump on his face, and
on the very next pitch he up and stole second face with gretest speed.
He wasn't born, but he had dirty yes uniform