Not five miles an hour riding too is him. He hopped down first with
the lump bonus face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second face with gretested he wasn't born he had yes. Welcome to episode eleven
of Prospect. Besides, I am Nate Handy, joined with joined by the
rookie Matt Again, we're actually by what's up? Hey, I don't know,
joined by Matt, joined with joining me is Matt. We are actually
a podcast now, like for real. It's not just a video conference.
There's actually some episodes that have gotten out and we've had some people listen,
I think Matt. So that's that's super exciting. We're moving up in the
world. Yeah, apparently we've got like all of two fans already. I
mean, that's more fans than I had last week. So that's a huge
win. I know that you don't really partake in the Twitter verse, but
you might be surprised here, my friend. You know, I very much
thank you and have enjoyed podcasting much much more since you have joined me and
I have somebody to talk to. But it's not all rainbows and puppies,
my friend. I have to be. I have to be honest with you.
You're kind of starting to get under my skin a little bit here.
Oh good, you know, Matt, Matt's not a rookie. He sounds
so silky, smooth and nice on the microphone. His players are so fantastic.
You're picking all these losers, Nade. You sound like John c Riley
got bunched in the nose. I mean, it's just, it's just it's
getting a little, a little out of control. The handy dandies are turning
into Maddie patties. Matt, I got, I got this one girl on
Twitter hitting up my dms at w s U Cougar's cougar at me. If
you do any ASMR stuff, it's out of control. You when you applied
for this job, did you not read the job description? Yeah? I
said, right there. Make Nate look good. I keep skipping over that
one. I'm sorry, man, you have you have a thirty day review
coming up, my friend. I mean, you do, you, bro,
But I don't know what you're gonna say for yourself. All I can
do is continue to get worse. It's all downhill from here. And you
know, now we're getting into the real handy territory where we're getting muddy,
all thirty teams, pitchers and hitters, the deep cut B side. So
now now now it's it's all you. I'm just the supporting, supporting cast
here. We've splunked into the deepotion a little bit and found a little landing
spot. Last couple episodes talking about some of our more favorite finds. That's
just a kind of a setting off point, Like you said, we're going
to get I mean, look at us. The Game three of a Fantastic
World is on, and you and I are I mean, what are we
going to talk about some twenty four year old and a ball who throws eighty
six miles per hour that we think might have a chance. I mean,
we are scumbags, mat we are dirty, and we're just getting started.
Really, get off my spreadsheets. How do you know? That's like everybody
I'm talking about today, they all throw eighty six. They're all thirty years
old in a ball. Or maybe maybe we'll find an eighteen year old who's
not sure if he was a right handed hitter or a left handed hitter or
yet or something. I don't know. Last couple episodes we got into hitters
and pitchers, and today we start our division breakdowns or however you want to
say it, but we'll go division by division and start getting into what we've
seen in some players and make our I guess, our official twenty twenty four
B side selections for every organization. Is that does sound good? Who I'm
daunted, intimidated, cowed by the task. But I'm here and I've got
some picks and hopefully they don't all suck. So you know, that's the
only promise I can make to you, Nate and your listeners is they are
the best of the money that we could find, and hopefully we get some
new names in your ear for you to look at your off season drafts in
your early season WAYVERI our pickups. Yeah, that's and they're your listeners now,
Matt, they're not my listeners. We did share notes this time.
The last couple we did not, but we didn't get into We didn't get
into anybody. Really. It was more or less just quite literally sharing a
list of names. I shared my list with you the other night, and
it's like, Nate, this is way too many names. I think,
like seventy five players or something. But I don't plan on you know,
really getting into all those guys. But yeah, listeners, this is this
is how sick Nate is. I asked, like, hey, I want
to share lists just so that we've got a little bit more back and forth
about guys. Make sure that I have at least heard of whatever crazy b
sider Nate's gonna pick. And he sends me a picture of his spreadsheet and
he's not lying. I think there are seventy five names on this list,
and I'm like, Nate, we can't talk about all these guys. Also,
half of them I've never heard of. A few are way too popular,
but of course they're the guys that Nate has been on for years already.
And I send him my Measley ten names and he's like, oh,
yeah, I know that guy and that guy and that guy. So you
know, he's the godfather here. He knows everybody from way back. No,
you have definitely turned me on to do some players for sure, And
yeah, like you said, some of that is just well, we'll just
get into it. But I wanted to say though, I watched a few
of your draft selections from the last couple episodes, and one that I just
kind of wanted to talk about real quick and maybe we'll just segue into the
Astros. Your boy Tyler Goolfoil Googlefoil Gooli Gilfoyle. I think we were watching
his afl outing and chatting together. I think that was probably a better angle
than than we had gotten in full season ball at all this last year.
I could be mistaken, but I but I have to say Matt I was.
I mean, of course you pair it with with the wonderful points you
brought up about him, but he really impressed me. That outing he got,
He got more exciting to me, without a doubt, especially when we're
I don't know. I think we had wondered if we saw him throw a
cutter, saw him throw the slider, a slower breaking ball, a change
up, and that that fastball man that that didn't really does like to take
off high in Armside. Yeah, you would have asked me about about that
Armside run and one of the starts that I had watched and prep for talking
about him. He did kind of get in trouble losing that fastball up in
a way, and he showed a little bit of that in his all start.
But we were both saying he had a bass's juice that had been already
given up one run, could have gotten really ugly there, and he pitched
his way out of that inning. And I thought that was pretty impressive against
some pretty good hitters. Yeah. Yeah, it was the inning that I
think he did. He give up like one run in three innings or something
like that, and that inning that he gave up a run was Yeah,
for a picture, It's just just kind of a stupid inning. There's a
couple of hit batsmen. He had a change up that took off on him
and I think got Sabato I remember correctly, but uh, you know,
there was like an infield hit, maybe a bad throw or something, but
or a poor fielder's choice. He was fairly dominant. I thought, kudos
to you, Matt. Another another wonderful call. I think I'm excited to
well. And and the other AFL one that is getting some helium is our
boy, Caleb Durban. I mean he's he hit a homer, which he
doesn't do very often. He continues to not strike out and steel bases.
I mean, he's he's an interesting little guy. Yep, yep, I
have been. I'm a little invested there in my little AFL league. So
yeah, I've got I think I was telling you one of my points.
Leagues that I'm in really really penalizes strikeouts, so you know, guys that
are really good, and lots of other leagues like even Aaron Judge someone like
that, who is great across all formats, like he's like the fortieth best
hitter last year in this league because it just penalizes strikeouts so much. And
so a guy like Durban is gold in that league if he makes it and
he hits like we think he's going to just because the strikeouts are non existent.
When I ran, I think it was, like, however many plate
appearances he had at double A, like around one hundred something like that over
the last five years he had the lowest strikeout rate with that minimum plate appearances
for I think it was the last five years by like a full three percentage
points. Like that's crazy, that's so much of a lead, and you
know it's probably he's probably not a true talent three and a half percent k
guy, but that is still a very very impressive DOUBLEA debut for him,
for sure. Astros Pictures, let's start there. Let's we had mentioned how
how many potential B side candidates there were in their system because I ditched out
on the season and kind of left folks hanging last year. Touch on some
of my selections and how they may have fared this year. My picture for
the Astros was a Dinson Batista, who he got injured early in the year.
He's a fastball, slider guy, very much still on my B side
map, twenty one year old from Cuba, looking forward to him getting back
on the mound. And then this year. I don't know if these guys
were kind of on your list or short list map, but Ryan Gusto,
I don't know if you watched him at all. He almost feels a little
bit like a guilfoil light in some aspects. I like him. He was
eleventh round Juco pick in twenty nineteen. They got this big bodied lefty Luis
on Hell Rodriguez. The fastball might lack a little little juice, but he
can spend two breakers and throw a change up. These are arms that kind
of just sucked me in during the video review right for good, bad or
ugly guys that I watched the most of Julio Robania, I think that's how
you say it. The stout strong five to eleven. It was his second
go at double A, but he was much more productive. Kind of a
lack of K's low nineties fastball, but his slider, Man, he's got
a really good slider that just devastates left He is more so a guy that
just felt like a little bit of a throwback, Like I feel like he
could have been like a fantastic lefty specialist when those guys were like getting jobs.
Emile car Torinos, a young Venezuelan pitcher, lots of polish needed,
but a big body with a bit of a different arsenal. He didn't have
like a lot of strikeouts this year and stuff, but he strikes me as
a guy who hold when it all gets polished up. But he was an
interesting guy to me. Nolan DeVos Devoce Nolan DeVos, I just kind of
questioned his command to be, you know, MLB starter caliber. And then
a guy that was a first year player last year. I believe Andrew Taylor.
He's got that fastball that these guys, it sure seems like, are
kind of after and maybe to the nth degree. And my hope was that
he would get with the astros who have been fantastic at helping guys spin a
long some of that would become part of his game, but I don't think
that has really happened. Those guys weren't weren't my official selections, but like
I said, some guys that got into do you have any takes or any
thoughts on any of those guys? Matt Well? Just to build off of
this, I also dove into a bunch of Houston pitchers for B siders because
there are just so many of them, I mean, maybe the best pitching
system in the minor leagues. Like I watched two thirds of the guys that
Nate mentioned, you know, Devas, Robina, Taylor, all of which
I thought had something. You know, they were enough words that I was
like, ah, they're probably aren't my selection, but they were all like,
Oh, these guys are doing something that's interesting. But even guys that
Nate didn't mention, a guy probably two owned now. But Spencer arri Getty
like he was he was beside eligible last year. I think he nobody was
on him and then he had a really great year and when I checked,
I think he was up around ten or eleven percent ownership. He had an
awesome year, made it up to Triple A and you know, twenty five
percent, K's six percent, almost seven percent walks across his line for the
whole year, Like that's awesome, and especially at high levels like that all
the way up to the PCL, Like that was a hell of a line.
And again when I checked in September, he was one percent owned.
Like Houston is just flush with them. And we still aren't talking about our
B side selections either, you know, and I drafted two guys in my
in my draft already but in trade Dombrowski and taller Gilfoyle. But there's at
least two more names that we're going to talk about that are like that's ten
eleven, like legit pitching prospects that in some systems, like any one of
those ten would be their single best arm. And they've got ten or eleven
of them. So, man, Houston's doing something. As my official B
side selection, We're gonna go with Jose Fleury. Fleury is a guy that
I was on because he and Gilfoyle did a lot of tandem starting early on
in the year, So Gilfoyle would start and Fleury would come in and relief
in like the fourth or fifth inning or vice versa. Sometimes Fleury would start
and then Gilfoyle would come on. And they're very different pitchers. Got some
commonalities in that they both strike out a bunch of batters, some walk concerns,
but their arsenals are really different. Flurry is what is he like?
Six to one two hundred pounds. They listed him at one eighty five,
but he looked a little thicker than that now, so maybe maybe one ninety
five. He you know, a good, good looking athlete. Absolutely eviscerated
the DSL last year as a twenty year old. Again, a little old
to be in the DSL, but he ran a fourteen point two k per
nine and walked less than one per nine in the DSL, so just absolutely
dominated the competition to the tune of a one to three to nine fit.
This year, Astros skipped him over the complex and sent him to a ball
where he threw ninety two and a third and two thirds innings. Again,
like I said, some of this was tandem starts. A lot of it
was like all the starts were you know, three to five innings, and
that was generally what his relief appearances were as well. But he really didn't
miss a beat with that, you know, twelve point six strikeouts per nine,
walked a few more at four point three. It's more than I'd like
to see. But he was stingy with the hits, got a decent amount
of ground balls. His arsenal is really fun, really short armstroke. It's
not a big loopy one, kind of like gil Foyle is a little bit
longer. It's short. It is straight over the top. I mean,
you see this thing. His fastball is just a straight backspin. I mean,
this might be a perfect twelve o'clock spin efficiency fastball, but it's not
very hard. The couple of times I saw him on a gun, it
was like ninety one tops. That's the knock on him, right, is
like, yeah, he's spinning this fastball. Yeah he's getting whiffs on it,
and he's throwing at the top of the zone whiffs and pop ups.
Can he still get those? If it's ninety one he's at double A or
triple A. That's the knock on him. That, plus the command can
be a little bit hairy at times. I mean, he wasn't terrible.
He didn't hit batters. It was just he would lose feel of the zone
a little bit and kind of nibble around the edges. The other really fun
thing about his repertoire is his changeup is a legit bugs bunny looking change up.
It's by far his best secondary pitch. You see him come exact same
short straight over the top arm slot, and then this change up just dies
and he'll throw it to righties, he'll throw it to lefties, and these
guys are kind of waiting for that, looking for that you know, huntable
four seam fastball. Then this change up comes and it just dives, Like
I wish I had the pitching ninja skills to give this and overlay it,
because it is a wild difference where those pitches end up. But his other
two offspeed pitches, he's got a slider and a curveball. I think he
changes armslot for both of them. Neither of them is commanded really at all.
Like when he was losing guys, it was because he left a curveball
way up in the zone and then yanked a slider away out of the zone.
All of a sudden, he's two to oh. He tries to ride
a fastball at the top of the zone, but it runs a little bit
high. All of a sudden it's three to zero and he's walked the batter,
his command not great. Two of his four pitches I would say,
are worse than average, Like the slider gets some whiffs, but it's just
never around the zone enough. And I do think he changes his arm in
action. I think for those guys that really comes straight over the top like
that, it can be hard to manipulate the slider well. So I wonder
if if really leaning into just a curveball more would do him well. But
he's an interesting enough arm. If you set the minimum for the minor leagues
at ninety innings pitch, he was tenth in K minus BB rate percentage,
So that is hard to do. That's the kind of thing that tends to
be sticky year over year. And even if he's just a mile or two
an hour more on the fastball, this kind of looks like a Christian Javier
kind of a crazy spin fastball, one good off speed pitch and an off
of a third pitch to fool batters a couple times through the order. Again,
it's not like I don't see him being a superstar, but if those
couple of small tweaks away from seeing this kind of dominan city'side at the low
levels translate up to the upper levels too. So Jose Flury, I think
he's another in a long line of Astro's interesting arms and worth your time to
dive into. I like that. See there you go. Matt Fleury is
the guy who definitely slipped through my cracks. So I knew him by name
and some numbers, but but I didn't watch so nice sweet. Did you
watch Who You Got? Nate? Did you watch AJ Bloombaugh at all?
Blumbaugh sounds familiar, but I don't have notes on them, I don't think
so he is in the AFL right now. I wanted to just touch on
him a little bit. He was This was tough. This was a tough
choice because I kind of wanted to go with him. But he's this big
body guy from UW Milwaukee that I think they took him like the seventh round
or something like that. I mean, it's say, a big body,
but nice size. I think maybe like the gram esque sort of frame,
you know, maybe not a real hard fastball ninety two to ninety three,
but it has some life and there is a lot of sort of vanilla in
the whole arsenal, but pitches well and throughout the season. There was just
a nice progression of him executing just tougher stuff. So I think he's a
guy arrow up arm in their system. And like I said, they sent
him to the AFL For whatever reason, I couldn't stop watching Carlos Espinosa,
a twenty two year old Cuban that they signed I think just last year in
twenty twenty two. Forty three, forty four innings in at a ball this
year, but you know, fairly new to the system, you know,
kind of a physical specimen, athletic strong, just comes off the bus,
looks looks good right, looks like a good strung starting pitcher. It's fastball
that gets up ninety seven to ninety six on the regular. He's got the
slider, he's got a curveball. Obviously, I never watched Carlos Espinosa until
this year, but I do feel like the slider, particularly was was just
getting a bit more movement, getting sharper towards the end of the season,
and I think that is part and plays into some of his you know,
high walks and things of that nature. But he also throws a really interesting
splitter. He has no idea where it's going. But I caught some really
good still frames of that splitter, and man, that thing is like it's
it's a La Jose Contreras from back in the day type of splitter, Like
that guy's threatening him breaking it, breaking his fingers, sticking that thing in
there. But there's kind of just too much of a highbrow sort of repertoire
potential for me. Harnessing it all will definitely be be a deal for him.
What's interesting to me is I really like his his motion, and it
seems all like very repetitive and controlled, but the outcomes of it aren't.
But if you watch the archives archives, he has had a few outings where
he was flirting with immaculate innings, flirting with immaculate innings back to back.
You know, maybe a little bit of wishful thinking here, but far from
the most feral looking of guys with with high brow arsenals that I've watched in
a ball So I'm interested in him in this system. You know, maybe
maybe a bit of a big swing, but if it goes well, I
think it's going to go really well with Carlos. Where do you think they're
gonna put him next year? Hard to tell, but I don't think,
you know, talk about reliever risk again, like, definitely if this guy,
you know, if he doesn't harness this, he's going to be a
reliever. But I think it could be a really good reliever. Just throwing
a fastball in the slider, right, he still needs a ball, you
know, by the way that things finished at the end of the year,
I don't think. I don't think that's a guy that you are lower lower
minus. I don't think this is a guy that you throw into double A
just quite yet. And I don't really know his history. I don't know
if they signed him from the professional Cuban lead or what the deal is.
But he's zero percent Rossard. I've watched Maddox runs after he was drafted.
I've watched Jacob Miserowski after he was drafted. Just to be blunt, those
guys were awful. Their command was horrible. So he's not even remotely close
to that. And I know he's a bit older than those guys. Well
maybe I don't know how old Misserowski was, but still very young. I
just I like this what this could turn into. Yeah, that's an interesting
one. I didn't I didn't catch any of him, and I did watch
a fair amount of that Houston A ball team, So if you want to
watch him, check out. He has an outing where he had ten strikeouts
on eight twenty six. I think that was a really good one, and
then he had one I'm going to share some video again and I'll share some
of him. Whatever that outing was is when he had Darneer in emaculate inning,
maybe even two in that one game. Wow, Yeah, could get
real dynasty appeal and a relatively short amount of time here. He was actually
going to be my first pick in theft, but I wanted to do a
little bit more homework on him because I hadn't really watched the like the bad
right, the bad lines, And then when I started getting into those,
I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna
have to tap the brakes just a little bit here. He can't he can't
be my first call, all right. But yeah, so Astros hitters we
have had, we've had some success. I think Matt with with the Astros
hitters maybe moderate success, But twenty twenty one was Kennedy Corona took a little
bit, but I think that has Yeah, I mean, you know,
relatively speaking, I think he went from very B side to the very mid
grade. Right, we had Emmanuel Valdez, who you know obviously was traded
to the Red Sox, but he's played in the Majors and last year,
last year, I really wanted to go with a lot Brafito, but he
was just a little bit too owned. You know, he had a fantastic
year. And then Quincy Hamilton, who I think is still very much beside.
I'd ask not highly rastered, but I think is in play for a
major league shot fairly soon. Here did play in Triple A. I don't
know if there's not like super outstanding numbers but not not horrible stuff, but
I could see him getting some run relatively soon and maybe before some of those
other younger outfielders. Do you have any thoughts on Quincy Hamilton or not so
much, not as much on Quincy Hmpton. Were you also on Colin Barber?
I feel like you might have mentioned him, yeah, a mile back
in a little bit, Yeah, because he was one that I had,
I had picked up in a deeper league and he was okay this year.
I had hoped for maybe a touch more at Double A than he did.
I also think he might have had some injuries that set him back for a
part of the year, But to the higher up guys in the system,
I mean Corona l Berfedo Dezenzo two was another one that popped this year.
Like the Astros did do a pretty good job on the hitting side too,
and less on the B side. Kind of thing like when they're hitters start
motoring up the system, or when they hit really well in Asheville, people
tend to take notice. So it was I did find choosing a B side
a little bit trickier here for the Houston hitters than I did for the pitchers,
where there was just so many to choose from their classic m sort of
seems to be finding they have a knack for finding outfielders, right, And
if you look recent history, there's been a lot of mccormicks and Myers and
outfielders like that that have been serviceable to them, and then they've traded a
lot of them. And looking at this sort of B side territory now was
to me it was kind of chuckful with outfielders and a couple of catchers.
But who'd you go with? Who's who's your bat? I really flip flopped
on this one. A bit. There's this guy at infielder for them,
played all around the infield at at Triple A, made after Triple A's yr
Shay Whitcombe. He was my runner up and has a pretty interesting power speed
blend. Thirty five homers this year twenty bags, not a terrible slash,
you know, to forty three hundred four to seventy this year. A lot
to like about that, but a lot of that was in the PCL and
so like, that's actually not that good of a line for the PCL B.
He strikes out a lot thirty percent on the year across the levels,
and so I was like, I just don't see it. He's not going
to put it together if that's his k rate, even with the power speed
blend, I don't think he quite The power isn't quite going to play over
that kind of a k rate at this point. So he either needs to
cut his k rate or really turn on the power. And I, after
watching him, I thought, probably not it, but still sort of an
interesting name to file away. The guy that ended up picking also has some
wartz and had a pretty weird line this year. He is Jackson Lofton.
He's an infielder and I think his moon moonlighted a little bit in the out
field too, played some center field, shortstop, third base, center field.
Because he's very fast. He swiped sixty bags this year. Again,
if you're looking at a deeper rot league or or a categories league where steals
play up, this is a name to keep an eye on. The rest
of his line was okay, eleven percent walks, not earth chattering, but
pretty good. And then twenty one percent strikeout rate at a ball primarily this
year, maybe a touch high, especially considering he's not giving you a ton
in the power department, only nine homers over his four hundred and sixty seven
plate appearances this year. Part of watching him, you see, I saw
more there than I thought I was going to, I guess because he's got
the speed, the defense, of versatility, and his batting line was just
all over the place. He batted two thirteen for the year, but with
a three thirty on base percentage, so still getting on base a ton enough
to make the seals interesting. Had very very little power, still over one
hundred ISO points, so it's it's like it's not nothing. And you watch
him hit and while he's like six to two, kind of skinny, but
looks nothing like in al Tuve. I got some of those vibes when the
ball was on the inner part of the plate. He really did try and
rotate and get into the ball, but he would still spoil pitches away.
I think there that his line was sort of an underperformance this year. His
babbit was lower than you'd expect. Maybe next year we might see like a
three thirty three forty babbit with him playing in Ashville. I think the line's
gonna look a lot better, and I think he's gonna keep stealing bases,
so he's he's mine. I think he's gonna get a little more helium next
year, and got maybe a bit unlucky this year, But I don't know.
He's a good little player. Right on. Nice, There you go
again, Matt learn of me some things about a player that I wasn't super
paying attention to. So there's a like I mentioned some outfielders I don't know
how much you watch or got into, like Zach Cole and Zach Daniels,
two guys are kind of interesting for me to strikeouts were just a bit much.
But like the Astros bats to me sort of see like their system or
guys that they sort of invest in, not super highly, but you know,
decent amounts strike me as being very technically sound or like these like sort
of like highbrow athletics, but athletic guys. But are they like really baseball
players. I have to go with with Miguel Palma, a catcher in their
system, also played a little bit of first base. I think they're just
trying to get him some more at bats. One of the rare guys,
one of the rare selections of mine that are in the AFL this season.
He's not doing particularly well in the AFL hitting wise. I've been watching Palma
for a little bit now. There are a lot of I don't know,
Nate handy ingredients here, not the whole puzzle, but definitely some pieces.
An aggressive hitter who doesn't chase very often. He has I think, very
fast hands, which serves him well both at the plate and defensively. He
did not hit a ton of home runs this year, and was at a
park Asheville where there could definitely be more home runs. You only had seven
home runs this year. All that being said, I think there is still
power in this bat. Now I want to ask you some questions technical questions
about hitting Matt And I don't know if I can articulate this really well.
When I watch a hitter, like from like a side view, right,
one of the first things that I look at is the player's head. Is
the head stained still? And I don't know necessarily where this all got into
my brain and my head, but I like guys look who look still.
The head doesn't move a lot. I think I played a little bit of
outfield. I think about chasing down fly balls, right, you keep your
head still, you keep your eyes still, it's easier to see the ball
track the ball. So I think that is part of it. But how
do you feel about guys who about hitters who are kind of moving forward forward
a lot in the box? Is that optimal not optimal? What do you
think? I think you're right on that you want about as still ahead as
you can get. Now, when you strive naturally, your head is going
to move forward a little bit. I think the rough calculation is that your
head is going to move forward about half as as far as your stride goes.
So if you see guys with like a really big kick and they're moving
forward, their head is going to move forward some but for those guys,
a lot of what I look for is the head dropping a lot, so
like is the bill of their helmet dropping from some fixed point above them or
behind them, because going forward, your eyes can compensate with that reasonably well,
as long as it's sort of smooth and isn't too much. But it's
for me seeing a guy's head like drop as they're striding that is a sign
maybe they aren't picking up the ball as well. And I don't know how
much public research there's been done on that, but it's certainly something that coach
has always told me about keeping your head relatively still, and it's sort of
the head whack that you talk about with pictures like that's sort of a head
back for hitters. Thank you, thank you for that. That's that's helpful
to Palma. So when you watch him from center field, the first thing
that's let me back up a little bit, The first thing that kind of
got my attention was his opposite field hitting on video. I think, like
you would say, putting the good kind of spin going opposite field also too.
In part of that, I think maybe even more so last year,
But part of that too was just not catching up the fastballs right, hitting
them, hitting them a little late later than he really wanted to. But
he's the other He does damage going the other way, which is a trait
that I like. But from the center field view, I just mechanically he
very much struck me initially, but then when you watch him from the side,
he does sort of stride forward a lot, and I think in part
of what might be his lack of production right now as a hitter is I
think he's been playing around with some like timing mechanisms a little bit, kind
of has this thing where he starts his foot to the outside, we'll step
back in and like toe tap a little bit, and I've seen that like
alter some So I don't know. This is me just speculating from a couch,
but there's a lot of skills here that I like, and I kind
of thought this season he was heating up before and figuring some things out before
the beginning of the year. Till June, before an injury struck, he
was hitting three h nine, three sixty three on base with a for eighty
nine slug five home runs. That was five of his what what do we
say, seven home runs on the season, And I'll share a little bit
of video of him where you will see that there is there's definitely some pull
side power in his in that compact frame and swing. He's a small cutcher,
he's only like five eight, and I believe that. But I think
defensively, and man, I think he's good. But dude, what prognostication
of how good a cutcher is defensively is? There's been some wild some wild
outcome and stories lately, don't you think, Matt? I mean, oh
yeah, it's tough. I mean we're living in a world right now where
we're moreno is like a plus defensive catcher right and like Henry Davis is playing
in the outfield because you can't catch. I mean, you rewind a year
ago. I don't think that was the tail or two years ago or whatever
it was. And I'm not knocking like any writers or anything like that.
They're often just reporting on reports that they get. But figuring out if a
catcher's good defensively or not it seems quite tricky. But I do think I
do think Paul was pretty good. So long story short, I have been
and remained very interested in McGill Palmo's potential defensively and offensively as a catcher,
and he's still very young, he's only twenty one years old. Yeah,
you'd mentioned that he can catch it a little bit, and I did catch
some of him in the AFL and it looked solid to me. But like
you said, it's pretty tough to tell that in the short kind of that
we get, and you really need to see progression over a whole season.
Yeah. No, it's an interesting, interesting pick. And folks will talk
about like you know, stolen bases against man in the minor leagues. I
don't think you can judge catchers by stolen bases against them. That is that
is pitcher is That is the I think the rubrick we used it was like
ninety percent on the pitcher. Yeah, we genuine like when we played we
never cared who the catcher was. It just didn't matter. And we played
against some pretty darn good defensive catchers. It was all about who's the pitcher?
How slow to the player are they? Yeah? Yes, does this
team due to control the game? And yeah, it didn't really matter who
the catcher was. It was all about the pitcher. Yeah, that's why,
like like pop time stuff is like I get it, Like you know,
you got a quick release, You're gonna get it there quicker and all
that stuff. But there's so many other things that are more important than that,
And like what was what was Benito Santiago's pop time back in the day
zero? Because it didn't pop, grew from the ground. But an AnyWho,
Yeah, Miguel Palmer is my choice, and I think that the reps
up the Astros right all right, Since you were just talking about a diminutive
catcher that has you a little excited, let me tell you about one of
my favorite players that I saw this year. This is Angels catcher Gustavo Campeo.
I love this little guy. He's a fire hydrant shaped catcher, you
know, not tall, but he looks like a little little athletic fire hydrant,
and he is athletic. I thought he could catch pretty well, and
I watched a little bit of him behind the dish. It seems like he
was a fine receiver and thrower. But he's a good athlete too. They've
played him in the outfield of Fairmount left field, right field, and it's
because he's a dynamo man. He is just a trip. I saw him
steel home in a game. I saw him delay steel second base, the
ball gets away and he makes it to third. He I saw him take
the extra base again, Like, this is a catcher, and it was
ground ball up the middle, straight to centerfielder and he is motoring as soon
as that ball is hit and you see him he just just doesn't stop.
I mean, that kind of stuff is just fun to watch, and especially
when you see it from this little catcher that you're like that you aren't really
that athletic, but he has a ton of flare. Like the guy is
an absolute joy to watch. I watched one at bat. I think he
was in Eugene at this point in Campero goes basses loaded. It was maybe
the sixth inning something like that. He's just got a good eye. So
the first couple of pitches were just off the plate, both balls, and
he took him, but he wasn't trying to be over aggressive about it.
Then the third pitch was not close. Three to zero. Well. He
then swings out of his ass six times in a row, foul ball,
foul ball, foul ball, foul ball, foul ball, six in a
row, and on the seventh strike he hits a grand slam. It was
such a cool ad Bat and he loved it. Like the whole team went
nuts. They were away obviously in Eugene, but the whole dugout was pumped
for him, and he's he's just like an absolute bundle of joy. And
I think he had a pretty good line too. Again, in the Angel
system, I don't think there's a lot to like here. I have watched
them pretty closely because they're one of my teams that I own in one of
these deep dynasty leagues, and so you get sort of preferential treatment over their
minor leaguers in the in this league, and so I've paid pretty close attention
to their minor leagues and it's mostly pretty bad. You know, Trade Cabbage,
Michael Stephanick, Jordan Adams, Kiren Paris. Like all these guys have
big problems of one kind or another. Joe and Dell, David Fletcher.
It's like all these guys that either they can make a ton of contact and
have no power or speed at all, or they have a ton of power
and speed and literally can't touch the ball. That's like the kinds of guys
that the B side type guys. Anyway, in the Angel System, I
feel like a lot of their guys on that level are kind of like look
good off the bush definitely estentically, and Campero is not like that at all.
I mean, he's he's five to eight. Maybe I think they list
him at like one seventy five or something, but he's he's a strong guy.
I think he might have had some injury issues this year because he only
got two hundred and forty five play appearances, and again he was playing some
outfield and infield two. But the line was good. Eighteen percent strikeout rate,
not bad in the high A and he got a little taste of double
A at the end of the year. Nine point four percent walk rate,
twelve homers, twenty steals. Like again, he's not a burner, but
he is an aggressive base dealer. Four triples, nineteen doubles, slash of
three thirty four oh eight six thirty two. It's a pretty good line.
I wonder if some of this has been kind of him flying under the radar
with injuries and being a catcher and the way he looks like you just don't
expect a lot out of him. But one of my favorite guys that I
watched in the miners this year, Nice put up a pretty impressive line like
that. Overall line altogether one seventy two WRT plus this year. Nice,
I don't know. I think he might start the year at double A next
year, and with how aggressive the Angels are, I wouldn't be surprised if
he's up playing with Ohapi next year. You know, like Nice, they
would do something like that. Cool. I got somebody to watch Nice And
I don't know. We didn't discuss how we want to do this, Matt,
but my my official Angels bat selection this year is the first year players,
so I think I'm gonna just save that for that episode. Is that?
Is that? Okay? Sure? Okay? And then we talked about
my picture selection. Hamilton Mendez right talked about him last episode. Our history,
the Angels B side history has not been well. We got edgar Quero
that was that was a good one, but he got traded away. But
did you watch any Yadiel Sanchez by chance that they got from the Phillies.
He was a Phillies selection of mine a few years back. I just want
to get him out of able. Let's see, he's been at a ball.
I know there's been injuries and the trade and he's a switch hitter,
and I think there's been some development for both of his swings. It makes
good contact, he's super athletic. I think there's a little bit more pop
there than it's given credit for, but I think he's still just at like
zero percent. He probably would have very much just been if I was just
letting incumbent incumbents stick around, I probably would have picked Sanchez again for them,
a little old twenty two in a ball. It's like a touch old
for that level. And he had a good line, you know, a
little bit of power, a little bit of speed, didn't strike out much,
walked a bit like the kind of line that I generally am drawn to.
But this was a situation where the age to level did turn me off
a little bit. And then watching him, like my notes on him were
like, this is a this is who he is, Like, there isn't
a ton of projection here at best, this is going to be an end
of the bench utility guy. And it didn't look like he really was plusy
F and civilly and generally that's what you see out of that type of guy.
So I was like, I kind of he had a solid year,
but I talked myself out of it because I was just like, I don't
see this progressing and can Perrow was so fun. So like I was saying,
like he's another guy who's like man off the bus, like he kind
of this looks the part here, but he's twenty two and he's standing next
to eighteen and nineteen year olds on that Inland Empire. Is that yeah,
yeah, colleague team? Yeah, so you know, like he's like a
college senior standing next to college freshmen, some of whom just came to This
is their first full season ball in the States, So I don't know.
That was the other thing is like, Okay, you hit eleven homers and
four forty plate appearances in the cow League, like it's a twenty two year
old, Like yeah, I think that's what I was saying, Like he
seems kind of maxed out. So I said. The only thing I was
saying was the only thing with Sanchez that I kind of want to give him
a little bit of benefit of the doubter is there's just been a lot of
injuries and some stuff. Wasn't like to keep him out for long, but
in a trade, I don't know, I just kind of want to say
I'm giving him like one more year, so to speak, and then that's
fair and who knows, you know, like I'll probably see him live next
year coming through the Northwest League. So I watched them, like Ben Ben
Gobble. I liked some of his looks, just didn't feel like there was
enough juice in the bat. Jorge Ruiz is a guy who was a young
hitter who was getting talked about a little bit in the dugout. Eighteen nineteen
year old who hit three h four whose season ended pretty early in July.
He's not a real big guy. He hit three home runs all in July,
and only one was was broadcast. Two were against your nuts there,
Matt. I don't know if you knew that. But the one that was
broadcasted, I mean it was like a lefty golf one low and inside and
it snuck over. So I don't know how much power there is in this
young man's bat at this point, but you know he's a guy. He's
two percent rostered. Luis Torres was a guy that I watched a little bit
of a He got promoted to a ball in June, then sent back down
a month after struggles, But I mean he was crushing it in the complex.
I didn't think that he looked like necessarily super overmatch or anything of that.
I just felt like you couldn't really buy a hit. But a big,
strong righty another first base sort of prospect a decent amount. Matt Kotney,
a lefty has has has good power like to all fields, I think,
just not really like spicy enough for me to attach myself to a to
a corner infielder at this point with him, I watched some Tucker Flint another
corner outfield sort of first base type. Wasn't double a. I think he
flash flashed some stuff, but the k's were I don't know a little too
much. Didn't want to attach myself to another like sort of first base type
like that. But I don't know were there any other bats that you watched
or thoughts on any of those. Yeah, to be honest, like I
watched a bit of Ruiz and there might be something there. He is still
just nineteen. I'm skeptical though. Decent contact skills, but I'm just skeptical
of the swing, and I'm not a big fan of him. Okay,
and then moving to the Angel's arms, like I said, I had Mendez,
he's my official whatever choice, but I did have two other guys that
I wanted to touch on. I'll let you go first because I think I
think you're gonna I think you're gonna select one of them. Okay, well
this one again, we talked about how deep the Astro's arms were. I
did not think the same of the Angels, And in the past I've been
interested in some of their arms, Like they've been pretty heavy in the their
draft, going for college arms that could move pretty quickly, and I think
they've had some success with that. We'll see how that pans out in the
next couple of years. But I was not pumped on many of these arms.
I think you're going to talk about one of the guys that I thought
was sort of interesting. But the guy that I'm picking is Michael Darryl Hicks.
The twenty five year old made up to double A this year. Solid
line over all eighteen starts, three eight er one hundred and twenty four k
is good for a twenty six point seven K rate, and the walks were
fine at seven point five percent. Not bad, but watching him, especially
as he went up in his three starts at double A, he started giving
up more home runs and again it's a bit of a small sample, but
I think he's gonna be a bit more of a flyball pitcher, and he
doesn't quite have the stuff to carry that. I don't think have a feeling
he's gonna struggle over the next couple of years because he's got almost that flat
approach angle, but it's more upper three quarters rather than that true kind of
like side arms slinging four seam fastball. The two seam. It's like a
two seam four seams. I think it might be a four seam, but
just has a little bit more run. But it's not great. Again,
he's a mid major guy college pitcher out of Jacksonville University. It's runs it
up to ninety three, sits around ninety a lot the sliders, all right,
he located that pretty well and it looked like it was low to mid
eighties, you know, a little bit faster. Really only saw his change
up versus lefties. So with a little bit of a roundown on the command.
I think the shape just based on the swings that he was getting.
I think the shapes on his pitches are a little bit suboptimal, even though
there was quite a bit to like of how he pitched it high A A
few looks I got at double A and just the way his pitches came together,
I gotta say I'm less interested in him than literally every Astros arm that
we talked about. But that's just sort of damning the Angels organization for their
pitchers more than anything. He had a pretty good start against the Cubs Double
A team that had it was stacked like it, you know, Matt shaw
Ow and Casey Murray, junior, Kevin Alcantras. Yea. Was that his
debut his Double A debut because he was he might have been. He was
good for like he would so it might not have been that one because he
went like three and was good and then got roughed up in the fourth and
fifth. I think double yeah, sorry sorry, His Double A debut was
versus your Mississippi Braves there, but he went five. Yeah, so this
was this was a couple of starts after that. I think toruk out nine,
yeah, gave him one. Yeah. Yeah. Darryl Hicks, I
mean, pretty successful season. I mean he went from a ball to double
A. Not too shabby for an undrafted guy. Yeah, and he's zero
percent and I nobody is talking about him I don't think he was on the
any of the BA or granks. And again, this is not a good
organization, but you could do worse than kind of putting a pin to follow
him or put him on a watch list. See if the command tightens up
a little bit, as he'll probably start again next year in double A,
and and see if the case stick, you know, could be something there.
I really kind of wanted to get myself into a dwell Hurtado too,
But alrighty, who's I don't know, maybe a little bit older, but
I don't know, he still was only like twenty two years old. But
alrighty from the Dominican who had had a couple of loud outings, like on
August thirty at eleven K's one walk hit one guy versus your modesto Nuts,
which was a very good lineup, but he ended up he lost that game
because Darren Bone was even better. That's a kick man, give up zero
and runs and you lose. But a good size athletic fastball that gets up
to like ninety six curveball and I think a slider. But to me it
was just too much like, okay, this this plays well in a ball,
but I don't have a lot of trust that you're going to execute that
you're going to execute, And I maybe maybe this is wrong with me.
If he was a little bit younger doing this at that level, maybe I'd
have a little bit more faith. But I mean, yeah, you know,
he just had those outings where he just couldn't get out of his own
way, and that was that was more so the case than than these dominant
performances. But you know, a little bit of an interesting younger guy too.
Yeah, personally for pitchers, I care quite a bit less about age.
You know, they pop at any time. I agree. I agree,
they could be twenty five, and if they're doing something interesting in a
ball it's still worth a follow. But I know what you mean, especially
on the command side of things, like if it's taking you that long to
figure it out, like it's probably not gonna come around. Yeah, like
I mentioned last week, you know, I'd kind of like to put a
cap on how much better it can get for you guys, and I'll just
I'll have more hope for the younger you are that you because because I've seen
it, I've seen the Dodgers help Maddox bron Snap be the worst picture I
think I might have ever seen for a few innings and what have you.
You know, the only guy for me in this in this system that I
looked at was Jorge Marcheko. I yeah, yeah, I think he's interesting.
He's again, he's twenty. He was on the A ball team two
Inland Empire. He had a good line, struck out a decent number of
batters one hundred and twenty four, twenty five point six percent k rate,
five point four percent walk right, which is plus. That's good command.
But you watch him and it's eighty eight to ninety one as a righty,
like it didn't look like this was a plus spinning fastball. His change up
was was pretty good. I thought I was just better of his secondaries,
but he lived around the zone. It kind of has a fun one that
like the craft of pitching we talked a little bit about last week. He
kind of has a little bit of Johnny Quato and him. He'll pause his
delivery to try and throw off the hitter's timing or a quick pitch through his
wind up, and that kind of stuff is fun to see. He's one
that I'm going to put on some like a deeper league watch list because he's
at two percent ownership now. Because he I think had a pretty good line,
but I'm a little bit skeptical it's going to hold up. So he's
another one just keep an eye on. But I think the stuff for him
probably isn't isn't quite there. Yeah, that's a that's a good call.
I had kind of forgotten about him. I'm glad you brought him up.
There are sometimes there are even righties that are a little bit softer tossing.
But you know, like you said, a good picture. I kind of
right off be like, all right, I like this guy and I want
to watch him, but I don't think I'm really going to throw him out
there as like a B side. But and then all of a sudden,
you see a year or two later, and there's still like producing a double
A at like a pretty high clip, like the Orioles guy A Pinto.
He reminds me of that. I kind of was just like, oh,
I really like this guy, but this is just gonna be a fan thing.
I don't think he's really gonna and I don't know. He kind of
bruise your wrong a little bit. So all right, The A's man Matt
Last year, and I don't want to say that it was like a disappointment.
If we would have had a hitters draft, probably would have taken Brett
Harris with my first pick. Last year, I really kind of thought the
bat was getting juicier, more power. I had cited, I think last
year an interview that I heard with his manager and him talking about because he
because he had went on this stretch where he hit he had a good amount
of home runs, like I think it was like six weeks worth towards the
second half of the season where he hit like just as many home runs as
he did the rest of his pro career. The manager was talking about how
he made no change to anything that he was doing at the plate. No,
you know, you talk about how it's really hard to make a change.
So I'm like, all right, maybe this guy doesn't have to make
a change, and he's just going to start hitting for some power and a
pair of that with his you know, plus defense and a good hit tool
and all that stuff. I thought Bred Harris might really kind of take off.
But it turns out that the power might have just been the power production
might have been a little bit of a tease. I won't say that he
had a bad season, but it was just not as exciting as I had
thought. But he was my selection last year. There, Jordan Diaz has
been a success here, I think, even though I'm still hoping on more
there in the bigs. I don't know how you feel about Jordan Diaz,
but kind of fits the bill of a lot of type of hitters that I
like. Darryl Hernees. I know he came from the Orioles, but he's
still in their system. I think he had a pretty good year, pretty
f I think he's gotten a lot more popular. My picture selection last year
was Jorge Wan. Excuse me, my picture selection was jorgey Wan. I
had de ccited that he's probably a relief pitcher, and that he is,
but he did not have a very good, very good season. Let's do
let's do hitters first, and you know, I'll double tap. I think
Brett Harris is still a guy that has interests, you know, like he
wasn't great when he was at times this year, but that overall line,
like he doesn't strike out, you know, fifteen percent, pretty good walks,
a decent clip, has some speed. I think the power was maybe
where you thought there might be a little bit more this year, you know,
nine homers across four hundred and sixty one played appearances. Like, probably
want a little more out of a guy that's going to play third base,
But I don't know. I'm still kind of interested. I think that was
an underrated line, and especially in points leagues, Like I've got him on
one of those deeper points league's teams, and I still think that there might
be a regular there. So I'm not I'm not writing him off yet,
really like he's had a big league chance coming. But just like I said,
I really kind of thought the offensive profile was taking this an exciting step.
Yeah, and maybe it's just this is a step back here for him
and it comes to fruition, especially when the A's are playing in Vegas,
you know. But I also really liked Diaz. I think he's another one
that he didn't light the world on fire in the BIGS, But I still
think is a pretty interesting hitter and has a fairmount in common with her Knyes.
I think he's got there's there's some overlap in the skill set. They
don't strike out very much, they hit a bunch of line drives. I
think they're gonna hit for a high average and run into some doubles in a
couple of homers. So I like both those guys, especially for leagues where
any kind of K penalty, those are those are really interesting ones. And
Diaz is still still very young. I think he's only twenty two, twenty
three. I mean, do it, hitter who you got? Sure?
This was a pretty easy B side selection for me because a lot of other
options. I just to me, it was like found something. I was
like, I don't this is not my guy, Like it's a corner profile
and does something wrong or whatever, you know. So I actually was reasonably
excited about this one, even though my first note on him was basically wins
by default. But that's more because the rest of the B side guy's sort
of B side eligible guys. I just like, there's not something here,
but I'm going with Brennan Malone. Brennan Malone is a second baseman, made
it up to high A this year, did play around the infield, played
a little third, played a little first, has some decent pop. You
know, it's not earth shattering, but seventeen homers on the year, fourteen
point eight percent walks. I really like that I think that shows a plus
approach and eighteen point nine percent strikeout rate, which is really good. You
know, twenty two years old, he's at high A. Like maybe he
could have been challenged a little bit more up to double A this year with
how he how he did, but I think that the overall line was pretty
good, and I think he's going to fit in a corner somewhere. He
played shortstop in college, so he's got in field skills. Maybe the power
doesn't quite have enough to make him play, but the rest of the all
around skill set seems like it's there and it's real like having a decent enough
contact approach. He hits a decent amount of line drives and a two eighty
five three ninety eight four eighty eight triple slash is quite good. So Malone
wins for me. Again, it's not the most exciting guy we're going to
talk about, I think, but that profile was far and away my favorite
of the B side eligible guys, and I like it he was. I
could say he was firmly my runner up bat selection. A guy who gotten
some DSL noise earlier in his career, Brian Blvis. I just I couldn't
get into him, but I did watch a little bit. Colby Thomas,
I think is a little bit interesting and you know, has some of some
stands, but the swing of miss stuff was just too much for me.
Johnny Butler is a guy that I watched a decent amount of. I like,
not sure how much of a chance he really has. Junior Perez is
kind of a speedy guy who's a little interesting, but was about it for
me and I went with I decided to go with a Cooper Bowman who they
who they got into Monta Frankie Montas trade from from the Yankees. What a
twenty twenty one fourth round pick out of Louisville. Like I said, this
is not my most exciting selection. But he's stole almost forty bags, right,
I think. I think the combination of him being what contact skills,
I think a higher level contact skill with the stolen bases could make him interesting
in you know, particular formats. When I first started watching him this season,
which which was shortened, right, he didn't get he missed a lot
of time too, I think. But uh, the first thing I noticed
was like, man, this guy is voweling a lot of pitches off and
I don't think his strike rate strikeout rate was too horrible, like twenty one
percent. But he does chase a lot, I think, and he chases
a lot out of his own, but he gets the bat on it all
the time. So I was like, man Doug a little bit. He
saw a four point two two pitches per play it appearance in the Big Moved
Dow MLB. There's there's only like nine guys who saw more pitches per played
appearance than four point two two. Do you have any idea who who might
be on that list? Oh? I love this game, let's see.
So, yeah, he was. I came up with I came up with
a couple of guys who I think have low So I'm thinking like Soto,
Matt Soto, Crawford, JP Crawford, Matt Crawford, Bregman, Matt Bregman.
Okay, all right, those are the I was thinking like high OBP
guys who maybe, like we were, you know, spitting on a lot
of pitches. But so, and it's like four point two two to put
it in perspective minor leaguers. And I did the math on everybody, but
uh, I mean, he's still like sixty fifth in the minors. So
it's not like some super super crazy number. But minor leaguers or excuse me,
major leaguers who saw more pictures pitches than that per played appearance were Ryan
McMahon, I sung, Kim McMahon led the majors. I think I had
like four point nine or something like that. House on Kim, Max Munsey,
Matt Olsen, Justin Turner, Jake Sawinsky, kl Schwarber, and Adley
Rushman. Don't know that was this fun little thing I got curious about.
But back to Bowman, three hundred and thirty four played appearances this year.
All I think those were all in double A. He had a little rehab
stint and complex whatever. He doesn't hit ground balls at an alarming rate.
He's got some pool power. He hits what eight home runs, Like I
said, he stole thirty eight bases. They had him playing second base,
third base, shortstop in some center field. I think he is fast.
I don't think he's like Berner Burner type guy. Drakeouts weren't too horrible.
He walks a little bit. He does have a fast swing, and he's
got a quick he's got quick hands. There's some stuff to like, and
the more that I watched Bowman the more I kind of am getting more drawn
in. I think he can put the bat on the ball. Talk about
like having like a large hit radius if you will, or whatever. I
think he has that sort of swing and he will swing it stuff out of
his own and put it in play sometimes, but a lot of those just
result in foul balls. So yeah, I don't know. This felt good
enough, felt like my best option. So Cooper Bowman. Yeah, he's
not a bad pick at all, especially looking at a rodal league. I
mean, thirty eight bags in three hundred and some plate appearances is a pretty
solid rate, and it's not like he's a zero on the power side of
things. Now. He's a solid pick. And he came back from July
seventh to September sixteenth, one hundred and eighty played appearances. He slashed two
ninety nine to three seventy three selected four to eighty one strikeouts, were thirty
six strikeouts in thirty eight games, So probably still pretty much on par with
his strikeout rate. But yeah, I don't know. In that system.
I feel good about him getting a major league chance, too, especially since
they traded for him, and I give those guys and I imagine the GMS
kind of give those guys a little bit more benefit of doubt and a little
bit more leeway. But I don't know, maybe that's that's a poor assumption.
I think it can go either way. I think sometimes they come in
the new organization realizes like, oh shit, we traded for a bit of
a lemon. That's why that were willing to include this guy in the trade.
But sometimes they are like, let's see, let's see how they they
run and yeah, okay, so a's pictures ont of b side names in
here. Yeah, they kind of Surprisingly, there were more interesting guys than
than I was expecting. I'll let you go first, who'd you come up
with? I was just I was just given some hat tips to previous besiders,
like Joey Sis your guy. I think I've told you before that I
think it was for pictureless. Maybe you wrote that really long, detailed top
one hundred pictures and you stuffed es like nobody nobody was talking about him,
and I think you put him like twenty first or something on that list and
sold me on him, like I took him in one of my late pick
in one of my deeper leagues, and I was a little bummed about how
this this year turned out. He's still young. I feel like he's still
got time to figure stuff out. But he's a he's a B side.
I think achievement. Were you bummed by his major league a start or yeah,
or just as a whole, no, because I think he still was
decent in the in the minors, but I think he they really have sort
of thrust him into the majors and maybe he's not quite ready for it.
I don't know. The problem is, I'm I'm just like a fan of
the guy too, so I have to be a little careful with this stuff.
But he's He's the kind of guy with the cherries that I think is
just he's going to figure this out. He's going to figure out how that
fastball plays and how he can play his off speed out. I don't know.
I have faith. I have faith that Joey ess is going to be
a good a good fantasy pitcher at some point here. I think it might
take a little bit of time, but he checks so many of the boxes
that I love, being aggressive, pitching in the zone, honing in on
your craft, playing with different pictures, being a different guy from outing to
outing, and this is a guy who wasn't like some highbrow pitching prospect as
an amateur, he was he was mostly like a catcher in high school and
they and the Braves started him out, and I just I love his mentality
and I think he has good enough weapons that it's all gonna bake well.
But yeah, maybe I think he's one that the looking looking at the line.
This year, the home runs just got they went from not great to
incredibly bad to in in the majors. Like whatever, you can throw it
out the window, but three point six homers per nine is a lot of
horse. Yeah, for sure. That sort of profile, I think you
run into that. And if he's going to be aggressive in the zone he's
got and yeah, he's got to be precise. And someone was being in
the PCL and I gave up what four home runs his first debut or whatever.
But yeah, guy who like maybe you don't especially like smaller leagues and
stuff like maybe maybe you don't have to be on him, but just like
keep him on your watch list, like give him a year, maybe maybe
two. Being I'm married, I'm married to Joe, Yes, Joeys,
is there a man. Another of the pictures that came over and that in
that same trade. I was really interested in Robert Selenas too when he was
with the Braves. I mean, he was just punching everybody out and clearly
the command wasn't there and and has sort of remained not there, and the
strikeouts have come down to like more very good as opposed to insanely elite rates.
So he's another one that I looked at and I've kept tabs on.
But like you've heard, we talked about how I love pitchers. Throwing a
lot of innings like that tells me that they are efficient, that the ORG
believes in them as a starter, that they can get through the lineup multiple
times. That has never been Selena since I don't think ever going to be
Selenas. I just this year cemented for me, he's going to be a
reliever. You know, still punched out thirty percent of batters, made it
up to double A's twenty two. His slider remained really good, but I
just don't see it working for him as anything but a reliever. He's a
type that scared me and that I try to stay away from, in the
sense that someone with like a really loud secondary it could be a breaking ball,
it could be a change up in the lowers can really dominate just throwing
that ball, throwing that offering loosely. It's still like a rare case that
somebody like him is that good, that productive doing that. Don't get me
wrong, dynasty k appeal is a git, but those are the guys that
I'm scared of. I try to shy away. Not that it can't work.
There's been plenty of success stories of those types. It is rare,
though. I mean I ran a small study on this earlier in the season
when people were getting hyped about another now A's arm, Joe Boyle where when
he's in the red system, like he was running twelve thirteen percent walk rates
at every stop, and yeah, he's punching a ton of batters out too.
But I looked back at who are the pitchers that have had success with
running multiple walk rates above I think I did twelve percent, and it was
like one or two names that were even fantasy relevant arms, and it was
only after they'd gotten their walks under control. And Selenas is above that and
has been at basically every stop he's ever had, So he's one that I
don't think he's got it. You know, he showed some stuff at Double
A, and maybe he'll keep bringing the walks down. But it's not It
doesn't happen that often. Did you pick somebody? I don't remember. I
didn't. I didn't. I was talking about some of the guys that i'd
considered and given. Some had tipsto old B siders. I'm going with James
Gonzales here. He's a Panamanian undrafted free agent. I don't think he was
even in their international class. He was just an international free agent in twenty
eighteen, I want to say so. He's been in the Oakland system for
a while, kind of flown under the radar, a couple of seasons of
mediocrity. Obviously lost twenty two. Then has been a little bit more interesting
in the last two years, where his strikeouts have ticked up. He continues
to get some decent ground ball numbers, and he's maintained for the most part,
the walks. He's a hefty boy. He's listed at six two two
fifty seven over going to take the over on that. He is a big,
big guy. As I said, Lefty Gonzalez attacks with the upper eighty.
It's a low nineties. It looks like a sinker, you know.
He's kind of got a little bit higher arm slot, but I think he's
trying to sink his fastball most of the time. But he's got a good
slider, a curveball, and a changeup that he mixes in. The slider
in particular, I thought was pretty effective, kind of eighty to eighty three
kind of sweeper, classic sort of sweeper across the zone, and then the
changeup worked pretty well, mostly against Rity's but he did. I notched a
couple in that were in the low eighties to lefties as well. He's around
the zone reasonably well. He walked more than I thought when he got up
to High A this year, because I've seen a couple of the starts down
at a ball and I thought, oh, this is a pretty interesting arm.
But the walks ticked up to about thirteen percent at High A, which
is higher than I like, for sure. But he kept striking guys out
and his strackout rate actually went up as well. And it really was just
four games at High A, so we're just scratching the surface. And his
fip was still great because with everything is going down, like you know,
the little bit higher armslot a sinker from there, the slider, the curveball,
the change up, like all of everything is going down. So he
didn't give up very many home runs this year. A little bit higher babbitb
what you would expect from a number of round balls. I think he's going
to keep them all on the ground. I think even as a big guy,
he still has a decent body control. So I'm going to round up
up on his command a little bit. It hasn't shown out great so far,
but I liked him, you know, I think he's He's interesting enough
to follow. He's not someone I'm gonna go out and pounce on in any
off season draft, but I'm curious to see how he does. He'll probably
go back to HI and I wouldn't be surprised to see him up in Double
A next year, and it'll be a test to see if that command stays
where it's been. But pretty pretty good little line so far. I like
it. He was. He was definitely one of my four finalists in the
A system. And I think Matt this this might be the first not yet
creative guy in fantracks that that you kind of officially put out. I think
that's right. Yeah, he's not in fan tracks. Yeah he's in n
A welcome. That's always kind of fun. That one I kind of wrote
down that, you know, yeah, he's over top left D Definitely,
I'm definitely taking the over on the weight. I think overall, I was
just wondering about the arsenal kind of holding up and having enough enough teeth.
I think he's fairly soft tossing right, but I think there there are some
ingredients to like there. With Gonzalez, there was two other guys that I
wanted to kind of bring up. I don't know if you watched them at
all, but Brady Basso, did you watch any of him? I didn't,
but yeah, no, I saw decent line. I think I ended
up rounding down on him because A the Is were the very last system that
I did, so I was like trying to just choose between a couple and
be the sixty three innings. I was like a bunch of short outings.
Seventeen start, sixty three innings. It's like that's a start, you know.
So, I don't remember what other picture it was that I was watching.
Maybe, oh, I think it was a Mazer start. Basa was
on the other side, and you know, kind of out pitched him.
And Maddy ba backpack had asked me, what did he look like? I'm
like, I gotta pay more attention. I don't know. But he was
a twenty nineteen sixteenth round pick out of Oklahoma State. I think this year
is just finally healthy. There was Tommy John in there and all that stuff,
and I can't really argue against his production. It was pretty great in
double A. I mean his er was one point eight nine point eight nine
whip and I think it was five starts in double A he struck out nine
k P nine at one point eight nine walk for nine. Yeah, and
then so he's older, he's like twenty six now. But I think this
is this is very much a solid B side sort of arm to watch for
it, but I didn't quite pick him. Jacob Waters Waters is another interesting
guy, good sized, righty at six four, with stuff, lots of
stuff, but the command really really relaxed and kind of sunk him for me,
with a big fastball that gets into the high nineties, big time curveball.
If you kind of wanted the game our game here, I think he
would have been a really great choice because if he starts racking up a bunch
of k's, which is I think he's super capable of, especially if he's
in double A. You can see the popularity getting there. It's more like
a one night stand kind of a kind of a relationship to me than really
kind of wanting to But but keep an eye, keep an eye on that
dude. He's he's super interesting. My official little stamp here, I'm gonna
go with a big, young lefty by the name of Eduardo rivera big lefty.
He's listed at six seven, two thirty seven. We're talking about finding
guys that check all your boxes. He does not check all of my boxes.
He is not a pitcher. Okay, he is not executing things at
a very high level at all. But I also don't think he's like this
wild guy right getting his offerings around the plates is kind of good for him
right now. But the fastball gets up to ninety six ninety seven, I
think there's some nice natural cut from a lefty angle that I think is a
bit different. I don't particularly like his whole motion and get up. It
does not instill in me a confidence that command will get really great. But
you know, still young and guys that like that have proven me wrong before
in the past. There's a slider, there's a change up in there now.
He is a little headwhacky, which I absolutely do not love. I
don't like headwhackers. Definitely needs a wrangle things in. This is a bit
of a project. I think there is a little bit of a foundation still.
I think I think he's more athletic than he might appear. I've seen
him have to go run and back up bases and stuff like that, and
he moves pretty well for a guy this size. Like I said, definitely
not the rawss guy I've ever seen. But he's a big body with some
hard stuff, a repertoire that I think can get really nasty, and he
just might be putting some things together. Let's see. On the season,
it was all all single a stuff. He had sixteen games, twelve stars,
sixty nine innings nice nice about four point four and a third inning on
average. The era is not grade five point three five. The whip is
high, but he did strike out nine point seven eight per nine. The
walks were up there to almost six, which is not good. Strike percentage
fifty nine percent not good. But like I said, if there is a
little bit more polish. I think the stuff is loud enough to the kind
of rack up some case be young in hi A, maybe even double A,
and there's there's definitely a body that that could lead to some horsepower.
So this eleventh round pick out of Puerto Rico in twenty twenty one, I
think was very much a project pick. There's been some progress, I think,
but it is. And that's what you know, people talk about like
pitching development. A lot of times that conversation is focused on, Hey,
you know they took this guy in the first round, this guy in the
second round, and you know, turn them into this whatever to me,
and maybe I'm just off my rocker, but it's these types of arms that
I want to judge pitching development on. Right your Mitzlerowski's you're Maddox Bruns,
you're you know these guys that are just extremely raw. Well, how good
do they get these guys, because that's how I want to judge how well
they can develop a picture or not. But anywhoy, Eduardo Rivera, I
don't know that's my pick. What do you think, Matt? The walks
scare me. That's That's what I'm saying. But I do think you know,
a big body guy like that's really like wild wild right there are there
an't like super bad, you know, uncompetitive non professional offerings. It's just
yeah, he's he can't throw strikes at a high rate at this juncture.
Yeah, and you know he's a big guy. He's still relatively young,
you know, twenty and twenty years old, and a ball is totally normal,
like progression. He was still a teenager. Points a lot of this
here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, I think that's it's an
interesting pick. And I think your point about the development is a good one.
And it is watching guys like this to see maybe is there a coach
there that's doing something different. Is there an approach that they're having some success
turning stuff into pitching, which I think you and I both find very interesting.
Shy away from just stuff for stuff's sake, but it starts to turn
into a picture. It's kind of like what I was saying about Joe Rock
last week, Like he's a guy that reminds me of that kind of profile
where he walks too many. He's six seven, all limbs. The stuff
is pretty darn interesting, but right he walks everybody if he gets out under
control, you got a guy. Yeah, because if you look at his
game logs, there are there are some outings where that are very interested in
me, but I have not been able to watch them because they weren't broadcasts.
Right, Like Rancho, he goes seven innings, he gives up three
heads, he walks three strikes out five strike percentages at like sixty percent,
Like I want to see what that looks like. I felt like he did
have some outings towards the end of the season, like in August that were
definitely I thought improved from earlier outings as far as just like strike throwing.
I'm not going to pick like a raw guy like this unless I see some
improvement as the season goes on. So I thought there was a little bit
You're not trying to row dog it yet, you know, all right,
Matt, let's go to like really a horrible b side hunting ground your Mariners.
You know, it's just so hard because every Mariners prospect with a lick
of talent just seems to gather some fans, don't you think. I Mean
it's like, look at this guy down in the DSL. He's got five
plate appearances and his name's Julio his name's Julio Man and uh, I think
he's shown some stuff. You hit the ball really hard, like, oh,
he's owned at like at least one percent. Right, Yeah, I
know you're trolling a little bit with this, but the Mariners' minor league hype
system is real. They're so good at hyping up their young guys and that
it is a difficult hunting ground. And I actually did consider going on the
first year players side just to talk about they had a pretty good draft this
last year, I think, and talking of some of the maybe the lesser
known part of that pretty impressive draft class they got. Yeah, you're right,
like they are well talked about in fantasy circles and especially in the Dynasty
dugout. You know we got we got a few Mariners stands in there making
sure everybody knows about every bottom that Lazara Monte's hits um jesting here, but
deservedly so. They do have a lot of talented players. But beside history
here, how do you feel about these two bats here? Any thoughts on
Robert Prez Junior or Spencer Packard. I think they've both been fairly decent B
side selections in the past year, but maybe not quite. Yeah, I
liked Perez a bit more than Packard coming into the year. I think I
had one league where I had Perez for a good bit, like maybe the
first half, first three quarters of the year, and he showed some stuff.
He hit for some power, but the strikeouts kept ticking up and up
and up, and yeah, eventually I didn't really think that was gonna come
like that. I really didn't, and the power didn't quite show. I
thought he was gonna have a little bit more. I mean, you see
him, he's a super strong guy. I actually like his swing a decent
amount, right, I thought he was going to get to more of that
power. So he was a bit disappointing to me. But Packard, I
do think, had a pretty good year again, kind of flies under the
red arby, doesn't steal bases really, but his plate approach is like an
here's an old college guy. So yeah, I mean he's twenty five at
double A, like that's not crazy, but he's I think he's like in
that Mariners vein that they've really been preaching for their hitters and then their pictures
too. But the sort of I forget what they say. It's like dominate
the zone or something, and he's one of those guys like he walks,
he doesn't strike out very much. He's very much focused on the plate approach
side of things, and that's a quieter skill set that sometimes goes under the
right ar and fantasy. So Packard I think ended up being a better pick
up the two. Though I liked pres more coming into the year, so
Packard was a good one. Yeah, I think Packard's got a pretty decent
shot here, at least a try as like a platoon bat. Jerry Depoto
loves his platoon bats, you know, like half that lineup, even after
the core that is in there, he's going to have half the platoon bat.
I am not totally done with Robert Prez Junior though there's too much good
hitting, good approach match with potential big power for me to quite quit on
at twenty three years old. You know, sometimes those guys, those big
power bats, they can take a little while to grow. For the Mariners
hitters, I wanted to go Albert jo Rodriguez because he was the guy that
I liked a couple of years ago. I think it was after his twenty
one season that I was like, oh, this is an interesting power approach
blend, maybe a little bit of speed, but just kind of an interesting
all around bat. And then he was pretty bad last year and rumblings from
within the org that they were really down on him. They were like,
he doesn't care. He's not working at all at this so sometimes you take
those reports with a little bit of grain of salt. It was not a
good showing, but he bounced back up with this year. He's like Julio's
wing man, right, have they been best Yeah? Like little kids or
whatever. Yeah, And then he bounced back a decent amount this year and
still wasn't getting talked about a lot. So it's like, oh, maybe
I'll reach a bit because I think he's up at like four percent ownership or
something, so a little higher than I wanted to go for the real B
side selections, but I just wanted to give him some props for turning his
career around, honestly, like he was I heard like I'm out ready to
just cut bait, like they were gonna just leave him in hy A and
they weren't going to promote him, and they were like, you gotta figure
this out, and he did it a bit this year, So props to
him. He ended up having a pretty solid season. Did he did?
I was kind of surprised when I was looking at his numbers. My Mariner's
bat for this season, I'm going to go with their twenty twenty two sixth
round pick out of North Carolina State, drash Hood, who I know.
I mentioned to you a little bit. I don't think you're the biggest fan.
Man. I don't want to put too many words in your mouth.
Just for one, I'm happy to find a Mariner that I like that you
don't, so that ever works out, I can rub that in your face.
He was at one percent. It's almost like the what the scene in
Moneyball where it's like if he's a good hit or why doesn't he hit good?
Right? And that he I don't think he didn't hit bad, but
uh no, No, he's an athletic guy with fast hands and there's power.
I think the numbers can be better than what they are, and part
of that might play into what He started off at Penn right, and he
missed like two seasons of college before he transferred. So he's twenty two to
twenty three at a ball he can run. He sold eighteen in five hundred
and twelve games and that's an able. But I don't know. Maybe I'm
wrong here, but Hood seems faster than that to me, just from a
raw sprint speed. Like I said, he need hit for power. I
think there's more contact in there to be had, or at least maybe I'm
just hoping. He really came on at the end of his low A stint
and then was promoted. I know you had cited like strikeout speed, something
that you didn't love about him. He was at twenty one percent on the
season, get being an older guy, but during like that the last month
or so, I think he had cut it down to like seventeen and still
that's at a ball and then they jumped up again when he was in High
A. I think that there is more talent and ability here than the numbers
are showing. I know when they had what they had like a select instructional
camp or whatever. You know, there's there's a lot of big names in
there in that system, and the Hood is part of that was invited to
that you can play in the dirt. They had them at second base,
third base, shortstop. Maybe not a whole lot of sluck. I think
there's some more in here. With Hood. Yeah, I don't know.
You don't like it. Like I said, this is a hard place to
find somebody, but I like, I think Hood has a chance to make
be a big leaguer. Yeah, I think the two things that for me,
because I've seen him a bit. The two things for me were his
performance at High A was a pretty big red flag for me. It wasn't
a huge sample. Sixteen games, sixty plate appearances, sixty eight plate appearances,
it's not a ton of sample, but the strikeouts ticked up quite a
bit, and the walks were fine. But the overall line like he wasn't
hitting for much power, and that is an absolute bandbox of a park.
And his overall line, you know, eighty seven WRC plus is a twenty
three year old in high A sort of an advanced college bat that seemed to
be writing some momentum. I would have liked to see a bit more.
And then the other thing is in this organization there are legitimately like ten second
basemen ahead of him, and I don't think he's gonna have the pop to
play third, so it's second base or nothing. And of course Trader Jerry
might ship him off in some deal and he might get some run somewhere as
soon as next season. Who knows for me. Those were the two things
when I was looking at the B side options, I was like, yeah,
I see a little bit here. I agree with a lot of what
you said. I think the swing is all right, he's got some speed.
There were enough knocks here that I wasn't excited about this pick. Yeah,
maybe in a year from now, Joe Doyle and I will we'll tweet
at you at your non existent Twitter account and say, hey, look at
how good Josh Hood is doing. I like it, and it's kind of
a bit of a fan I saw, oh is he okay? Interesting?
And it'll be an interesting comparison because I'm taking a guy that is basically the
same as Hood. He's just a little bit older and one level about.
I'm taking Leo Revas. I am not excited about this, Like as a
Mariners fan. When I'm talking to my Mariners fans who aren't quite as much
of a sicko as I am, and they don't know the top thirty prospects
in the Mariners system, Leo Riovos is not a guy I'm mentioning to them.
You know, I don't he might make the major leagues, but he's
not some super hidden talent. But he reminds me a lot of Jose Cabiira,
another guy who nobody was talking about, but had really good plate skills,
a lot of quality defensive play, and just gets on bass. You
know, again, going back to that Moneyball scene, Why do you like
him? He gets on bass. So he walked at a nineteen point seven
percent clip. That's not a typo. Nineteen point seven one of the highest
in the minor leagues this year with a minimum of four hundred play appearances.
He also swiped fifty bags. I don't think he's super fast, but he's
an aggressive brunner and he didn't get caught that often. Yeah, he got
caught ten times, so that's like totally acceptable for fifty steals. He kept
his strikeouts in check. They had kind of ticked up a little bit in
his previous couple of seasons. Twenty eight percent up at tripa A for Cincinnati
last year, twenty six percent in High A just a couple of years ago.
I think he's one of those like journeymen. He's going to make the
majors as like a backup, second basement, third basement shortstop kind of thing,
has good plate skills. Again, there's nine second basemen that are probably
ahead of him in the system right now. So do I think it's going
to happen for the Mariners. Probably not, But I do think the Mariners
unlocked something with him. He's not a big guy, he's not super strong,
but they really turned him loose and I think he can stick on the
dirt somewhere. So maybe as a late career as he comes up and he's
a cheap backup infielder on a contending squad and the plate approach I think is
going to carry him. It looks like he's got a really good eye.
He doesn't chase very much, and he hits a decent number of line drives.
So I'm not thrilled about it. But Leo rivas to me what Joshua
wants to be, and it's just like a little bit worse at some of
the key kings. So you know, it's it's interesting though you talk about
it is hard to find a bad here. You just mentioned a guy who
was very much for B side that got some rum this year. I had
him in some of my small leagues. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, he's
not out. He's snuck through. So you just never really know. A
couple other bats that I watched a little bit, Bill Knight, Colin Davis,
Gay Mancatta, Hogan Windish, Walking Cabrera, I mean Cabrera and Windish
didn't really any of those other guys that Bill Knight, Colin Davis from Mankata
get any of your interest. I wanted to like Mancatta last year and caught
a little bit of him because he was on that a ball team that I
watched a bunch of in medeth Stow. He was like as good as some
of the guys on that team, but the guys that he was like kind
of as good as were all seventeen or eighteen, So it was like yeah,
And also the way he was getting to it like he's probably striking out
too much, didn't quite have the power. So I wanted to like him
because he was really good on the complex or really good in the DSL that's
what it was in twenty twenty one, and then really good on the Complex
in twenty twenty two, and so I was like, oh, I'm really
interested. And I kind of was like that small, you know, twenty
one game sample at a ball last year. I was like, I'm kind
of gonna throw that out. I think he's going to be pretty good this
year. And he repeats a ball and he's okay, you know, so
Macatta I soured on a little bit. Wind just did some stuff that I
thought was pretty good. I you know, he's got some pop. But
the case, you know me, if not having really good pop, I'm
just not in it. Sweet Spell. I've kind of been following and I'm
like, maybe there's something there. Night was all right in Everett again.
A little concerned about out the power to k Ratio there, but I think
it's a decent athlete. I don't know if it hits the ball like really
hard or anything. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then there's like this
just huge chunk of guys that I'm really excited about. And those are the
guys that are just going to explode it Everett next year. I think,
you know, Royo and Emerson and Pete and and I know I know,
and I'm we're we're b siding here, So I'll stop there. But this
is why I think it's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough for a
lot of these guys that we're talking about to really get much run because they
do really do have a strong crop and and I don't think even the public,
like I was looking at the fangrass list again and prepping for the al
West, and they were rounding down on a bunch of these guys, and
I just think every single one of them exceeded the fangrafts right up of them.
It's like a pretty impressive system, really, so it'll be fun to
watch. Let's move on to arms. I might I have a lot to
say here. I'm assuming Van Scooter is. Yeah, I'm so much either.
You can listen to our draft and hear me guess you about that one.
I'll touch on like two other guys that I at least worth knowing.
Neither of them is interesting in like the grand scheme of things. But Tyler
Cleveland, you know, he's alrighty. He doesn't throw hard at all,
but it's like side arm, it's funky, that kind of profile. You
end up looking like a reliever. So you don't have to care about that
for a while because he's a twenty three year old and a ball. But
I wouldn't be surprised if he makes it up to double a next year,
like maybe it'll start it high and then make it up to double A and
be adapt believer in the next couple of years. Again like some trouble for
sure. Yeah, yeah, Like he doesn't strike people out, but he
gets a ton of ground balls. He doesn't want anybody. He's good like
he's just a good kind of funky reliever type I think is what he's going
to be. Another another reliever, like most people should know him if they're
if you're talking about b siders, but per Lander Barroa, like that guy
is going to be a high leverage really very soon his next year. I'm
kind of surprised they didn't give a more run this year actually, because his
stuff is just wild, so insanely good. And then Riley O'Brien is another
one. He's old, he's been up and down. I don't think he's
on the forty man anymore now, but he has been in the past.
But he's another one that I think is just going to be a holds leagues
Like maybe he gets some middle innings for the Mariners as soon as next year.
So those relievers all I'll have some interest. But Van Scooters then Scooters
the prize here. I'm going to go with the first year player pitcher in
their system, so I'll save that. But there were there were two other
arms more or less just kind of wanted to ask you your opinion of But
Jimmy Joyce and Michael Morales. Like them both, Yeah, definitely like them
both. And both these guys were I think just above my threshold. Think
Morales might have been two percent. And Jimmy Joyce, Jimmy Joyce, I'm
sure was owned. I think he was owned in my league. That's why
I cross him up. But m I was surprised. I thought both of
these guys when I pulled the raster rates would be higher, but they were
both at one percent when I pulled them allywhere yeah, okay, yeah,
that sounds about right. I've added and dropped Morales a couple times in the
past couple of years because he'll have stretches where he looks really good, but
I think the ks just aren't going to be there as he goes up levels,
like That's what it seems like. Every level he's gone up, the
k's drop, and I'm worried about that continuing and him not being able to
get out that way. Joyce a little more interesting to me also because he
gets good number of ground balls his arsenal I think plays for that pretty well.
And then another guy like to be in early on. I think again
he might already have enough helium that he's probably at three or four percent maybe.
But Jeter Martinez, he's another one that he's super young, flashing ninety
seven ninety eight in the Dominican apparently. I think he's another one that's going
to come up next year and light the world on fire at State side.
So I'm interested to see that. But those again, I didn't get a
lot of video of him and each of these other guys. There's enough that
was like, eh, let's hold our horses, like Jimmy Joyce for me,
seventy innings, like throw one hundred next year and then we'll talk.
Yeah, but he's probably the next one for me after Van Scooter. It's
like those two, they look like they've got real skills. Right on,
let go, let's move on to the ranger. This has not been the
most successful b siding hunting grounds for me. Iam Mohler Catcher last year has
a lot of power. I'm not interested anymore. I chose a couple of
guys, so I don't even think are in baseball anymore. In the past,
it hasn't been good the arm. I think I went with Ryan Garcia,
who was a second round pick of THEIRS several years back and had a
lot of injury stuff, and I think he kind of had a nice season
this year, but I'm just not super super into it. I was kind
of thinking some velocity would come back with him. I don't think it really
did. I need to hit here, Matt, and I took McCarty,
you know, with the that was my first pick in the pitcher draft that
we did right. Maybe not quantity wise, but close to. I kind
of feel like the Rangers just as many interesting B side arms as the Astros.
Oh, interesting what you're thinking about. I will, I will,
And I know I heard a draft on his podcast, The Jeff Ponce on
his podcast The Ninetieth Percentile. They were speaking about the depth of the Rangers
arms, and you know, it's kind of funny. You look at what
they took rocker and lighter like early in the first rounds, and I'm sure
some folks are thinking that's not very great picks, but I feel like they
do really well later on. But zach Kent. Did you watch zak Kent
at all? He's on the four, he's on the forty man right now.
He's in the AFL. He's only at one percent. He had one
April start this year and then was on the shelf until August thirty four Triple
A innings in this year. Ten starts nice size, not a hard thrower
at ninety one, but he's got a five to six pitch mix that he
uses well, good breaking stuff, thirty nine percent CSW on the slider,
and he's like he's on some top thirty lists, I think, but very
much a chance at being an MLB starter that there's not much on. He
was hurt, he didn't come back until like August. I think, okay,
they have this Cuban international free agent they signed in twenty twenty two is
interesting. Brian chie not a real tall guy. He's only like six foot.
There's only a handful of broadcasts of him in a ball but a fastball
that he tries to play up in the zone, curveball. So he's got
that North South game going. There's a change up in there that I think
gets some whiffs. I think he controls them all fairly well. There's some
polish here though that I think needs to come, but I could see him
getting some attention. His sort of like plan of attack sings a little vanilla
generic strikes down the middle of the lane. Twenty four years old too,
but like I said, he came over from I'm pretty sure he was in
the professional league in Cuba. But kind of a name to look out for.
Dane Acker twenty twenty fourth round pick, out Oklahoma. He's on some
thirty top thirty lists as well. He's only rostered a one percent. He
was in High A in Double A this year, produced pretty well, had
like a two seven four era at one point two eight whip. Got a
good blend of stuff and execution that I think could could work at the major
league level. Not the hardest thrower ninety two ninety three, but he's got
a little juice in the arsenal. Wonder if the reports I've seen on him
or maybe under selling him just a little bit. Cole Drake is a left
handed pitcher that was down in a ball. He's a twenty twenty two to
eleventh round pick at a junior college. He's a big lefty at six five.
There's not a lot in the archives to watch. I don't think he
came up into full season ball until like July, and of course Down East
doesn't broadcast. He's got a fastball, curveball change. He's kind of interesting.
He sets up he's a left and he sets up on the rubber like
as far as to the right as you possibly can legally go, kind of
which is kind of interesting to me. And he's kind of like more over
the top. So no, no, I don't really know what that's all
about, but he looks the part of a potential starter to me more or
less. Just didn't really have the sample size or the you know, the
kind of oh wow moments that kind of drew me in to make him my
official choice, but definitely like a name on my list to watch. He
gave up some hard contact from a little bit that I saw, but I
don't know. I think if you could get a little bit more calibrated,
he's interesting. They have a righty that they took in the seventh round out
of Long Beach State in twenty twenty two. Luis Ramirez. He missed like
a month of the season, but I thought there are some things to like
outings weren't real long, but he's got a sinker that plays it like that.
He's like sinker slider guy. Both both of those pitchers have some nice
movement on them. Question of length and if they're really going to develop develop
him as a starter, but I think there's a chance there. And then
I don't know. Did you watch any Joseph Montalvo. Yeah, I liked
him. Yeah, dude, he's he's super it. He would have been
my choice if I if I didn't go gag on McCarty. But I think
he's a very exciting B side type potential plus fastball with a nasty change up
at least versus these guys, and a slider. Overall execution I thought was
was dang impressive considering he's only pitched for a few years. He was like
a shortstop or something, I think. But I'm very much keeping my eye
on him. Ninety five innings in this year. Yeah, Yeah, he's
definitely very very B side worthy. I mean I kind of feel like he
would have been draft worthy last week. Yeah, and he was on my
short list too. The trio of Montello, McCarty and Corneelle were my three,
but Corneell is a part of this group that they're all like fo to
six percent owned, and I think that was a little bit too much.
I'm still not hearing a lot about them. So Cornell's twenty year old admitted
to high a almost thirty percent k rate, seven point eight percent walk rate.
Like, I love that, especially for the A and the level,
like one of the better lines if you set the minimum innings at one hundred.
He was tenth in minor league baseball this year in K minus BB rate.
So really interesting arm. Yeah, another good like B side sort of
call for them. They took him in the twentieth round out of Puerto Rico.
Yeah, and that seems like a real hit. And then you know,
I think you've talked about Aiden Curry before and Antoine Kelly, both I
think are underrated arms. Again, they strike a lot of batters up in
a walk, a bunch interesting profiles. Kelly's a reliever. He's one that
I think is going to make the majors next year. Yeah, potentially and
probably be a pretty good reliever for them. They talked about Montalvo and McCarty
last week. I think both have a real shot to start. We'll see
as things go up the ladder if they can keep holding their ratios at the
higher levels. I have a little bit of concern about McCarty maybe not quite
being able to keep the k's going, So he'll be one to watch.
One of Chris Klegg's guys that he's been beating the drum about, Emiliano Tyodo.
He's got electric stuff. I think he's in the AFL too, is
that right? Yeah? Yeah, And I think he's one that the run
hasn't been there. Like a lot of these guys you've mentioned Nate, they've
been sort of shorter outings or coming in relief, kind of kind of mixing
them in or easing them into it. But his stuff is undeniably great.
Another guy that I was really interested in last year, Mark Church. His
walks ticked up a bunch this year, more than I thought they would.
He's a reliever only guy, but this stuff was absolutely dominating last year.
It took back a little bit at triple A this year, but still a
pretty good line. You know, thirty percent strikeout great and you know fourteen
percent walks, so a little bit higher, but you you might live with
that A little bit reminds you a little like jose Leclerk kind of you know,
like brings it in there foreseeing looks great slider, but some command issues.
When he's on, he looks unhittable when he's not. It's a bit
of an adventure. But the guy that I wanted to highlight that, you
know, I would have gone McCarty for my B side here, but I'm
gonna highlight a reliever that I don't think anybody is talking about again. Relievers
like they're pretty fungible. But this is one who's already at Triple A.
I think he could absolutely pitch in the major leagues now watching some of the
video of him. This is Chase Lee, by the way, Chaslee.
I should probably say that at the outset Chase Lee, righty at Triple A
three nine eight ERA this year, you know, okay, but it's the
pcl mostly thirty one percent k rate, ten percent walk rate. He's a
side armor. He reminds me a ton of Thompson, Riley Thompson right for
Arizona's a high leverage reliever in the major leagues. In the World Series right
now, Lee I think has better stuff. It tops out at like ninety
one, but I think the spin is higher than Thompson. His slider has
like two hundred RPMs more spin than Thompson's does. Thompson I think gets a
little bit of extra seamshift to wake break on his but it's still a really
good pitch and he gets groundballs and strikeouts with it. So Chase Ley's my
pick. I mean, again, it's a reliever. How excited can you
get by about that? But it seems a very high probability middle reliever who
might get you some holds And I think these ratios are going to be good.
So but I like it. I love some relief pitcher love. Yeah,
and you're right, like the Texas pitching system is pretty deep, Like
there's arms that are really well regarded that maybe the hype is a little bit
over what you'd expect, but even lighter who I've been a little bit of
a hater on since going back to college, like because I think he walks
too many. He's walked fewer this year and its started to turn it around
a little bit, so he might be something close to the guy that they
envisioned. Rock Porter, I think is pretty darn good. And then so
a bunch of the other guys that you mentioned are all all I think are
interesting for one reason or another. So it's a pretty deep system. I
give the execution edge maybe to Houston, but stuff wise, there's a lot
to like here in Texas. There's another reliever that I that I like quite
a bit, Anthony Hoopy. I can't even pronounce his whole real last name,
but he was a guy that kind of came on my radar. Pitched
like an immaculate inning a couple of years ago, but a real lively fastball
that plays really well up in the zone. And I want to I thought
he was going to be in the AFL. I don't know if he was
or I don't know. And I got a name for you here, Matt,
to just keep a little bit of an eye on. Not created yet
in fan tracks, but David Dava YEO LEO da v A l I L
l O. He did make his full season debut, but there's only one
game and it wasn't broadcast. But he's a twenty one year old from Venezuela
that I have been told to look out for. Interesting. Okay, but
yeah, so a lot of arms there so Rangers' bats. My guy blamed
Krim who's my last pick of our hitter draft, just double tapping on that.
I think ty France with maybe even a little more power, Like I
like him lot as a hitter B side hitter that I'm gonna go with because
you know, I talked about Krim already, but I liked Sandro Fabian a
lot as well, and he's gonna be my official B side selection. Another
guy that Zimborski said people are under rating, and apparently he's got a pretty
good twenty twenty four zips translation, he popped twenty three homers, you know,
swiped six bags, only a fifteen percent k rate, but it's because
he swings at everything. So he's one of those guys that I think his
like chase rate is like thirty six percent or something like. It's really really
high. But he doesn't strike out that much. He just doesn't walk.
He's just super aggressive. The swing isn't perfect. I think it's a little
bit flatter than I would like for a guy that is as strong as he
is, and he is definitely strong. You know, he's a corner guy
right field, left field, primarily interesting enough to me that he's totally under
the radar, Like I don't think he's on any list. I don't think
he's on Ba's list anymore. He was last on Fangrass list in twenty nineteen.
Uh for the Giants, so an organization ago and almost five years ago.
Now it seems like he actualized a bit more of his power this year.
The evs look good, if not great, but I think they have
changed his swing just enough that he's his strong guy and I think he's going
to get to more of it now. So I just wanted to highlight Fabian
again. It's it's not the best profile. This is probably like the best
you're going to see from him. It's a lot of pull. I don't
know if he's going to hit many more fly balls, but he's got the
strength to do damage and he is so aggressive. It's fun to watch him.
He's just always swinging. Whether that turns into like actual fantasy production,
I'm a little bit more skeptical of that to the Nate is, but he's
he's a he's a fun one and uh, you know, I like Cram
a little bit better, but Sandra, Fabian's right there, like he's at
the upper levels. He's got something I like that. I won't lie Man.
I had a hard time with Rangers' bats here, someone finding someone in
this range that I was maybe maybe there's not totally totally fair to say,
like Cam Collie with what he's one percent rostered, I think he could have
easily been my pick here. Clegg likes him and doing some things in the
AFL right now. He's a twenty year old third round prep pick out of
Texas. But even though he's not roster that much, it didn't feel like
a B side to me, Like, I don't know, but I still
I'm like, yeah, he's not like a real big guy. The case
were a lot. I watched some Cody Freeman, from Josh Hatcher, from
Tucker Mitchell, some Josi Gallon, and I just I couldn't really get on
board with with all of that Freeman, Hatcher, and Mitchell, Like I
think, there, you know, there's some stuff to like as far as
hitters, but I don't really see it all playing with their defense to the
big league level. The hitter that I'm gonna sort of stamp here and choose,
I gotta be honest, he's a little bit more popular, he's two
percent rostered. This doesn't really feel like a video pick, and it doesn't
really totally feel like my pick, but I'm gonna go with Marcos Torres,
who is on the back end of some top thirties, turned nineteen after this
season. Hear me out here, Matt, what he's listed at sixty three
like one hundred and sixty five pounds. He's a lefty. It doesn't seem
that tall to me. He didn't necessarily like tear up the DCL or the
Complex League, but got a little run, a little ten game run at
a ball at the end of the season, there's only five games of archives.
I watched everything defensively and offensively. There second to last series of the
season versus Carolina, and he was two for nineteen. Matt, he hit
no, he hit like leadoff. I think a few of those games down
the order he played first. He played a couple of games outfield, couple
in first base. Talk to my friend about Torres, and he was being
cryptic and wouldn't give me the straight answer here. But there is something that
Taurus does is outlier, is very unus usual, especially for his age,
and he wouldn't tell me what it was. But my guess is that Torres
doesn't swing outside of the zone. Now, granted it's only five games or
whatever it was, Yeah, five games. I don't think I saw him
swing out at a pitch outside of the zone once, and if I did,
it was very borderline fastballs up in the zone. How did he strike
out eighteen times and forty one played appearances in a ball? Then he did,
and he would swing a miss and by a good distance. He would
swing at a fastball on the zone and miss miss badly. He did seem
to have I don't know, maybe he's alluding to some very special pitch recognition
type of stuff. I didn't necessarily like the swing. He sort of has
that left handed like a lot of the Asian players have. Where he is
he's swinging and leaning and starting to move towards first base, you know,
mid swing, And that's not necessarily something that I particularly like or look for.
But I mean, hey, that worked pretty well for each row,
right, But what i'd he did like? One thing that I did like.
His outs were a lot louder than his couple of hits. I think
he had a blue single and a ground ball single in that series. But
he did hit some hard line drives and everything seemed to be going. You
know, he's a lefty trying to go over the shortstop's head, trying to
wear out that gap. And you know that. I like that he did
hit. I don't know how true I mean with that sort of swing.
I don't know how we talk about the good swings going the other way.
I don't know if he's really doing that. I watched him in the outfield.
I don't know, it's weird. I don't he's I think he's fast
and then that like Berner Burner, but I think he's fast. I don't
think he has a particularly great arm. There were some opportunities to see that,
but then he didn't make this one throw a guy tagging up from second
while he was in right field to third base. That that did kind of
get your attention. But yeah, I'm gonna go with Torres, mostly because
I didn't like anybody else, partly because my guy has been talking about him,
and he's still extremely young, and if there are some special traits there,
he could be you know, he could be a guy who tears up
a ball next season. I don't know. Matt, don't yell at me,
but that's what I'm doing. I am very skeptical about this one.
But maybe you got some secret insider cryptic information and he'll blow off next year.
I was told that when I watch him, it would become obvious to
me. So it didn't become obvious to me, but I thought it wasn't
like legit, you could watch those five games. I don't think he chased
the ball out of his own really, all right, So that was the
AL West getting in there, getting dirty. Who you're feeling all right?
Oh yeah, nice? So next week we'll do what we'll do the NL
West. It's all right. I think there might be a couple more guys,
a couple of guys that I'm a little bit more. We're excited about
them, some of the hitters here that we did this last week. But
thank you for following along, and thanks to thanks to Chicago Farmer for letting
us use his music. I don't know, do you like the intro song?
I just gonna ask you about it actually, and I you know,
listen for a while, but it's a good song. Yeah. I have
a good buddy who's like a successful musician, producer, what have you,
And he hooked me up and got me got Chicago Farmer to allow us to
use that so yeah, I love it. It's good. Thanks. We'll
let him take us out and uh do well, we'll talk to you next
time, till next time. An hour riding to his head, you have
him down first with the lump bonus face, and on the very next pitch
he up and stole second face with gretest be he wasn't born. He had
di yes uniform