Ninety five miles an hour, riding to his head. He hopping down first
with the lumpbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second face with gretest speed. He wasn't born, he had yes uniform.
Episode thirty of the Prospect B Sides podcast, he is, what are you
going by today? It's rook Rel Yeah, And obviously it's Rookrow Yeah,
and I am Nate Handy. Welcome to the muddiest prospect podcast out there,
and the mud is piling up quite thick. I'm getting quite overwhelmed watching a
lot of minor league baseball, trying to pick out what to talk about,
who might be most interesting for our dynasty leagues. Welcome back still last week.
Thank you. Oh it's great to be back. Yeah, it was
lonely over here, you know, as a return to your roots, you
back to the original podcast format. My roots have no friends. But I
feel like the season, the minor league season is like really honest now,
Matt, because I kind of completed my first sort of like OCD video experiment,
slash project. I don't know if you saw, but I was crazy
enough to cut up and put together Brooks Baldwin's forty batted ball events on the
season. I saw that. I saw that, or at least I saw
part of it, because I think you split it up into a few different
videos, right, and I think I only saw like the first half or
something. Yeah, you can only put so many minute long videos on Twitter.
That's at pitching specs if you want to follow along there, So I
had to split it up into like three different posts. But I'm sure we'll
talk a little Brooks Baldwin. He's one of a handful of bats I've been
tuning into quite a bit. But I wanted to give you some kudos on
an article that you wrote last week about Jackson Holliday. Gave that area that
was once again, very entertaining and smarts, I think, and useful.
Well, it's the sort of story behind my nom de plume today, it's
rook Rel, it's April. Most of this stuff just doesn't matter, and
I mean, I can't help but do it. I know that a lot
of our Dynasty Fantasy Baseball players fall into this trap to two weeks of play
three weeks of play in and opinions are all over the place. Aaron Judge
is no longer an elite fantasy asset. You know, Jackson Holiday can census
top five, top two, top one prospect in the game, he actually
stinks and sell them for anything you can't. I mean, the takes are
so spicy and hot and mostly I think are just short sighted. And I
use Jackson Holliday's well publicized struggles as he's come up to talk about a larger
point both about this is what prospects do when they come up to the biggs
leagues. It is tough. Having an extended stretch of adjustment in the big
leagues is normal even for the very very tippy top of the prospects, let
alone the guys that are farther down the prospect spectrum. I wanted people to
keep that in mind as we evaluate some of these early games, and this
is especially true up and down the minor leagues. We have to keep reminding
ourselves this between Nate and me, as we look at guys, we're like,
oh, is this an exciting new step forward or is this a hot
stretch? And as we've been beating the drum a lot lately, you should
change your opinion about guys pretty slowly. And what we try and do here
is highlight some of the ones that maybe we are changing our mind about a
little bit. And I know that's some of the things that I wanted to
touch on today with my guys. But looking back at how did the very
very best hitting prospects adjusted to the major leagues? In this article, I
wrote, by and large like it was hard for them. You know,
you have your Acunyas and Otani's and Chris Bryants who hit the ground running like
they were among the best players in the league right away, and of course
they weren't without their own ups and downs early in their careers too. But
you've got Byron Buxton who had a negative eleven WRC plus in his first twenty
five played appearances, Vladgerer Junior forty five WRC plus, Julio Rodriguez just two
years ago, people forgot how bad his april was, and people were really
concerned. He was striking out all the time and hitting the ball in the
ground all the time. Ran a negative five WRC plus. That's atrocious,
like worse than one hundred points off of big league average in terms of Wayverne's
created. So having a bad debut doesn't tell you really anything. About their
future or what's going to happen down the line. And while Jackson Holiday at
least of the recent you know, last ten or fifteen years that I looked
at, he's had the worst debut of any of them, But he's also
among the youngest, like he debuted at twenty and had among the least upper
miners plate appearances of any of these guys. All that to say, like,
I'm still pretty sure he's going to be a successful big leaguer, and
nothing about this tough stretch at the big league level has changed that opinion.
As many of you know, I still have questions about how much is he
going to contribute to your fantasy teams, especially in five by five or rot
leagues, because I just don't think he's going to be a big stolen base
threat, and I think the power is more below average to maybe average than
plus. But the guy is going to have a good played approach, He's
gonna hit in a good lineup, and I think gonna play really good defense.
And so he's going to play all the time once he gets established.
But let's just take a breath, Like if you thought that Jackson Holiday was
a really great prospect, two weeks ago and you were clamoring for him to
be in Baltimore. This happens sometimes it shouldn't change your mind too too much
about about his prospects. And I think we just got to think about that
as we evaluate guys all up and down the minor leagues too. So if
you hear me say it's April, it's two weeks or let's change our minds
on a guy slowly, that that's sort of my continuing refrain for at least
the next couple of weeks. I do not disagree, and I think that's
very well said, Matt. Do you mind if we start off with a
couple of hitters that I've been watching a lot of. Let's do it.
Who's been catching your eyes? You've been flipping around the minor leagues. I
gotta say this very early two and a half weeks of minor league season,
and I think that I'm doing this responsibly, Matt. But my opinion of
my Diamondbacks B side selection this year, Gavin Conticello is getting more and more
hopeful. I think. I don't know if you think these ideas, these
thoughts might be responsible or not, But tuning into Hillsboro almost every night to
at least watch his at bats. And you know, we talked a lot
about his improvements hitting the ball out in front. I talked last week about
watching him put the best stroke I've ever seen him put on a ball and
go opposite field and hit a home run. We talked about his sort of
lackluster and weak opposite field contact last season. Now I would say that that's
still a part of his game that is developing, but I think stroking it
much better that way. Still turning on some stuff, and he's off to
a pretty nice start. Arguably has been the best hitter in what's been a
tough hitting league thus far, the Northwest League. I don't know. It's
still cold up this part of the country, and that's true. It's also
cold in the Midwest League, and they have been hit bombs in the Midwest
League. Been watching a lot of Midwest League bats this week too, and
it's been kind of fun and exciting. But yeah, I don't know,
have you been tuning in to any that so I have. I've seen a
good bit of him, you know, some of the good and some of
the i'd say early swings. You could chalk some of them up to one
thing that we liked about his swing when we looked at it this offseason was
he does a really good job of clearing his arms away from his body,
And it was one of the reasons why we were a little bit bullish on
the power projection, Like we thought, you know, he's sort of a
skinny looking guy and tall, and he was sort of the type that we
were like, Yeah, that swing, he's got some. He's using his
frame really well and building that leverage that you can get from longer limbs,
and he is seeming like a lot of what he's doing is really good,
especially the strikeout rate improvements, Like that's one that I look at and say,
No, he's striking out twenty percent of the time. That's pretty good
for our twenty one year old in High A. And there are as we've
noted some decent pictures in this league, and he's face He's faced some decent
ones, I would say, not the best ones. I like, I
think we both agree that Spokane has some pretty good arms and I think Tri
City has some sneaky quality High A arms. I think he went up against
some decent arms this weekend and n did well. Was Yeah, I think
he could have been on the short list for Northwest League Hitter of the Week.
He's walking twelve percent of the time. What's the what's he slashed in
three seventy three, four fifty eight, six twenty seven. I don't think
there's any doubt that he's been their best hitter so far. The other thing
you look at, too, is what's the kind of babup is he running?
And it's you know, high. It's four twenty nine, so you
expect that to drop at least one hundred points, maybe a little bit more,
but still that's a strong batting line running a high ISO. He's hitting
some balls hard, hitting the balls over the fence. You know. He
had that one opposite field homer that I thought was a little bit of an
excuse me, but he really got into a couple of the poll side homer
City hit. And it's looking like a pretty solid call on your part to
say, like this is a guy who might have some more upside, and
it'll be interesting to see how long they keep him here in Hillsboro. I
wonder how much he's going to have to do to get up to double A
and push there. I don't know. I don't think they're in any hurry,
but just we'll be interesting to see how things settle out for him.
Yeah, in mind you he's at a level that he's probably a year young
for, you know, twenty two years old. College bad is probably you
know, mostly high A. It's where you start. But the whole point
being so far, so good, I think, and I think some of
our suspicions may not have been crazy talk, Matt. I think there might
there might be a budding bat in this system here. You know. I'm
definitely going to keep watching some more of Another guy who I've been watching a
lot of and been getting impressed with, is Will Simpson of the A's.
He's in Lansing, A. We've briefly talked about him a few times,
mostly just didn't know a whole lot about him, I mean, other than
he's from that fantastic university up there, Washington Husky, but we won't hold
that against him. He had a whole nother He had a home run yesterday
that I don't think I watched. But he's definitely kind of a line drive
hitter all fields, happy to take a single at times, but it's showing
the ability to turn on it. I mean I think he hit eighteen home
runs his last season in Washington. But I don't know if I have anything
spicy to say other than guy looks like he can hit it a little bit
and seeing some good swings, put on tough pitches, tough situations, and
just have been impressed. He's got two home runs on the season. He's
striking out twenty seven point nine percent of the time. Excuse me, he's
walking twenty seven point nine percent of the time, striking out twenty four point
six percent of the time. Slash from three, twenty six, five,
way, five thirty. What's his babbit? He's running a four forty four
babbit. So but now I will say Matt unlike the next guy, I'll
talk about Brooks Baldwin. I started cutting up Simpson's batted ball events as well.
I was going to do the same thing with him, but I think
that video I stopped because there were a couple of games that just for whatever
reason, weren't broadcast or didn't start until halfway through, and I was like,
Man, if I'm gonna do this, I want to. I want
to do it one hundred percent. But I would think his cut up would
be full of a lot less sort of cheapies and lucky, luckier bass hits
and stuff than than Brooks. Baldwin's was Take that for whatever it's worth.
But this isn't like a masher first base prospect. He also has been playing.
He has played some outfield. I don't know if he's been playing any
outfield for Lansing not yet, No, but he is. There's a little
bit of athleticism to him. He's stolen a couple of bases, I think,
right, yeah, he's got one, but he's been twice already.
Yeah, I don't not that. I'm not saying that I think stolen bases
will be like a part of his game, but just trying to paint the
picture. This is in that vulaba. We should be so lucky some stiff
that that can't. That is first base only. I don't know how exciting
his profile might get fantasy, but maybe a high OBP guy who can hit
some home runs if it all goes swimmingly. I kind of got Simpson stamped
here as a guy that I think is probably going to climb up some organizational
list for the A's this year. Have you watched any Simpson You have any
thoughts on him or not so much. No, I haven't. I haven't
watched him. I think I saw him a little bit in college, but
I do feel like he might be kind of up your alley, right yeah.
I mean I like a guy who can take a walk and hits for
some power, and I think he does a little bit of that. You
know, that demographic of player really has to bang for me to go to
bat for him though, right right first baseman in college, like you,
you know, and he's so far kind of hitting the ground running was solid
last year and this year he's like running a one ninety WRC plus I think
so far so he's certainly hitting the ground running. But as a right right
first baseman right out of college, like you kind of expect some of this,
and especially running an almost twenty five k rate in hi A as a
college bat there, it's like that's like fringy. You know, you want
to see more, i'd teck yeah, And I think too. Just he's
a guy that on video I think is probably a bit more enticing, just
because esthetically, I think his swing and some of the swings I've seen him
put on balls just kind of gets your attention. A good looking stroke sometimes
on some tough pitches, tuning into him by chance. I've been watching some
Henry Bolte there what was either a second round prep pick a few drafts to
go. M h. I don't know if his stat line is super jumping
off the page at this juncture, but dude, he can hit the ball
hard. Man. On Tuesday night they were in there in Lake County,
there was a pretty strong wind. That's another thing with that league is it's
been been windy and cold. The wind hasn't always been favorable the hitters,
but both he hit for the broadcast one hundred and ten mile per hour double
into a strong wind and then had an opposite field home run into the wind
again later in the game. But I know he's catching my eye a little
bit. Not a guy that I have paid much attention to, whatever that's
worth. And then Matt, my looks at my looks hit Bolty have been
that he really doesn't get cheated. He when he swings, he swings hard,
and he's a strong kid, so he misses the ball a lot,
but he also hits the ball hard when he hits it. Yeah, what's
his what's his k rate? Right now? I don't think it's forty five
percent and it's backed by a twenty percent swinging strike rate. Yeah, the
Matt Our Mutual White Sox b side that this year Brooks Baldwin is getting some
attention, which is beautiful, right, And that's what we were talking about,
That's what we were suspecting. So we want to see from our selections
here. But man, he has got quite the slash line going on,
does he not. He does eighty two five point fifty one. That's that's
pretty good. What's the babbit on that there? Matt presently checking in at
a four eighty seven babbit. Yeah. Like I mentioned, I cut up
all of his battered ball events and obviously no one's gonna run a five hundred
babbit, right, That is not sustainable. So there is definitely fair share
of soft contact and you know, questionable infield hits and maybe some pop ups
that should have been caught in the shallow a couple of those. Yeah,
but there's also some very well struck balls in there. But I don't know.
I just thought it would be interesting to see what that sort of line
looks like in the video, and at the first time I've done a little
project like that. But I have to tell you, man, I don't
really know what to take away from from that. Look. First point,
you are a gem for doing that kind of thing, because I love that
being able to see back to back to back to back a bunch of plate
appearances in a row, because you get to you get the sense of what
does the shape of that batted ball production look like. I mean, we
can read the numbers and watch a game here and there, but seeing it
over and over and over again like that, I think it does illuminate something
about the swing path, both the intentional approach at the plate. Like some
guys you'll see them, they really are a full spray guy. Like if
you chopped up somebody like Boba Schett, you would see that he hits the
ball to all fields all the time and it's line drives, bloops, pulled
balls, but it is like he's spraying everywhere. And then you chop up
somebody like Isak Pritis, who he is trying to elevate and celebrate down the
left field line. That's it. And I think that when watching Baldwin chopped
up like that, I noticed just how many of his fly balls go to
the opposite field from especially from the left hand side, especially from the left
hand side. Yep, Yes, And it was something that we had talked
a little little bit about that we were a touch surprise that he ran such
a good babbeb last year and about half the season was at A and half
the season was at high A last year and he ran a three eighty four
babbit at high A, and it was sort of interesting. Like the way
he slashes, he's definitely a bit of a slasher, bit more of a
flat batpath and sometimes especially if he's not on time, it means that he's
his bat as late, a little bit under the ball and it pops up
to the left side. Now those balls are dropping in for hits, and
you know, even when he's pulling it, it seems like it's pulled a
little bit on the ground through the hole, especially as a lefty, and
it makes me even more skeptical. High babbit like he's running right now.
And so that was the question that when we were talking about him in the
Dyna c duggad the other day, I asked Clegg, hey, are we
seeing any exit d O bump or you know, how's the contact rate,
chase rate? Is there something about the approach that might be changed, and
I'm not sure if we've seen that just yet, but I will say one
of the things that we liked about him we talked about him in this offseason,
was he has a decent plate approach, Like you know, we thought
above average strikeout rate, like better than average strikeout rate, and potentially a
better than average walk rate too, And that's what he's showing in the early
going so far. That is interesting to me. Love seeing the hits drop
in, that's great. But he's running an almost eleven percent walk rate and
a sixteen percent strikeout rate and this is his first taste the double as a
slightly young for the level, as a twenty three year old. I love
both of those things. Like that both of those numbers going in the right
direction is pretty interesting. And you know, maybe if that keeps going and
he can sustain that for another month, then we're talking about maybe we're rounding
up another half grade on his future projection. So great start to the year
for him, and it's super fun to see that chopped up. I want
access to that for everybody to just type that into the MLB and ILB film
room and chop it up. That would be my that would be my baseball
heaven. There part of watching like that, it's like, you know,
obviously you put the ball in play, good things can happen. Right there
is a skill, there is a contact skill is required to do such a
thing as such a higher rate. I mean, how many games has he
played? Twenty games and he's got forty bat at ball events. I mean
that's pretty good, and you know, so I want to give him some
credit for that, but I also want to note, like some of the
game situation going on in a lot of his at bats, the guys in
front, well what is I think he's mostly bat in second right, but
it seemed like a lot of is that bats. There's runners on and they
have been Birmingham's been pretty good. I don't know what their record is,
but I think they're in first place. They've won a lot of close games.
And I think part of the situational hitting for him, I think needs
to be accounted for and considered there too, where slapping a single into the
hole was what was needed, was was great, you know, for the
for the team. I think I noticed from the left side, I think
he is probably more opposite field approach. I think from the right hand side,
which we don't see nearly as much. I think he don't know he
might be a little bit more dangerous from the right right hand side as far
as slugging and pulling the ball is what. And I think we might have
mentioned that when we first talked about him too, But I think we're pretty
spot on for the most part. Matt, like I think this is a
very interesting do a little bit of everything, kind of switch hitting, play
every position sort of guy, and in that organization, I think there's gonna
be some opportunities for him now fantasy Fantasy wise, I think it very much
depends on your league and league size. But you know, I have a
Luis Renhifo in some daily move leagues of varying sizes, And I'm not saying
Brooks, Baldwin and Renhifa are the same kind of hitter. You know,
a Swiss army knife like that could be could be pretty fun and pretty useful.
Well, continue to monitor, I think, and keep an eye on
in watching Baldwin. Matt go back a few years. Edgar Quero keeps showing
up. Man. He's on a tear to start the year, but he's
walking nine point three percent of the time, striking out sixteen point seven percent
of the time. He's slashing three twenty six, four to twenty six,
six ninety eight and Matt that's with a two to ninety babbit. He's got
five runs, five home runs. I believe those are all from the from
the left hand side. Yeah, all five of his home runs are as
a lefty. And now you know this is only eleven played appearances, but
he's he's got four hits as a righty. This guy who had a very
hot April last year too and then kind of cooled off and so did it
seem like the prospect and dynasty love. But I don't know, I've always
I've always felt queer. I mean that was the first thing that got my
attention with his bat in his what ten ten day pro debut at the end
of twenty twenty two or whatever year that was. I don't know. I'm
leaning that the offense of the good offensive Kiro is more real than some of
the struggles that he might have had last year. But just hitting everything hard
every time I see him, because he hit he bats after Baldwin and he
had a walk off Grand Slam yesterday. Young Man is on it right now.
Matt, I don't know. I like Carol, and I think you
were the first person to turn me onto him back when I was just a
lowly fan, not to your rookie tober. And one of the things that
I really liked about what he does is that he can He does hit the
ball pretty hard, but he does so with really good contact skills. I
mean, these aren't elite, not like Caleb Durban level back to ball,
but he runs and has four years now a like sixteen seventeen percent k rape
and brings a really well rounded BA Otherwise, like, he hits the ball
pretty hard, hits on the ground, maybe a touch too much, but
it's it's a good batted ball profile years. He's always been very young for
the levels he's been definitely, I mean he's twenty one now and repeating double
A and it would not shock me to see him in TRIPA A by the
end of this year, only because I think it goes well with the small
sample size stuff and what you what you were talking about at the beginning,
and that's my Tigers B side bat this year. Luke gold, who I've
been tuning in on a little, I don't know, if you've been watching
him at all, this is a great, I think, a great example
of how silly early season stuff can go. Entering Thursday Thursday Night game,
he was slashing one oh seven two eighty six to fourteen. He had four
really smoking hot games. Well, I don't know, you had three hits,
three hits, two hits, three hits, something like that. And
his slash line now is three forty eight, four forty four, six seventy
four. He had a couple, so I mean that's four games. This
season was flipped upside down, right, Yeah, So got to take these
things with you know, lots of grains of salt early on. Similarly,
you know, I think we get caught in the trap of talking about the
guys that are going well and definitely don't talk as much, especially about our
guys, you know, the guys that you're kind of rooting for or maybe
that we identified as, hey, this might be someone to watch. And
that was actually one of some of the guys that I wanted to highlight about
some of these guys that are off to slow starts and see is there smoke
here or is this like kind of fluctuations or what we should expect over small
samples, and so I pulled a couple of the guys who were some of
my favorite B sides who were off to slow starts. One of them is
our Kansas City B side selection, mister Trevor Warner. After having a great
spring training, he is quite cold to start the year. Slash in one
ninety six, two seventy six, two fifty five, five point thirty one
ops to start the year. And it's not because the hits aren't falling.
His babeb is three eighty five. The weird thing with Werner is that the
power that we saw show up in his pro debut last year and even in
spring training it's been non existent. He has three doubles in like fifty sixty
played appearances something like that, almost sixty played appearances and not the guy that
we've seen. He's striking out a lot too. That's not you know,
forty five percent of the time. Obviously way too high. I don't expect
that to continue necessarily, but it's worth watching the homers like if they really
aren't showing up, and this might be a product of the ball is cold.
The parks that he's playing in are cold because he's you know, hitting
the ball in the air. I still expect that it's pretty hard. I
tuned into a few of his games, but haven't watched every at bat or
anything at this point. But Werner is a guy that It's a slow start,
the strikeouts are a bit much, but I'm still not super swayed one
way or another here. This is one where I'm like, oh, yeah,
you know, super cool start. We'll see check back in a couple
of weeks, a couple of homer a week and he's got three or four
homers and we're back kind of on track. And compare that to my twins
beside hitter Joiner for Hardo, who I liked, is sort of a decent
defender, jack of all trades, Okay, plate approach, maybe sneaky power
and then a lot of speed again for the kind of roto fiends in here.
And he's been atrocious to start the year. One point seven percent walk
rate, thirty five point six percent k rate. There's very little power showing
up. I think he's got a couple of home runs and then that's it,
like three home runs and ten singles. So it's like he maybe is
selling out for some power, striking out a Ton not walking. It's a
bad, bad start to the here good for fifty three WRC plus and I'm
a little concerned. You know, he's not old for level per se.
You know, he's in Triple A, he's twenty five, and that Twins
team is often hurt. So that was the other thing that I was thinking.
If he hit well, maybe he was a guy who gets a call
to spell Max Kepler in his inevitable injury or Byron Buxton and his annual trip
to the IL. And I'm concerned that the plate approach, the bat at
ball profile might not sustain that. So He's one where my level of concern
is a little bit higher than a Trevor Werner. You know, obviously they
are a couple levels apart. They're different ages, different plate approaches, and
different positions. But looking to me at the k and walk rates is more
indicative of how much concern should should you have. And so Fajardo is one
that I'm I don't know, I'm nibbling on my fingers a little bit looking
at that, like, man, that might be a bit of a wasted
d side pick. And I'm not sure he's going to get the apportunity to
really really show out. So that's one that you know, talking about some
of the guys that are off to a slower start. It's worth owning up
to that and being like, yeah, it's it's not not what we wanted
to see, and there's some cause for concern. There a ton to add.
A second, that's why is like these samples are just so small.
I try not to like let one hot week or a couple of good games
way my opinion like too much. You know, like we talked about,
that's why pitching is so much better. You get to watch their you know,
guy do his thing sixty or eighty times and one night. These hitters
you got to kind of stay at least for what I like to do and
watch them, like you kind of got to stay on guys for a while
to see you're hearing it here, folks. Nate just likes the easy way
out. He doesn't really like muddying for the for the hitters. He wants
to see one outing and say, ah, man, George Klassen's it.
You know. The first game that I turned on this week, it was
an afternoon game on Tuesday. South Bend was at Beloite and I turned the
game on the very first pitch. You know who I saw, I hit
a home run, Hendrick Banango. Nice. Yeah, I'm just like,
oh, don't do this to me. I know, right. I wanted
to mention. We talked about Mark Cooley a little bit first year player guy.
I had mentioned that he was a younger college guy last week. That
wasn't correct, twenty three years old. But he got promoted to hy A
and hit a grand slam his first I don't think it was his first at
bat, but his first game, and then hit backed it up with another
home run. You know, interesting but potentially interesting power speed guy. But
I think strikeouts are gonna be a potential whammy there. Of course, man
as soon as TJ. Walton got going that Tuesday, he hit his second
home run in as many games, and then he got hit in the face
and putting on IRL classic. Creed Williams continues to be Creed Willams early in
the season and hit a bunch of home runs and slug a bunch big boy.
Yep, did you see Ukfus took James Gonzale's yard. I did.
Cathus is often a nice start. He's kind of picking the sick where he
left off getting such a funky profile for him, but I really like his
swing. Yeah, what is he? Three fifty five, three ninety four,
six thirteen, A couple of home runs, a couple of stolen bases.
Yeah, he's he's an interest. He's different, he's a different he's
kind of a different cat. But but that's not in a not in a
bad way. Watched a couple of my favorite lefties this week in Brand Herder
and Reed van Scooter Herders at Toledo and with the mud Hens, and you
know, i'd say going into this last Star he looked okay. I think
the era was was a little higher, and you know, was getting some
strikeouts but hadn't really put it together. But he had a really great start
this week. Has the overall line down to quite quite a nice two ninety
two fifth. He's getting a little bit unlucky on the batted balllock metro like
left on bass babip and home runs, but the stuff looks great and he
really carved this week. I think he had nine punch outs in five innings
and looked really good and looked like the guy that I'm as high on as
maybe any other of our B side arms, Like, I really really buy
what he's doing, and it seems like it's working at triple A just as
well as it did at double A last year. You know, he's got
this strikeout rate up almost a thirteen per nine so far this year. And
yeah, he's he's looking really good. Continuing to limit walks, although I
think the walks had been a bit of a problem in his first couple of
outings. But five innings, nine punch outs, no walks this time around,
just two hits, So he looked really good. And that was against
a very good NATS Triple A lineup. You know, he got James Wood
strikeout looking and chopped that lineup really really well. Nice. I also watched
Revent Scooters outing. Oh against Texas. He had a good outing, you
know, six innings, one hit, one walk, but he only had
the one strikeout, and that's been a challenge for him in the early going,
and it's something to monitor. You know. His first outing, I
think we talked a bit about he had some batted ball bad luck and gave
up a few runs that way. His second outing, he walked four,
which I don't think he's ever done in the minor leagues before. And only
got one strikeout. And then obviously this time around just one walk but one
strikeout. I will say he got squeezed a little bit. He had three
other instances of a two strike count where he just painted a fastball or really
dotted a slider on one pitch. I forget who this was against, but
it was like that's he thought it was strike three. His catcher was like
the fuck that it was definitely a strike So he maybe could have had a
couple more strikeouts there. But of the nineteen batters he faced, I think
I counted thirteen ground ball outs in that outing. So like he's just this
is what he does. He just hits the bottom part of the strike zone,
mixes up speeds, attacks hitters in different ways each time through the order,
and still ends up with a bunch of ground balls. So I want
to see more strikeouts. Like I don't expect him to be a really really
high strikeout arm, but it's something that I'm monitoring that balls that were whiffs
in high last year, a lot of those seem to be getting fouled off
early this year, and that's that'll tell us something about the sustainability of the
overall line. So you know, I still believe in him. This is
just three starts to start the year, but it's something to monitor about how
he's looking going forward. The only thing I wanted to note on the hitters
side was we got a home run from Javier Sonoya this week, Matt,
for real. That does not happen all the time, and I think should
be celebrated on this podcast. That was fun to see. Yeah. Pitching
wise, Matt, I don't know did you watch any of but I have
found to be the best pitching duel of the minor league season so far.
Tristan Reeling versus Carson Palmquist. I didn't. I saw a little bit.
I think somebody posted a mashup of Reelings side of it, But no,
I didn't. I didn't watch that outing. It was pretty impressive on both
sides in my opinion. Reeling in his mind you his third pro appearance ever
a double A in this season. He went seven to two thirds, gave
up no hits, no runs, walked two, struck out six through one
hundred pitches, sixty three strikes. Pump Quist went six innings, gave up
four hits, walked one, and struck out ten. It's interesting watching some
of these funkier guys or nastier guys in the minor leagues where you know,
sometimes the catchers have a hard time catching them, and I think sometimes the
umpires have a really tough time humping them too. Like pump Quist. Man
was just landing fastballs and breaking balls over the middle of the plate to start
that game, and they were getting called balls and it was ridiculous, to
be honest. But you know, pump Quist, We've talked about him some
and he's just I mean, he's been doing nothing but killing it in double
A and that release that released point the action on all of his pitches,
Like, I think we're gonna see him in the big leagues relatively soon.
Yeah. I like pump Quist a lot. I mean yeah, and he's
nasty. So I mean, there wasn't really like anything super new to report
or to observe there, in my opinion, just him continuing to do his
thing and and really dominate the Eastern League and then relaying, you know,
we only get he's so new, Like what you know is this guy?
Is this guy for real? Like what what's his story all about? And
man, I gotta say I was I was pretty impressed. I would lean
that this is not some flavor of the week guy. I mean, he
was a third round pick by the Yankees. I think that says something.
But finally seeing him and he's the fastball and the slider that just just disappears,
man, And if it looks like it just disappears late too, and
he's commanding the arsenal well and pitching and locating stuff like I'm kind of you
know, for three starts, I'm man, I gotta say, I'm pretty
sold that this is a legit pitching prospect here and out of all the sort
of new arms that are doing things this year, like he's he's the guy
that I would be the most interested in, the most wanting to get on
my roster, I think. But it proved far too late for me to
do that in my leagues. Yeah, or I didn't have the funds to
make that happen. But that that was a good one, man. And
then it ended with a who hit the Ben Rice hit a walk off I
think solo home run in the ninth inning. But that was a good series.
That was one that I had highlighted to watch, and that was they
split three, three to two. Fun teams there with some some good prospects.
So I saw reeling live last year. I'm trying to find the game
last years in pitch. Yeah, he did in college, so it would
have been two years ago. He was a twenty twenty two draft pick.
Right, Oh, it would have been two years ago. Then. I'm
pretty sure he was twenty twenty two. You're right, You're right. So
I didn't. I didn't see him last year, that's right. Where do
you go to school? Yeah? Okay, where do you go to Schoozaga?
Yeah, that's right. Well, just while we're here, Matt,
I wanted to ask you about Owen Wild and if you have any thoughts on
Owen Wild. He had an FQO this week. He was good. He
was the arm that I was thinking of when I was like, oh,
yeah, I really was last year at Gonzaga. I no, it was
Owen Wild was the guy that I remembered because he had a great outing here
in Portland against University of Portland where he kind of got babboped in the first
inning and they just chopped the rest of the way, like, looked really
good. I watched that outing. He's more over the top north South.
He was drafted in the seventh round last last draft out of Gonzaga, and
I don't think he pitched it all last year. Right now, he's got
three three outings under his belt and Charleston a ball proven to be a little
too much for those hitters down there. Right now, I think his fastball
was like at ninety two for the broadcast, but you know, life up
in the zone. I think his main secondary might have been the one that
at least he threw the most, was a change up. I think that
outing. He does have a breaking ball, very north south sort of attack,
breaking bats with changeups, hitting them off the end of the bat.
He gave up two doubles in like one inning for the run that he gave
up. But Gonzaga smaller school for college baseball. I don't know mid major.
Is it a mid major mid baseball? I don't know mid major for
baseball. But they've historically been a pretty good pitching factory. I mean,
they've had a lot of arms out of there in the past ten years.
I'd say yeah, if you got my attention a little bit, I'd say
yeah. I don't think they've really turned out a hitter of note, not
that I can think, but you know, from Marco Gonzalez to Gabriel Hughes
and a bunch of guys in between, they've been Gonzaga guys. They've had
some interesting arms come out of there for a long time now. Ben Caderna,
I watched his good outing last week, and I don't know, maybe
I threw a little bit of shade on it talking about the wind and I
think he got lucky with some hard cart contact. But then I watched his
outing this week and I was impressed. Matt, I think my man might
have taken some steps forward, and I think his arsenal has got some more
teeth here. That change up seems pretty legit to me. Is going to
be an interesting guy to watch the rest of this season, I think,
And if you can stack these together, he's going to be in double A
mighty quick And I don't know if you have any thoughts on him. No,
I haven't watched him yet. I think it's a bit of a different
animal. I don't think this is the same Coderna from last year. He's
been tearing up the Midwest League. The guy that is going to be on
the top of our trending list when we get to that part is Astros pitching
prospect aj Blueball and I know when we were selecting our Astros arms, he
I think was on the short list for both of us. Is that right?
And he was yep for me. So now a guy that we are
too unfamiliar with, but he is, he's catching some buzz man. He's
what I don't think. He pitched very much in Double A and pitching the
AFL, and now he's up in Triple A getting some attention. I had
to take a close look. So I watched his Wednesday night outing against Round
Rock, where he went six and a third, gave up three hits,
gave up one earned run, struck out eight eighty three pitches, sixty six
percent of them for strikes. And this guy, you know, like I
said, this said people buzzing and out of prospects that are not in the
major leagues, the most picked up guy this week on fan tracks and yeah
again, I got some questions about the labeling of some of these pitches on
savant, but forcing fastball, slider, change up, sweeper, curveball,
I don't know. I think those are kind of the same pitch. So
the first pitch of the game fastball that I don't know, I forget who
it was, but solo home run and that was it all Zero's after that
when we talked about him, the execution of everything is just it's not super
clean in my opinion, and I don't know how nasty his offerings are standing
alone, like I and I don't want to tons of credits. Like don't
get me wrong, Blueball is a Wisconsin guy, like he's my boy,
Like you know, I like him for sure, I want to see him
succeed, but like, he got hit pretty hard. Matt, and I
don't know if you saw this, but I got really curious because I'm watching
that game and I'm like, man, he seems to be getting kind of
lucky here. So I compared him to the rest of the PCL pitchers just
on that night as far as hard contact and other than Ryan Carpenter who just
got like lit up that night, blue Ball got hit harder than everybody else
one O wait, one O wait one O seven one O seven one O
two one oh one, and only half of those were hits. So I
don't know, you know him in the PCL. I don't think that it
is crazy to think there might be some long nights for him. I don't
know. I do not disagree with you here. I like him, and
I do think that maybe some of the swinging myss stuff looks a little bit
cleaner to me, Like I do think that he's executed some of his two
strike pitches a little bit better in the early going than we saw last year.
To me, it looked more like in the few starts that I perused
last year, my notes on him were that he was out of the zone
a lot and got whiffs that way, but also walked a decent number.
Ye thus far, he to me, looks like he's riding all the luck
metrics to a sparkly pcl er. Like he literally every base runner that has
gotten on has been left on base one hundred percent left on base rate A
he's running a one sixty babbit despite all of that hard contact that you're talking
about. Like, to me, this is a flash in the pan.
I'm not saying he's a bad arm. I think he'll be a big leaguer,
but I'm not looking at him and saying like, oh man, this
is just pristine execution, Pristine's stuff. This is a noe doubt mid rotation
starter. I think, like, you're right, we're going to see some
long nights and he's going to have times where those balls fall in. He's
going to walk more than one or two guys, and he's going to give
up some long balls, And I just think, like, this is the
kind of thing where it's it's a nice pop up arm. I think I
popped him in one of my deep leagues where I had a little bit of
fab and dropped like a couple bucks on him, But I'm not I viewed
it as more like, hey, maybe he gets five or ten starts this
year and that plays in that points league, not like, Wow, this
is some guy who's going to turn into a mid rotation piece, you know.
So I would just be cautious with your optimism about a guy like this,
And so I kind of agree with what you're saying that this is there's
like a lot more to prove here. Yeah, And I'd really interested,
Like I've got some of his like pitch plots pulled up here. Man,
Like the location radius of like his four scene fastball is is quite large.
Like I think part of his maybe good fortune that night was that round Rock
lineup was extremely aggressive against him, and it was like anything that got into
the zone they were they were putting into play or trying to at least.
I think that Round Rock lineup has been a bit unlucky too so far.
I remember looking at because I like quite a few guys on that team,
and I remember looking and a bunch of them had really low babeps and were
seemingly still like like Blaine Cram and trissou Ornellis. I think both aren't off
to very good starts. Put it mostly is babbeb related like that They're not
striking out a lot or anything. It's just like they've been a bit unlucky
on the batted ball front to start the year. I'd be a little cautious
there, just just my two cents. But again I didn't watch like his
other outings this year, so maybe, uh, you know, maybe there's
there's things out there that I'm not privy to. My guy, Tyler Schweitzer,
after a not so great debut, tossed a FQO this week. Hey
here you go. Yeah, so I was excited for that and went to
turn it on and we got a press spots view for that game. Yeah.
He told me that that was get to get into that one. Another
really interesting and pitching matchup by Tune Into this week was jayd and Hamm versus
Jackson Ferris and Man. I gotta say Jaydan Ham's pretty good. I think
he thinks so too. Yeah, he's working that whole impress like, yeah,
he looks slick to me, man. And that change up and now
I can't say for certain because we didn't get the greatest view of the first
pitch, but who was it. Yeah, Alex Freelan came up, Man
and he threw Freeland like just four change ups to start and Freeland was done.
Yeah. I think we talked about this too, that he isn't afraid
to throw right on right change ups, which you know, I love,
like I love that as a setup pitch or or especially on the inside part
of the plate like a change up in like hitter's highes get big to try
and yank the fastball and be early on it and they swing right through it.
I love that pitch. Yeah. You know, Jackson Ferris, Man,
he he was off to a pretty good start. I think he struck
out like the first four hitters or something like that. And you know he's
a young guy, but you see this in the Sometimes did you see this
in the uppers too? Sometimes you see it with guys in their major league
debuts. But like he just doesn't have like the game and control yet,
like the run game and stuff like that. He's some like weird, a
weird balk and guy's running on him and all this stuff, but still growing,
still growing up as a picture. But I gotta say that his armstroke
is just it doesn't make me feel like he's going to get the command to
where I like it. I don't know how much watched of him, but
he's just like, really, it just seems like a lot of different checkpoints
that you have to get to and get correct in that long back armstroke.
And he's a longer guy. Like it's not surprising if you were just watching
a video of him on the mound and not seeing where the ball was going,
like I think you would guess that that guy's probably not the most accurate
picture in the world. So I don't know, I still have I still
have reservations on him as a whole. Another guy with a that I wanted
to I had mentioned last week I wanted to get eyes on who I didn't
realize I had actually already watched a little bit of because in his first outing
of the year he was opposite of Joanah Tong, so I had accidentally turn
him on for a few at bats. But that is Adam Saranowsky. I'm
sure I'm butchering that he's a young teenage arm in the red system. Got
to see him pitch them in Bradington, so I wanted to check out that
angle. It's a big lefty, tall lefty, nineteen years old. Four
innings pitched, one hit, walk, two struck out three, sixty eight
percent strikes on fifty pitches. It's mostly fastball. He's throwing a fastball and
a slider. But I think it's like sixty six percent fastballs. And I
think it's an arm slat and an arm action that's very different. I don't
think he throws necessarily all that hard. What was his fastball averaging ninety well
he got up to ninety six, it was averaging ninety four. But talk
about arm actions. Like man, I got a good side view of him.
He's another guy that, like my arm just hurts to watch him.
It's just really sort of odd, weird, short arm. A lot of
this like going on, and I don't know. I know he's he's guy
popping. He's a guy popping on the trending list citing the untalented arm I
suppose, but I don't know about my interest level and Sarahanovski, but I
felt like I should do my homework there, so I did. Got to
watch some Hayden Mullens. Matt. Yeah, I haven't turned him on yet.
How's he look? Is he keeping the walks under wraps this time around
her? He did this outing, I think he got I don't have that
line up in front of me, but I think he had a pretty rough
one last go, but this outing he went four and two thirds. He
gave up three hits, three earned runs, no walks, and six strikeouts
eighty pitches sixty one percent strikes. And we got a little bit of a
different camera angle this time than we did last season, and seeing him from
more behind the plate mat. He really turns his back on the hitter,
like I didn't notice that before, But he's like really facing second base and
his wind up might add some deception there, but I think he continues to
look pretty nasty. Man is dominant out the start. He like plunked the
leadoff lefty with the breaker one inning, and then Max Romero Junior hit like
a chopper that snuck through and that was like the run that scored. And
the other two runs came after he was pulled. I mean, they're his
runners, but there was like a catcher's interference that loaded the bases and got
a sack fly something like that. So a couple I think of maybe a
little bit unlucky runs. But yeah, I don't know meens man. I
think he's he's got some nasty for Higa. I know he's older, but
we talked about the injury stuff, like definitely gonna still be watching him.
Yeah, did you see some more of him? Yeah, he's a fun
one. But I think that slider really is gonna play. Yeah. Yeah,
it gets yeah, it runs man. Yeah. And then did you
see a Lazaro Estrata sighting man in a ball in able on a rehab assignment.
Yeah, and I saw did did he throw just two innings or was
it two to one inning? Two innings, struck out three, didn't walk
anybody, gave up a couple of hits seven Because that's something that's something that
I'm trying to watch with some of my b side arms is because a lot
of the guys that I picked are kind of fringy and seeing what teams are
doing with them, and so Michael Darryl Hicks is one of these guys.
I've watched a couple of him, and he's coming in in relief, often
as bulk, so like they'll have a starter go three and then he goes
three behind them, but that doesn't bode well. Often sometimes it's part of
a ramp up plan, sometimes it's part of an innings management plan. But
I'm a little concerned that his might be trending to relieverhood, which isn't bad
in and of itself, but I saw enough there that I was like,
maybe this guy could make it as a starter last year. And Estrada is
another one that I'm worried about, not worried per se, because I do
think he'd be quite a good believer if he went down that path. I
want to see what he can do as a starter, and I want to
see him throw once, twice, three times through the order, just because
I think his fastball has such outlier traits and I think his courball and slider
have potential like they could do that slider is wild. That's that hard slider
is wild to me. Man, it's it gets some time under his four
steamer and saviant. Really yeah, yeah, most definitely. I was watching
it and doing the matchups at the same time, and they would call a
foul for steing fastball like an eighty seven mile per hour slider or whatever from
a center field view. A lot of them it's not like this huge arching
movement, you know, but her ball is the one that has the big
movement. But it's like that slider is hard and then it's just right at
the end. But you know that combination, you can you know, it's
easy to think like, oh man, this guy could be a nasty,
nasty reliever. But yeah, I'm with you. Let's I want to see
my man walk some innings here. And I think they had him assigned.
I think they had him assigned to Vancouver, so I think that's where he'll
be going after this rehab assignment or whatever. But I like to that call
on your part. He's he's an interesting guy and I don't mind watching him.
Pitch Man speaking guys such an enigma too, Like that's the other part
about him that it's like he's been an a ball for basically four or five
years, like I want to see let me see him, like bump him
up? Yeah yeah, and I don't know, uh man. I talked
about him last week, and of course I watched him again. No,
I couldn't watch him this week because he was at home. But what'd you
think of that? Dinsen Batista A little highlight reel from that one outing that
that I shared. Did you check that out? I did? It was
interesting. I thought that could see what you liked about him, and there
seemed to be some pieces. Again, he's one that like, I'm not
sure the execution and putting it all together is there quite yet. But he's
still he's twenty one years old. He's barely he's barely pitched really yeah yeah
yeah, And he's still throwing strikes at a high clip so far. But
he is some of those sliders, some of those two seamers like a drunk
guy has on remote control. Man, they just get going. He's fun
to watch too, just because catchers have such a hard time with him,
and good catchers too. That was just whiff on something. It's like,
Okay, that's to me, that's a sign that there's maybe something a little
different going on there. I did want to do some homework on some of
those Brewers guys while they were in Gusta. Turned on Gosh, Matt helped
me. You you Hanier Herrera, a twenty year old in the Brewers system.
Sure that sounds good to me? Oh sure, yeah, yeah,
this was interesting man, if you watch him, report to me, because
I couldn't help but wonder that if this was a kid that like was keeping
his big weapon in his back pocket and working on some other stuff this outing.
So they got him listed at sixty three one seventy five on his MiLB
page, and on the broadcast they called him six three two forty one.
That's quite the discrepancy. He threw a lot of two seamed fastballs. There
were like ninety one ninety two for the broadcast. But then every once in
a while, not often, he would throw this four steamer that was ninety
five ninety six. At the broadcast said on one of them got two five
hundred and sixty six RPMs, and that thing, I mean, it looked
like it was rising from center field right, and so I see that pitch
come out the first time, like, okay, here we go. He's
going to just start mowing through these guys with this fastball, right, But
he didn't do that. He didn't do that at all. He threw change
up with eighty seven with some looked like some nice fanning sort of like you
know, finning two steamer action. Yeah, I don't know the whole fastball
change up game. I'm kind of curious to see some more of the slider
looks. I don't know. Seemed pretty pedestrian from that angle. There's definitely
a curveball. There's two different signs going on for breaking balls, but he
seemed to prefer throwing that sort of man slider. I have a lot of
notes here, I'm not going to read through all of them, but his
line, what was his line for that game? He pitched? He threw
five, game up, six hits, two hundred runs, two walks,
struck out six. But I thought he like was pitching, you know,
send it up, spotting stuff fairly well. But I want to watch him
again and just see if this four seamer comes out some more, because I
think I'm wondering if that's his best pitch and he's just working on that's the
RPMs behind it. That's pretty it's pretty good. I know, I know,
right, so interesting young arm there that Carolina team has got. Has
got some others too that I kind of want to see some more of.
But I just kind of wanted to share that. Yeah, I don't know.
That was some of the more interesting pitching watches for me this week.
Matt very nice. I was just gonna mentioned a couple f QoS that went
down this week, Matt. Your boy Mason Adams had one. It's a
couple of good but he went well. This is early in the week.
He went six, five hits, no walks, nine strikeouts. Don't hate
to see that. There's this young pitcher Jan Slas that they're one with Palm
Beach. Palm Beach hasn't been broadcast yet, but I might tune into him,
see what's up there. We mentioned Palm Quest and Reeling Kit and Dana
had one the other day. Looks pretty pretty dominant in double A. Twenty
year old Carson Millbrandt, who I have not watched much of, if at
all before, had one for Beloit. But those were the ones that kind
of popped out to me this week. Trending on fan tracks, Matt Mitchell
Parker, I know he's got two starts now out on the major league level,
but hey, not too shabby, huh, not bad at all.
Yeah, he's up eighteen percent to twenty five percent. I'll try to just
stick to the guys who aren't in the majors yet. Here blue ball went
from less than one percent to seven percent. Laperffito made another five percent jump,
so he's up to thirty seven percent. Matt, what do you think
about Joey Laperfdo I like him a lot? I mean, I think that
he had a pretty rapid ascent to prospect lists last year as a kind of
multi positional threat with some pop. I remained pretty skeptical of him as a
big time fantasy contributor because I think the hours more good than great, and
he has a bit of a whiff problem, so I think that that's gonna,
like, that's going to catch up to him a bit. And I
know I had mentioned this that I was like pretty skeptical of him as a
sort of top tier prospect, more like back end top one hundred, just
outside a top one hundred kind of guy because of that profile. And then
of course he went absolutely bananas. The first two weeks had like what six
or seven homers in a week and three in a game, and it's become
a nice meme on the dynasy. I got discord to at me every time
he hits on the run. But I have noticed that there. I haven't
been added for a low Berfeito bomb in a while, and it's because he
didn't hit me this week and he kept striking out. And again I'm like,
yeah, great, he's out to super hot start. Maybe he wouldn't
be worse than the husk of Jose Braw who's currently manning first for the Astros.
But I don't know. I'm I'm not viewing this as like he's turned
in to Kobe Mayo or Hessen cure Stat or anything. I mean, how
can you not love le Brasfito man, He's like total B side. Yeah
no, that's like I said, I loved his ascent last year. I
just think maybe people were getting a bit over hyped over a fifty percent home
run per fly ball rate, which again impossible to sustain that kind of thing,
So like you would expect that to drop way down, and it has
a bit see pitching prospect with the Rangers, Winston Santos is up like three
percent to see a lot of buzz about him. I can't say that I
am too familiar with Santos. I don't think i've seen him either. If
you pitched last year, I definitely definitely watched them, but I don't remember.
Or Elvis Martinez is getting a lot of buzz. He's up like two
and a half percent, which was thirty six percent total. Yeah, you
were you were skeptical of Irrelvis and Addison Barger, but I was telling you
I think both are big league regulars for sure, and Elvis might be more
than that. It's hard, Matt, when you watch you see a guy
I would like struggle with strikeouts so much, even if it's a year or
half a year, it's just kind of hard to unsee that and feel that.
But I know, I know he has made improvements, so I'm not
I don't want to take that away. But big league pitching has a way
to really bring up some some mortz and some ghosts. So oh, yes,
we shall see. Jefferson Rojas of the Cubs is up a couple percent
in Cosume Orioles, James Wood Joanatan has jumped up to six percent. Now
who I'm excited to watch some more of Santiago Suarez up, a little Christian
Scott, some guys who haven't really jumped percentage but maybe half a percent or
sort or so that I think are getting a little bit more popular now.
Matt. I don't know if you remember when the NL West episode, but
I was having a hard time picking a Dodger's bat, right. I remember
Perez was was one that I like watched the week of and I was like,
yeah, I don't know, man, this young eighteen year old that
the Dodgers have like them up in a ball for some reason, but he's
impressing early on. I think you look at his bat, a ball profile
that looks nice for hitting the home runs and such. But he's definitely I
think, on the up and up here popularity wise. And then so I
was like bumming. I was like, man, I went with you and
your Garcia again. He just looks trash. And then he popped two home
runs over the weekends, like all right, all right. And then a
picture in the Dodger system that I turned on Jose Rodriguez, I think is
going to be getting pretty popular this week. Long limbed righty throws pretty hard.
You can tell he's got, you know, good ride on the fastball,
good breaking ball. He pretty much dominated that outing another guy that's just
got a lot of like moving a lot of checkpoints in the delivery to get
to I want to watch that and see if you can get that clean up.
But what I think, he's twenty years old, definitely looks the parts.
I can see why folks might get, you know, a speculative share
of him if your league allows for you're doing that with a ball. Pictures
shooting on Rancho Matt I caught what I would think is the scariest picture in
all the minor leagues to face. Yeah you've mentioned this, Yeah, this
kid man? Where did I even write down his name? Ronaldo Ronaldo E?
How do you spell em? Oh? Yeah, yeah, Ronaldo Yahan.
Dude is huge, six' four two point fifty, throwing triple digits
and throwing a wicked looking slider. But it's I mean, I shouldn't.
I got to give him some credit. East west he's not too wild,
but north south they could go anywhere. But I would just be shitting my
pants if I had to get in the box against him. But just a
guy relieving, potentially closing for Rancho right now, who throws very hard.
But yeah, Perez end up winning the cal League Hitter of the Week,
for whatever that's worth. But yeah, you know, you know how these
Dodger prospects going, Matt He's gonna be loved well coming up this week.
This is what I got my eye on. I don't know. You tell
me if any of these sound interesting to you. Well, there's one clear
matchup that I'm super excited to see. Okay, let me see if I
mention it. Okay, if I don't, you write me. But in
the FSL Florida State League, palm Beach is at Fort Myers. This will
be the first time that PAULM. Beach is broadcast this year. So you
know, Chase Davis, Lynn, who's getting popular, getting some buzz,
you guy, Quinn Matthews. This salace kids. So some some arms there
maybe get a look at We can, you know, watch Winnakers strike out
a bazillion times. Maybe Charlie Sodo gets taken the yard some. We'll probably
tune in some there. In the Carolina League, Myrtle Beach is at Lynchburg
and I haven't watched Lynchburg yet and I probably should. And this check out
this Matt Wilkinson kid. I don't know, if Matt, you should check
out his head shot. Tell me that he doesn't look like a police officer,
but he's leading the league and strike up right now. Ralphie Velasquez is
on a tear at Chario and you know, against some loser Cubs or whatever,
Leo Devrees is gonna be up. I don't know, maybe that's interesting.
Yeah, I saw on the discord and someone was like, hey,
it was the last last prospect to go from the DSL the full season and
the last one that came to my mind. And now it was a COVID
year, so maybe it's a little bit different. But Robert Posslin went from
the DSL to or no, went straight from I'm sorry, I went from
signing to full season ball, skipping DSL was postin and he's now on year
four of a ball and still not hitting over one hundred and maybe the worst
left fielder I've ever seen in my life. Dude, he's horrible, man,
God, poor kid in the Cal League. Lake Elsinore is at Rancho.
See some more of this Perez kid. See if Jean's getting the fastball
over the plate. Some more Jose Rodriguez in the sal League. Greensboro is
at Greenville, and I haven't really watched like any of Greenville this year other
than that, like Mullens outing that I was just skipping ahead to day his
innings. But you know, McAdoo versus Moens could be fun. In the
Midwest League, man, I've been liking watching the Midwest League. I think
there's a lot of fun bats, you know, and they're they're college maybe
later around third day guys, and who knows prospect wise, but there's there's
some guys swinging it in that league right now, and some and some good
pictures too. But this that I want to see some more Simpson Bolte,
is it Bolt or Bolte? I don't know, Henry Bolt, I don't
know. But they'll be going up against like Louder, Cardona, Lions,
Sikama and some other you know, decent Dayton Arms. The Dayton lineup is
super fun. Camp day is a really fun team. Dayton's a really fun
team right now. Yeah, I watched quite a bit of Yeah, so
that I think that'll be a fun Midwest League. Of course, Northwest League.
I'm gonna continue to watch some Contacelo I think he's got some tricky lefties
to the face against Eugene, which could mix for some fun at bats.
And you know, not that these guys are super high I'm on prospect wise,
but they got Winjo Lonswai, Mkolsky and Corey as some lefties that I
think will be a good challenge for him. In the Eastern League, Portland
at Hartford, these are two best teams in the Eastern League. They might
be good angle to watch some pitching. And I haven't watched like any Roman
Anthony or any of those Portland guys, so maybe tune in there a little
bit. In the Southern League, I'm thinking Tennessee at Rocket City, maybe
at least for like kid Danna's start going up against those good smoky bats and
Shaw and Ballastero s Elkintara and those guys, that might be a fun outing.
In the Texas League, Wichita at San Antonio. I want to see
em Rod versus Snelling and Maser. I'm still ben Ross is frustrating Matt.
He's frustrating because he's I think he's a very skilled guy, but it's just
not doucing. That's the matchup that I think is the matchup of the week
that was the one. Yeah, a bunch of fun arms in that one,
em Rod and a bunch of fun bats in there too. So it's
funny how it works. So you're talking about Wichita and like, man,
there's some really interesting bats there, and like their offense has struggled. And
the Twins, Man, we were talking about preseason, like the man,
the Twins are, how are they going to fit all these guys together?
And man, they are off to like a historically awful start, or at
least they were at the beginning of the week. Like so it's just you
know, baseball, man, we think we know what we're talking about.
We don't know. Shit said. Anything can happen in small bursts, and
sometimes those bursts lead to banked losses. And you're looking up at the tough
rd to home. I mean, this is true. If the Astros right
now, they're off to a terrible start and they're still a great team,
a little bit hurt on the pitching staff side, but man, they're in
a hole. I don't know, Like I said, I don't watch a
ton of Triple A, but Iowa is at Buffalo. Man, do you
know that the Bisons have scored just one less run than those pretty boy Tides,
and that Durham has has scored just two less runs than those Tides.
And did you know that the Tides have given up more run than anybody else
in the International League. Yeah, this is what I said when everyone was
like, should the are the Tides better than the A's or the White Sox.
It's like, no, like they're not. I think that stuff is
so silly and people just forget that the levels of baseball, it is still
a huge jump up Triple A to the major leagues remains the largest jump,
and it's just not easy. But I think that that could be a fun
test. I mean, if're Elvis is still around, I think those
that's a good staff. That Iowa has at least leading the International League in
a lot of pitching categories and stuff like that, and have some talented guys.
And then the PCL. I guess maybe Oklahoma City at Albuquerque. I
guess Beef has been on a tear hitting a bunch of home runs, and
you know Oklahoma's supposed to have like an MLB caliber rotation, So let's see
how that goes. Yeah, I don't know Matt anything on the MLB side
you wanted to touch on or not. I saw man unfortuate. His first
taste of the Bigs did not go as swimmingly as we had hoped. But
yeah, it didn't. And a lot of it was the problems that we
had identified before. He walked a bunch, you know, had some some
battered ball misfortune, but mostly it was his own doing. Wasn't hitting his
spots, and you know he also the usage was not quite what we're hoping
for either, but somewhat predictable, sort of a long swingman pitching some blowouts
and mostly did not pitch very well. You know, we'll see. I
still think there's a picture that can get some k's in there, and maybe
he slots back in and the rotation back in triple A and and lankns back
out and it keeps working on stuff. But yeah, not his best first
turn. I mean, hey, look at I mean, is reed Debtmer's
arguably like the best picture in majors right now or one of like it's up
there that has not been a you know, straight ascension. But what a
what a fun little win for anyone out there who likes value soft tossing lefties.
Huh, and know he's that like soft tossing lefty right now. But
that's why everyone didn't want a piece of him, Matt, And it turns
out that it can turn out. So he's on my dream rotation team,
not yours. He is. I'm you're right, you're right. But did
you see that article on fangraphs about Debt Meers and his pitch usage this year
and where he's locating his fastball and stuff. No, I think I opened
that one, but I haven't read it. I enjoyed that, and I
would totally give credit to the author, but I don't know who it was.
Off the top of my head, I don't know. You can follow
me on Twitter at Pitching Specs. I've been trying to drop a lot of
the video that I think we might talk about on the show during the course
of the week, and you know, doing crazy stuff like spending three hours
putting the video together and getting killed up by my wife and stuff. But
yeah, I don't know. I think that'll do it for episode thirty.
Anything else you want to say, or should we get out of here?
Let's get out of here. It's still April. We'll check back in in
a week. It's still going to be April and uh, and then we
can start talking about what's real and what's not. In the meantime, you
guys, don't trade away your studs. Believe in your prospects that you like
them before, you should still like them and listen to us, and we'll
help you find the money names to pay attention to. At the very least,
we'll just shed some light on some people. We'll let Chicago Farmer take
us out and we'll talk to you next week. Audios. Miles 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 the dirt Yes uniform.