Not five miles an hour. Riding to his head. He hopped down first
with the lumpbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second face with gradest speed. He wasn't born. He had the yes uniform.
All right, Welcome to episode thirty three of the Prospect B Sides Podcast.
I am Nate Handy, he is rook me back. We're back to
muddy B siding. Let's go. Yes. I think that will fit somewhat
of our theme this evening, Matt. But how you doing man? Plan
that a little bit. I'm good, man, I'm good. You know.
I just off of a wonderful Mother's Day weekend and got to the weather
has turned really nice here. We got up into the upper eighties this weekend.
It was beautiful and I don't know if you got to see this down
in the mountains, but we get to see the northern lights Aurora borealis last
weekend. Yeah, it was super cool. Yeah nice, nice, Yeah,
we were. It was a little too overcast for us. I believe,
like I was telling you earlier before we came on, I woke up
to like three inches of snow on the ground this morning. That's a lot
of fun. But yeah, different, Yeah, I think good to see
them though. Were they how were they? Were they? Was it like
full sky part sky? It was full sky, I mean it was it
was pretty This was Friday night kind of came and went. Then when I
first checked, it was really faint, and you know, we live in
the city, so there's quite a bit of light pollution anyway, so it
was a little bit fainter. But a little bit later on the storm really
kicked up the solar storm and easily visible. You could see some shimmering,
definitely see the gradiation in the colors. And then you look at it on
your phone and it popped, you know, you could see it a lot
more easily. So it was cool. It was really cool, just a
fun little thing that I had never seen it this far south. I'd only
seen it in Alaska actually, and yeah, yeah, it was really cool.
I remember the first time I saw them. I was in college and
I was like working overnight shifts, but this was like a night off and
I was just up right. So I decided to just go grocery shopping at
like two in the morning, and I remember getting back to my place,
getting the groceries out, of the car. It was wintertime, so there's
a snow bank like right there where I'm putting the groceries down on the ground
getting them out of my car, and I just remember looking at the snow
bank and it was changing colors, and I was just like, oh cool,
yeah, and I'm like what is that about? And I looked up
in the sky and that this was like full on whole sky, just at
every inch of the sky changing colors except for one like really dark spot,
round circle in like the middle of the sky. For whatever reason, I
didn't know what was going on. I like seriously started like panic. I
thought it was like aliens coming, Like I ran inside, told my roommate,
I like woke up like I do. I don't know what the hell's
going on, but out here, like it was to be corny, like
a spiritual weird like you understood how small you are in the universe by looking
at that, Like it was just yeah, it was a wild phenomenon.
I mean you just don't see anything like it. And I mean that's why
it was so cool seeing it down here just in my backyard. I mean
that is I had seen it in a similar had sort of a similar experience
when we were up in Alaska fishing one year and seeing it at night on
the beach where we were camping out, and on top of just having an
incredible day fishing, it was a spiritual experience. I mean seeing all of
that in the middle of nowhere off the Key nine Peninsula, like it was
incredible to see that and no light pollution and like you said, you know,
dancing changing colors, Like it was absolutely amazing. And it definitely wasn't
that cool last last weekend, but it was still very cool just to see
it. Yeah, I've never seen like that full sky doing that thing before.
I've seen like some streaks and stuff like that, but I couldn't even
like go back out and like watch it. Man, it was that like
that terrifying to me. It was insane. AnyWho, this is the baseball
podcast, not a I don't know whatever we were talking about, but now
I figured, you know, we haven't been talking a lot of major leads
the last month or so. I don't think or at all happen. I
mean that's because we're prospect. It's in the name of the podcast, Nate
like a prospect. That's true, that's true. But I thought maybe we
should start like a little mini segment of like hottest team in baseball? I
see where is going. That's a little tough to quantify, right, but
uh huh, maybe having the longest winning streak in baseball just sweeping the defending
chap champs probably qualifies you, right, does it? So that would be
the Colorado Rockies, my friend, that would be the Colorado road who there's
a lot of game left, but are up five to one against the Padres
right now. It might make it five in a row. But I think
we should spend a little time talking about the rockiest and a motivation. It's
like we talk about like development, right. I think we try to talk
about development a lot on this show, at least little bits and pieces that
we might be, you know, either numbers pointing us in a direction or
eyeballs. You know. The Rockies catch a lot of strays, I think,
and I get that they're not very good at the moment. This is
the twelve and twenty eight Colorado Rockies. That those guys, and it was
much worse five days ago. My friend Brenton Doyle, Brenton Doyle, dude
so much of a better offensive player than I ever would have imagined, even
if this is just a little whip on the radar, never thought he would
be this good at the plate. Watch a lot of him in Double A
and Hartford. Never I didn't even think he could make the big leagues.
And another thing that's interesting about that to me, Matt, it's like he's,
you know, arguably the best defensive center fielder in baseball. Right.
I watched a lot of a ton of Hartford, Religiously, I didn't even
realize that he was that good of a center fielder. I definitely didn't know
that he would have had the hardest throw from the outfield last year in the
majors like he did. So m h. I guess my point being there,
like defense stuff, even if you watch every day or semi every day
amount, like I was like, you could still not know. Or maybe
that's just me being being dumb, or maybe me just not really focusing on
that aspect of what I'm watching, But I don't know no way, man,
It's it is really hard to actually have a good eye test for defense.
The way that the metrics work now, it takes a long time to
stabilize, and one bad play or a couple of really good plays can swing
your defensive metrics kind of wildly, and they're still really noisy even at this
point in the season. Like to your point, Brenton Doyle was incredible defensively
last year, rightfully so, incredible arm and covers a ton of ground in
that incredibly large outfield that Colorado has. But Doyle thus far this year is
negative in his defensive metrics per Fangrafts up to this point. Only slightly so,
but still for someone with both the reputation and the skills that he showed
last year, you'd probably look at that defensive rating and say it's probably just
hasn't caught up to his true talent yet. And even with that, he's
still been basically the Rockies best player up to this point, so that's arguably,
but yeah, maybe there's to better things coming. I do think that
he has been moving quite as well, maybe the first month of the season,
but he's swiping bags now, eyeballs. Would not say that he's a
negative whatever you said right now, Like, he is not a negative defensive
player. No, Like I was saying, they catch a lot of strays
on not being able to develop and all that stuff, Like, Man,
I don't think there's an organization that doesn't have good developmental stories, that isn't
doing good things with some players or coaching them well, or players that are
making improvements and coaching themselves if they have to, and what have you.
I wanted to bring up Montero. Well, let me back up. I
wanted to bring up kind of their whole infield right now. I don't know
if you saw yesterday, Matt, but Tovar and rad had back to back
just fantastic web gems. They've been playing great defense. I saw it to
Tobar the highest and you know it is what it is. Fielding percentage isn't
like the greatest defensive metric in the world in my opinion, I don't know
what is. But for a short stop two hundred games, first two hundred
games, he's got the highest fielding percentage ever, which is kind of interesting
because I feel like he's gotten over the last couple of years a couple of
airs charged to him that I don't think we're that deserving. Man, It's
been great per usual. Montero, who we talked about in the preseason,
he is like a good first baseman now man, he picks it. He's
caught some screamers like he bailed out Tobar a few times, all of those
guys a few times. But uh, in his bat I know the numbers
are not there. I know if you look at his stack cast page,
nothing is red. I don't think the red's the good color on stack cast,
right, red is the good color? Yeah, which makes no sense
to me. It should be blue or green, right, it shouldn't be
like red. Red is like stop, no, not good? Right?
Right? It's hot, I don't know, Okay, blues hotter than red?
Right? Yeah, he is unequivocally a better hitter than he was a
year ago. His approach is so much better. I don't know what his
hard hit is, what have you. He's had some loud outs, hard
contact that hasn't paid off. But if you're desperate like I am in some
leads for a corner infielder, maybe take a look in Montero because his strikeout
percentage I think is way down. And I see tonight he's what three for
three with four RBIs three RBIs He's a guy that I kind of got my
eye on that his numbers might not be telling the story of his development right
now. I don't think. Yeah, and one one though on Montero that
we had touched on earlier this season is that he had been hitting the ball
harder in VLO or His max exit Villo got up to one fourteen over over
one fourteen, which is up there. Combine that with the strikeout rate improvements
that he showed over a fairly significant sample last year in Triple A. I
think that's something that we had talked about in the discord a bit last year.
Seeing Montero improve his strikeout rate and still slugging the ball really well,
that tends to say something good about his future performance. And he's got the
strikeout rate down to twenty percent, which is really good for someone with the
power potential that he has. Yeah, but all of his numbers, his
production is down right, And that's kind of a bit of a theme that
I've noticed with some Rockies early in this season before he went on the shelf.
Jones, Dude, he hit like close to like five hundred or something
on first pitches last year, right, and then this first month of the
season he wasn't swinging at first pitches, trying the more your approach patient,
perhaps take some more walks right, tone down the aggressiveness and he was not
producing. Right, Montero, I think there's some of the same stuff.
He's been trying to be more selective. Surface numbers aren't there yet. Tovar,
I think too, even though he's still probably like the most aggressive,
you're one of in the major majors, I see him try to be more
selective and struggle while doing it, at least, you know, struggling to
produce. I think that is part of a process, and part of what
I think I've tried to talk to you about in the past too, is
like, no, if you Tim Anderson wasn't so aggressive, he wouldn't be
good or when he was good, right. I think there's good things happening
with some of these hitters, as my point, but you're just not seeing
it yet in the short term, perhaps well, at least for Montero and
Jones, I think both of them are victims of just a bit of bad
luck both on the back up front, and that both of their expected weighted
on bases are higher than they're actual weighted on basis, which means that even
the contact that they've had up to this point is under represented by their overall
stat line. Right, Like they've even what they've done up to this point,
they've still gotten a bit unlucky. People love to use the stat cast
to say this is going to tell you something about the hitter going forward,
and I think that especially the expects did stats, that's not what they're built
for, and they aren't really very good at that, especially over small samples
of like even a month, it doesn't really tell you that much about what
you expect from them going forward. And so for a guy like Jones,
that's somebody that I expect him to look kind of like he did last year,
which means he's going to strike out a bit less than he has in
the early going. Once he's back from the IL, I think he's going
to walk a bit more. I think the babbep's going to rise because he
hits the ball really hard at good angles, gonna run and hit home runs
and all that said, like a really good player flawed, you know,
he strikes out too much. Outside of that flaw, like he looks pretty
good, like a positive contributor, you know, one fifteen one to one
twenty WRC plus over the next few years with some steals thrown in, Like
that's a really really good baseball player. Just to me, looked like a
victim of Maybe it's some approach changes, maybe it's trying to change who he
is a little bit. And you know, it's hard to know that without
seeing some reporting on it, or the guy's talking about it themselves. I
just think that a lot of this is statistical noise in Tarot, Jones,
Tovar. There's better things coming. So I'm with you on that. You
know, I'm not ready to describe some sort of master plan behind behind all
of this to the Rockies as a collective unit yet, but there are certainly
some Rockies that I'm on board with. I think that they're very good players.
Obviously, I'm a Rockies fan, and I'm that point here isn't to
like the Rockies are good now and they're all going to be Hall of Famer.
My point is like, like, look at back right now, just
coming up. He's made a lot of improvements, I think since last year
on the strikeout, on the chase, on the swing and miss side at
they at least in Triple A. Now you see him up in the majors,
not lighting the world on fire at all, but like they talk about
a lot on the broadcast, Spilboorg is really good at this, and we'll
break it down and show you a siding like. His timing is awful.
He's laid on fastballs all the time because he's got like that step right.
But one thing that I've seen the Rockies introduced done near alder hitters through all
the levels is when they get like that and their timing is off, they
set up real wide, they take away the step and they start to get
their timing back. And Beck is doing that from time to time right now
in the Majors, the last couple of days, the last series you see
ving, I feel like v I've been watching some ven long story short.
I think that we've talked about this a little bit. I think he was
taking a lot of their coaching in the lowers. When he hit double A,
he started reverting back to some of his old ways, and that's that's
his words. And there were some struggles and there was some injury too,
And now I feel like he's kind of found a happy medium with all that
pulling the ball well, hitting some home runs, he's hitting opposite field.
He's still I still think he's probably swinging and missing and striking out a little
bit there's development all over the place, even in the worst even in the
worst developmental organization in base I guess is my ultimate points. Yeah, and
definitely agree with that. And these guys are trying to get better. I
mean, that's that's what they are paid to do. That's there. Competitive
by nature, and a lot of them, even the most stubborn of them,
are still trying to improve constantly, and especially with these young guys.
I think that's something that in the Dynasty world, players can overrate they view
top prospects or you know, Zach Vine's a great example of this, who
showcase loud tools and then they expect them to just keep linearly getting better they
as they go up the levels, and that doesn't happen very often, and
even when it does, al a Jackson Holliday or a White Langford, you
still should expect a long period of adjustment once they make it to the show.
I mean, I've heard some announcers recently talk about the fact that they
think the jump to the major leagues is actually the hardest that it's ever been,
and now I'm not sure that that's true, but it remains a big
jump between the upper miners and what you face in the major leagues on both
sides of the ball. And so this time last year, everybody was saying,
Brandon fat is the worst picture that they've ever seen, and he's giving
up home runs all the time. He's terrible. I can't believe we bought
in to what he did in twenty twenty two. And I was like,
look, this happens. Same thing with Gavin Stone getting lit up. Gavin
Stone has turned in, like his last five starts in the major leagues have
been awesome. He's like, after Yamamoto maybe been the Dodgers' best pitcher in
the last month. That's kind of the guy that he showed in twenty twenty
two. And he had a rough one year adjustment to the major leagues and
there will be more adjustments to come. All of that to say that these
guys are constantly adjusting. In good organizations quote unquote, or organizations that seem
a little behind the times, you still see that development and those adjustments happen
constantly, and it's one of the reasons why we watched this and especially as
dynasty players like you can constantly look for the little changes that might portend something
interesting. It's why I read fangraphs, Right, These guys are really good
at spotting changes and contextualizing them in a way that helps pull out those nuggets
of utility. And sometimes it's nothing right. Sometimes these changes are statistical noise
or like you said, you find you watch a few games and you're like,
oh, he's swinging more first pitches, and you know, maybe that's
a thing that is going to help, but it also might just be a
good week or a bad week. Right, Like to go back to our
conversation last week about guys that were showing some significant improvements, Well, Jaysavina
last week sat with like a low twenties strikeout rate, and then he struck
out like eighteen times this week. I think that's an exaggeration, but it
was bad. It was like three or four a game for a while there.
And his strikeout rate is back around thirty percent, and I'm like,
he might be reverting to the kind of guy that he is. So all
that to say, that's one of the coolest things to see is watching guys
make the adjustments. And it's also one of the hardest things to pull out.
Is that change a real change. Is that a change that's sustainable or
is this possibly just noise, and I hope we do that well when we
talk about the way guys are evolving. Yeah, And I think for me,
you know, the last four years by far the closest I've watched minor
league baseball, watch certain players progress through now all four levels of full season,
and with you and other things that I read learned from, I am
starting to put together some more things with hitting it. And I think,
like when we talk about pitching, we talk about pitching to development and pitching
to results, Like, I don't think it's the same, but I think
I think I've noticed some things with some hitters that it was like, hey,
it was like worth maybe not producing all that well for this half a
season or whatever it might be, and now a year later, you're able
to handle pitches in that location or being later on a ball and doing some
damage with it or whatever it might be, right, or not swinging and
missing it certain types of pitches or what have you. Right, So I
think that kind of falls in line with my week as a whole watching this
week, Matt, like, have you ever been like a renaissance fair kind
of guy? Like, have you ever partook in I have not the closest
thing is they had this wacky festival that was outside of the place where I
went to school. Had a lot of people that would dress up in costumes,
but also a lot of people that would just be naked, and it
was like a wild place. They call it the Country Fair, but I
was like, not really. When I first heard, I was like,
oh, it's like a you know, state fair. I've been to a
bunch of those, Like yeah, it makes sense. Nope, not really
like that, like kind of hippie commune vibes plus rent fair vibes. I
mean it's super fun, like great music and food and all sorts of great
people watching, but it was not quite that. Yeah, Okay, you
ever go to like a Medieval Times No. I think the closest I went
to was like going to the Excalibur in Vegas one time when I was a
kid, you know, because like I was there for a baseball tournament or
something, and my dad was like, well, we can't do a lot
of the fun stuff in Vegas, so let's go to Excalibur. Like okay,
So that's about the closest I've I think. Well, I've been having
a bit of a renaissance here Matt not only with the Rockies and their half
week of good baseball that breeding me some new life, some four B side
selections that I don't know. I don't want to say I wrote off,
but definitely didn't like roster anymore. Definitely wasn't watching as much anymore. But
I know we had mentioned him last week, but Matt and I said,
if he has one more good week, then reluctantly talk about him. But
Jo Hendrick Bernango man kind of on one and that it has been all year.
I know we chatted about him someone in the discord. I think the
summation of that discussion between you and I was I'm kind of wondering. It's
hard for me to not wonder that there was injury that played into a year
and a half of him basically just sucked on. But he is still only
twenty two years old. I imagine he is getting called up to double A
pronto, very soon. I would think after this is what his This will
be the fourth season that he has logged sometime in High A striking out only
twelve percent of the time. He strikeouts have never been a big problem for
him. That's what drew me to him to start with just a high contact
for a guy. But he's hit five home runs, he's stealing some bases,
although he's also getting caught. I'll slug in six' ten. He
does hit ground balls at what forty six percent of the time right now,
we've seen that higher with him kind of spraying the ball around as he kind
of always has. Yeah, I don't know, man, Hendrick Panango has
revitalized my interest I think even more than him being at the same level for
so long as he might have a nice bat and interesting that, but defensively
kind of curbs my overall dynasty enthusiasm. His bat is going to have to
be really really good because I think he's not a good left fielder, but
he kind of had that headlines my little renaissance fair here. Yeah, so
you're returning to your your roots with Panango. I mean we talked about this
a while ago. He's one of these guys that when I first started reading
some of your stuff, you had highlighted him. This probably would have been
back in twenty twenty one, like you might have posted about him on a
picture list or something. He popped on one of your things, and I
was like, you know, in a really deep dynasty league, and I
went to add him, and I think one of my main rivals in that
league had read the same article or independently came to the conclusion that Panago might
be a really exciting young guy. He was at the time nineteen, performing
in High A for the Cubbies and like you said, not striking out,
showing a little bit of power, showing some speed, pretty exciting little player.
And I got beaten to the punch and my main rival division rival and
one of the other like top tier teams in this thirty teamer that I'm in,
I sniped him the same day. I went to add him late in
the season, and usually that late you can just add people for no fab
just because a lot of the teams had checked out or rosters are full,
and so you see a guy, you're like, yeah, at him for
zero dollars and you get him. So I was so bummed I missed out
on him. And then he started out twenty two pretty well, but then
got hurt and ended up having kind of a subpar line. Well, repeated
the same level again all at hig A for the Cubs, and Panango was
even worse last year, you know, close, like kind of similar overall
lines. He was awful last year. He was awful. Yeah, and
then he's back at hi A again this year. So this marks his fourth
season in a row in HIA. And so when Nate, you and I
talked about this, I was like, look, Panango has spent four years
at this level. He should be crushing it. And that tempers my enthusiasm
a bit. Sure, sure, sure, I mean the first year was
like, what a little cup of coffee at the end of twenty twenty one
I've ever played appearance. It's not nothing, No, okay, I can't
help him. I know there was an off season surgery head it heading into
last year and he was just, like I said, horrible but uh but
nonetheless has peaked my interests some again. I had some spots and tacked up
a few more shares to something I didn't think i'd be doing in May.
But here we are. Oh yeah, and I hear that like the guys
that you come back to and that you were really on or way higher than
consensus, or you are on really early, and you always have sort of
a soft spot for those guys. And my first one on this list was
George Valera. Maybe a little bit more of a pretty boy than Penango was,
because he got some hype after a couple of really good seasons back in
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty one, post pandemic, he was legit. He
was young for the Guardians' minor league system. He kind of tore through it
for a couple of years, and I was way in. I was like,
this is a guy that, yeah, he strikes out a bit,
but the power seems real he walks, and I think this is going to
be a corner outfield masher. Well, he was pretty bad in twenty twenty
two. You know, he was at Double A, held his own promoted
twenty one years old and trip and was league average, which for a twenty
one year old in Triple A in the International League, that's that's pretty good.
And then last year dude was atrocious below average for everything, like eighty
four WRC plus, struck out more than he ever had walked a decent amount,
but just like all the shine wore off. I tried to acquire him
a bunch, thinking I was like buying low and just couldn't get him anywhere
nobody was selling. And I still like kind of harbored this, like ah,
it's just a bad season. He's gonna rebound. It's gonna revert back
to the kind of corner outfield slugger that I've seen, and we've seen a
little bit of signs of that this year. So he's kind of drawing me
back in. And as I make some trades this upcoming week, I'm going
to have a couple of roster crunches in some of my leagues, and I
think I'm going to try and target him again because while the exit Velo numbers
aren't exciting so far from what we've seen either in the last two years,
he is has a swinging strike rate under ten percent. He's hitting the ball
in the air and on the line quite a lot. WRC plus is back
above one twenty so it's one twenty seven right now. So he kind of
is drawing me back in. And I threw on a Cleveland Triple A game
and saw Valera hitting four hole and he smoked a double, and I was
like, oh, now there's that swing that I liked. So I'm hopeful
that it portends better things. You know, my enthusiasm has definitely cooled a
bit there. I think is still enough of an interesting hitter here that I'm
going to see if I can get some get some more George Valera in my
life on the on the QT interesting, I have not been paying attention.
He was very highly thought of in the prospecting world for a minute there.
Yeah, I mean, you're that young and you make it to triple A
and you're showing some power. It's interesting. But yeah, his twenty twenty
three was miserable. So this this was like, you know, one of
those b side calls when you see very little of somebody and you just don't
really have any other great ideas, right, But last year I went with
Leandro Nata of the Phillies right from or maybe it was a couple of maybe
it was a couple of years ago, whatever it was, it was a
short look. There was like a teenager that they had pushed up the hi
A at the end of the year, and I'm like, what's this guy
all about? Turned him on a little bit, kind of like to look
at him at the plate. Philly's scout had told me that internally there's some
people that really like him. Well, I mean that's the case with everybody
of the West. They're not there. But it was like, okay,
I love that. I love that as a as a classic scout quote that
the analysts and fantasy prospectors drop is like their people internally are really high on
Hi's Like really, you think like they drafted him and they're trying to pump
him up for either trade value or performance reasons. Like, no shit,
they're going to tell you that. So I love that one. I love
that. Like I had a scout tell me at a game a couple of
weeks ago. He was like, oh, yeah, we're really high on
insert top five prospect overall here, Like, oh you guys like Jackson Holliday.
Wow, I never would have guess Orioles scout like that's crazy. Another
guy, the Giants guy, actually just a quick side tangent. He was
telling me how high they were internally still on Helio Ramos and I was like,
oh yeah, really like you guys still really, Oh yeah, we
think he's gonna star Still. I was like, I saw, I say,
he's done a few things his first week in the bigs or whatever.
I saw him make a really nice catch yesterday too, going back to his
arm side like deep and left field. Well maybe maybe they're right, but
I just thought it was a funny one because I was like, man,
he's been like kind of just okay for a pretty long time now. But
yeah, yeah, right, dude, Pineda paid no attention to him at
all, happened to turn him on. Some wrote a single and man this
last week mat six games, he was eleven for twenty two doubles, home
run seven RBIs, walked four times, struck out once. That's a five
fifty average eight hundred slug on the week. For some reason, it's Monday,
they haven't announced like their players of the week. I'm curious to see
if he wins it in the sale or not. Well. On the season,
he's striking out twenty one percent of the time, walking nine percent of
the time, slashing three ten, three, eighty, five, four eighty
it's a three seventy three babbit hitting line, drives twenty two percent of the
time, hitting ground balls a little too much fifty three percent of the time.
But pulling the ball. Uh. Clay put out that new little app
thing on Discord. It was pretty cool. You can pulled like everybody's spray
charts. I was looking at his this was looking kind of interesting, so
I know it's a Leandro pineda not out of my mind anymore. He's back
and I'm going to try to tune him on a little bit. He struck
me as an athletic guy. I thought maybe uh, I thought maybe he'd
run a little bit and was a little bit faster. Maybe he was a
few years ago. I think he's more of a corner outfield type. I
don't think he's really been stealing any bags. He's been caught twice as stolen
done. Kind of back on my radar a little bit, as as a
guy to watch another guy on his third tour at HYA. Hopefully he gets
challenged a bit. True is off when I start it's true? Yep.
Well let's go back to the Rockies and talk about them a bit. I
had snagged Drew Romo pretty late in deep FYPD. That would that have been
like twenty twenty one? Was that his FYPD year? Well, twenty twenty
was his draft year Draft year, Okay, so maybe it was twenty twenty
one or twenty twenty. But I'd gotten him fairly early on the back of,
you know, great defensive reputation. This guy's going to hit, and
I hadn't really shied away from catchers, yet I was still like, oh,
yeah, you need a good catcher, and so I think I had
quite a few. But anyway, I drafted Romo and early on it went
pretty well. Like he good back to ball skills, you know, kind
of an aggressive hitter in the handy mold. His handy percentages are pretty good
throughout the miners, and had a really sterling defensive reputation. But the hitting
kind of took a step back in twenty two and I ended up trading him
in a package, maybe as part of a package to get like Justin Berlander,
as I was trying to push for playoffs, and he turned things around
in twenty twenty three a bit, like he got promoted to Double A.
Hartford's not as good a place to hit as Spokane, and he hit better,
still showing the low strikeout, low walk typology. He's kind of still
flew kind of under the radar though, Like I feel like the prospect Shine
wore off, even though he made a couple of top one hundreds that year.
I think maybe to start the year he was off someome. At mid
season, his prospect Shine had definitely dried up. I was kind of out,
like I was like ah, Yeah, he's going to be just a
guy. Maybe he'll catch, maybe he'll figure it out and be a touch
more. But I'm no longer like this is a Dynasty staple kind of catcher.
But as a twenty two year old in Triple A, he's showing out
and some of it is Babeb driven, and he still is a bit aggressive
for my taste. Like he I think has like one walk on the year
and is striking out twenty two percent of the time, which is acceptable,
but would definitely like to see more walks out of him. But the rest
of the batter ball profile looks pretty solid. He's definitely showing a little bit
of power, which you love to see. And he's a guy that in
the past has showed a really nice batted ball distribution, like ground ball rate
around forty percent, flyball rate in the thirty to forty percent range, and
hits decent number of line drives. So I love that shape of the production,
and I do think I watched a bit of him. It's been two
weeks ago, and he remains to my eyes at least a pretty good defensive
catcher. So Drew Romo's one that I think isn't quite getting enough love,
Like I don't think he's on a bunch of the public top one hundreds,
especially for a fantasy and I think I like him, but he looks really
good. And again I think some of this is like he's not quite a
one to twenty four WRC plus hitter, but it looks like he might be
ninety five to one hundred WRC plus kind of bat at peak in the bigs
and for a catcher at cors who's going to play a lot like sign me.
Yeah, that's an exciting player to me, just offensively. I think
the biggest question was like, are you going to continue to switch hit or
not? Because you're awful from the right side. It can't possibly be worse,
you know, just staying on the web side. I'll say most of
my looks have been at him as a lefty right like that's what he does
the most this year early on, and I know that they have talked about
that, that that has been brought up to him about him just hitting lefty.
But it's very early. He hasn't had a lot of plate appearances,
but he's hitting three eighteen as a lariety right now. Interesting. Yeah,
yeah, so maybe some improvements there, Matt so getting off of some guys
that are in you know, Hi A for half a decade you went to
the Triple A. But a couple of Triple A that's former B side calls
that are are doing it in Triple A right now. Andre's Traparo and Andre
Lipschiz both have a really nice seasons of Toparo's got nine home runs, just
says ten, which is kind of surprising. I mean, I never really
thought of him as a guy who would be hitting a lot of home runs
at least a few years ago. But I don't know, what do you
think about these two guys? You think they're they're gonna get any run this
year? I think both kind of fall in that Luken Baker kind of range
where they're they're good hitters because defense too. Can he he can play a
corner pretty well. Yeah, yeah, I think there's a good third basement.
Yeah maybe. I mean I think for this is less for for Ellipsies,
because I do think that, you know, if there is some defense
underlying that. But like Chaparro for me, is in that same kind of
quad a corner back kind of category where yeah, I think he would be
a slightly above average MLB bat, But if it's at first base, what
what does that production really look like? I mean a lot of the guys
that I have highlighted in Triple A in the past are kind of like this,
like Croy Johnston, Blaine krim Sandro fabian Tersou Ornella's like all are kind
of like this kind of guy, this shape of production where maybe there's some
power, maybe some swinging miss although Japaro again I think is maybe a touch
better, more on the Blaine Krim side where he's not going to strike out
quite as much, hit the ball pretty hard, hit the ball in the
air, and get some home runs, and I like that profile a lot.
The challenge is getting the opportunity and when you don't have a glove,
like you can't play a corner outfield position, or you're stuck to first base
or DH those kinds of guys, I think it's tough to bank on their
production. Some will hit, you know, like a Joey manessas who finds
that role, hits the ground running in the majors and can hold on to
that role or even carry. Carpenter is sort of an example of this where
nobody was really on carry Carpenter in the minors, partly because he's not a
very good defender, but he played just well enough in left and right that
he got looks out there and now plays regularly for the Tigers. Both of
these guys smack of that to me, like good hitters with skills that I
really like, but it's going to be challenging for them to get opportunities.
And that whole list of guys that I said, you know, Johnson Crammed,
Fabian Ornellis, Lipsius, Chaparro, Baker, one of them is going
to be a good longtime DH in the major leagues, but I don't know
which one. Spencer Horwitz is probably another one in this list. Like they're
all twenty five plus, they've all made it to Triple A, they've all
had some success, and they all have defensive question marks. Somebody from that
group is going to be a fairly long time useful contributor in the big leagues.
I don't know who, you know, Like, it's hard to say
who's going to get that opportunity and who's going to run with it. So
guys that I like to bet on, like I usually have a couple of
guys that look like this on my rosters. You know, they're great villains
for injuries. They're great throw ins in trades when you're like somebody says,
I really need a near to the major's power back, and you're like,
I got one of those, and yeah, that actually just recently happened for
me in a in some trade negotiations. So I like rostering this kind of
guy. And I do believe that seeing this type of guy get some run
and then throw up a one thirty WRC plus Luke Voight type season, that
happens, and and so I can see it happening with either of these guys.
I forgot to mention two up top. I wanted to, Uh,
I wanted to give you a little high five. You got another b sider
in the bigs her Bees. That's right, it's got the call. Yeah,
number number twenty on the board. Nice work, rook, But those
are mine, like I've had quite a few this year. Yeah, yeah,
you're doing well. Do you see Maldonado Blue saved yesterday? No I
didn't, I didn't. Yeah, yeah, you got, you kind of
got. This is kind of a one to eighty from those last two guys.
Matt. A couple of shortstop gloves that I think are ticketed for the
majors or at least high probability just on the defense alone. A couple of
guys that I have thrown out in the past offense the light bat was always,
you know, kind of a big question. So fantasy wise, I
don't know how much we want to get interested about these two guys except for
maybe like a thirty teamer or something like that. Maybe I'm under selling it
a little bit, Matt, but Jeremy Revis of the Cardinals, who's in
Double A right now, they've really kind of I feel like they've kind of
like pushed and they've given him a lot of time in spring training and stuff
like that, like at least on the surface, like putting up some numbers
this year. There's not a lot of pop. He hasn't hit a home
run. He's got like a fifty six ISO, but he's he's hitting three
ZHO three on base percentage of four h two, sitting line drives thirty one
percent. He's always hitting line line drives at a higher percentage, striking out
sixteen percent of the time, walking thirteen percent of the time. Like,
I gotta be honest, if you were told me that this year Revs was
in Double A at twenty one just doing that. I would not bet on
that at all. Been watching him a little bit. And then Noah Miller,
which I think we brought up a little bit last year. He's in
Dodgers Great Lakes right now. But man, he continued to hit this year.
He didn't hit any home runs this week. He still have or maybe
he did hit one. Think he's at four at the end of last week.
He's got five home runs on the season. He's not striking out a
lot, he's walking, He's getting on base three sixty two clip. His
ISO's one sixty eight. Well, he's hitting line drives twenty one point seven
percent of the time in the air forty percent of the time. I don't
know. You mentioned you've been watching a little bit of Miller. Two gloves,
whose offense I think has taken a jump and have gotten a little bit
more interesting. Yeah, And of the two, I think Miller is a
little more interesting. Even though Reevas is at double A and doing and doing
quite well, I'm skeptical of his profile. You know, I've said this
before, but if somebody has an ISO of under a to Oh, that's
a really really bad sign for their future production. Like, for the most
part, those guys don't even make the major leagues because even fast guys,
if they're hitting line drives, they can turn those into doubles that are high
enough clip or triples, and that helps the ISO get close to one hundred,
which is like not a good ISO, but is acceptable if you do
other things well, like a lot of the speechters who run kind of sub
one hundred ISOs. But if you're doing that in the lower minor leagues or
lower to mid minor leagues, says pretty bad things about something about your production.
Right, Either you're slow and you don't hit homers, or your bat
at ball profile is such that like your extra base hits are few and far
between. That's kind of true for Reevus, But with Miller, who we've
kind of his whole reputation is that he's a plus glove. I think that's
why the Dodgers went after him. He's sort of always been a light back
kind of hitter, but he's continuing to do the light bat things well,
not striking out, walking, hitting line drives, but he's paired it with
a few homers this year. And he didn't hit a homer last week,
but he had that four homer barrage a couple weeks ago that we talked about
two in a game, which I don't think he's ever done before, certainly
not in the pros. To me, says like, maybe there's some burgeoning
power here. He's still twenty one, he's in Great Lakes. I wonder
if he's gonna get bumped up, because you know, the guy that was
playing shortstop in Double A Austin Gothier is now bouncing around to a bunch of
different positions up in Oklahoma City. So I could see him get the call
up fairly soon, and maybe he does turn into something a little more interesting.
So while I agree generally like these are both deeply deep cut kind of
targets a little more interested in Miller, I agree, although I kind of
wonder if Revis is better at shortstop than Miller. But again, defense it's
so hard. I've seen Revis make last year plays, I think, but
love a little flash. Yeah, and then uh man. So Wednesday we
were chadding and it was a it was a big, full, fun day
of minor league baseball. A lot of fun Midwest league stuff. Going on
during the day, a lot of good pitching matchups. On of good pitching
matchups, we were listing them off to each other, and a lot of
them kind of I don't know, we're na a lot of a lot of
guy hot arms that wasn't their best outing of the week and all that stuff.
And we actually, of course ended up with just one FQO that day,
Matt, and that was I got a kind of deep cut first year
player draft guy that I was into, Aaron Davenport with the Guardians, who's
now in Double A. He went six, four hits, one in run,
one walk, struck out six. I've been wanting to mention him a
few times now. Has he been as good as I had hoped when he
was my you know, kind of first year player draft, deep cut get
at the end of my drafts. No, he's repeated high A. But
this year when he's twenty, when he's twenty three and he's in Double A
and this is his first Double A test, there's plenty of numbers that,
you know, aren't that exciting, but this is just a different looking Aaron
Davenport to me, Matt, in the past, you kind of like,
I don't know, it look kind of looked like a reliever right, like
sort of NAC's effort, a lot of like energy, but he just seems
like way more slowed down now. Is kind of like that now too,
He's you see him spotting east and west like a lot better. He was
the guy. Part of the intrigue was I don't think his fastball was real
great, but he had really good secondaries. He's got a really good curve
ball. And I was like, oh, look at this guy going to
the Guardians. They've helped a lot of guys with not a great fastball,
but good secondaries get better. And I don't know, I had kind of
written it off like Okay, maybe here in Davenport will have a chance as
a reliever someday. But I'm kind of like, have a little Aaron Davenport
renaissance going on and interested the West the rest of the season and see if
he can continue to progress as a starter. Like he just seems like more
of a picture now to me, and more of a starting pitcher at least
trying to be. I can't say I've watched much of Davenport. First thing
looking at his stats that popped up for me is that it doesn't strike very
many guys out and didn't really last year and hasn't really this year, and
that, you know, is a thing that gives me question about his fireability
longer term. But sure, yeah, he turned it in a great outing
this week. See from him is what this year all but one of his
outings, and it was close. He was at fifty eight percent, but
it was plus sixty percent strikes. You go look at some of his game
logs the past couple of seasons and yeah, he'd be good for a few
and then just awful for several. The Guardians are still giving him run as
a starter, And uh, yeah, I don't know enough about the boring
pitchers, and let's go back to talking about the real athletes. Our boy
Don HD in Dynasty Dugout Discord, who we play with in the League two.
He has been the biggest. They have a son, Dela Santos fan
DDLS fan that is out there and Dela Santos those of you remember he was
selected in the Rule five draft by the Guardians, which was sort of a
head scratching pickup because they already had a guy who was really similar to DDLS
in their system in Jhen Kenzie Noel, low walk, high power, high
strikeout, young sluggers that have been pushed up the minor league ladder which sort
of had defensive question mark but really intriguing top end power. Well, ddls
didn't stick on the major league roster. It wasn't a huge surprise, and
so he was returned back to the Diamondbacks and they stuck him back at Amarillo
again. This is now his third year, ended twenty twenty two in Double
A and then was there all last year and was just okay in both those
stops, Like, strikeout rate was kind of high, really low walk rate,
and he wasn't getting to all of the power that he has shown.
But he is mashing, I think is the technical term. Thus far in
Double A. I don't really see what he's doing there, Like he needs
to be at Triple A to see if he can handle better pitching. Consistently,
He's still the same shape of production, not walking very much. He's
limited his strikeouts a little bit though. The swing strike rate is still pretty
high, so I expect his strikeout rate to tick up a bit more from
the twenty one point seven percent that it is right now. The power remains
real He's got eleven homers and that's pretty good. That's pretty good at double
A for a twenty one year old rock going to one eighty eight WRC plus
Babbitt's really high at over four h two. But I just don't think there's
much for him to show at double A. And I'd rather see him try
and play defense in the PCL. See if he can stick at third base,
like it seems unlikely that he's going to, but if he can play
first base and mash like this, like this is an interesting bat. Don
and I have bonded over this, like definitely interested in ddls in dynasty leagues,
especially those that reward hour. And I think one of the most interesting
improvements that he's done so far is the batted ball production looks a lot better.
He's dropped his ground ball right below fifty percent consistently for the first time.
He'd run a sixty percent babbit at a couple of stops, but now
it's down to forty five point nine percent. Again, it's still early.
These could change, but I wonder if this is related to a swing chain
that he went through towards the end of last season and that continued through a
really good spring training with the Guardians and then a really great start to the
year with the dived back. So I kind of am buying this a little
bit. And the path to walk for this kind of player, as we
mentioned, is tough. But showing this much power and showing this kind of
success at Double A as a twenty one year old, and I could see
him doing this at Triple A too if he can do that, This looks
like a major league corner bat to me. And you know, Christian Walker
isn't going to be around forever in Arizona. There's DH spots open Arizona two,
so he could be a useful bat in a couple of years if he
keeps us up. So D Dls' I'm kind of buying. He's a guy
I've been interested in before but cooled on a bit as he's gone up and
Don might be onto something here. He might be DDLS might be back.
So who do you think gets a shot first, Chaparro or DDLS Chaparro.
I mean, he's got more trustworthy production, I'd say, right like,
he doesn't strike out very much, especially right now, you know he's in
Triple A showing a twenty percent strikeout rate and walking like Chaparo does have a
good plate approach, and I wouldn't really say that about DDLS, Like at
no stop of any length has he shown good plate discipline. And that's a
thing that tends to get exposed at at higher levels, especially in the major
leagues. Like that's you know, to some extent some of the Rockies problems
where if the babbitt falls and they're being really aggressive and chasing a lot like
then it leads to weaker contact and sort of a cascading effect. And DLS
he doesn't really get cheated when he swings, and he swings a lot,
and so that helps keep the strikeout rate at sort of tenable levels, but
it also means he's not walking and he's not providing value that way. So
that's you know, if if we do see some plate improvements, sort of
if he chases less and starts making a bit more contact in the zone,
this looks like a Masher type that and I'd be really really interested in him
as is. I'm still interested, but the plate discipline, I want to
see that if that sticks at higher levels or for longer too. I mean,
it's still just been one hundred and thirty eight plate appearances this year.
Hitter I wanted to shout is another in this same sort of vein. I
didn't realize that this was kind of my theme as I was going through some
of these guys. But a first base only prospect was twenty five at Triple
A, hitting for some power, striking out a bit too much. Nico
Cavdas Calatas Cavadis, Yeah, is having a great start to the Year's cut
his strikeout rate. He's long been a guy who strikes out a lot but
walks a lot. And you know, I'm a three true outcome officionado.
But he's striking out, you know, twenty eight percent of the time on
the back of a nine point three percent strikeout rate. Compare that to DDLS,
who was twenties low twenties strikeout rate in Double A with a twenty percent
swinging strike rate. It's sort of flipped, but it's because Cavatis walks a
lot. He's got an eighteen percent walk rate in Triple A. Is hitting
the ball reasonably hard? You know, his top end exibilos aren't anything to
write home about, but he hits the ball pretty consistently hard, and so
his averages, and I think his ninetieth percentiles are a little bit better.
So again, he's another guy that I've been interested for various reasons and then
cooled on a bit as he was a little more mediocre when he got promoted
to Triple A last year as a twenty four year old. But Cavadas is
running a one ninety five WRC plus and it mostly looks legit again, higher
babbit, but the walks look great. He's getting to power, hitting forty
six percent fly balls like that's what you want your sluggers to do, and
it seems decent to me. I know Chris Klegg's pretty down on Cavadas,
doesn't think. He thinks he's more of a platoon kind of bat, and
that's a hard thing to carry, leftenant hitter for a strong side of a
platoon, like they don't most teams don't really do that. They want their
corner guys to be masters against both, and I'm not convinced that he couldn't
play, you know, regularly against both. Yeah, he's just somebody,
he's off to a great start. Wanted to give him a shout because he's
somebody that I've rostered in places before as like one of the staff line type
plate discipline plus approach with good power types that, and again he just fits
this mold of I don't know if he can play defense well enough. I
don't know if he's really a platoon bat or not. It's interesting enough to
me that I take a shot on him in deeper leagues going into last year,
I chose Juan Daniel and Canasion as my red Sox B side arm.
He was a young guy and a ball looked like he had a lively arm
more or less with like good frame. My generic take right, I think
I was watching DJ McCarty maybe, and and Canarsion was on the other side,
and I started watching a little bit and looks like he went a little
bit from thrower to pitcher, so to speak. And I started looking at
his season's numbers, and they're not too shabby. That outing he went five,
gave up no hits, walked one guy, struck out six through strikes
over seventy percent three of his outings. He's thrown strikes over seventy percent of
the time. That is not JD and Canarcion in the past. I don't
think On the air twenty two innings, thirty one strikeouts, walk percentage of
eight point six x fit three point three eight to one point one four whip
Yeah, I don't know. He's only twenty three years old. A lot
of Red Sox arms that get some attention in the lowers, but uh JD
and Canarsion. I'm I'm gonna do some homework on him his next starter or
two here, and you kind of dig some more and see what's up with
him. I've watched him a little bit, and I remember thinking that he
seems sort of like an extreme flyball pitcher. Has that been your experience watching
him too? I can't say that I've watched him a whole time. Early
last year I was watching him some. He's at forty seven point one percent
right now flyball pretty that's pretty high. Yeah. I think that he's another
one that would be nice to see him do it in Portland, you know,
get get him a promotion up to double A. Just kind of mastered
this level and been there for a good amount of time now. So if
he's mastered it, it's just been over these last five starts because I don't
think he was very good last year. Decent, you know, he wasn't
walking too many. Who's striking out a decent number. He just got pretty
unlucky on the home run and left on base front, Like everybody who got
on scored. He's a flyball guy, and I think some of those more
of those flyballs were leaving the yard. Like he had almost a two homers
per nine rate, and that's really really really high. Like a high rate
is you know, one point two or something, and he was almost double
that. Like that's pretty out of the norm. And you know, hey,
we've talked about this before as it relates to Brandon Fott. That's just
not a thing that tends to be sticky year over year. Pitchers don't have
a lot of control over it. They have control over how many flyballs they
give up, both like the shape of their arsenal and how they attack hitters
can lead to more ground balls or more flyballs, obviously, but which of
those turn into homers isn't a huge skill, Like it's not something that you
should attribute especially in small samples. Two pictures. So that's one, Like,
okay, it was one nine to nine, But like, is that
really what he's going to do all the time, or is it going to
be closer to one, and if it's closer to one and he strands guys
at a reasonable rate like that, he looks good picture. So anyway,
just those are the kind of trio of leck metrics that I look at for
four pictures along with Babe. But sure, have you watched any of this
Will Johnston guy? The A's No, I don't think so. I watched
some of him. He's kind of interesting, I think, yeah. I
mean, he's crushing. He's one that's on my two watch list, But
I just haven't watched any Yeah, I watched a little bit. I think
he's a little misleading. Maybe is you think so what he's been doing,
I don't know. It's it's hard man like. I wish we could see
some lefties, like better angles for lefties, especially in the lowers. He's
a softer toss and lefty with a funky delivery. I think he's deceptive.
I think he's got a fastball or a cutter or something that you know it
misses bats somehow, whether it's you know, rising or whatever sort of movement
right, but very much execution wise. Looks like a reliever to me,
which he was in college. He's twenty three years old. Probably the maybe
the hottest name, trendiest name, the maybe the biggest splash of the week
was Zebbie Matthews in his Double A debut. Wasn't my first look at Zebbie
Matthews, but had to say I was pretty darn impressed. And I know
that you had beaten me to the punch at least in one of our leagues.
To him, what do you think about ZEBI here? I like Zebby
quite a bit. It's hard to deny his start to the year. You
know, he's in the top five and KSBB four so far this year,
top five in fifth doing it split between high and Double A so far.
And the thing that is maybe most exciting is he's not walking anybody. He
literally has zero walks on the air. What I find to be super impressive
with that is you understand, these these umpires and the miners are in training
behind the plate and they are very inconsistent from game to game, right,
and just the ability and not to walk anybody in the minor leagues for this
long of a stretch is just super impressive to me. And you have to
adjust your strike zone to the umpire and for him to be able to do
that and I've seen him do it just speaks on his ability to execute pitches
at a really high level. Yeah, and some of it is is definitely
earned. He's a bulldog like. He really does fill up the zone and
I think has a lot of confidence, especially in his force team to play
in the zone despite not having overwhelming velocity. He's not out there running it
up in the upper nineties. It's I'm pretty sure like a ninety one to
ninety six kind of a mile an hour fastball. Yhich as a righty.
That's like kind of meh. And I'd also be interested in some of his
advanced metrics because he looks like sort of a short strider to me, Like,
he doesn't look like a spencer strider who gets way down the mound and
is coming at you with a really flat, like well extended fastball. So
which is interesting and I think that it might speak he spins it like.
I think that to me looks like that even though he doesn't get great extension
and it doesn't look like it's from a super flat arm angle. I think
he gets all of his backspin is effective backspin, and I think he spins
it pretty well because he just gets whifts in the middle of the zone on
a ninety four mile in our fastball routinely, and so he just lives there.
He'll hump that fastball right in the middle of his zone, and he
does execute pretty well at the top when he gets two strikes, and he
gets bad swings on you know, ninety two or ninety three that he elevated
at or slightly above the zone. But I think his best pitch is his
gyro slider. He has great feel for landing it, and I think it
plays well off of that riding four seamer Here's that he's at this level,
just haven't really been able to adjust. It's been pretty impressive to watch him
go back to back pitches. Ninety four at the top gets the swing and
the miss, and the next pitch is this gyro slider that's like eighty five,
so pretty firm, but it just drops straight down right into the middle
of the zone and guys just take it for strike three because it looked like
it was going to be that same fastball above the zone and they just watch
it go by. So he's got a lot of confidence in those two pitches
for sure, and I think those are far and away his most used pitches,
especially for strikeouts, and I do think he's kind of figured out this
is his game plan, his like Plan A, and he's doing a great
job executing it right now. So I'm excited about him as a guy that
is really off to a great start and I think has kind of earned it.
I don't always think that is true of pictures up to this point,
but I kind of think he has, and especially his last couple outings have
been phenomenal. Snagged him. I think it was after his last start in
High A, and so it was nice to see him perform at Double A
as well against the Travelers there. Punched out nine in that game. He
looked great too. Like you've noted more North South, the North South is
better than the East West execution wise as well, I think. I know
I've heard some folks like hoping On and this season's Christian Scott maybe putting words
in their mouths, but you know, execution meets pretty good stuff. I
know Kleig has talked about his stuff ticking up since last year and really kind
of ascending and taking off. And I got to say, someone who watched
good amount of Scott last year early two a year ago in May, like
the execution is not I don't think on the on the same sort of level,
at least from all access of the strike zone, if you will.
But you know, it's still just May and what he's got five or six
starts under his belt so far this year. But I'm with you, man,
I'm always on the prow trying to find guys with good stuff and the
ability to use it extremely well. And I think Zebbie Matthews is is definitely
up there on my list of sort of the newer guys showing out like that.
Yeah, and the fact that he's doing it at double A now,
like it'll be interesting, you know, the Texas this league has some pretty
good teams in it, and we'll see if he can keep it up.
But yeah, I'm kind of convinced that this is a real arm he's taken
either a step forward or the tweaks that he's made are earning him this.
Like it doesn't seem like Flukes to me. Now, He's definitely not this
good, but it's encouraging when you have a run of starts like this.
Like we talked about this, I think with respect to Juander Suarez at the
end of last year. When you have a run like that at the middle
minors, it definitely gives me more confidence in saying that this looks like a
real change attributable to the performance, not just a lucky run. So yeah,
he's doing it in a pretty compelling way. Well, should we take
a look at the other folks trending up this week? Matt, let's do
it. Who else is on the upswing? Johnny de Luca is still technically
a prospect, right, I don't know is he's doing stuff with Tampa Bay
because he's up like eighteen point three percent this week. Came off the injured
list and had himself a really good look. He hit some homers hit I
think he had like a bunch of RBIs last week. Sort of timely hitting
too. I have him in one of my deeper leagues and he's been really,
really good. Robert Gasser, who what he made his debut? Right?
He's up twelve percent? Quality start? Did he? This? Notund
super shocking to me? Agreed? I like him? Now. This must
be some some rookie ball stats going up for Brailer Guerrero with the race,
he's up seven percent. He's just a seventeen year old. Nick Gonzalez is
up five percent. Zebbie Matthews is up well six percent. Zbbie Matthews up
six percent, Alex Freelan's up three percent. Joey Estes is up three percent.
Then did you watch any Joey Estes against your Mariners? There? Watch
only a bit of it. I think that was That was one of the
weekends starts right yeah, Saturday. Yeah, yeah, I was like in
the middle of cooking when that one was on, so I had it on,
but I only I was only like half watching. I don't think he's
executing pitching as well as I've ever seen him right now at the moment,
like he gave out some gave up some really loud outs. There was some
nice luck, but dude, he took one hundred and ten mile per hour
line drive from Julio in the first inn off his throwing shoulder, and dude
just made the play and just waved off the trainer, didn't skip a beat
and went five, struck out five, gave up one run on a slider
that he left just a cookie middle middle to the cal rally. Joey ESEs
being Joey ESEs man. That guy has just got balls, dude, I'm
such a fan of joey Es. I hope he crushes. I mean,
just to be honest, there aren't many better teams to come up and face
right now. Them Harris offense looks terrible. Yol Berdiez we've talked about,
is up three percent. You know, Ramos up three percent, Jacob Wilson
up three percent, Brett Harris up two percent. And you see Brett Harris
has three hits since he's been up, and they're all home runs. That
it's just like not Brett Harris. Yeah, that's that's about it. Brian
Ramos is up one and a half percent. I don't know is he still
hitting for the White Sex. I know he was off to a pretty good
start on his call up, but I haven't been saying he was a decent
start. And I actually traded him away. You'll be interested in this deal.
One of the guys who had a sort of interesting roster, fringy,
competitive like, probably was going to make the playoffs, but then a bunch
of injuries hit in this thirty teamer and he had a big sell off this
weekend. And I've had conversations about a bunch of his guys before, and
I ended up sending Brian Ramos and a couple of other Braden Taylor for the
Rays and somebody else decent. I'm forgetting for Nolan Jones and Tyler McGill.
So I acquired a share of Nolan Jones, which I felt good about buying
law on, but I was kind of sad to sell Brian Ramos. You
know, I've been a fan of his for a long time as somebody who
I thought was a little underrated got something. He'd shown enough to be like
a solid, you know, top fifty ish hitting prospect, even with his
struggles against right handed pitching, and so when he got called up, that
helped tip that deal in my favor. And hopefully Jones comes back and is
good. But I'm excited for Ramos. I think he's going to get a
lot of run. He's probably going to pick up second base eligibility pretty soon,
and I think I think he'll have adjustments. He's still really really young
or something like that. Yeah, as long as he's doing okay, I
expect the White Sox to give Ramos quite a bit of run. So I
was sad to see him go, but it was a trade that made sense
for me. Well, Matt the hottest team in baseball just got a little
bit hotter because they just beat the Padres five to four. Hey, Machado
was up in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded one out and
got them the ground into a double play. Nice work. What nine eight
more game road trips. So I'm just gonna enjoy this well I can,
because the depression could be coming back at any moment. At any moment,
but let's look ahead to this week in the miners Matt in the International League,
I'm thinking my eyes might go to Omaha at Saint Paul. I know
a guy that you've talked about quite a bit to Shaun Cercy, some grumblings,
some mumblings about him maybe getting some MLB run And I started the year
like the remember I talked about him and Joiner for Haardo as like kind of
similar shape production of like guys that could play defense and maybe some interesting power
speed combo. Except Cursey's been way better than the heart of up to this
point. Yeah, so I'm gonna flip the coin wrong. And I've been
a fan of Cursey since he was at college at Utah. He was Utah's
best player back in the day, and I got to watch him quite a
bit, and I'm yet to watch I know you first mentioned him during spring
training in kind of a who the hell is this guy sort of way,
but I'm yet to watch Walter Pennington of Omaha, who is still thinks striking
a bunch of people out, So I don't know what that's all about.
So maybe I should watch some of him, but I don't know. It's
hard. It's hard for me to get to the Triple A. You hate
the Triple A. I like it because you could watch most of the feeds
are decent, and you have the stack Cast data, so I love that
combo. Like I often have live feed, Game Day and the stack cast
feed all up together because I feel like that. I don't know, you
just get a lot of information. That's great, That's right. I mean
I definitely do that with like Joe yes this and stuff like that, and
pcl Reno at Round Rock. I don't know, Delcastillo has been really hot.
Taparo, you know, I don't know, Krim, maybe see some
see some long balls. Eastern League Eerie at Harrisburg, the Nats called Andre
Laura up to double A. I watched a bit of him this week,
and I know he's having a nice year. It was still just like very
Yeah, I don't know, man, I don't know how excited I am,
but but you have to have to get props. He's he's much improved
than he was a couple of years ago. I know that. And I
haven't watched any Brady House yet this year or you know, Handy or Pinkney
like at all, and I know Houses off to a start. Pinckney had
a really hot, hot week, and I don't think I've watched much of
Eerie and curious to see if Draydan Ham's up there this week. Yeah,
that'd be fun. Southern League. I think I'm gonna, you know,
Southern League smaller and it One thing about the Southern League too that maybe I
didn't really realize until this year is there's a lot of bad angles in this
small league. For Double A, it's kind of a tough watch. But
Rocket City is at Tennessee and I think it might be time for me to
really get into a Dana start and just get really nerd out on it again.
Heard some interesting lineup is pretty good too. Yeah, despite what some
might say, I think the Smokey's lineup is a really good test and who
knows, maybe we get Pinango in that lineup this week. Maybe just real
quick on that Smoky's lineup. Moiss By Asteros is just hitting the absolute piss
out of the ball, and I still think he's underrated. I mean he
he to me is looking like everybody was saying Samuel Basio was going to be.
I think he's got a great played approach and he's huge and probably not
a catcher, but boy, can that guy hit. He's got a lot
of weight to put into it. You know, he's got a lot of
masks. Boy, Yeah. Yeah. In the Texas League, I was
thinking maybe Midland at Springfield no our b side bat's Cooper Bowman, then Brennan
Malone had really big weeks. I was curious to see if one of them
was going to win Texas League hit or the week. I'm sure that'll come
out tomorrow, see if they can keep it going versus you know, Roch
Sick and Badel and I guess Tink Kentz, who is kind of just being
a booger again. So Matt, I gave him props. Matt. Ever
since he's just been the same old sal League Brooklyn at Bowling Green. I'm
thinking maybe Xavier Isaac has had some has kind of led some really hot Bowling
Green bats that I'm not super familiar with, but just looking at the week
stats had some monster weeks versus Ton de la Cruz Oreana, who have been
racking up big k numbers and those are I've watched tong, but those other
two I haven't seen too much. Kind of want to maybe check them out
and see what they're about. Northwest League again, slim pickens Vancouver at Spokane
is really kind of the only good look, so I guess that's the choice
by default. I was watching a young Victor Horrez. We talked about last
week a little bit here, like is I don't know eight k's and like
five innings or something like that, but watch him and Sullivan Dolander again versus
I guess, maybe the worst lineup in the league. Vancouver watched Olunder throw
up an egg after being nails to start the year, and he faces a
really bad lineup. Finally it just gets rocked right right, That's how it
goes. Midwest League. I mean the two teams. I've probably been watching
a ton of Midwest League, but Lake County and Lansing have been probably the
two teams I've been watching the most, and they play each other this week,
so I just assume tune into the most, uh you know, Sullivan
versus Cafus and Mooney and this, uh that Johnston pitcher is getting called up
to Lansing now, so we would get another decent look at him. I
know there's a couple of decent angles in that league, but man, it's
fun having Cafus and Mooney like hitting like right next to each other in that
lineup. It's such a you guy and a me guy, and they're both
having really really good seasons. But I mean, Mooney's clearly better. But
the Carolina League, Charleston at Columbia bound to have some good pitching matchups there
with like Arondez Pattison, Bosacker versus like Sworez, Gil Hill Wild some in
that week, there's gonna be a good pitching matchup. I think Florida State
League, I'm thinking Jupiter at Dunedin. Maybe let's get a look at White
and Meyer, who you know, weren't broadcast this last week, and I
think that maybe the last two weeks they haven't been I want to watch this
Perez kid again for Toronto, only seen very little and then the Cal League
maybe San Jose at Modesto again, want to see, you know, if
Whitman's supposed to be this advance lefty arm, that could be kind of a
nice test versus with a Wolt and Montes who they need a test man that
keeps chugging along. Emerson had a pretty good week that series. Last week,
back half of the series was the better Fresno pitchers, and I don't
think they did quite as well, but they kind of beat up the first
three games. I still think they did pretty well and it was not as
much loud contact, but like they were earning walks like Fermelo, Cole and
Montes all I think had multi walk games like towards the end of the week,
and that, you know, is encouraging because as we had noted,
there are some decent pitchers in that yeah present rotation, and they've been pitching
really well. So I still think they quitted themselves against decent competition there.
Yeah they're good, man, Those two guys are good. But yeah,
you can follow me along on Twitter at Pitching Specs posting some video, some
stuff that maybe we'll talk about on the podcast here. But next week,
Matt, I don't know, I might have to get a haircut, maybe
xfoliates a little bit, because we're going to get pretty we're talking pretty boys
next week. I think what we might do is I think Matt might share
his top twenty hitting prospects for Dynasty, and I think I might share my
top twenty pitching prospects for Dynasty. And we will share the list, and
I will tell him that where he's got it wrong or right and vice versa
or something like that. Sound good to you, Yeah, sounds fun.
Get into some of these pretty boys and maybe for what we can, like
one week promote this, like we'll get all our get some new listeners as
we're talking about relevant twelve team mix kind of redraft prospects, and then the
next week when people tune in, they're like they're talking about some teenager and
a ball, like what about listening to But yeah, we'll let Chicago Farmer
take us out. Tune in next week for the Pretty Boy podcast. Be
well, Bye Bye house. An hour riding to his head, he hopped
down first, but the lumpbone his face and on the very next pitch he
up and stole second face with gradest speed. He wasn't born. He had
the dirty Yes Uniforne