Not five miles an hour riding too his head. He hopping 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 yes uniform. I
had Episode thirty one of the Prospect b Sides podcast. I am Nate Handy.
He is the rook and we have been mutting around the minor leagues trying
to find trying to see what might be interesting out there in the mud for
our dynasty leagues. Now, how are you, my friend? I'm good.
You know. We're got some weird weather here so far today, a
lot of rain, a lot of sun, which doesn't happen that often usually
kind of picks one. Watched a lot of minor league baseball, yeah,
last week or so. I really got into it this week unintentionally. I
think there's a little theme for me this week. But Cardinal's pitching prospects got
me interested, got me watching it. I mean, like like tink Hens
and Quinn Matthews right, like those are no those guys. I was I
was going to ask you and wonder if you've been well. I don't know
if I think they weren't broadcast this week down in Low A, if I
remember correctly, So I don't know if you could. I don't think I
don't think he was this week. Yeah, but I mean he is clearly
dominating a ball, right, I mean his numbers are pretty definitely, and
I want to see him promoted yesterday, you know, like I want him.
I want him up to Higa in no time. But I will say
this is something that that I I think I had mentioned in the dynasy do.
I got discord this off season, and Beck reminded everybody today of this
that the Florida State League already a great place for pitchers. You know,
a lot of those parks play way down and it's notoriously pretty difficult to hit
there, and that's where they're trying out this twenty inch wide abs strike zone.
So it's another it's possibly another reason why we're seeing a lot of really
great pop up pitching performances in Low A. I really want those guys out
of there. I want them all to bump up to high to see if
if it's the competition it's at the league, is at the parks. You
know, let's see what's actually playing into this a couple of thoughts. Now,
I was no follower of Stanford baseball, so I don't know what his
velocity was in college. But from what I have been gathering is that his
velocity is up since college. Yeah, so part of part of my just
wondering, are we talking about a guy who maybe has a little more juice
on the fastball. I noted his walk rate is not super pretty if I
remember correctly, when I lost a couple of high walks, starts early,
but it's it's trending in the right direction. I like, So what I'm
just kind of zero? So right, So what I'm just kind of wondering
out loud, and maybe it explains why he is still sitting in a ball
is that maybe he's just got a little bit spicier arsenal spicier fastball and they're
just having him work that out and get more comfortable with that and a ball,
which if that was the case, makes some sense to me. But
I can't imagine he will be down in Palm Beach for very long if she's
pitching like this. Yeah, and then with the strike zone stuff. You
know, I've probably watched FSL Florida State League more than any other league that
in the Midwest League I've been the two leagues I found myself watching the most,
but the expanded strike zone stuff. Honestly, the only time I ever
think about it watching is when there's been some challenges the rest of it,
And maybe in part is that the guys I tend to be watching are more
north south. And I don't think the strike zone is growing horizontally or excuse
me, vertically, right, it's just wider. I think that that's right.
Though there is the like the ABS system does affect the top part of
the zone, and I think that that Again, don't quote me on this
part, but I think that this is another way that it's slightly different from
Triple A, where they've got a slightly different definition for for that top part
of the zone. But I can't remember the specifics. Just as someone watching
a lot of video, I struggle with some of that stuff, like hey,
maybe we need to, you know, think about this guy's higher strike
percentages and stuff like that because the zone is bigger, and like that makes
a lot of sense. I get that, but it's not really at the
forefront of me my thoughts when I'm like watching these guys I'm just kind of
looking. I don't know, I don't know, does that make sense now?
Like I'm looking for how they're like using their stuff, what they're trying
to do, what their stuff might be, and not so much worried about
if they're getting calls or not, or if their numbers are looking the greatest
the Yeah, you know what I'm saying with you, Oh totally, And
I agree with you. I think it's more it's something to keep in mind
because it's one of those small things that you might not notice on two,
three, four watching of the game as it goes on, and again there's
other stuff that's happening. It's more important from an evaluation perspective, But I
don't know. For me, it's just another sort of like it's another question
to answer, and it'll be interesting to see how do some of these guys
on the hitter side when they graduate up, does that do they see sort
of less of a promotion penalty? And on the picture side, is it
the reverse like it? Do they does their stuff seem to not play as
much? And so I think it's just something that we don't really know,
right, we don't know how much this is going to affect things, and
I have a hypothesis that it might be affecting things a little bit, and
we'll see how that plays out. But yeah, I guess I haven't noticed
it watching it either. To be honest, I guess maybe to summarize the
sentiment I might be trying to get to, is that I feel like that
is more of like an aspect, an element of thinking about THEIRS statistics maybe
than sort of their development, if that makes sense. But the Cardinals,
Matt, there's some interesting things percolating in their system. I think what that
ends up looking like on the major league level, I don't know, but
interesting enough that do some homework, maybe try to find some pieces what might
be coming down the road in the major leagues. But just kind of looking
at their system. In Triple A, you've got Sam Roberts, Gordon gricefo
Adam Kleefenstein, Michael McGreevy, young Victor Santos across the board. Their starters
are pretty young. I mean, those five guys are twenty two to twenty
three years old. In Triple A, DOUBLEA you got Tink hence to Ko
Roby, Ian Bdell, Max Rogic. I think, is that how you
say I know you've talked about him before. Down in Hya there's Cooper,
Guerpe, Bryce and Motts Pantagua, and then down in a ball they're guys
getting some starts. Are really interesting, Quinn Matthews, Eisen Henderson. I
think, is how you say it? An Juan Salas, chen Way Lynn
and a couple others. So I got sucked into four guys this week,
Matt, I don't know who are I don't know who I want to start
with. I think maybe you notice a young Wan Salas popped. He's thrown
a couple of fqos fqos or going six innings, giving up three earned runs
or less, walking less two or less, not giving up a home run,
having a game whip of under one point three. Just kind of a
little marker that I try to look for find some guys that maybe I want
to go watch. But I had to turn Saalace on after a couple of
those types of outings. He's twenty one. He's from Mexico. He's six
foot one, p eighty nine right hander. His first three starts, seventeen
innings, a point five to three ERA, a point seventy to one whip,
a thirty seven percent K percentage, walking guys a six and a half
percent clip throwing strikes at sixty six percent. Fourteen pitches an inning hasn't given
up a home run, has given up one earned run. I don't know
how many young Mexican pitchers you've watched at A ball, but I find them
to be just such a fun little pitching nerd joy because these guys come out
of the box with like some pitching acumen and knowledge of how to use their
tools, unlike most young American arms. And I think that's definitely some of
Salas's case here and the reason for his A ball success. He throws a
four steam fastball that averages ninety three miles per hour. He throws a curveball.
Those are his two main pitches. He tosses in a slider a change
up, and they label the cutter. I don't really know about that.
Perhaps I don't know, but I'm not going to spend too much time on
Salas other than saying that, like, I think he's an excellent A ball
pitcher, different sort of ability to execute his arsenal and know how how to
use it for A ball hitters. I don't think there is like any reason
that we need to go out and roster. Mister Salas at this point kind
of me in some aspects of what the last couple of young Mexican arms that
I got into were, like Victor Horez of the Rockies and like Victor Lizarraga
of the Padres, who actually just had a really nice outing and is he
in Double A right now, Double A or High? I don't remember where
he is, but kind of two guys. I don't think they'll ever like
the Dynasty interest will ever skyrocket or get too crazy. But you know,
when we just talk about the ability to pitch, like these guys kind of
have it. But it's also I think some I don't know, maybe somewhat
of cautionary tale of like, you know, their offerings might not be as
spicy, and if you're a stuffist, you would point to guys like this
is as they move up, you know, they can struggle and they might
have to make some adjustments. I wonder if that's what has been Victor Horrez
story with the Rockies. He got beat up pretty bad last year in Hya.
He was, you know, very much kind of a command little walk
guy. The Walks ballooned on him, and I'm kind of wondering I haven't
watched a ton of him if that's because he's trying to get some spicier offerings,
and that's an adjustment there. But young want Salas here, not a
nobody. I think, have you watched You haven't watched him at all?
Uh, I haven't no interesting watch to me, you know. And down
in a ball he gets like good gets wifs on his four steamer and curveball
and a good CSW and all that stuff. But again, just as he
moves up, I don't know how those numbers hold up. And I'm trying
to put out some videos on Twitter to kind of supplement some of the guys
that I talked to talk about here. It's tough to put into words some
things that you might be seeing, or at least for me, So maybe
that can help. But you can follow me at pitching specs. I don't
think I put up any solace video that go around with these these next three
guys. I definitely did, and then Matt. One night I noticed that
Eisen Henderson pitched three point three and a third innings and struck out nine.
He was a guy I looked into him. A little bit first year player
player draft research. I had to turn him on heros in Fort Myers.
He's a lefty, not the greatest angle. It's a good idea of a
lefty, but that outing. He came in in like the sixth and ended
up finishing the game. He gave up one hit, one hand roun walked,
one, struck out nine. Like I said, through strikes at a
sixty seven percent clip. The main thing here was his sinker. He threw
it sixty seven percent of the time. You got ten whiffs on fifteen swings
csw fifty six percent. I got some video I think all of his strikeout
pitches, and I think they're all but maybe one. This fastball. But
Matt, he kind of makes me think that you might kind of like him
because he's a lefty with a different sort of look, a different fastball.
It's not about the velocity, it's about the movement. And I would say
that he didn't even necessarily, you know, execute it all that well.
He just had to like get that pitch in the strike zone. These guys
couldn't touch it. He did toss in a change up, a slider,
got some whiffs, marked a curveball, and a four stem fastball as well.
Kind of a guy that I feel like is up our sort of soft
toss and lefty with maybe some K potential. Alley here, Matt, if
you get a chance to check him out, I would recommend it. I'd
love to know what you think about him. But guy who has put put
himself on my watch list for sure. I want to see some more outings
with him, and then Matt. My Cardinals B side arm n Way Lynn
is getting some attention. I know we had mentioned him last week. I
think he touched one hundred in his first outing. I see him getting picked
up in my leagues. I think he's been picked up in all my leagues
now. But I watched his last outing, cut up his k pitchers and
whatnot and put that out on Twitter. But I want to talk about his
fastball. I wonder if folks might ridden box scores and maybe getting a bit
of a I don't know if I want to say wrong idea, but different
idea about this fastball. Let's see, he went seven innings, gave up
three hit, no walk, struck out seven three strikes at a seventy five
seventy three percent clip, and that he threw seven innings on sixty six pitches.
That is that's pretty efficient. But I think the sort of generic story
is going to be that he's a tall, lanky flame thrower, you know,
dominating an a ball lineup with a big fastball. But it's not really
what I'm seeing very much, Matt. He does throw a hard, forcing
fastball that sits ninety six. I touched ninety eight this outing, and like
I said, we've seen him touch one hundred in his first outing. But
to me, it's way more about the shape from his release that is intriguing.
I don't know how much you have seen of like Joey Estes, and
it's not a one for one, but I'd love to see some somebody smarter
about pitch shapes talk about and maybe compare Joey Estes to Lin's fastball, because
they both strike me now. It might be different amount of movement and a
different amount of velocity. I think Linn gets a lot more velocity and a
lot more movement, but it's a forcing fastball from a ariety that plays seems
to play really well high into the arm side against both righty's and lefties.
It's got a lot of runs so to get in on a righty's hand get
away from a lefty. And we've seen Es this in his major League time
and this year in Triple A really rely on that on that pitch. But
man, Len's like it can really run. Man, They're up to twenty
inches of run on that pitch, this outing, and he's got the I
don't know how to articulate this all that well, Matt, but I think
you might know what I'm talking about here. But with the Taiwanese guys,
right, but like Tang, there's something about their arm motion and their release
where I don't know if this would scientifically bear out like this, but just
from the eyeballs, it seems like the release is like kind of way more
out in front of their torso than maybe a lot of guys who are more
out outside. Does that? Does that make sense? You know what I'm
talking about? I feel like there's a there's like a different range of motion
in those two guys, is like shoulder or something. I don't know.
It just seems like a different a different look, a different release point.
You know. Even against this team here was the a ball, a lot
of young guys, a lot of names. I'm not familiar with. You
know, they don't really have that hard of a time catching up putting the
bat on ninety eight, Like Lynn isn't blowing this fastball by people. There's
a lot of foul balls. He threw this pitch seventy one percent of the
time, So I don't necessarily think was the plan. I think it just
there was a lot of contact, a lot of balls in play early in
counts. That's why the pitch count was so low. But like he got
uh what three whiffs on twenty eight swings on that four scene fast right,
So not really what you might think from a guy with this reputation. I
caught up his seven strikeouts is that right? Seven of them, eight of
them whatever it was, and uh, you know, two were on the
change up and two were on the slider, and he only threw the change
up seven times and the slider five times. But what I liked, and
you'll see it in the video, is that he wasn't trying away from trying
to throw those pitchers. He was shaking off the catcher a lot to get
to those and you know, last year there wasn't a whole lot to watch,
but it was his sinker that was his main pitch. He was throwing
that like sixty percent of the time, sixty five percent of the time,
and he swapped that out for the four seamer. And I think in part
because the sinker, I think, just maybe in a dream world, is
a much nastier fastball. But I don't think that my man can throw strikes
with it consistently enough, and that's why it's been swapped. Similar velocity,
similar horizontal run. But that thing we'll just sort of disappear and drop.
And you know, Lynn, I don't think putting up high strike percentages on
his outings. I think seventy three percent, sixty eight percent, seventy one,
sixty four. You know, he's very much a strike thrower, not
some sort of precision hitting his spots really well. Like that. There was
a lot of times this outing, the catcher would set up on his glove
side, call for the fastball, that thing would run way arm side,
but still end up being a really nice strike on the shadow right. And
like you were talking about the expanded strike zone thing, in that video too,
you'll see him challenge a couple of pitches that were on the edges and
get them, and that feels like perhaps a byproduct of that bigger strike zone.
The change up is an upper eighties to ninety change that kind of I
think mimics the fastball really well in its shape. That thing can run way
off arm side two. That looks like a really hard pitch to square up
this outing, Matt is what his sixth inning I thought was maybe kind of
a little bit of a microcosm of this total outing. But you don't see
this very much. It was a five pitch six which included a hit and
a strikeout, got a double play in there, obviously. I think you
got a couple of double plays, which was nice to see. But you
know, it's folks who like to talk about velocity, right Like I think
when I looked at all of his forcing fastballs and the ones that were above
ninety seven miles per hour or above ninety six point nine and below and it's
harder forcing fastball, there's fifty seven of them through the sixty seven point seven
percent for strikes, it was a thirty one point six percent CSW a twenty
five point nine percent with two hundred babbit on that pitch. When it was
below that velocity, he threw for much more strikes seventy seven point three percent,
but just a twenty three point eight percent csw at eight point two percent
with and a two seventy two babbit. So does seem at least in these,
you know, just four early starts, velocity might be more important for
when at this juncture and the velocity is trending down. Three of his four
outings we have stat cast for when we do not first out he had twenty
four that were harder, twenty one that were harder the next start, and
then this last start was just twelve. So I don't know. For folks
who like velocity, I think that it matters significantly. That might be the
case here. I don't think the slider is a particularly good pitch at this
juncture. You know, he landed it for strikes and got a couple of
strikeouts on and stuff, but like they were far from from hitting the mark
where he wanted were. They were good misses. Just landing that pitch for
strikes with the rest of that arsenal might might work out well for him.
Yeah, I think his first we kind of talked about how he was probably
just like a project. But I think the first step is maybe has been
taken here and he's just throwing strikes. A lot of the writings, he's
just kind of hammering inside, which makes a lot of sense. I'd love
to see what a guy like Eastak Paradus would do against him. Yeah,
I don't know, man, there's watching him. There's a lot of stuff,
like a lot of a lot of guys in a ball. You're like,
man, I think this could really be the foundation of his arsenal and
you know, his his ascension. But maybe it's not. Maybe that's not
that good though. I don't know. There's a lot of waffling back and
forth if I'm liking kind of what I'm all seeing here. But yeah,
I don't know. That was my homework, Matt, know you got any
thoughts for me? So Nate and I we usually share ideas about what we're
going to do or we're going to talk about what sorts of things we want
to cover, usually like kind of late in the week or over the weekend,
and uh, Nate had had said, Hey, how about this idea,
and and I was like, oh, it's cool. Yeah, like
we can highlight some of these guys that we're going to talk about. And
then I get on today and Nate's like, by the way, I didn't
do that. I instead deep dove into these four cardinals arms and I'm gonna
I'm gonna talk about that. I was like, all right, cool,
sounds good. Then he boots me out of the recording software, so I
can't even respond. I mean, he's just sitting here, like reading it
from his notes and looking at his stats and talking about these guys, and
he keeps asking me questions and I'm like, oh, it's a good point,
Nate, but I can't respond. I can't talk about it. So
that was a great little deep dive. I wish I could have contributed something
to it, technical difficulties had had me booted. Well, did he hear
anything that I said anything? I heard the whole thing. I was in
the like lobby room the whole time. I heard the whole thing. It
was great. Like something, that's an interesting note about Lynn if there's more
of a of a picture in there, which I think is what you were
getting at, that it's not just some velocity, like the velocity is helping,
but that he's got some other bits and pieces. I think that's a
really a strong mark in his favor. I mean, I know it's the
velocity is what got his roster percentages up, and that's what's I think exciting
some dynasty owners. But it sounds like there's more there than just that.
I will say though, Like you know, just that little look from last
year, it seems a lot. It was kind of like lanky and elbows
and you know, inconsistencies and like he does. I mean, I think
my man has put some work in here. He looks cleaner and interesting that
I getting some popularity. Nonetheless, I like it. I like it.
Well. I have to throw on some of those other guys as I'm scoping
around and bouncing here and there. But you know, we've talked a lot
about soft toss and lefties, right mm hmm, but we haven't really talked
about soft toss and righties. I gotta say I'm guilty. Sam Roberts here
young, what is he? He's Dutch? Right, yeah? Twenty two
in triple A just is thrown back to back fqos. What I think he
went like seven and eight innings or something like that. Has just been really
dominant. But I think I'm guilty of sort of obviously aware of him.
He was in the futures game last year and what have you. But I
was like, man, this right, he throws ninety I don't know,
and I haven't really paid much attention to him, but I watched him this
week, Matt, and I got to say, dude, I am kind
of loving it when you talk about pitchability, execution, knowing how to maximize
what you're working with, having the ability to put your offerings where you want
to at a really high clip like my man is sexy, dude, like
he's And the clip that I put up on Twitter, I think was a
good example. It was a four pitch strikeout, made a nice triangle all
on the edges with three of his pitchers. There was one I think it
was a change up on like two that he threw into the dirt. That
wasn't a great you know, but he wasn't going to roll that for in
the strike zone anyway. Is that was gonna that was gonna be a waste
pitch try to get the hitter out himself, right. But that was the
three strikes in that clip. I thought, we're mighty pretty. But he
was part of the return the Cardinals got for Jordan Hicks, And you know,
I see him what I think Clegg has him at three eighty eight right
now on his new Dynasty prospect list. Now, I get that league size
and format might matter here, but I'm a guy, especially in a big
league I'm shoving him way up. Oh interesting, I'll try to explain why
here. On the season, twenty nine and two thirds innings over five starts,
one point eight five ERA, a point nine to two whip, the
twenty six K percentage, walking guys at a five percent clip, throwing strikes
sixty five percent of the time. He's given up one home run in six
urn runs over that. His last start for twenty six he threw cutter,
change up, slider, four seam fastball. Over the course of the season,
he will mix it a little bit. And as far as which pitch
is, which offerings are getting thrown the most, I think some of that
might, you know, just kind of play out and there's more righties or
lefties in a lineup. But over the season, the slider is throwing twenty
eight point seven percent of the time, the cutter is twenty seven point nine
percent of the time, the forcing fastball is twenty four percent of the time,
the change up is nineteen percent of the time, so a pretty even
clip even rate amongst his four pitches versus righties, he's slider, cutter,
and now his cutter. I would call it on the spectrum of cutters,
it's more breaking ball than fastball. I think throws the four team or twenty
percent of the time versus righty's and will on very brief occasion throw right on
right change up versus lefties. A changeup comes out thirty percent of the time,
the forcing fastball twenty seven percent of the time, the cutter twenty six
percent of the time, the slider seventeen percent of the time. Now he's
a righty. I don't know if I mentioned that righties are hitting two thirty
five I have two fifty three point fifty three against him with a thirty seven
point two with percentage. Lefties are hitting one fifty nine two forty five one
two with a twenty five point five percent with percentage. The velocity on the
four steamer is averaging ninety point seven. So you know, Matt, that
that will probably turn a lot of folks off like it didn't. Now,
Matt, I'm wondering, I don't know what perceived velocity is. Do you
know what perceived velocity is on statcast. I don't know what that is.
It's a calculation that takes into account the extension. Okay, so it is
perceived velocity is about a half mile per hour harder. I don't think that
makes too much of a difference. He's spinning that thing about twenty four hundred
RPM's extension of six point four feet, which I think is about average.
Right, hard hit percentage on that is eighteen point eight percent. Hard hit
percentage in the mL in MLB is thirty nine point one. So even though
it's soft, it's not getting hit hard. Now, he doesn't get a
lot of whiffs on that pitch nine point eight percent. I don't know what
MLB network show it was, but they had Robbers on. He was talking
about his other pitches and how they are keeping hitters off of his four steinge
fastball, and that I think is the brilliance in Robbers. Here is the
way that he can use his four pitches. The guy's with a maybe not
a good fastball in a vacuum. I'm always curious about first pitch fastballs,
right, Matt, I feel like that's an important pitch on first pitches against
his what one hundred and twenty eight batters faced. He's thrown thirty two forteing
fastballs on the first pitch. That's twenty five percent of the time, which
is more or less in line with his overall pitchnicks. Right, he's gotten
a seventy one point nine percent strike percentage on that Batters are zero for one,
so it's only been put in play once, and he's got a forty
three point eight percent CSW on first pitch fastballs, which I think is a
pretty good sign, MA, don't you. I think that this kind of
guy is really fun for a lot of the reasons you've articulated, and you
know me that I'm a believer that you can succeed with a well below average
velocity fastball, and it sounds like he's got some of the tools to do
that. I think Roberts is one of those guys that he's got such a
fun rest of his repertoire that maybe he can make it work with a ninety
mile an hour average fastball velocity with not other plus shapes, other plus traits.
I think the thing that has made me a little bit less excited about
him than some of the other soft tossers that we've seen in the past is
just that there's sort of a history of like mixed performance, and so it's
almost like guys have figured him out as they've seen him a couple of times,
like through the league, you know. And so while well, I
think there's something interesting here, and the fact that he's doing this at Triple
A on the back of being fairly successful at Double A and Triple A last
year is impressive. But he's he's one of those guys for me that I
want to see a little bit more of, just because we've got some history
of people sort of figuring him out and him not putting it all together at
the lower levels. It's and it's rare to see this kind of picture succeed
more at the higher levels like he's done up to this point in Triple A.
So it's it's not like I think, I think for me, it's
more of like this is a wait and see kind of guy. And in
your deep leagues, absolutely, I think he's going to be big league starter.
I Mean, the Cardinals rotation is all old and they are not going
to be around for that long a lot of them, so they're going to
need guys to fill some of those innings, and I think Roberts could be
that kind of guy. But as for like a kind of smaller league,
shallower format, I'm still pretty skeptical of his impact. We haven't talked about
his good pictures yet. The slider, which he's thrown more than anything,
forty two point nine percent with of course, this is in triple A,
but that's not too shabby. Hard hit percentage of sixteen point seven percent on
that pitch, what barrel percentage of I guess it gets barreled about average amount
of time change up. It's got a forty eight point four percent with a
hard hit of twelve and a half percent, hasn't been barreled once, and
that's in the sixty six times thrown the cutter. The cutter doesn't get as
much with as those twenty five and a half percent, which what MLB average
I think with is thirty percent. Oh, but that doesn't get barreled up
either, hasn't been that's a five percent. I don't know. He's a
you know, Matt some of all parts, right, I mean, I
just think that those kinds of stats at this stage in the season are still
pretty noisy, and he's given up like what one homer so far this year,
and that is not a trait that he has showed really in the past.
You know, he gave up one and a half homers per nine at
triple A last year, one point four at double A, one point four
to six at double A the year before. I just think that homers are
going to be part of his game, just given the velocity and given that
I don't think there's even with the secondaries, overwhelming amount of with for or
command. You know, I don't think it's like pinpoint precision here, and
so we might expect a little bit less. So I expect that home run
rate is going to go back up to over one. And then now you're
looking at a guy who's like maybe low fours era in triple A, maybe
a tick above that in the bigs. So again, that's good, Like,
that's a right. He's shown a lot of things to really really like.
But I'm not counting twenty nine ish innings in triple A and saying that
he's kind of figured out this homer against problem. And yeah, so I
think for some of these things, I think it's like he's on a nice
start to the year. But I want to see more. Okay, fair
enough, I'm just telling you he's pitching clean, man, he is,
he is sharp. Nice, But yeah, I know those those were four
Cardinals arms that got a lot of my attention this week. Matt forty five
minutes on the not the assignment for this week, it's this is this is
b siding with Nate. Everybody. Hey, sometimes you just go where the
mud leads you. Man, I'm with you, I'm with you on that.
I definitely had a bit of that as I was bouncing around leagues and
trying to narrow down because to bury the lead a bit here. One of
the things that we wanted to do was we're now almost a month into the
season, a little bit less for obviously the lower miners and obviously complex ball
starts this week, which is fun. We were going to look at each
league and see if we could find a guy that we liked, maybe a
half grade more. You know, as I've tried to preach, as we
talked about guys this early in the season, you want to change your mind
on guys slowly. Sometimes it can go a little bit faster because it's just
someone that you had no data on and so you're really essentially forming an opinion.
But for guys that we've maybe seen before or had overlooked before, is
there anyone that's catching our eye that we want to round up a half grade
or a full grade on. So we went around each league, I think,
right like, you got a guy from each league night. Yeah.
Yeah, So we went and come through all the hot starts and kind of
tried to suss out what's what's real and what's not and what we like and
what we want to see more of. So I don't know if that's a
good segue into talking about the real assignment this week, boring Hitters. Yeah,
that's why I was so excited about it. I like dove in and
I'm looking at all these guys and I did a lot of work for this
one, the guys that were going to talk about. But first I'm going
to start in the PCL, and technically still in the PCL, I think
as of right now, Jordan Beck just got called up to the BIGS.
And he's a guy that made some top one hundreds I think, and I
think rightfully, so one who I think there's a real fantasy friendly profile here
in terms of he's gonna steal a few bags he's going to hit I think
a decent number of homers, and if the thing that I'm excited about really
has happened, if he's really improved his contact skills and his strikeout rate really
as down as it is comfortable to say that this guy's like a top fifty
kind of fantasy prospect if he gets the time and if he gets the run.
But Nate, you had said this offseason that he was the top prospect
in a fairly well regarded Rockies system, ahead of Idel Amador Fan for fantasy,
for fantasy, and I think he took some heat for that, but
they're early going. You know, it looks really good. I think for
me, the biggest thing is the strikeout rate is down below twenty percent,
which he hasn't done since low A in twenty twenty two, So that's pretty
impressive. Doing it in triple A. The swinging strike rate looks better,
so it's you know, he's probably going to strike out more than that at
the big league level, and especially out of the gate. You know,
don't be surprised if it's an upper twenties, slow thirties percent strikeout rate,
because he's run that kind of strikeout rate before. I think he's maybe focused
more on the contact skills and let everything else play. There's average or slightly
better power here, and I think he's going to swipe some bags too.
So I like him. I mean, I think that this is a great
call up. I hope they give him some run and I hope he makes
the most of it because he's a guy. That is an up arrow for
me from watching him both in spring. Although he's struck out a bit more
in the spring, I think, but the early goings here, the strikeout
rate improvements, if that sticks, this is a guy, you know.
I agree, And that was that was my PCL. Nice look at that,
look at that. Hopefully we don't agree in all of them. But
let's let's speed through the PCL, speed through the triple A, because these
are not our guys. These are not muddy enough. Yeah, we've been
watching some backup. Just generically speaking, I think it's it's clear there's some
good maturation that has taken place at the plate. And but I've seen a
couple of outings where he like walked like three times, Like that's not it's
not like typical back So I think you love to see that in the International
League, Matt I went with a guy that I have been skeptical of,
and I think maybe I mentioned before, but I gotta give props. I
think or Elvis Martinez has definitely moved up a grade or after grade or or
something in my fantasy opinion. Now, obviously I don't have any shares and
I ain't going to try to get him now, but just gotta gotta give
him a shout and some and some props for improving his game. And you
know, he's been on a pretty good tear and I think they're calling him
up pretty soon from what it sounds like. Yeah, maybe. I mean,
I did see somebody share a report in the Donasy Dugout that said they
really want him to work on his defense, which is definitely can be code
for like he's going to be down there a while longer. But again,
bit bit a strikeout rate improvement for him, and everything else looks really good.
Like he's hitting a lot of fly balls, which for someone with the
plus power that he has. You know, I'm a fan. I think
he's firmly a top big fat middle part of the top one hundred guy for
me. But I chose Aurelvis's teammate Addison Barger, who we had also talked
about this offseason when you made a dig about the Toronto's minor leagues and I
said, well, you know, Irrelvus is definitely a guy, and I
said, like, I think Addison Barger is a is a regular too,
And I think I think Addison Barger might be more than that. Like he's
not as good as Eurelvius, I don't think, and never have thought.
And he also just got called up. He's got a couple of games under
his belt at the BIGS, but again the walk and strike up numbers are
going in the right direction as he gets older. He's, you know,
got some power in his bat. I don't think he's like a you know,
double plus kind of power guy, but there's plus power at peak there,
I think. And he's I think one of those guys that he's going
to play a couple of positions, got the potential to be a better version
of Kevin Bigio, you know, like actually some power in the bat.
He walks a lot. He's got a pretty good strike strikeout rate and it's
backed by a single digit swinging strike rate, which is also really good.
So He's just one of those guys that I think he does a lot of
stuff pretty well and that it can be under rated. So yeah, that
Barger, I think is taking another step forward and definitely earned his promotion.
And I hope he sticks and succeeds right on nat in the Southern League.
You know who. It's interesting and excuse me, you traded him off in
our in our little trade episode and Carson Williams says, looks like you might
be answering or taking care of the biggest wart. Yeah, he's one of
the very biggest up arrow guys this off season for me, are this early
early going foreshure. That's that is definitely a good call out and something I
wasn't sure he could do. But he definitely has showed that he can play
the defense and it's maybe that hard work is paying off in his hitting as
well. Yep. Another guy who referred to the minor leagues as practice.
Yep. But he's looked good man. I don't know, I don't have
his strikeout percentage up, but it's markedly improved from last year, right it
is. But he's also you know, back down in Double A, and
he's not walking either. I do think that his strikeout rate improvements were more
notable early on. And I think he's had a few strikeouts lately. Yeah,
this last week, I think he struck out. Yeah, the last
two weeks, I think he started out really well, but the last two
weeks he's struck out quite a few times. So twenty one strikeouts to three
walks so far. You know, if he can keep those down. I
mean, there's no doubt he's got power. There's no doubt that he can
play defense. It's just that that strikeout rate part is can be tricky.
Is he your guy for the Southern League? He's my guy for the Southern
League? Yes, all right, Oh, I'm gonna, you know,
say some more good stuff about Nate. I was pretty skeptical of your pick
for the Angels. Beside, I had watched a bit of Cole Foughtinel and
I was like, guy, it seems okay, you know, like I
third base kind of corner guy. Maybe there's some pop here, but I'm
not really sure. He's been really good in the early going, more so
than I expected, I guess. And I think that he's you know,
not striking out very much. He's walking at a decent clip, and unlike
a lot of the guys that are starting really hot to start the year,
he's not running some absurd babb it either. You know, it's three p
fifty so that's PI. But with the amount of line drives that he's hitting,
some of that is earned. And he's doing it at double A,
which he's skipped over hi A. He like you know, spent most of
his post draft year at a ball and then just skipped totally over Hi A
and now, and that's not unusual for the Angels. They are definitely ones
to push their prospects and see who sinks or swims. But he's showing surprising
speed, like ten bags already in the early going. Is honestly, wildly
impressive. And the strikeout walks look really good. So good call on Cole
Fought. No, I did not see this one coming in, especially with
this shape of production either. Yeah, I haven't been. I haven't been
paying too much attention to him, to be honest to them. Yeah,
it's not like a bunch of things aren't jumping off the page. But ten
stolen bases is near the minor league lead right now. And I've watched a
couple of and he looks athletic out there, So I don't know. I've
been pretty impressed and early going like that's he's moved from a follow to like
I've looked at who has him, and I've sort of inquired, like,
hey, maybe that's an interesting one again and in rotal leagues, I think
that matters more. But yeah, he's good. Early call by Nate Eastern
League. Who you got Matt Eastern League was fun. Number one guy is
Agustin Ramirez. Like I ended up with him in a few spots because I
think I liked the improvements, like that he's a guy who he doesn't strike
out a lot and had good underlying data and so even though he scuffled at
his promotion to Double A, he was so good at high last year that
he was Like I think I drafted him in maybe four FYPD leagues because or
off season drafts. Obviously he's not an FYPD guy, but I drafted him
in a bunch of spots because I was like, I really buy the hitter
that he is, you know, so he like I mentioned, he scuffled
a bit in thirty one games at Double A to end the year last year
and is just lighting double a on fire right now. So for Somerset,
he's hit nine homers already, he's striking out under twenty percent of the time,
nineteen percent of the time, he's walking sixteen percent of the time.
His babb it is two hundred. Some of this is he's leaving the yard
a lot, right, like, you know, hitting nine homers, that's
it's like a forty five percent home and a fly ball rate, and that's
not going to keep happening. He's not peak Berry Bonds or anything here,
but I think this stick is gonna play. And I've watched a little bit
of them on defense, not enough to get a sense for if it's going
to be a really good backstop. It's interesting with the Yankees. They've got
a lot of guys on their forty man who are catchers. I'm not convinced
that Ramirez isn't the best of them, you know, just from a whole
package standpoint. So he's he's like I think, you know, firmly top
one hundred guy, and he was super cheap this offseason, So that one
that one feels good. Small pat on the back for pat on the back
for me for lucking into him in quite a few places, because he's now
really showing out so far this year, Like he's he's jumped up a grade,
so to speak for you. Yeah, like I I grabbed him.
I know you liked them coming into into the season. I did, But
I really didn't expect this kind of power explosion. I didn't expect the you
know, he's going to strike out a bit more, but it looks like
this is a major league starting quality catcher here. Like that's certainly with the
bat, and it remains to be seen with the glove, but to pass
my expectations already, and hopefully he keeps it up because he looks really good.
Eastern League. I'm gonna go with Zach Vine, who seems to be
back being the Zach Vine from the AFL a couple of years ago or whatever
it was. And I know folks have talked about and he had injury last
year and what have you, but UH just got to give a shout to
him. What he's sixteen games, he's hit two home runs, swiped seven
bags, he's been caught once, he's walking fifteen percent of the time,
he's striking out twenty six percent of the time, three twenty seven, four
thirty one five eighty two slash. Now he is running like a four forty
four babbit, but that's good for a one eighty three WRC plus. He's
keeping the ball off the ground at a pretty nice clip, pulling it well.
I know that I've talked about him in the past and I've seen him
shift sort of his approach at the plate, and that I haven't watched a
ton of him this year. With a little bit that I watched, I'm
kind of wondering if he's found a good, little happy medium for himself.
And I think, if you were being hopeful or believer, lots of good
news this year so far. Yeah, like a lot of the guys that
littered the top of the early WRC plus leaderboards, like you mentioned, running
a really high babbeb you know, four forty four, and he's quote unquote
earning it up to this point. He's hitting almost forty percent line drives,
which is unusual for him. I think one of the things that I had
knocked him for in the past was that for a guy who supposedly had such
good power, he hit the ball in the ground a lot and he's doing
that less. But nobody really hits forty line drives. So it's going to
be interesting to see which direction those bat and balls turn as the year goes
on, because if they eke more into the fly ball range, like I
think that's going to be good for his power. He has the power to
back that up the raw power, that is, if they leak back towards
the veen of old and he's hitting them on the ground, like, it'll
be interesting to see, but definitely nice to see him hitting the ground running,
agreed. And then in the Texas League, Matt, I'm going to
go with someone I'm probably guilty of doing the same and not giving enough credit
for maybe his offensive potential this first year player draft season, but uh,
Jacob Wilson is off to a pretty nice start. Mm hmm. That he
is he slashing or seventeen four thirty eight six' thirty three. Again,
he's got a four sixty babit and he's hitting the ball on the ground at
a fifty four percent clip. But he's popped a few home runs, stole
a few bases, he's striking out fourteen percent of the time, he's not
walking, which you love that profile. He have mixed opinions on that,
but the whole point is this is a guy who is uh is the defense.
He's gonna be playing shortstop in Oakland, and maybe there was some more
bat here than the first year player consensus had it. So he's moved up
half grade or what have you? For me? Yeah, I like it.
I didn't watch either of his homers how they look. Were they squeakers
or they didn't get into him? Did you see him? Saw one?
I think I only saw one. I haven't watched a lot of them.
This is mostly mostly stat stuff, but I saw one that it was like,
it was like a really hard line drive. Interesting the homer. He's
got two already, which is sort of surprising because, like I remember,
the report on him was that he is like a zero homer, kind of
no real speed threat, like he was sort of like great glove, good
contact skills, and then kind of an empty profile. Otherwise, maybe it's
not so empty, like yeah, and calling out a little bit of power
in there, fantasy darling here, but just maybe better than we gave him
credit for it. Well, I've got a name for Texas League that I
gotta be honest, I wasn't familiar with. I think i'd seen him a
bit here and there last year, but wasn't really a guy on my radar.
But he's doing something interesting at Double A this year. His name is
Nathan Church. Do you know? Do you know Nathan Church? Sounds like
a country artist? Kind of does kind of does I know the name,
but I haven't paid much attention. He's a college hid from Irvine, you
see Irvine two years ago, eleventh round pick. Like, not a big
prospect by any means, and part of the reason is he has almost no
power, like very very little power. Six hundred and twenty nine plate appearances.
Coming into this year, he had three home runs, so that's not
that impressive. He already has three this year. He hit two backed on
back to back days last week and is really hitting the snot out of the
ball now. I say that as in like he's getting a lot of hits.
Is babeb is three forty two, so a little bit higher than average,
but not one of these super unsustainable guys. But the thing that makes
me pretty interested in him, especially in points leagues, is he's running a
five point four percent k rate so far this year in Double A. I
watched quite a few of his at bats because he was just a guy that
I wasn't really familiar with, and I get why. Like he he is
not one of these really strong, really fast bat kind of guys. He's
sort of got that like Caleb Durban slow bat thing going on. What that
means that when he's fooled by a pitch, he's still on time, Like
he gets his barrel to that ball and he might not hit it super hard.
But both his homers this past week were on looked like curveballs or loopier
sliders that were left up and that he was out in front of. But
he just extended the barrel like we had talked about previously with Caleb Durban,
and he found the barrel and you know, both squad out. Neither neither
was a big jack or anything. But I love this kind of profile,
like the you know he's gonna make contact, he walks a decent amount,
you know, like I would say, an average amount, and if he's
finding a little bit more power. This looks like a regular me and from
somebody who I would have looked at this line and looked at his year last
year and be like, this guy isn't making the major leagues and he's better
than half his strikeout rate and matched his homer total from last year in ninety
two played appearances. That's that's something. This is a guy to keep an
eye on. I'm not saying run out and get him, though. If
you're playing in a really strict K penalty league, like any guy like this
should be on your radar. If he keeps this up, we might be
going full Durbin on him. So I'm actually pretty excited about him. It's
not the it's not the not full Durban alarm, but it's somebody that in
your strikeout penalty leagues were we're half Durbin here, We're half Durbin. Nice.
I like it. The Sale League was a little tough for me.
I think the Sale League as a whole is a little tough. Can't say
I'm getting overly excited about anyone knew, so to speak, or jumping up
for me. But I just wanted to note and give a little shout to
Jalen Vasquez Aberdeen the Orioles. We had briefly talked about him during our first
year Player Draft episode. I think he was like the Orioles, I don't
know, twentieth round pick or something that like that out of a small college
or whatever. Right, but I've been catching just a few at that.
It's nothing crazy. You know, he's walking more than he strikes out.
I know you like that, hitting two eighty four thirty eight, slugging four
to twenty. He's popped a home run, hit a couple doubles in a
triple I saw. I've seen a little bit of defense him, had shortstop
and looked nice, quick and clean. Again, not a guy to go
out and get, but like you know, this was just a little bit
of a mentioned interesting guy, first year player draft season, and now I'm
like, maybe he's gonna be one of these next o's that come up and
become kind of like a real prospect for them. Just a little little shout
there, a little muddy showy. They do find those guys. And I
actually did catch him swipe a couple bags the other day as I was looking
at guys. So yeah, he's got n got once, pretty pretty solid.
Well. The Sound League was actually pretty fun for me. I watched
quite a few, and I've found myself drawn to another Yankees catcher, if
you can believe it. I think, uh, I think Beck might have
shouted him out on his three cap his daily Minor League three cap. But
Omar Martinez for Hudson Valley is somebody to keep an eye on. He's another
catcher, first base type who is showing plus played, approach, walking,
striking out, not very much, getting to some power, and he's not
even running an above average BABBB and he's still rocking a one fifty two WRC
plus so far. He he hit a monster homer might have been just yesterday.
It looked really nice, like beautiful left handed uppercut swing, got all
of this ball and put it out. He's forty man eligible this year,
so this is his forty man evaluation year because he's been in the minor.
He was signed at sixteen. You know, he's one of the international assignees,
and so he has to be protected at the end of this year.
I don't know if he's gonna be like he's got a. I think got
a lot to prove from low A that they should protect another catcher. But
there's precedence for this, like this is kind of what I guess In Ramirez
did last season. He showed out at Hya, got bumped to double A
and wasn't great, but they protected him after that season. So it's possible
that this happens for Omar Martinez. So far, I really like I like
what he does. And the other thing I wanted to note is he's got
that kind of sweet uppercut swing that means he's gonna get to his power.
He's one that was a fun under the radar find for me. And while
we're in Hudson Valley, watched a bunch of Hudson Valley games. And there's
a ton of fun prospects in the Salleague right now. But a guy that
I've been I think we talked about a while back, Jase Avina. He
was either my Milwaukee B side or somebody that I mentioned when we were talking
about Milwaukee this offseason, but he got traded to the Yankees in the offseason.
I forget for who for like a reliever or something. Anyway, the
deal with Avina is that he's not a very big guy, but he has
incredible raw power and is getting and like lifts the ball all the time,
so he's going to get to a lot of it. But he had one
of those like totally unacceptable strikeout rates in the low miners, like above thirty
percent on the complex above thirty percent at low A and so it was always
this question of like, Okay, he's got great power, but how is
that going to show up if he's going to strike out this much? And
he's like probably a left fielder, so it's not like he plays a plus
defensive position. But common theme here in the early going, the strikeout rate
looks really good. He's below twenty percent after really not being below thirty percent
at any level, and he's not hitting in a great park. It's cold
as balls up there in the in the sal League at the moment, rocking
a one to sixty two WRC plus, so even slightly better than Omar Martinez.
But Jasvin is another guy to keep an eye on. He's only got
one homer so far, and he is hitting the ball on the ground a
bit more than he usually does, but he's gonna revert to type. Like
remember, batted ball statistics are pretty sticky and they take a little while to
stabilize, so you should expect that he's gonna hit a bunch of fly balls
and there a bunch of them are going to be homers. So Jasvin is
a guy that like keep an eye on. He could really start to put
something together. Here, so I had a lot of fun watching some Hudson
Valley games. Nice, I'm glad you have been getting sucked into the Sale
League more than I Midwest League. Matt. This was a I feel like
there's so many guys who have become more interesting for me, so many hitters.
Alex Freeland, Will Simpson, Cafis a Collier, Sale Stewart key Shall,
Luke gold Through Rodriga is awesome guys. All guys off to some pretty
good starts in that league. I won't do you know who's fourth in that
league right now? In Opsango? Oh yeah, he's. He's honestly of
those names like he's He's one of the ones that I looked long and hard
at to see who we want to talk about. But all right, I'm
not talking about him, but okay, I kind of just went with the
guy who's the newest this week to me, that got my attention. That's
Alex Mooney with Blake County mine too. Oh nice, Nice. I don't
know if you saw I cut this up and put it on Twitter. He
had a five hit day. Yeah? Well man? What he was a
seventh round pick out of Duke for them last draft. You know, it's
interesting that he's popped five home runs already, and I think he hit five
all last year in college, if I remember correctly, when I looked,
and you know, he's just swinging it and he's hitting it to all fields,
popping some home runs he hit me in college last year. But still
like on a rate basis, man, Yeah, it feels like kind of
my guy, you know, sea strike, hit strike, But not that
I've like, you know, gone all crazy like I did with Baldwin and
watched all of his at bats and all that. But from my looks like,
I think his swing decisions look good. He's swinging his strikes, hitting
three thirty nine, three seventy nine, slugging six sixty one, five home
runs, five doubles, but he's struck out thirteen times to two walks.
Kind of an athletic looking middle infielder, I don't know, just a good
looking the player in his first pro season, and I picked up a few
share. I had some relievers, you know, arms fall off or something,
just had some spots, and I picked him up in a few just
to see what would happen. Yeah, I really like what I saw from
him. I do think that the approach is going to catch up with him,
especially because he's had so much success and his swing looks really good to
me, Like he's got that nice right handed, athletic kind of flat finish
to his swing, but it's really through the ball. And I saw him
scorch a double to right center. He hit one of his homers this past
week pretty far out, like over the four to ten sign, so it
was like probably four thirty four forty, So he's got some juice in there.
Nice to see that it's showing up so far. I do think he's
going to have some swing and miss concerns, and I if he's going to
continue to not walk, and you know, he was okay at walking last
year for a college guy, and albeit young college guy. He was a
draft eligible sophomore and currently only walking three percent of the time. Like that's
something to keep an eye on as the book gets out, and having on
the back of such a hot week that he just had, it'll be interesting
to see how folks approach him this upcoming week. Like I imagine he's going
to see fewer strikes. I get your point, Like he was doing sort
of his best Seeger impression right where he got strikes and then was just hammering
them. Has definitely worked for him up to this point. And like I
said, I was pretty excited, Like this guy was really looking like he
had put something together here, and I watched a lot of him. I
watched a lot of Cafus. Like the Midwest League, like you said,
has a ton of interesting guys going on right now. And again hat tip
to Cafus, Like Cafus is doing basically the same thing, except he's walking
more and striking out less. Like Cafus looks really really good too, has
a couple of steels already, Like mooney Man, what a what a nice
breath of fresh air in the Guardian's system. Doesn't seem very Unguardians like a
bit. I mean, he definitely has some swag. I mean he's got
the haircut, the headband that he wears, and like his hat falls,
his helmet falls off after every double like like you know, high contact walk
noodle bat guys in the mud level, you know. And then here's this
aggressive guy slugging. Yeah, it's nice to see. Did you see definitely,
well we're on the Midwest League. This shocked me in a few ways,
But did you see who one hitter of the week this week in the
Midwest League. This was the very first Brewer Visa selection. And to be
honest with you, Matt, I didn't even know that he was still playing
professional baseball. But Edwarki Fernandez, who's still only twenty two years old,
center fielder for Wisconsin. He went five twenty four, five eighty three,
selugged one thousand this week. I hit two home runs, stole five no
excuse me, stole two bases, four doubles. Like oh, Like I
said, I didn't even know he was still around, and here he is
having a better week than all these other hot hot thats. So that was
kind of fun to see. Well, that Cleveland High a team there in
Lake County. I had another guy that I was totally unfamiliar with that I
just wanted to highlight his name. I'm not even totally sure how to pronounce
it. Mike Coiato m a I ck cool ad O. He is off
to a really good start too. Again, this one seems a bit more
babup driven to me. He popped a couple of times when I was watching
him in the past couple of weeks, hit a couple of really nice singles
a few days ago, hit a homer, say the week before that looked
really well struck, and he's just someone that like no idea about him.
I've never read about him. He looked interesting to me. So he's one
that made one of my follow lists partly two because he seems like he's got
a really good eye and is walking a lot. Northwest League. I'm not
going to talk more about Gavin Contosolo, but he's the guy who's jumped up
the most for me, what about you for me? I'm not going to
talk too much about him either, But the one in the Northwest League is
Ben Williamson. We've talked a bit about him before, and I do think
that his swing looks better than it did in the pre draft video that we
looked at. I think what he's doing looks just solid across the board,
like there's not a lot here to poke at, you know, it just
looks it looks like he's backing it up again slightly high. Bab it four
point nine percent swinging strike rate, Like that's so low. He's walking,
he's barely striking out. He's only got one homer, but I think there's
more coming. Like he looks like he belongs at this level and then some
so I didn't really expect him to hit the ground running quite this much.
I kind of want to see him in double A before too long, playing
alongside Cole Young. Those two might make up make it up to the bigs
relatively soon. And then a ball, Matt, I'm gonna I'm gonna blow
through mine pretty quick here only because of my own lameness, but uh,
Carolina League, I had written down Glader figure roa I've seen a little bit.
Didn't really finish my homework, but he was a guy that wasn't on
my radar at all to like, hey, I want to get my eyes
on him, see him. And then in the FSL, I'm gonna go
with Ricardo Cabrera kind of the same story. I want to get more eyes
on him, see what he's about. And then in the Cal League,
I gotta go with Perez as the guy who's jumped up and become the most
interesting to me. Even though Junior Garcia went three games in a row with
a whole home run, still still kind of bummed that didn't go on my
short look Perez for my d sid Er Dodgers. But yeah, I got
sucked in the pitcheon because it's so much more interesting did in classic forum.
I spent more time watching the A ball guys, so I've got extra A
ball guys to talk about too. Yeah. The one that has jumped up
just globally the most for me is Jason Cheerio. He looks like a slam
dunk top one hunter prospect to me, and there aren't that many of those
at A ball Who are you know, nineteen years old or whatever he is
right now. Everything about what he's doing looks sustainable. He looks different than
the guys that are hitting around him, many of whom are like three years
older than he is. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets moved up to
Lake County before too long, and that might be one of my most favorite
teams. If Jason Cherio gets up there, that would be super fun to
watch up in high But I'm not going to talk about him too much because
a lot of people know him obviously Chario brother, and he seems like he
might be the real deal. So love him, but not the guy that
I wanted to highlight from Carolina League Jesus Lopez. He's an eighteen year old
catcher for the Rangers who has been around for a couple of years, but
this is his first state side appearance and he's in the d catchers tonight.
I am. I didn't plan that at all, and I think I have
one more coming. Actually I don't know. I think this is my last
one. I think one of his homers so far this year was on video
and it was a really smooth left handed stroke. It just looked so easy
and went way out. Pretty impressed with that swing. He's not running a
very high babbit either, so it doesn't look like this is super unsustainable.
He might be swinging and missing a bit much, but I do think he
might be a guy who changes his approach a bit when he gets to two
strikes, so you know, there might be he might be able to sustain
a slightly better than average k rate even if his swinging strike rate is more
average. He's a catcher. It doesn't look like steels are going to be
a part of his game at all. But he doesn't look He's at Moises
Ballistaro's at Bysteros at there like he's He's an athletic looking guy, so he's
one to follow. Again, this isn't a rush out and pick up.
This is deep league only, but I liked what I saw from him so
far, and I think Longenhagen might have written him up and said some nice
things about about him too, So anyway, he's he's the guy to follow
in the Cal League. I watched a bunch of guys because I hadn't done
a ton of colleague watching other than a few Modesta Nuts games here and there.
And I'm not going to pick any of the Nuts. They're all pretty
well known and pretty I think well rated. Like none of them have really
changed my opinion, although maybe Michael Arroyo, like he seems to be an
arrow up guy for me, and I think he gets lost in the shuffle
a little bit with that Nuts team. But I'm gonna go with Andy Perez,
who was not somebody that I had ever watched coming into this year,
or or maybe I had seen him a bit last year because he spent most
of the year at A at low A in Fresno, and so I definitely
had seen him, but he didn't really show out to me really looked good
to start the year. I think Nate he's your kind of guy in that
he swings all the time, he's constantly swinging, and even with that,
he's still got like an almost six percent walk rate, so he's walked a
few times at least. But he is really good at getting the bat on
the ball. He fouls off a lot of pitches. I do think his
bat to ball skills are comfortably plus. I also don't think he's going to
be in Fresno for all that long, just because he spent most of the
year there last year and he's looked way better than the competition so far.
Hit three homers. He had a game last week where he hit two triples
in the same game. He's swiped a couple of bags, got caught stealing
a couple of times too. But I think he's pretty aggressive and he's looking
to go. I also thought he's a pretty slick shortstop. I didn't see
a ton of his defense, but I got to see a few play and
they were pretty flashy too, which is always fun. Like, you know,
it's looked like slick fielding but also some fun and he's got some swags,
So he's somebody that I think it's not a perfect profile, but it
looks pretty compelling. Like I really liked what I saw out of Pez so
far nice. And then I got another guy in the colleague that stood out
too. So I watched a fair amount of Visalia last week, you know,
because Jancel Luise has not looked very good, so I wanted to get
eyes on him. I hadn't watched much Christopher Torren, so I wanted to
watch them. Wanted to check out on Drew Jones see how he was doing.
Drew Jones still looks bad. Hancel Luise doesn't look very good either.
He's striking out a lot, hasn't been very impressive. But again it's still
early and I think it's starting to look maybe a little bit better. But
the guy on Visalia that really stood out was I want to say Ann Derdson
Rojas, but I think it's it's Anderson. Really. As you say,
you just kind of dropped the second D. But he's got a weird second
D in Anderson. So Anderdson Rojas is a little outfielder. I think he
plays actually all around the field. He was on that Viaze team last year.
But thus far in the early going, he looks like he's taken a
big step forward in his bats to ball. He's walking a bit more,
has a nice line. So far, he hasn't hit a homer this year,
but he also I think had multiple triples in a game earlier this season.
Let me see, I think that's right. Yeah, he had two
triples in the game in the game last week. He's looked really good,
like lat of line drive. He's still small, he's still young. He's
nineteen, I think turning twenty this year. But he's somebody to keep an
eye on because I think there's some speed. I think there's some potentially positional
flexibility and a really fun kind of bat to ball, a little dynamo type.
So Anderson Rojas is one to keep an eye on. Nice I've been
tuning into those guys very much. Now there's a name to watch though,
thank you. Yeah, and then I think I've got one way to go
in the Florida State League. A former Dodgers prospects. So I don't know
if we can talk about former Dodgers prospects too. I'll allow it, you'll
allow it, Okay. He's a guy who got a bunch of hype I
think out of the International signing period a few years ago, and he was
really good on the DSL. But Rain and Don Cone hasn't been very good
the last couple of years. He is his third year in low A,
and I think last year especially, the Dodgers got sick of him and chipped
him off after just a seventy six WRC plus at Rancho. And I don't
think he was very good. Like it wasn't there. There wasn't a lot
to like about that performance. But I do think some of it was a
suppressed babbit, right, Like he ran a low babbit both the previous stints
at a ball and now his babbeb is about one hundred points higher up at
three point fifty two, and everything else looks solid. You know, he's
not striking out that much. He hit a mammoth homer the other day.
Fort Myers and Fort Myers their their camera is terrible. It's nice that they
have one, like because you get to see a few more guys. It
was particularly shaky this day, I think, But he hit a big homer,
so he's one that like there's some prospect pedigree there. I think maybe
he wore out as welcome and had some bad luck before, but he might
be a quick mover. And that Fort Myers team is pretty fun, Like
there's a bunch of guys to watch on there. So I think I'm gonna
keep tuning into Forested League, like Winnakers there forgetting who else. But the
team is fairly fairly interesting in we get to see so much more fso it's
yeah, and like I said that, that team has enough guys that it's
worth watching see they all develop. But dun Cone is one that I just
wanted to flag. Is like maybe it's not totally he might not be totally
done, Like there seems like there's some still skills there. And again you
look at him and you see why people were excited about him coming out of
the DSL cutting up a lot of FSL pictures this year, I will say
he seems to be getting a disproportionate unfair amount of just nasty ass pictures.
He's still doing pretty well, yeah, yeah, yeah, but like I
feel like he's sort of popped up as a guy, Like several of these
arms putting the montage together, like that might have been the nastiest pitch and
oh it's against him again. Yeah, and when Walker Jenkins comes back,
that's gonna be where he'll be back at LOWA. I expect to so Jenkins
and dunt coone Byron Turio Jose Rodriguez who looks like a beat standing of himself.
Yeah, it's a fun crew there at low A. Well, I
got some other notes from the week. I just wanted to touch on some
other guys here. Tuesday, nice afternoon watch aj blue Ball went against Christian
Mana. Not to be a turd hat here, but I feel like the
blue Ball outing went pretty much exactly how we thought it might the night before
when we were talking about it. He went three innings, seven hits,
four and runs, two walks four k's definitely not as nice of a line
as his first triple A outing had had people the buzz and made him like
the trendiest pickup of the week, And he actually gave up less hard contact
this go around, but kind of the same story, you know. To
his credit, the execution did get better through the start. First inting was
really rough, but like even the strikeouts I'd say that like three of the
four strikeout pitches really weren't good pitches. He missed his mark substantially. So
yeah, I still have my my reservations about how excited we should be with
blue Ball. There. I watched his outing on Sunday, and Yeah,
had similar concerns, like I didn't think he was all that sharp. He
was getting hit hard even when they were out, and he gave up a
few runs in that Sunday outing as well. So as we talked about,
like, I do think there's value there. I think he's going to pitch
in the major leagues. I'm just not sure it's gonna be all that great.
Like if you got somebody who's you know, full on on the blue
ball train and it's coming at you for a trade, I would think hard
about that. Leo Davrees, Dvriise Devrees and McGonagall their debuts Tuesday, tuned
into some of that kind of all. His first six batted balls were fairly
hard. One O three ninety one eighty three is not that hard. But
he hit one O six one hundred ninety one off to the you know,
the start that we thought he would have. I think I watched some DJ
McCarty, my number one B side arm draft selection. He went four innings
in relief, gave up one hit, three strikeouts, no walks. What
I liked is that he was throwing strikes and seemed to be commanding. Wednesday,
discovered that Hickory is broadcasting now. Mark another one off the list,
although it's still just like a press box view. But as we've seen with
the new places broadcasting, it kind of starts off that way and then then
a centerfield camera shows up, so we'll see how that looks. I watched
thatch just like Ashville and Spokane. No, Spokane's broadcasting now, so it's
just just Ashville and Hya and then uh yeah, and down East I think
is still not broadcasting. I watched some Gary gil Hill. He's got an
interesting arsenal. He's throwing a four steamer, a two steamer. Uh.
They were talking about two different cutters that he throws and a slider. I
think that the home run he gave up was like a slider or a cutter
that backed up on him, and it was just kind of like a wall
scraper. He was pitching really clean, unraveled in the fourth a little bit.
All after. I thought this was interesting. All after, he didn't
get a call that seemed to bother him, and I don't think he responded
very well to that. Lots of soft contact on the ground, seven groundouts
to just one air out. He's kind of sucking me in a little bit
more and watched and listened to most of RVs versus Team Hence Matt, which
was maybe the most interesting matchup Mud versus Pretty Boy for us. It's funny
how lines can work, right. RVs went five, Hence went three and
a third at like the amount of hits and runs giving up and walks and
strikes strikeouts the same strike percentage. But Man RBS was pretty dominant and hence
struggled it figures after I give him, perhaps he kind of went back to
being what I don't like about him, inefficient, lack in command, RBS
rebound scooter. He went a stretch where I think he retired like fourteen out
of fifteen or something like that. The first two batters he walked. I
don't know what the umpire was. I think he was tough for the umpire
to pick up because there were some ball, some strikes, some balls getting
called that were just right over the middle. And of course those two guys
came around to score, and then the two that he left on when the
reliever came in scored as well. But again no one could square him up.
Man. There was like one hard contact ball. I think, just
an interesting juxtaposition of a couple of performances there in a season high four strikeouts
for RVs. So that was nice to see. I had mentioned in the
previous setting, which was I thought a pretty good outing overall. Nice to
see him get a couple more punch outs again. That's still something that I'm
watching over the next couple of starts. He's got a nice matchup on tomorrow
against my San Diego beside arm Austin Crop. I watched a little bit of
Jaden Ham versus Austin Peterson. I was watching more of the Ham side,
but I gotta check out Austin Peterson a little closer. I think here he's
a bit of an older guy in Hia, but he put up an f
QO. That outing had some nice lines. So I don't know what the
whole story is with Peterson, but I kind of want to do some home
just on Ham real quick. Did you see Mooney got Ham for for homer?
I did, Yeah, that was that was pretty impressive. I thought
like that. They said that that was tripled his earned runs that he'd given
up so far in his minor league career in that one swing. Yeah,
I think that's what kind of got started my Mooney interest. This week,
Emmett Olsen had FQO and I've heard some chatter and people ask about him.
I know Vogel was asking me about him. But only one of his three
outings had been broadcast so far, and that was Fort Myers from a press
box, so kind of hard to get a look there. But he threw
an FQO. It looks like he's a he's a lefty, maybe a softer
toss and lefty. I think his fastball averages like ninety one slider, curve,
change up. But he's a sixteen innings nowhere in runs, a point
seventy five whip, thirty two percent k you know, fourth round. I
think he was a fourth round pick. Yeah, fourth round pick this last
draft for them. I think did he get promoted too? I think Vogel
might have told me he got promoted. So I think his next start is
in Beloite. See how those Midwest League hitters treat him. I saw that
night too, Bubba chandler Man. He couldn't get out of the first inning.
Two thirds of an inning, two earned runs, two walk. He
struck out Khalil Watson to lead things off well, tracking he hit Dan frees,
the louder flied out, and then a walk and a walk and he
was done because he was at like thirty four pitches. So Alan Castro had
a nice little WPA bump that night, Matt, he had a walk off
double to win the game. Nice Thursday, Matt Wilkinson had his fifteen strikeout
performance. Yeah, that it has everyone a buzz. Now, try to
do some homework on him. There's been really no good views of him.
He's a lefty, and the only one from a center field cam was this
camera was like this poor, kind of grainy, faraway Salem outing from the
nineteenth. So I did go back and I watched that, and you know
what a fun kind of conundrum here for us, Matt. We got a
soft toss and lefty who's racking up a bunch of k's and my man's fat.
Oh he's so fat. Yeah, but you know, kind of a
dropping drive gets down that mound pretty fast. It seems like maybe the fastball
is what they'd call like heavy or something. I don't know, but he's
still like very liable to have pictures go off. And don't want to discredit
the great fifteen strikeout outing, but I think there's a lot of questions here
still about until we figure out how much we want to really value Matt Wilkinson
and I cut this one up and put it on Twitter at pitching Specs.
But my Phillies B side Aldegari been pretty good so far this year. Matt,
I know he had a little stint on the list, but he put
up an FQO then he and then he had this last five inning ten strikeout
affair. We still don't get like a real great angle on him. We
got to see him in Bradington last year, some but interesting lefty arm.
I'm still very much intrigued. In Following Friday, you see Blaine Kram had
like two home runs and seven RBIs Rangers B side Montai Yeah yeah, Bizara
Montas said, walk off home run for your nuts. Saturday we got a
Trevor Werner finally got on the home run board, did he? I hadn't
seen that. That's great. Yeah. Prospects that are trending on fans.
On the top of the board is Joey La Braffito, who's getting the call.
Makes a lot of sense. Juel Perez is up six percent, He's
up to ten percent. Makes sense. Matt Wilkinson is up to six percent.
He's up five point four so the third most added. Quinn Matthews up
a few percent. Jonah Thong again up a few percent. See Jonathan Bolan
is going to get a start for the Royals here. Man, he was
a guy I know injuries say night, but did he tonight? I didn't.
I didn't say so. But he was a guy man that I liked
quite a bit before a bunch of injuries kind of derailed them. Sam Roberts
is up a few percent, but those were the big the big gainers this
week. Did you see who won the International League Player of the Week?
I did not. It was your Brewers b side that Isaac Collins nice,
who is fourth in the International League in ops at one point zero nine to
five. Nice. Kind of interesting, huh? Coming up this week?
Might have my eye on and you know, things can change. I wanted
to watch Lynchburg last week, but it was a bad press box view and
people get promoted and you just don't know. I watched a bunch of Cardinals
that I wasn't planning on. Right what I'm kind of thinking. International League
got Buffalo at Indianapolis. Man, it would be kind of fun to see
or Elvis versus Skiings. Huh, I'll be sweet. Yeah right, and
I haven't watched Skiings, so maybe this is the week in the PCL.
I'll check this out. Now, we got Tacoma your Mariners at Sacramento,
which is more of a pitcher's park than people might realize. Yep, But
like, can we maybe have a PCL kind of pitching duel happening here?
Because these are probably the two best staffs, at least statistically they have like
six of the of the best starting pitchers in the league in this series?
Can that actually be a thing? Sure, they're both tied for first,
and maybe we get to see, uh, your boy Tang start to right
the ship a little bit. Well, my, he's not gonna have to
face my Mariners B side pick who's currently on the show. Yeah right,
what did you say? He had a triple like his first triple. Nice,
he's gonna get I think a little bit around while JP Crawford's out nice
Eastern League. I'm thinking maybe Eerie at Booie some fun matchups in that one.
Yeah, my, my Orioles B side arm Cam Weston got promoted curious
to see what kind of usage they're going to have for him there. Is
he gonna get some lengthen starts or not, I'm not sure. Well,
maybe I can see what the buzz is with Bencosme of course, Basallo and
those guys. I was thinking they was going yeah, yeah, I was
thinking they would maybe have a chance to go up against Ty Madden at some
point. But it seems he got promoted to our mud hens. Matt oh
nice, yeah, those Mudhends man. Maybe see some some exel. Do
you think he's gonna get the cold? Maybe not this week, but maybe
not this week, but I could see it soon. You see a Horvath
is starting to starting to turn it on a bit, had a really nice
homer last week. Southern League. I'm thinking Racket City at Birmingham at least
where the Caden Dana start. Perhaps that would be his toughest matchup yet versus
Baldwin and those boys who've been swinging it for Birmingham. Have you have you
watched any Dana yet? Just a little bit, a few winnings, nothing
in depth. I'm wondering where the strikeouts have gone. Like the strikeouts every
outing seem like they're taking a step back, and his swinging strike rate is
now under ten percent, so I think there might be something going on there.
And yeah, he's walking a few more than I expect, like he
had that great first start against the Baldwin led boys. But we'll see,
we'll see that goes. Maybe that'll be a good a good start to watch
and see what's going on. Yeah, in the Texas League, I'm thinking
maybe Midland at Amarillo. Midland is quietly a good team at Jacob Wilson and
we talked about Colby Thomas, our b Sides Malone and Cooper Bowman. They
have given up the least runs in the league. They got Selinas there,
Baso Cusick Hog j t Gin. But yeah, they'll be going up against
the highest scoring offense with DDLS AJV the Titanic, So that might be kind
of a fun one fun. In the Sale League, I'm thinking maybe I'll
maybe I'll do some Winston Salem at Greensboro. How McAdoo fairs against Schweitzer and
Schultz. Midwest League kind of got I mean, I love the Midwest League
right now, but Great Lakes at Wisconsin two first place teams. I want
to see my guy Rosario Ferris Bronze and the like with a decent angle and
a gun at that Wisconsin Broadcast Northwest League is a no brainer. It's Eugene
at Spokane because the other two series are press box and Eugene and Spokane are
the top two teams in that league right now. Carolina maybe some down east
at Fredericksburg, mostly because I want to see my guy DJ McCarty and I
want to watch some of that figaroa guy that I mentioned earlier. Florida State
League. Oh, I've been waiting for this one, Matt. This is
a good one, but it's a battle for first place. Clearwater is at
Lakeland, So you got Aiden Miller, Walton Pouaco, Grego Saltabah the dude,
he's an older guy. But they also got an outfielder one player of
the week I forget his name, uh in classing versus you know, Max
Clark, McGonagall, Braseno. So that's that should be a good one.
In the Call League, I'm going Rancho at Modesto. Kind of a no
brainer. Most most exciting bat prospects in that league are kind of basically on
those two rosters. I think probably watched some of that late night love those
rundowns. Shoot, we're getting muddy. Yeah, it's getting fun. We've
been talking for a while here. We should probably get out of here.
But uh, yep, Like I said, I try to put as much
video out there as I can for some things I think I might talk about
here and it probably helps. She listening to me ramble about some stuff.
But you can follow me at pitching specs. We'll let Chicago Farmer take us
out. And this cold episode thirty one a rat Matt and thanks man,
thanks again for shedding some light on some guys I should maybe pay attention to.
Yeah, maybe you'll do your homework next time. Hey, hey,
I just go I go with it, man, you know, I just
go where the signs tell me to. I guess that's what we do.
All right, have a good week. We'll talk to you next time.
Bye. Five miles an hour riding to his head. You hop it down
first with the lump bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up
and stole second face with gretested he wasn't born, he had to heat.
Yes, you deform