Not five miles an hour. Riding to his head, he hopping down first
with the lump bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and
stole second face with gretest be he wasn't born, he had yes uniform.
Welcome to episode sixteen of the Prospect B Sides podcast. I am Nate Handy
joining me again, the wonderful Rookster Nat Nat. I think has a last
name. I can't tell you. I can't tell you I know what it
is. I'm kind of waiting for Matt to show up with like just Prince
style one day. It just like a squiggly lion maybe man, But how
are you, rookster? The rookster is good, getting excited for the holiday
season. We got some travel coming up, go visit it laws and wonderful
time of the year. We've had beautiful weather out here in the West Coast
lately, and nothing plain about. I can't say the same for beautiful weather.
Oh, we've had a couple of warm days. But I found myself
stuck on it at a truck stop Friday night into the emergency room, and
that couldn't It was brutal, But I am I'm having a beer tonight,
Matt, I am celebrating that we have made it. This is the sixth
installment of our division by division breakdown that last right, Yeah, I don't
know. I don't know about that, but this has been This has been
a long track of mutting and divining rods and all sorts of unglamorous looks and
things. Matt, I think it's going to continue today. I said before
we started recording Boy, other than the guys that I picked our in our
drafts earlier on, this was a tough system for me. I think about
like one other guy other than the ones we've already talked about. Yeah,
well we'll get into it here. I just wanted a couple of housekeeping things.
I kind of have been failing to mention my Twitter handle, not that
that's a huge deal to me, but you can follow me at Pitching Specs
on Twitter. I have been trying to supplement some episodes with some videos of
some players we've talked about cut up some videos of like some of my selections
and some of Matt's months ago now, and I've kind of just been forgetting
to drop some of those. But you can take a look there. And
also two weeks ago I believe it was or two episodes ago when we were
talking about the n OH Central, I had kind of cross streams a little
bit, and I just wanted to clarify. We had started talking about pictures
in that division, and I had mentioned ninetieth Percentile podcasts with Jeff Ponds from
Baseball America and he had an episode with Rylan Domingas of tread Athletics and they
were talking about sliders with IVB right and how you know, it's kind of
counterintuitive, right, you want a slider that breaks away from a hitter or
into a hitter or down, and there are some sliders that have characteristics that
kind of ride a little bit. And Ryland was talking about how they had
been wondering if that is a useful pitch for some pictures. And I had
mentioned when we were talking about Hunter Parks that I thought his slider might have
a little bit of that quality, and I had goofed there. I was
actually thinking about pirates selection Alessandro Erklanni. Erklanni, Oh, yeah, yeah,
his slider has some of those characteristics. Jeff had shared with me on
Twitter. I had asked Jeff if erkulani slider had this quality and Jeff responded
saying that he throws a slider with about five to seven inches of ride and
seven to eight inches of horizontal break. And in that episode they were also
talking about bridge pitches. God throws a fastball, guy throws a slider,
something in between that can kind of keep them off either of those pitches.
And Erkulani, like we had mentioned, also throws a cutter that's a little
bit harder at eighty six to eighty nine miles pro. But I just wanted
to clarify that kind of makes erku Lani a little bit more interesting to me.
Nice, well, I might, I might pop him near the top
of my two draft lists. I think I've mentioned this slow auction that I'm
in that's still going. We started this weeks and weeks ago, and the
slow auction is slow. You know, we did that on purpose. We're
not in a rush and all that good stuff, and it's been it's been
fun, but I definitely made some mistakes earlier on in the exciting part of
the draft, spent too much of my money, and now we're at the
end of the draft. I'm like one of maybe five guys still left drafting
because everybody keeps taking my guys. I have no money. I can only
bid the minimum. So I'll put somebody up that I really like, often
one of our B side guys that we've talked about, and someone comes in
for one extra dollar and steals them from me. And so I've I think
I mentioned I've lost tang Van, Scooter McCarty, like a bunch of guys
that we both like, and I keep getting scooped on him, Logan Henderson.
I was so excited about Logan Henderson, and that one hurt too because
I had him up until like thirty minutes to go, and this is like
an eight hour clock, so he'd been at mine and I was like,
Okay, good, I got one of these guys that I'm really excited about.
And then no, somebody gave into the last second scooped me on him.
So I'm so bummed about the guys that, like, all of the
ones that I drafted are gone, except I think I think I snagged one
of them. But yeah, it's been a real bummer. So now I'm
like deep diving going back through all of our B side selections for each team,
Like I picked up Mullins because I'm excited about that. Hopefully he just
walks down and keeps striking everybody out. I've picked up a few guys here
and there. I picked up your guys, Sirmac, and see if you
can put it all together this next year. But yeah, it's this is
like why we do B sides, right, It's like, for this exact
thing, there's nobody left in this league. We are scraping the bottom of
the barrel. And so I've got a few more spots to fill out and
hopefully hopefully some of the guys on the on our B side list make it
to me. I'm glad that we have helped you. You have just for
those ridiculously deep leagues. I mean we're at like pick fourteen hundred or something
now, and I still have like twelve roster spots to fill. Is there
in season pickups in that league? There are? But it's a contracts league,
and so you can pick up minor league guys for free more or less,
you just kind of like drop whoever's at the bottom of your m ILB
roster. But for the major league guys, it costs you to cut a
roster spot, so it's gonna be I think fewer moving parts on the MLB
side or the uh ads and drops, And certainly for someone like me,
who I'm going to be pretty close to the cap all year, I bet,
and it's and it's tricky to get rid of to clear cap space too.
I mean you can trade it away and stuff, but it'll be tricky
because most of the teams are close to the cap. So it's gonna be
an interesting league right on. Well, hopefully a few of those pan out
to some degree for you. Yeah, hopefully they just turn into something because
the rest of my team I think is pretty good. I Like I said,
I was aggressive on the early side, and so a couple of these
guys hit and I can flip them for something useful on the major league side,
will be in business. There you go. Well, Matt, let's
get into this wonderful world of the nls B sads. Oh, we got
to start with the Braves. You know they're they're the best. So okay,
let's start with your braves, my Atlanta Braves. Now on the hitting
side here, you had selected Drake Baldwin. I did, indeed airly early
in our hitter draft during our hitter Draft episode, and Baldwin was also my
pick at that time not lying. So I don't know if we need to
get into him again too much, but I think we both agree that this
is a left handed catching prospect with an exciting bat, and I think maybe
maybe getting caught up a little bit more consensus wise, but a guy that
was what he was sitting at one percent in the middle of September, and
I think we both think he's deserving of some more gambles. Definitely, Yeah,
he was two percent in September, and I'm a huge train I did
watch a little bit more of him, just watching some of the other guys
in the system to touch on, and I did notice that he has changed
his hand set up a little bit throughout the year. So I think I
had mentioned when we talked about him in the draft that his hand set up
is really high. He has his hands start kind of above his head almost
and then drop down into that slot as he strides that I thought that that
was kind of a funky setup in that he hits the ball a little bit
too much on the ground for someone who has really solid power, and so
I wondered if lowering his hands might help get to some of that more of
that flyball spray, but I noticed that early in the year his hands were
a little bit lower and they didn't have such a pronounced drop, and so
I wonder if maybe that somebody one of the coaches was working with him sort
of in the opposite direction, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Like you look at the other guys that have the Braves have changed their
hand position. Akunya they dropped his hands to like flat with his shoulder and
really relax and Olsen as well. When he came over from Oakland, Olsen's
hands were quite a bit higher and now they're much more in front of him.
And I think that Baldwin might benefit from that same kind of adjustment,
And so it's something I'm going to watch for in spring training next year because
I think if he does that and he starts hitting more flyballs, we're looking
at a twenty five homer that as as a catcher, and he seems okay
back there, so like I think he's a real prospects as a catcher,
And of course the Braves very good catchers right now, but that's not something
that is going to last forever. I think Darnaut's probably on the tail end
of his career. And and even if those guys still stick around and are
great and and Darnau and Murphy, Baldwin might be a really interesting trade piece
to flip to somebody, like say the White Sox for Dylan Ceese or something.
So wouldn't shrack me, Well, hopefully Baldwin. You know you wouldn't
do that straight up. The problem is, I think they could do worse.
Well, hopefully Baldwin can follow in the footsteps of some of our former
Braves B side bats. Varm Grissom I think was a pretty good B side
selection, and then last year went with Nacho. He definitely gained some popularity.
I'm curious because you are a Braves fan, what are your thoughts on
Natcho? What do you think? I'm a fan. I think the knock
on him kind of coming into the year was was there going to be enough
power to be interesting? You know, Grissom kind of walks that line a
little bit too, and that the power isn't certainly the first tool that you
think of. And I think Grisom has a little bit better hit tool than
Nacho even but I was kind of happy with seven homers out of Alvarez because
I think the reports, even after you had turned me on to him last
year for Nacho, they were like, this might this guy might hit one
or two homers a year, and so to see him already put up seven
and that he does have some power, you know, twenty five doubles,
twenty four doubles, like it's not nothing. So I like him. I
also am a huge fan, like this is just such a classic B side
guy because I got him in like the sixth round of our offseason draft in
a league where we already roster one thousand prospects, and I included him in
a trade earlier this year, and it was like I got a ton back
for including him and a couple of other guys because he had such a good
year. He went from like nothing, you know, the thousand rngth prospect
in our league to something that somebody was actually asking for in trade. That's
like, to me, is like, man, not, you already did
his work for me, And you know, I wish him the best on
whoever else, whoever seem I trade him to. But yeah, I just
think it's a nice, well rounded skill set that does a lot of the
things that I really like for especially our B side kind of guys. Yeah.
Now, I don't know how much of Natro you've watched, but he's
kind of curious to me, you know, the questions about power, the
knock on power. I don't know if you feel the same way, but
he strikes me as a strong kid. He's got a strong lower half.
I think he does have barely quick bat. I have seen him hit some
hard balls into the apple gap. I don't know, what do you think.
Is it more just his approach his swing? I think there is power
in there. I just don't know if he's ever going to be that kind
of hitter. Well, I do like his swing, but I think the
thing is is that he is a little bit shorter levered, and so it
might look like his hands are moving pretty quickly, but because they're a little
bit closer to his body like that doesn't translate to the bathhead speed and therefore
not into the exit velocities on ball as like you might see with a bigger
guy like David McCabe or somebody else like that in the in the system,
or even Baldwin for that matter. Like those guys there, I agree with
you, their hands maybe don't look quite as quick as someone like Nacho,
but I think that they're also a fair amount stronger, like they are hitting
with a little bit. I don't have their EV numbers, but I bet
that it's a decent separation from somebody like Nacho. And what he does really
well is he's got a great batted ball profile, and I think he sprays
the ball really well and like it's line drives. It's line drives scround balls
and then not that many fly balls, which I think is right for his
kind of And it's interesting that the Braves seem to have a lot of those
guys in their minor leagues and then they just traded for quite a big cost
David Fletcher to do that exact same thing as their utility infielder this year.
So I don't know. It's sort of an interesting organizational approach for the Braves,
and I wonder if they think they can coax a little bit more power
out of some of these guys. Yeah, last season for a Brave's arm,
I went with the first year player, Adam Mayer, who did not
pitch it all this year or last season. I think he had did he
have the internal brace surgery. I think that may have been I think what
happened there, but he was a favorite kind of later first year player draft
arm. I think injury was kind of perhaps part of the reason why he
wasn't drafted earlier. He was drafted later but paid well. I think it
is from what I have gathered, you know, first round caliber kind of
stuff. Just questions on, like I said, the injury. So I'm
still holding on to a few shares there and anxious to just him as a
pro nice before we jump into our arms. I just wanted to touch on
Luke Waddell a little bit as another B side guy that got a lot of
consideration for me and in a number a bunch of other systems, even in
this division, I would have taken him in a heartbeat as my B side
selection. Again has a lot in common with the Nachos and the von Grissoms
of the world, and that he has really short levers, is really quick
and direct to the ball. Not a ton of power, you know,
eight homers over five hundred and seventy seven played appearances like that's forty thirty five
grade power, but stole twenty nine bags plays, played shortstop a lot this
year, and I think there are questions about his arm strength, Like he
really seems like he puts his whole body into it. So I probably is
in a shortstop, but maybe if he plays second base then again, I
think that sort of line is pretty interesting. You know, two seventy five,
three eighty four, three seventy six with twenty nine steals, Like that's
pretty solid. So he's another one just to keep in mind, especially in
leagues where there's like a big penalty, because he only struck out twelve percent
of the time, walked fourteen points seven percent of the time, So good
contact skills, good all around player. Probably a minus on the defense,
so you know, total overall ceiling is probably a little bit lower, but
definitely an interesting name to follow in your different leagues too. My little short
list of bats. Just curious about your thoughts on any of these guys.
Cody Milligan, David McCabe, and Ethan wer Yeah, liked. I liked
a couple of those guys. Milligan. I just want to see more from
I mean, I like the flexibility. Again, he's one of those guys
is playing all over up the middle, doesn't have a ton of power.
I mean again, it's just like a sort of a type that the Braves
have and I think Workinger is a little bit like that, although he strikes
out a little bit more than those other guys, even McCabe, who I
think is the best of those three and is starting to get a little bit
of love on some of the prospect lists. I know that Chris clegg is
a is a big fan of his. He has good skills, like he
doesn't swing and miss a lot, and I think over his two levels kept
his strikeout really below twenty two percent at both levels and hit for a little
more power. But again it's sort of like that contact first profile. And
again as a reminder, the Braves' lower minor league parks are really hard to
hit in Rome especially, but also Mississippi is not a great ballpark for hitters.
So these guys that when you see them in High A and Double A
that have pretty solid lines above league average, you probably want to round up
on some of those things, especially for power, like that was something that
I mentioned for Baldwin, but it's true for McCabe as well. Seventeen homers
that McCabe hit this year in Rome, like that's really really good. I
don't remember the historical numbers for it, but their Rome plays very very down
four hitters and hitting for that much power, like you might round up and
you might say, like, actually, that's more of a twenty five maybe
thirty homer potential bat there. So just a note on those guys. I
really like McCabe. He is like at three percent when I looked at this,
and I really liked Baldwin so much that I went with him. Yeah,
I will say that. I mean, Baldwin was a pretty clear definite
selection over these three in my opinion. All right, so who's your braves
arm for this year? Well, I had a couple that I wanted to
talk about. I mean, the Braves Arms are pretty fun as a group.
As you note, there's guys like Meyer and Phillips that we didn't get
to watch at all this year. The dearly departed Phillips over to my other
team, the Mariners, so hopefully I get to watch some of him next
year out West. But they have a launch these like really high upside arms
and then also quite a few of these very low variants kind of boring arms
too, So it's an interesting system in that way. And one of the
guys that I wanted to talk about, who has since left as a minor
league free agent to Oakland is Domingo Roblez, and he's someone I think you
guys should keep an eye on because I would not be that surprised if he
sees some innings for the Athletics next year. I think the Braves mix up
his pitch mix. I think he changed his pitch mick. The stuff looks
the same, but he had a great year for them after being miserable for
I don't know, like eight years in the minor leagues. He was terrible,
and the Braves got him one year, changed his pitch mix and he
was good. He was really solid, and I think he might get a
chance to play for Oakland soon. A few years ago, I wrote up
Miranda's Jose Miranda's like first three hundred played appearances, and he just destroyed robless
Over. Everybody did so bad. I mean like it was like embarrassingly so,
yeah, I can't get that totally. And you know, he's not
like an impact arm by any means. He's a soft toss and lefty with
fringy command. I mean, nothing to get super excited about. But it
was just wild to me looking at this, Like I think he improved his
strikeout rate by more than ten percent and improved his walk rate by ten percent.
It was like in the good direction. I was like, who is
this guy? He seems kind of the same picture as I went back and
looked at a start or two of him from prior years, and it kind
of seemed like the same guy, you know, bigger bodied, kind of
not athletic looking lefty. He just shopped for the Braves, So that was
that was funny. That was that wasn't even the Braves like number one minor
league free agent success story, Ellen Winans. Yeah, he did quite a
bit with him too. He was he was one of my favorite guys to
watch in the minors last year. Yeah, and I thought that Roeblist was
kind of on that same train, like he might like winings, get some
depth starts for the big league squad and all that again in a similar way,
like never going to strike a ton of guys out, but you know,
limit walks and get some grounders and be a serviceable spot starter. Yeah.
I went with Luis de Avila. He I thought was the clear choice
after that, because again, a lot of the Braves upside arms are super
well known. They were high draft picks. They've performed quite well. That
is. Really it is a bit tricky B side arms in this system.
It is. It is because they've done such a good job turning mediocre talent,
you would say, you know, like fifth, fourth, eighth rounders
into really good major league pitchers. So the Avila is a he's a guy
who was a minor league acquisition as well. I think they claimed him off
of waivers last year, is that right, and then maybe outrighted him.
There was some weird train he was he was with them in twenty twenty two.
Okay, so maybe this was a couple of years ago because he was
kind of like he was kind of my one B selection last year. Okay
about him a little bit. Yeah, he is another lefty who in form
for me as a B sider, does an okay job limiting walks, although
the walks were a little bit on the high side this year, and gets
a decent amount of strikeouts but a lot of grounders. You know, one
hundred and twenty some innings this year, one hundred and twenty seven innings,
so volume is there made it up to triple a just for I think just
one start at the end of the year. Kind of a spot start at
the end of the year, but pitched a lot of the year at double
A and struck out twenty four percent of the time twenty three point six percent
of the time watched twelve percent, so little on the high side there,
but also got a lot of grounders. Like he was. Has that sort
of classic lefty pitchability profile. He's eighty eight to ninety one and sort of
interestingly, the stat cast wasn't sure what to make of his pitch mix.
It classified his most thrown pitch as change ups, but I'm pretty sure that
they were mostly two seamers, So he throws like this eighty eight to ninety
one two seamer. It also says he has like the changeup firmer, so
when he does throw a change up, it's like eighty five to eighty nine,
so that might blend a little bit there. And he's got a solid
slider too, Like his slider might be my favorite pitch of his. It's
just like one of those profiles that it's so boring. Nobody else is going
to be very interested in this. But I can see him next year for
the Braves giving a spot start. You know, he had one really great
start near the end of the year against a very good Double A Hubs team
who you know, had Shaw and Case and a bunch of their like Murray
and a bunch of their guys that had really really good years, and he
just dominated them. He like, I think, hit the first batter,
walked the next batter, and then struck out strikes out eleven and that might
have been the only base urners he gave up. It was like a wildly
good start and then and it's worth watching the start might have maybe against Durham.
I think it's against Durham Raised Triple A affiliate where he lost the control
a little bit, although again watching it you could kind of see the ABS
system at work, Like the balls that you might think usually would be a
strike, we're just missing. And so he gave him a couple of easy
free passes, but still battled against a pretty good Raised Triple A affiliate lineup
in Durham too, which is a pretty good pitcher's park or a hitters park
rather and uh and did really well. So Avila I think he had a
very solid year over all, least two percent owned and in sort of a
tough system to find any sort of sleepers like this is the kind of guy
you find, you know, underrated lefty I dig. I think he's a
very solid B side selection. I've always last few seasons just generically speaking,
just found him to be a good pitcher, just y if the stuff is
going to be good enough to hack it in the majors. But he may
not be certainly not for like, I don't want him as the Braves,
you know, number four starter in a year or two like that, I
something would be wrong, I think if if that were true. But he's
solid, he's a decent guy. I went with, Like I said,
I was kind of struggling, and I went with an arm that I just
found just more intrigued than wanting to go out and roster or anything like that.
It is just kind of a watch guy for me. But did you
watch any Jorge Batista not ringing a belt? All right? So he's I
think he just turned twenty three years old. He's a righty from I think
the Dominican they list him at six foot, one hundred and fifty five pounds,
kind of a little bit of a different frame. He's got longer arms
and he has really big hands. I noticed, or at least they appeared,
so fingers just kind of wrapping around the whole ball. But he split
this season between A ball and hi A sixty seven and two thirds A ball
innings thirty nine and one third. High A innings K percentage went up just
to tick, just like one percent as he moved up. The walks jumped
up from seven and a half percent to eleven point eight, so that's not
great. His whip went from one point zero three one point five to three.
Batista's primarily a two pitch attack guy, fastball slider. I don't think
I would even see in a change up tried. There might be some fastball
varietals going on, I'm pretty certain. And then his breaking balls seemed to
have some different pace going on, but with like similar movement profiles and if
I had to beat, I think there is definitely intent behind this with Batista.
But he had some interesting traits that I liked. He showed some length,
he was able to go in to deep, go deep into games.
He averaged seventy nine pitches a start during his high A stint one hundred and
seven innings on the season, which included an FQO his last outing versus Hickory,
which I just rewatched today. He very much felt like a guy with
an arrow kind of pointing up to me down the stretch. He's induced ground
balls at a nice clip in the past, fifty one percent a ball,
forty seven percent at high A. I think he lacks the precision with like
his limited attack, especially to get like lefties out. Lefties hit like two
eighty three against them, right he's hit just one seventy two slugged to eighty
nine. I mean, there's a lot of things here that kind of scream
relief pitcher, potential relief pitcher, doesn't hold runners well, and that Matt
A lot of these guys could shave off a decent trunk of their era,
especially in the lower as, if they just hold some runners. Yeah,
but despite like the higher walk numbers and stuff, at least, I mean,
there are outings where he doesn't seem wild to me. He's just kind
of missing by a little bit more than you know, just non competitive pitches
is high a run thirty nine and a third innings. He had a ten
point five to three k per nine, the four point eight to one walk
per nine, which is not the greatest walk wise, but man if Patista's
kind of fun to watch. He gets some really fun whiffs, guys losing
their bats, guys falling you. You could put together a decent little highlight
reel of him just making guys look silly, pitching Ninja style. Yeah,
yeah, yeah for sure. So I don't know. Just like I said,
I wasn't really like super in love with anyone down at this raster percentage,
but Batista, there are some moments and they might they might have a
nice little relief pitcher in here. I will post some Jorge Bautista gifts here
throwing his fast bowed. I think it's like probably ninety three, but like
I said, I think it gets some life on it, going both directions,
maybe three directions, because I think he might throw a cutter too,
and then and then some wicked sliders that he can. He can't command the
slider pretty well I think at times. So Jorge Batista, just take a
look and see what he's doing this season, all right, So I'll have
a follow of him. I don't have any huge expectations, but let's see.
Yeah. The only other guy saw a little bit of and think might
be somewhat interesting is Hayden Harris. He's a twenty four year old relief pitcher
made it up to double a struck out almost thirty seven percent of batters this
year had an acceptable nine point seven percent walk rate, So he really was
pretty dominant, especially from a FIP standpoint, and the stuff looked like it
backed it up pretty well. So he's another one. Just you know,
watch watch. He might be in the middle innings for the Braves at some
point this year. Right if you happen to turn on Batista and you see
him doing a little twirl like after a pitch, that's when you know he's
feeling it. He likes to do this little little spin. I love that
when he's getting the whiffs. Brotherly love Philadelphia Phillies has not been a whole
lot of B side love here, Matt. I don't think past when with
Marcus Lee saying who I think is kind of like a nice skill set,
but just the case I think have just kind of sabotaged it all. I
mean, maybe a guy who still has a chance. I think he was
in the AFL, but the case kind of kind of ruined any interest for
me. Then last year we went with Leandro Pineda, who was this young
hitter that just kind of looked a little interesting to me. Perhaps some power,
perhaps some speed, perhaps a good glove, but he overall just kind
of had a very middle A season. If that one o one WRC plus
and high A just doesn't seem to impact the ball enough, didn't really slug.
I don't know how much interest I have in Panaeda, but he's still,
what only twenty one years old. And then the pitcher we went with
last year was Noah Scurrow, and that I don't know why I had it
in my head that he had missed the whole season, because he definitely did
not. He pitched over one hundred innings in Triple A. It was kind
of nice I saw before the season started he was pitching for Team Canada and
the World Baseball Classic. But I was kind of interested in his four seen
fastball. Although it wasn't really hard, I thought it had life that could
play really well in the top of the zone. And overall, I think
Scurroll's stuff just kind of seemed to meet its match at Triple A this year,
just looking at like csw on his pitches. Nothing was really super hot,
his numbers were not very good. I think he struck out like six
per nine, gave up a lot of home runs, twenty five year old,
good body. I don't know someone who I thought maybe could play himself
into a potential rotation try, but I think there needs to be some substantial
gains made if that's going to happen. So I don't know how interested I
am in Noah Screw anymore. Have you watched him at all? Yeah?
I watched him a bit last year because he had a really nice run at
Double A. Yeah he did, and I was pretty into it, and
he even did okay at Triple A last year. But yeah, this year
was kind of ugly. The strikeouts took a step back, the locks got
worse, gave him a bunch of homers. Like, he had a pretty
ugly year. And yeah, I'm seeing his swinging strike rate went down by
two percent as well, which is so wonder what's going on there because I
thought there was something there. Maybe it seems like giving up a lot of
nine drives a lot of fly balls, which kind of makes sense, you
know, with his arsenal. But so, yeah, so I don't know
who. Who do you want to talk about this year? Matt Well On
the pitching side, I struggled in this org a bit. I watched a
couple of their guys and didn't come away super impressed. You know. Watched
a little bit of Michael Platsmyer, who I had seen a few times back
in the day because I think he was a Mariners prospect for a minute,
if I'm remembering that right, But didn't love what I saw there. Looked
at a couple you know again, sort of similar to Davila in the Brave
System, A lefty Matt Osterberg or Osterberg who I liked. I liked some
of what he did, but you know, it's at high A. He
made it up to double A this year and isn't striking anybody out really,
you know, twenty percent strikeout rate, which is like fringy already and does
a good job limiting walks, you know, five percent is plus and get
some ground balls. But he's another one that seemed like a pretty boring no
upside at all I could see. But maybe he gets some big beginnings kind
of guy. I kind of thought you'd be a little bit more excited or
more into oaster bird to bees. It's just the strikeouts like just aren't really
there, and he just seemed like every kind of slow throwing lefty that I've
seen, and I've certainly picked some guys like this before. But it's just
twenty one percent strikeouts, is like, that's like the bare minimum. And
if you're doing that at high A in double A, like, it's gonna
get worse. So now you're talking about can you really limit walks if you're
not striking anybody out and it's like fourteen or fifteen percent, right, like,
then you really need a plus something else. So I don't know.
He I thought his double A run though it was only six starts thirty what
thirty one innings I think it was, but he had a whip of one
point zero five. I didn't have the K and the walk percentages like like
I should, but his K for nine was eight point nine and his walks
for nine was one point seven to eight. Yeah, and I do like
that. The walks for me are good. And watching him like he's commanding
his pitches pretty well, you know. Yeah, mixes sixty strikes during that
double A run, And I agree he lacks the velo, but I got
a little bit of a little bit of Mark Burley in him. Maybe that
could be an upside outcome for him, certainly with the command. I guess
what I'm worried about. Osterburgh's never going to be a Hall of Fame pitcher,
likely, but that is true. But I find like, even though
he didn't have the velocity, I found that he pitched inside well, at
least at least in the looks. And that's very different in double A than
you know, pitching well inside and double A than in the majors. But
Osberg was kind of interesting to me. He made my short list. Yeah,
yeah, and again I thought we were going to come together a little
bit more here. I'm not trying to poopoo him too much. I think
the thing that worried me was the he had a forty seven percent ground ball
rate at high and then a you know, it went up a little bit
at double A. But I'm not sure that's going to stick. So I
think that he's going to give up a few more fly balls as he goes
up just the velocity that you know, harder to bore under guy's barrels,
harder to get the chases below the zone that induced those kinds of ground balls,
And I think that's going to lead to pretty big uptick in his home
run rate. You know, his homer's per nine was below one at both
stops this year, and if he doesn't get more ground balls, I think
that's going to double maybe. So that's sort of where I was a little
worried about him. But he did have a good year, and like I
said, the looks that I had, and I watched a couple of his
starts last week when I was prepping for this and they were solid. And
honestly, it's a coin flip between him and the guy that I went with.
I mean, it's he's got enough interesting stuff there that it's a totally
reasonable pick. But my guy was another guy that he's probably a reliever.
But the stuff looked very, very good, and I wondered if they might
stretch him out again because he did get a couple of starts early in the
year in when Hui Pan, who's made it up to double A this year,
I believe, oh no, just Hi A this year, but had
like an over sixteen percent swinging strike rate at a ball and at high A
this year. Even though his short stint at HYA this year was pretty poopy,
it was still accompanied by getting a lot of whiffs fastballs ninety four to
seven and the slider is a wipeout slider. It is really really good.
Is he Taiwanese? Yeah, number four, the fourth Taiwanese. We're finding
something here, look at us. Yeah, we're global, we are we
are. So again, I'm not super excited about him. Like I said
at the outset, this was sort of a coin flippy kind of guy.
I could have gone him, I could have gone Osterberg, I could have
gone Danny Wilkinson. They're all in sort of a clump for me. But
I just wanted to highlight another of our Taiwanese friends and pick pond here right.
I found the Philly is a little bit more interesting maybe maybe than you
had. But Christian McGowan has since his draft has been interesting to me,
and we were just kind of waiting for him to really get on the mound.
But I think he's a guy with an interesting arsenal. It's kind of
all starting to point towards him probably being the reliever he was in the AFL
this year. I'm curious if you watched. I don't even know how much
there was to watch. I think there was a of Alex McFarlane. Oh
no, I don't think I did. Yeah, there was. He was
in single a all year, I believe, seems like a guy with the
very appealing strikeout arsenal but just walks a lot of guys six point seventy nine
per nine the Phillies. I'm curious. I'd love to know what the Phillies
do and what their philosophy. Philosophy is trying to help guys along with command,
because I think they have done some things with some folks and then the
so I think so I mean Andrew Painter, not that I watched a bunch,
but from his like perfect game stuff to what he was doing was I
thought just command execution wise was a whole other level. Yeah, I feel
like they've helped Griff McGarry, but I think man because he was the one
that came to mind, like the stuff is, you know, everybody loves,
but he walks like twenty of his better city faces. I'm just like,
that's not a guy. That's true. You know, maybe it's not
great information, maybe it is, but from what I've been told, like
that's more of a blister issue with him, or it has been. But
I think at least what year twenty twenty too, he was showing command that
I think was not anywhere near his skill sets prior to maybe maybe that's maybe
that's just not great info. I don't know. And then there's some one
of the guys that I'm like lower on than literally everybody I've ever talked to,
because I watched a few of his his outings and this guy has no
idea where the ball is going right. But he is interesting though, because
especially twenty twenty two, like a guy who would have outings where you're like,
how is this guy have these walk problems and these command problems? This
is it does not drive with what I'm watching this out and then you watch,
you know, an outing or two later and you're just like, just
didn't even seem like the same picture to me. And then I watched a
little bit maybe yeah, there was more of Geene Cabrera to watch in a
ball kind of a smaller guy, but the Arsenal Arsenal seems to have some
teeth, but he gets he was getting hit hard, which I know doesn't
make sense right, But he's another young pitcher that that I might keep tabs
on this year. But my selection I was happy to see Samuel Elde Garry.
It was an international signee from Italy left Dells this go around. Man,
uh, he's a lefty listed at six twenty two years old. I
think he was pitching most of this season at twenty one zero percent roster in
the middle of September. Now he made his full season debut back in twenty
one. Five Clearwater outings weren't broadcast. Twenty twenty two, he only logged
twelve rookie ball innings. I think he was coming back from Tommy John don't
quote me. Obviously, a fairly major injury that kept him out, and
then this was actually the first season that there were any broadcasts of him.
Now. Still it was a pretty small look, only five outings to watch,
but we did have some savant data arsenal. He's got a four steam
fastball. I have a thousand pitch sample here from savant average, ninety two
miles prow he's got a slider, he's got a change up, he's got
a curveball. And then they got some sinkers on here too. Not totally
sure if that's correct or not, but he had sixty seven and two thirds
innings in a ball and then sixteen in High A this year twenty seven point
eight k percentage in Hi, a walk percentage of six point nine percent walks
for a little bit more walks, we're significantly more in a ball. So
he's a lefty who splits were splits were all right, obviously right, He's
hit him a little better, but not too significantly different. Now. It
struck me watching Elgarry is he's just he's got, you know, a full
starter's kit arsenal and was commanding it fairly well in my looks. I like
the fastball change up. He gets good differential on the change up, and
I think he uses that well and you know for fuel pitch commands that pretty
well. But the slider has got some teeth to it too. Csw on
the slider in this samples thirty one point three percent. He also throws a
curveball in there that you know, stell probably steal strikes at a pretty high
clip at this level with it my few looks, a guy who didn't get
squared up very much at all gets a lot of ground balls on his secondaries.
But yeah, I don't know, just kind of interesting. Just felt
like a solid left handed pitching prospect, and the Phillies evidently feel the same.
Way nice. I was kind of curious to see how his game plays
as he gets into the uppers. Well, hopefully it doesn't play like McGarry's,
who walked astonishing twenty nine point zero eight per nine twenty nine, what
was it the year before? You know, ten per nine at Triple A,
five and a half per nine at double A. He strikes guys out,
But man, I'm just yeah, he again, these are small sample
sized, both at at triple A four and a third at Triple A this
year fourteen walks many like. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like a
fan, but I do think that his command issues. I think there's more
to it than him just that might be right. I mean, you cannot
be a professional and do this, you know what I mean. And there's
still they're still running him out there. You know, he didn't pitch all
of the year, and again, maybe that was trying to manage blister issues
too, so that that would be a helpful explanation and might soften some of
my hatred for this kind of a profile. But the other one I was
thinking of is Nick Abel. You know, he was sort of like a
very polished high school arm and has been sort of middling with his command.
It's like the thing that has knocked him way down my interestless because he gets
strikeouts and he seems like a solid pitcher, but he just walks too many
for me to like think he's in that elite tier, you know, Yeah,
for such a pretty boy. Arm I was like, agreed, did
you didn't say bad already here? Did you didn't? But I had selected
Matt Kruhn. Oh yeah, that's right, Crune. That was a good
one. Yeah. I liked him a lot. Kind I kind of like
I kind of liked my two Phillies here maybe the highlight of this of this
division. But for my bad I was going with Brian Rincone. That's a
good one. If I had known that BA was going to put him in
their top ten, I would have drafted this dude. Yeah. I did
not see that coming. But Rincon is a switch it in shortstop. He's
listed at five ten five, nineteen years old. He made it up to
high eight this year. This is a pretty nice draft find by The Phillies
took him in the what fourteenth round out of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Prep Northern teenager who
was ranked four hundred and forty fifth had a perfect game in the class of
twenty twenty two. And the story here is kind of he's got a legit
shortstop glove, perhaps the best glove in the system. But the offense is
better than expected. Primarily a ball a little stint in high A, but
four hundred and twenty five played appearances, he hit eight home runs, he
stole twenty seven bases. It line drives a twenty one point one percent,
pulls the ball at a nice clip, hits his opposite field thirty two point
eight percent. Now, his batting average was just two thirty four, but
he had obp three sixty eight and he slept only three sixty one. But
he's a guy who struck out seventeen point nine percent of the time but walked
sixteen percent of the time. It's good enough for a one oh seven WRC
plus. Now he's a switch hitter, like I said, but I think
his right handed stroke, which is harder to see like with him being an
a ball. I think there were three broadcast series and Matt he went over
in all of those games, all the broadcast games in a ball and and
you know, so kind of had to really search for some for some right
handed at bats down there, I think, I really maybe only I only
found him getting any hits in Hia from the right side. Point being I
think is his right handed stroke is more natural and he looks to do more
damage from that side. I think, I think he's like a hitter from
the right side, whereas from the left side, I think he's kind of
surviving. But the numbers weren't were like too too different. Hit two thirty
from the left side two forty seven from the right side, got on base
on a much higher clip from the right side. Though. Another sort of
demographic for good b siding is guys whose glove is going to carry them and
who might be a better hitter than folks think or improving as a hitter,
and Rincombe could could very well fall into that, agreed. And he reminds
me profile wives like a bunch of those braves guys that we just talked about,
like very similar, not a ton of power, but controls the strike
zone pretty well, maybe a little bit more athletic than you think. And
yeah, I think I think he's a good pick. And well I was.
I was watching a few more at bats of him today in Hya at
Jersey shore where you get like velocity readings right, there were some relievers that
were that were like really pumping some gas, and man he was he was
handling velocity. I was impressed. I was impressed with the at bats that
he was putting together, even though this a guy who didn't put up a
ton of huge numbers might might turn into a professional hitter here like that.
Do you like anybody else in the system that wise? No, I didn't
have anybody else on my short list. I was pretty uh set with Cone
pretty early in the process. The only other one I had Ringcone that I
wanted to touch on to For your Cagori's leagues, I think a Marion Boyd
is someone to keep an eye on next year. You know, there was
no video of him that I could find this year, but didn't strike out
a ton, you know, under fifteen percent of the time and stole fifty
six bass this year. Yeah, so I think it's like defense and speed
profile, but the speed seems legit. He's one to monitor I don't want
to get a look at. I think there were a few bats that I
had wanted to check out but couldn't because there wasn't anything. And then the
other one that I wanted to mention is a guy who just got traded out
of the system. But when I pulled this list was in here was Oliver
Done. He had a really interesting year, and I think got recognized that
he was included in that trade with the Brewers. I think I think the
story is now the Brewers. But my notes on him was like, this
is kind of an interesting breakout bat. He hit twenty one homers this year
hunt and forty eight WRC plus at double A. He was repeating it he
had come over from New York, but he hit as many home runs this
year as he did in his previous five professional seasons and in his entire college
and summer baseball career. So it's like he is a totally different hitter than
he has been in the past, and I thought it was worth pointing out.
You know, he strikes out a lot and kind of always has in
pro ball, but he improved it by a ton this year to sort of
like on the fringes of acceptable for this kind of profile, twenty seven point
five percent at double A. But with the power that he had, he
looks like a totally different hitter, and there might be sort of some late
blooming traits here, just with how different this profile is so Oliver Duns another
one to watch in Brewer system next year. The Miami Marlins. Matt We
came together on Troy Johnston talked about him during our Hitter Draft episode. Were
there any other bats that Yeah, I agree. We talked a little bit
about jab your Sonoha Sonoya. I'm not sure how you pronounce this, but
yeah, he was my pick last year, and he's a good little player.
Man, he is. He is. I like a lot of the
things that he does. Again, has that positional flexibility playing up the middle.
The Marlins seemed to do this, you know, like they moved Jazz
out to center field, and they've sort of done the same thing with him.
Played short second and then got some time in center this year and seems
like he can handle it. Got the speed, doesn't strike out at all.
It's just such a light hitting profile, like even for some of the
other guys that we've talked about, Like he hit four homers this year,
and I think he got lucky on a couple of them. Like there is
no impact to this bat. But I like him, and you know,
he's getting the most out of his frame and everything. So he's he's another
one that I think is fun. In seven bags this year is good.
He's a he's aggressive, took right, you know, that's on the touch
on the aggressive side, but isn't quite as bad as some of those guys
you like who are down at like three percent or one point three. Yeah,
the guy who strikes me is really kind of maximizing what he's got.
But I don't know if he's got enough to be like a major leaguer now.
I think ultimately he's probably not a major leaguer, just quite not quite
enough power. But I just really like the rest of what he has and
maybe he does get a little stronger and gets to that five ten homer limit.
Yeah, there were a couple other bats that I had watched a little
bit of that were kind of interesting to me. Their fourteenth round pick out
of Missouri in twenty twenty two, Porren Montgomery, first baseman. He's an
a ball in High A. Now. He only hit four home runs,
but he does make so he does hit the ball fairly hard sometimes peeking at
the stat cast stuff, fifty two point four percent ground ball right though,
But he does hit a lot of line drives twenty three point one percent,
hit two eighty eight with a four thirteen on base slugged only four oh two,
struck out twenty one point three percent at the time, walked fifteen point
one percent of the time. But he's a little bit of an interesting It's
just you know what, you're gonna play first base and not hit home runs.
That's yeah, that's tricky. So then yeah, yeah, and then
there. I mean, he was a second round pick out of Georgia as
a prep back in twenty eighteen. But will Banfield Catcher that was in Double
A this year, hit twenty three home runs, but he hit He hit
two fifty eight with a three to oh two on base percentage, slugged four
seventy two two one four ice strikeouts up there where you don't love at twenty
four point six percent, my man walked five point one percent of the time.
That you're gonna love that he is up there to hit. But you
know, ed Catcher, I think he is a fairly good backstop. I
think I don't I don't know, don't don't necessarily don't quote me on that,
but I think he is. So I know, he was a little
bit interesting to me too, but none of those guys could could come close
to mister Johnston. No. Johnson was was just awesome this year. Twenty
six homers, twenty four steals, three oh seven, three ninety nine,
five forty nine. I kind of can't believe he didn't get picked in the
Rule five, but I'll I'll let that go at some point. The other
guy that I wanted to touch on is the seem Nunez, who did get
picked in the Rule five draft. He was another one that I thought had
sort of an interesting line, like kind of scrappy slap hitter type, a
little on the small side, which Nate knows. I love a solid base
sealer like. He's somebody who I thought had pretty good instincts on the bases
as well. Plays a great shortstop like that's the reason that he got picked.
He's definitely a round down on the back kind of guy. But he's
a guy who's gonna play infield in the BIGS, and your pitchers will be
happy to have him back there because he can really pick it, which I
think is why he got scooped. I don't remember who took him in the
Rule five, but yeah, he was another one that I just think there
isn't a lot of power in this swing, but he's fast, controls his
own decently well. Just another one that was in this system at least when
I when I pulled this, yeah, last year, I thought this was
a pretty decent B side pick here Luis Pelasios. Now I don't think he
really gained too much popularity, and I don't think I got any more excited
from a true sense. But Placios is a command guy. He has some
really good outings, racked up a few f QoS. I had found a
friend about a pitching selection last year and they had suggested Placios as being a
guy who's stuffed, you know, might not be you know, top shelf,
but the command is definitely major league quality to perhaps like plus plus.
Now, I did watch a handful of outings of Placios last year, and
I thought the command was kind of inconsistent. The execution overall was pretty inconsistent.
When he when he was on, he was really on, and then
when he wasn't he was okay execution wise. But he's a guy who needs
to be better than okay, I think, to find success, but still
a guy. And then I kind of got my eye on a little bit.
I know that I did use him as kind of a cherry on top
of a few trades in larger leagues. I think that he, like that
sort of stat line is sort of what I worry about for ooster you know,
like goes up, continues to not walk guys, but stops missing bats
and gets real fringy, real fast. So I just like looking at their
lines, you know, he's like a level ahead, and I wonder if
that that might be what we see out of Osterberg. Yeah, I think
that's uh, I think that's spot on. But then this year, what
you got an armed for this year? Yeah, I'm not excited about it.
I mean I watched a good number of their starters and I was just
not impressed. Like either they had some love from somebody else or I came
away pretty underwhelmed. I'm gonna pick another reliever because I think this guy is
going to be a potentially like back of the bullpen reliever, maybe as soon
as this year. You know, was sort of excited about this guy.
Anthony Maldonado. He's a twenty five year old relief pitcher made it up to
Triple A. His calling card is just an absolutely disgusting slider. He threw
it a lot. I forget the percentages, but he threw it a lot.
And he also has a cutter. Struck out forty percent of batters this
year, walked almost eleven, but still barely gave up any runs because anytime
anybody was on base, he would just go slider, slider, cutter,
and just strike whoever was up out. It was It's like nasty. One
of the best sliders that I saw major leagues or minor leagues this year.
It is very, very good, and so I'm pretty confident he's going to
be a high leverage relie. Where he's on there forty man, I would
not be surprised if he's in the seventh inning as soon as next year for
them, maybe even the eight. Yeah, the fastball wasn't as good as
you would expect from someone who can run it up there a little bit.
But I just think watching these triple A hitters just flail at this slider in
this cutter, it was like, Yeah, this is a plus plus pitch,
and he leans on it enough that I think he's going to be a
real have a real shot to be like closer or setup man like it's it's
that good. I watched Monteverde, who I think has some love your Controverde,
and it's okay. He had a pretty good year and ended up in
double A, but again wasn't super excited about it. I also watched Ike
Buxton and he was a kind of short king that I couldn't get behind.
I just didn't think he had enough to put it all together. So yeah,
I ended up being underwhelmed by this B side hunting ground system. I
don't know, did you find anything good here? I agree that the Marlins
was a bit underwhelming, maybe more than a bit. I think they're in
an organization that if you look at the top end pitching prospects, you're not
getting a good look at the whole system because it's very different. There's a
lot of soft tossers in here. But I did, I did have a
clear cut favorite kind of ran away with it. And even though you weren't
perhaps as big of a fan, I liked Ike Buxton. Oh you did,
okay, it did? It did well. He was a fourteenth round
no excuse me, a fifteenth round pick out of lipscumb In twenty twenty two,
did we talk about a lipscumb pitcher Gilfoyle was from Lipscomb first and then
to Kentucky. That's right, that's right. So Buckston listed at six three
two eight and he's twenty three years old. Now I think he was twenty
two for most of the season. But he strikes me as a guy kind
of starting to take off. I think. I don't know if it's pro
coaching or things he's found on his own, but I can't help but wonder
if he's in the phase of learning how to use and command some of his
maybe some new weapons. Now obviously I don't know what he threw in college,
so I can't, like, you know, totally say that. But
his like Atlantic Sun numbers were all pretty middling. He's got some pretty easy
looking velocity. It gets up to ninety five ninety six. He was at
three levels this year, started in a high A, and then got I
think one double A start at the end of the year. Yeah, remember
correctly. So we get a little bit of stack casts from down in the
fsl His four seamer average ninety three point one. Down there, they labeled
a sinker that averaged ninety three point three. That a slider curveball. I've
wondered about the slider and curveball. The velocities are are pretty similar and the
movement profiles. Now I've seen slider and curveball called for separate pitches. I
don't know. I have a lot of questions there. I think one of
one of my notes is that I thought the slider and curveball blended together.
Like I wasn't sure if it was two pitches or one very much, very
much, but I did people like different signs going down A three, and
the curveball definitely seemed to have more downward action. But like I said,
the velocities were pretty similar. They labeled some cutters and I don't know entirely
about that. And then I did see him tossing some changeups along the way,
but but not very many down and a ball. His sinker was getting
forty point seven percent csw a thirty nine point four percent on the curveball.
One thing that was kind of interesting with Buckston was that his walks he went
from fifteen point six percent and a ball to ten point one percent in high
A. Would you like to see his strike percentage went up as he moved
up. I'm just curious, just wondering if he's just calibrating some new weaponry
or some sharper weapons. The video I quite dug the breaking ball fastball combinations,
even if they're inconsistencies in the breaking balls or what have you. He
didn't strike me, And maybe there were some moments, there were some times
where the command the execution would get away, but he didn't strike me as
a guy who I mean, he was spotting pictures on different as to the
plate, putting balls where they were called for executing his plan. I felt
like at a pretty nice clip at times. The guy, what I felt
like, was just just kind of improving. As I think we get a
very different different feel from early in the season outing till later on. He
did get seventeen and two thirds innings in the AFL this year, where he
struck out nineteen, but the walks creeped up some there he walked ten,
But I mean, not the only pitcher who's kind of struggle in the AFL,
and who knows what he may or may not have been working on there
now. Obviously the walks and he did hit some guys too, will be
a thing, you know, And part of some of this too is I
do think that he's a guy who's challenging himself. I did see him stick
with some pitches, particularly with the breaking ball when he didn't quite have the
greatest feel for them, and throwing them and counts. You know, you
gotta have some cherries to stick with. He may very well be in Double
A next year and we'll get a much better idea Buckston's got something for real
or not. Yeah, that does make sense to me. And if he's
really committing to working on stuff, then maybe that helps explain my big problem
with him, which was that I thought the command was pretty bad, like
he would just miss way off the plate with a pitch that he was going
for, like yank a slider down in a way, or I saw him
bounce a change up on one of the outings, and maybe that just turned
me off a bit, And so maybe I was reading a bit more into
his higher walk rates. So I think definitely I could definitely see him being
the type. It's like, well, it kind of depends on when you
catch him. Yeah, yeah, that might be true. But you know,
jump jumping three levels in a season ain't too shabby, and he's actually
actually guy dominated. Yeah No, no, I don't think so. You
know, he does get the ground balls, which I do like, and
that that's one thing about when he missed often it was low and so like,
yeah, it's a ball, and you miss with your command, but
you're not getting hammered with that. And so yeah, your guys major,
you know, yeah, yeah, sixty point seven percent ground ball rate and
a ball fifty seven and a half percent in the high A really good yeah,
yeah yeah, And if he can keep that up, then then maybe
I could talk myself into it. And you know, his swinging strike rate
at HIA was only ten point four percent, so that's like a little fringy,
especially at that level. You'd want to see a little bit more than
that. But again, if he got a lot of ground balls, and
if he can keep doing that at double A when he starts there next year,
maybe there is something here. All things consider this, this was a
much more exciting set of ingredients. Maybe maybe the whole the whole cake ad
here, but there was more exciting ingredients here than I think anybody else from
me, all right, the Washington Nationals, I mean history wise here,
I kind of just stuck with my guy Israel Pineda for several years, and
I think it's still very much a B side as selection. And he's a
guy who actually has had a couple of coffee in the major leagues. It's
forty. Man, He's a nice example of someone who cut k rates along
the way. He's got a lot of power. I think he's pretty good
defensively, has a cannon. Might have a chance maybe maybe. Last season
I picked Pablo el Donis as our arm, and I'm gonna double up and
just do it again this year, even though I don't even know if he's
going to pitch this year. But man, this system for arms might Yeah,
this this was the worst. This was like that was not good.
Nobody throws hard and even even and like not that that has to is the
end all be all, but even the like just not even anyone that interesting.
I mean after after what like Mitchell Parker in their system, it's it's
rough. Man. I was gonna go with the first year player guy who
was like two hundred and sixty pounds and throws like eighty nine miles per hour
and maybe has a breaking ball. Nice. I was just saying, I
don't I don't want to do that. This was tough, Yeah, yeah,
it was tough. So I just quickly Pablodonis. I talked about a
little bit last year. He was actually kind of a higher brow signing of
their international at twenty nineteen. I think this year he only logged five starts
before getting shut down, and I think it was Tommy John. So you
know that puts next year in question. He's left. He throws fastball in
the low nineties, a bit of a short arm action, change up slider
arsenal that he does play around his own. I think pretty well. He
did have a really nice start on May fifth versus down East, five innings,
gave up two hits, did have three walks, struck out eight through
strikes at sixty five percent. I mean, very small sample size, and
the very small sample size that I got to see of him in a ball
last season that got me intrigued, but felt like a young one at that
time. He was twenty years old. Execution plus stuff marriage that I was
much more interested in than than anyone else. And that's that's pretty much remains
the story. He'll still be even if he misses all of this year.
He'll be still only be twenty three years old in twenty twenty four. But
I don't know that that was the best I could do for an arm here.
Yeah, I'm with you. This was a sad state of affairs.
I couldn't even get excited about the Reliever guys. You know, yeah,
all right, I'm what's what's the philosophy here? Like, what's the theory?
You want to tell? Yah? What They've drafted a bunch of like
quote unquote big time stuff guys who might have some injury concerns in like Mason
Denniberg and Jackson Rutledge from the last couple of years. Avali like probably is
going to figure it out. Like I think he might have a really great
year, but again that's on the higher end side of things. I love.
Yeah, I think he's great and it might be the one that really
puts it all together. Like DJ Hurs had an interesting year, but I'm
a little worried about the walks with him, Like fourteen percent at double A.
I'm just like, that is not owe well and he's beyond our threshold
here. Yeah, for sure, for sure, I'm just saying the organization
as a whole. And you know, Mitchell Parker, like you and I
talked a little bit about him a while back and there are some things to
like there, you know, twenty eight percent strikeouts. I saw some outings
where the walks did look under control, but eleven percent on the year for
a guy without elite stuff, I'm like, that's he's going to be walking
a fine line. But you know, I could see those guys turning into
a fifth, sixth, seventh depth kind of starter, but I'm not pumped
about it. And both of them, I think are beyond our thresholds that
we usually we usually use. I wanted to like Zach Bricksy. I think
it's how you say it. I wanted to say Brizicky, because that's I've
got a cousin. Some cousins name Brizicky, but it's spelled slightly differently,
and I think it's Bricksy. Zach Bricksy. He's a reliever at Triple A
for them, and I think is going to see the big leagues maybe again
as soon as next year. But I couldn't really talk myself into that either,
so I don't know. It was not good. And so I picked
Andrew Alvarez, who like all the things, all the crap stuff I said
about Osterberg all apply to him. You know, he's a soft toss and
lefty who hits his spots for the most part, gets a decent number of
ground balls, doesn't strike out that many people. But it just is it's
so mid as the kids say that, I really couldn't get behind it.
At best, he's like a depth guy, I think. I think the
I saw a couple of his starts that were quite good, and I still
came away thinking like, yeah, okay, Like he had this start at
Tampa Bay's hi A affiliate, his last start at hi A eight innings,
eleven strikeouts, no hits, two walks, so like sounds like a really
great start, and it was, but he didn't get a strikeout until like
the third inning, I think he got one, and then he got ten
strikeouts over the last five innings, so like, I don't know, it
was such a weird start, and it was a bunch of like soft contact
groundouts and stuff. It was sort of a weird outing. And then you
know, he had a good start in Double A against reading and five and
two thirds, five hits, no walks, seven strikeouts. But I just
like, it seems like he's walking a tightrope and I'm basically saying, prove
it, Like show you can make this profile work, because unlike some of
the other guys, I'm men. I guess this was the thing that I
liked. At HIA, he had a fifty seven percent ground ball rate,
but at double A, which was five games, four starts a decent sample,
it was only forty five percent, and his swinging strike rate dropped to
eight point two percent. And so to me, like those kinds of guys,
like the Osterbergs, the Andrew Alvarez is like, if they really aren't
hammering the ball in the ground and they're not getting a lot of whiffs,
and there's like a fringe if there's fringe stuff, this is what I worry
about, is that they get to a higher level. Yeah, they can
get some grounders, but forty five percent is closer to league average. And
if you're not whiffing, if you're not getting strikeouts, you're just not gonna
have much success, you know, Like you'll have the outings where all those
grounders go into people's gloves and the line drives turn into soft fly balls and
those are caught. But year in or day in, day out, success
so hard to come by for those kinds of guys. So I'm pretty there
are like a bunch of red flags for his profile already, and this was
like the best I could do. I'm just I was not a fan.
The only theory that I could think of the Nationals had some coach or some
program or something where they're like, I know how to add five miles of
velocity to all these guys' fastballs, and then he just didn't deliver. Yeah,
it's probably unlikely that he was listening to our wonderful pod. But I
did know the one of the development directors for the minor leagues for the Gnats
for a while, and when I lived out in DC, we had some
mutual friends, and I knew a couple of books that worked at the work
for the Nats, and so ran in some of those same circles, and
I had talked with them a couple of times about their organizational philosophy. And
I think this might have been around the time they drafted Denniburgh. Was that
like twenty eighteen nineteen sounds about right, Yeah, And he was like gushing
about Dennaburg. And then I knew a couple of the guys in the system
from playing with them. It was a very, very highly touted prep prep
arm Yeah, and and they got him kind of late in the draft because
he I think heard or something like he floated down way farther in the draft
than anyone thought coming into it. And so he was gushing about him,
and he had talked about how they were like all in on developing pictures.
You know, this is the time they had Schuzer and Strasbourg and Corbin as
like their ace guys who were going to be around for a really long time,
and that they were learning from them and applying those same principles in their
minor leagues. And it just like I had this conversation with this guy and
I was like, oh, it's super interesting, Like what sorts of things
you're doing. It's like, I can't tell you, but you watch these
guys, they're gonna come out. And then there haven't developed a pitcher since
And so I kind of wonder if you're right that they had somebody who was
in charge of that, like their minor league groving pitching coordinator or something higher
up, even that they were like this is our pitching philosophy and it just
really come together. Yeah, no more Nationals pitching prospect talk. Yeah,
yeah, now that's I also didn't have the greatest time. Agreed, it's
back. There were two kind of first base types, maybe maybe one of
them placed third base that were a little bit interesting to me, Murphy Staley
and Blake Glassen. But both of those guys are corner infield bats that I
think I liked enough. But they don't hit for power at all, So
good good luck with that. Back to the Nationals catcher prospect bucket here,
I liked what I saw from Maxwell Romero Junior. There wasn't a ton to
see, yeah, because he went from the Complex to a ball he was
hey, other Miami Hurricane here. He was a ninth round pick in the
twenty twenty two draft. So left handed catcher, uh, listed at six
one two eighteen. I think I'll take the over on that. Yeah.
Uh, he's got a little he's got a little jiggle in the mid mid
section. But yeah, so this year he loved nine Complex games and then
fifty four A ball games. I know he did have a hamstring injury that
caused him to miss some time after he had gotten to a ball, but
two hundred and fifty seven played appearances, seven home runs, pull the ball
fifty four point seven percent of the time. He ended up hitting two sixty
eight four twelve four twenty four, one fifty six ISO. He walked seventeen
point nine percent of the time. Mat I know you like that, right
I do. But he did strike out twenty six point eight percent of the
time. I don't. But with the power that he showed, like,
it's not egregious. I mean, you'd like it to be a little bit
lower at a ball, but it's not like I wouldn't write him off at
this stage because of that. Just you know, he showed some other stage
it was good for a one two w RC plus. Now I happen to
like the look of his left handed swing. There's a lot of strength there
and I thought he transferred it pretty well. I had mentioned during the hitter
draft about Baldwin hitting the walkoff home run I had crossed streams. There was
Max Romero Junior that hit this massive home run that I had seen. Now
I'll post a video of that. Good still had pretty efficient looking the splits
aren't pretty. Hitting lefties might be might be a thing for him. He
had just one sixty seven against lefties, select only two thirty three. But
we're talking it's well it's only it's only twenty four plate appearances, but not
the most encouraging sign. Now, I picked a catcher, and I have
no idea if he's any good defensively. I'd imagine he's probably not horrible as
a ninth round pick, but what do I know. Max Romero Junior just
kind of a bat that I wanted to flag here and take a look at
start next year. I like it. He's an interesting one. I didn't
watch any of him in pro ball, but I do think I saw a
little bit of him at Miami the year before. Was he is he like?
Is he a catcher? Catcher? I don't remember. I don't remember.
I remember like watching him hit more yeah, and thought that the power
was real. So it's nice to see that show up. I think he
had a remember him having a pretty good year. I think he was a
transfer from Vandy maybe, and then he kind of he kind of had a
solid year for Miami that year. That team was pretty good. I don't
know this two oh fastball that he hit like it went very far, Matt
Yeah, yeah, I think I think there might be some some hard hit
in his swing here. Nice. I like that. I'm gonna watch some
of the some of his video and brush up on him. But I remember
being someone I was semi interested in in fypds last year. He was a
deeper cut but nice that he had a decent year. Yeah, okay,
So two guys that I considered Darren Baker and Trey Lipscomb, and I'm gonna
tell you neither of them is exciting. They both did okay this year.
I think Baker made it up to triple A, stole twenty one. Bags
played a couple positions. I think he played second and outfield. Doesn't track
out very much, but has no power. My notes on his swing are
like, ugh, the swing is awful. It's geared for slap singles and
ground balls. But I thought maybe he's gonna be a utility guy with the
speed and the multipositionality. But I just could not get excited about that two
eighty four, three forty nine, three forty nine triple slash good for eighty
one WRC plus. Like, you know, we can forgive some guys for
not hitting homers. He only had three on the year in four hundred and
seventy nine and played appearances. He also only had eleven doubles in that time,
Like, whoof that ISO is like six z or something like, it's
not good. There's not enough power here. I don't think he becomes a
regular because of it, Like even if he has a great glove, like
this is just a really tough look. And then Trey Lipskumb, he made
it enough to double a again playing a little bit all around. He's kind
of more year kind of guy in that he only walked four point nine percent
of the time but only struck out eighteen point eight percent of the time.
He's like up there to make contact and swing two seventy two, three eleven
four, nineteen triple slash for him, good for a ninety eight WRC plus.
I'm just still not really in like it's probably a corner guy, even
though he did play some short stop this year. I mean, he did
play all around. But it's interesting her already sliding him over to first base
like it was glove is that good? Like why is he playing first base?
It's not like you have to have that triple slash in the lineup,
you know. So the thing that stood out to me when I watched Lipskam
was the swing scene soft, like you see him really trying gear up for
a ball and it just like, oh, it's like you hit it with
a wet newspaper. You know, I don't know. I was pretty underwhelmed,
like kind of comparing him to a guy like Caleb Durban who's tiny,
and you see him swing out of his ass and then he makes contact,
You're like, oh, he actually hit that ball pretty square. Like I
saw Lipscomb swing really hard and seemingly barrel the ball and it's like a soft,
sinking line drive into the left center gap, you know what I mean.
I was just like, that is not great. Although he did hit
for a lot more power, certainly than Baker twenty nine doubles and fourteen hommers
over a full season, it was still underwhelming, you know, Like push
comes to chev like he might be my selection. I would pick a first
year guy though here and kind of a pretty boy one too. You know,
we'll get into that do that at a future But I think he's just
being way underrated. Maybe Lipscomb just has a good arm, and maybe I
don't know what the hell I'm talking about, But let's not talk about the
Nationals. Let's not talk about the Nations anymore. Nice he done with that.
Yeah, the New York Mets not the greatest history here. Like I
went with Kevin Kendall a few years ago. I don't feel like it was
a bad hole. I feel like Kendall could play a little bit. It's
just kind of really unfortunate. He was a twenty twenty one seventh rounder out
of UCLA who just could not stay on the field. He played twenty eight
High A games this year after like not playing at all I don't think during
the twenty twenty two regular season. Then got in some af AFL games,
but they released them in November. The man played. He got sixty two
full season games in over three seasons, but twenty AFL games in in twenty
twenty. It was kind of unfortunate. Really sucks when you just don't get
to play. I don't know, maybe he pops up somewhere. Maybe now
I'm not gonna worry about it too much. And then last year for an
arm I went Withjeffrey Cologne. I don't think we need to worry about Jeffrey
Colone anymore. He had a nice little High A run to end twenty twenty
two, and I just don't think my man's got the stuff to get it
done, the Arsenal to get it done. He did not have a very
great year, and then the bat that I went with last year was Junior
Tillian, who got up to hi A. I kind of liked this player.
Now, I don't know if there's ever going to be enough offense to
really get Dynasty exciting, but I do think that he has a good glove.
I do think that he can hit the ball hard sometimes. Well let's
see, he hit two forty three, three twenty five, so i'd four
h six, struck out nineteen percent of the time, walked ten percent of
the time, but there was injuries. I kind of thought maybe he got
up to Hya and I think the first couple series he was there were kind
of nice. He popped a few home runs, but then he got hurt.
Only a lot of three hundred and sixty nine played appearances. I mean,
it was a pretty all in all, pretty middling offensive offense of performance
or production this year, but still only twenty years old. Maybe a guy
I'll keep a little bit of an eye on for this season. Will Freda
Laura was pretty much my pick from the get go. I did watch some
other bats, and I do think there are some interesting B side caliber bats
and the Mets system. The Mets system is kind of sneaky deep to me,
But we're not going to talk about Wilfreda Laura again. And then my
pitcher is actually going to be a first year player guy. And it's not
that there weren't some arms that I liked. I just really kind of like
this first year player and think that he very much was a B side category.
So what do you got, Matt Cool? Well, I'm a fan
of Laura too. I think he's really really good. I think of the
because I agree with you. I think there are some interesting bats here,
and I'll touch on a couple of them, but I think Laura's got the
most upside in this system of that B side caliber guy. You know,
he's quietly been league averager, a little bit better as a young for the
level at every stop so far. And I think he's quite interesting as a
like. I like his lady swing quite a bit. So I like that
pick and and I know we talked about him a bit. A couple other
guys that are interesting for different reasons. I mean, the Met's system is
pretty good. You know, they've made some high profile trades to bolster it.
But I credit to their dev teams too. They've developed quite a few
guys that kind of came out of nowhere, and especially on the pitching side,
which we'll talk a little bit about, but even on the hitting side,
a couple guys that I thought were interesting. Rowdy Jordan, twenty four
year old, made it up to double A. The plate skills seem solid,
you know, maybe not quite as much power as you'd hope for,
but I think he was like succumb to a little bit of babbit bad luck
this year and still put up a one oh five WRC plus again multipositional played
second, center field, and right field. Not the most eye popping line,
but thirteen homers and thirty steals and close to a full season. I
was like, eh, maybe this is something here. And watching him,
I was like I could squint and see a regular with a little bit of
development, probably not going to be good enough to be for play for Steve
Cohen, you know, he wants stars, not the role player that Jordan
might turn out to be. And another guy that I wanted to touch on
a bit and he my B side is Lara as well. Just to get
that out of the way. But the other guy that I liked enough to
talk about was Brandon McElwain. So he's got an interesting story. He was
a college quarterback and didn't play baseball full time until he was drafted, I
think, and has over the course of his career hasn't been great, but
he was an interesting enough one. You know, he's twenty five now,
but this is only his call it third year playing baseball like full time.
You know, obviously he played in college too, but he was okay in
his draft year at A ball and then had a decent stint at high end
in twenty twenty two last year. That took a bit of a dip in
when he got promoted to double A last year, but he started double against
or repeated it this year. Ran a two sixty three forty two three ninety
four triple slash good for one oh five WRC plus, and then got promoted
to Triple A and was even better. I mean, the line is worse,
but that's I think largely because the badup was worse. But he's hitting
for more power and stole more bases. So in half the plate appearances he
had five homers at Triple A as opposed to seven in double A. Again,
in half the plate appearances, he had eleven steals as opposed to nine
at double A. So he's getting better. And actually watched some of him
early in the year, late in the year and last year, and I
think he's changed his swing a little bit enough to like tap into his clear
athleticism and he's hitting for a lot more power. We got, you know,
triple A, so we had some exit Bulo data and his max EV
is one nine point five, which is good. Is that great? But
it's decent. And his average v's only eighty eight. But again, like
you could squint and say, like, this is a guy who's learning how
to hit. And I was pretty interested in him. I was like,
you know, fun story. Seems like he hasn't had many reps, so
he might be that kind of classic late bloomer. So it'll be interesting to
see him. You know, I don't expect stardom out of him, you
know, it's pretty late in his career, but serving as a fourth outfielder
or something like, I could see it, and he was sort of an
interesting story that I wanted to highlight as well. Yeah, nice, where
do you play cal? I think Okay, I don't watch football anymore,
so I seem to remember that was right as cal Yeah, and then there
are a couple of other hitters that I thought maybe there was something interesting there.
I think Jacob Rhymer Reamer. He's someone that other people have talked about
it a little bit, but I liked a little bit of what he did.
They have a ball, he does he hits them on the ground too
much, but the power seemed real. So I'm curious about his exit velos.
But decent plate skills too, you know, fifteen percent walk, twenty
percent s out like both of those things. And if you can hit the
ball in the air, especially as a nineteen year old, if he's twenty
in double end he learns to hit the ball in the air a little bit
like look out, that might be a guy who really explodes. Yeah,
you know, I liked a few guys in the system. I didn't really
like dive dive in on these guys with some names that stuck out to me
that maybe I want to pay attention to. And this this is kind of
a Jeff pondskuy. But Matt Ruddick, twenty four year old outfielder in Double
A who was only rostered at one percent. But he strikes me as a
guy that might have a chance at like a fourth outfielder or something like that.
Now I think he might have had a big injury though towards the end
of the season. Don't quote me on that, but I don't know when
we'll see him next. There was a catcher in Able, nineteen year old.
I think he was a catcher, Ronald Hernandez that I don't think there
was very much to watch, but he was interested. I thought maybe you
might bring him up because he walked twenty three percent of the time and struck
out only twenty one point seven percent of the time. Stanley Kin say,
I know it is a name that some folks have brought up before he hit
twenty three home runs. He's down in the lowers and he's striking out twenty
seven point six percent of the time. I did watch a little bit of
him. Now I get that he might have some more home run potential than
like a Laura, but not nearly as confident in his in his plate approach
and skills and swing. Really, I tend to agree. I watched a
bit of him. I picked him up in the league. I think after
Clegg had seen him and said this might be an interesting flyer, and I
was on impress that the plate skills were very, very fringy, bordering on
bad, but the powers powers decent. Yeah. Yeah, there's a teenager
Yoharo suade Us that I don't there might not have been anything to watch on
the archives, but I put him down as a name to watch early next
year. I hit six home runs, stole thirteen bases in like one hundred
and eighty one. Played a pain and says J. T. Schwartz,
I don't know if it was like a fourth round pick of theirs not too
long ago. But he's like a first basement it doesn't hit home runs.
He had four all season. He gets to the AFL and he hits like
two home runs right away, and people started chatting about him, like,
dude, he just had half a season where he he did that four times.
Man Like, he's not a home run hitter. Again, just just
some guys I want to watch. And then there I had four other arms
on my short list here. I don't know if you watch any of these
guys. Cameron Foster and now he was a twenty four year old in hig
A but just kind of I watched an outing or two of his, and
I kind of thought I had a good look. In Arsenal numbers were barely
middling nine point four to one k prinine three point four to three walk per
nine did log like eighty one eighty four inn or excuse me, eighty two
innings. Robert Kalina, he was in double A at twenty two years old,
las velocity, but was still still came over ten to nine. He's
a little interesting. And then two guys that did not have might not even
had an outing, but two guys of martyr is that I want to watch
Felipe de la Cruz and Douglas orana O r E L L A n A.
Okay, I don't think I watched any of those guys. Yeah,
yeah, but I feel like the Mets always have some interesting arms they do.
This is something I think they do really well, you know, like
they Christian Scott kind of came out of nowhere, like had a fine year
last year. But I want that guy. I want that guy to be
able to put on the innings. Man, he's good. I agree,
he's really good. I mean I stretched it out to eighty seven and two
thirds this year and like thirty strikes, three point six percent walks, Like,
sign me up, dude. That was that was a great, great
example of a good filter find early in the year, just filter some stats.
He was one of like three or four names that popped up put on
some video and I was like, oh, yeah, that's good, good
arsenal, good execution. But yeah, what he's never logged more than what
like sixty innings or something or seventy. I think this year was as high
at eighty seven. And you know, he was solid last year, but
like unspectacular, you know, like I think he was like a nine percent
walk guy and upper twenties strikeout rate. But that is like a pristine line.
So big fan of him, you know, Dominic Hamill. He basically
repeated what he did the year before, and I think remains pretty interesting as
an arm that like didn't have a ton of helium. I don't think Mike
Vasil like he did kind of the same thing, you know, not quite
as good, but made it up to triple A and league average walk rate
but above league average strikeout rate. And it's like that's pretty good for again
a guy that maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think people were really talking
about as a guy with a capital G. They've had a lot of success
kind of doing that sort of thing, taking an unheralded guy and then adding
to them. And that's my pick this year. He kind of fits that
to a tee Joander Suarez, and Suarez is the one guy that we've talked
about that's new today that I'm actually interested in. Yeah, everybody else,
I'm like, you can hear it in my voice. These guys aren't that
interesting. These are all depth fringy blah blah blah, other than the guys
obviously that we had already drafted and talked about. Suarez. He was Rule
five eligible and didn't get picked. He's been around for a long time.
He was a I think twenty seventeen international signee. I think that's right.
He had twenty seventeen, and then he's been pitching for a pretty long time
and it's been up and down, like he's had some good seasons, some
bad, not a lot of innings like this is kind of the knock.
He's been short, ineffective, and I think hurt. I think he was
hurt in twenty twenty one as well. And then rehabbed a bit last year,
so his kind of twenty one and twenty two were both sort of lost.
I think to injury. I can double check on that. I'm not
sure what it was. He looks like a guy now to me. This
year combined between mostly at high A, but his last three starts were at
double A. He went one hundred and eight and a third innings, so
like put on some real innings this year, after very limited over the past
three or four seasons. Struck out twenty nine point seven percent of batters and
walked ten point six, which is like a touch high for this But after
watching him, I was like, boy, this is kind of a dude,
and I have not heard anybody talk about it. I think Clegg has
him at the very very back of his off season five hundred, so nobody's
really on him. I don't think I'm way into it, like to the
point of like I'm in that slow auction. I'm going to try and sneak
him in late and hope that it really hits. Because the fastball I saw
up to ninety six and he was getting whiffs with it. I think he
might manipulate the shape. He might have a cutter and sort of a little
bit of a tail to his four seam, but so I think the fastball
might go in both directions. Pretty solid slider and a curve ball which looks
firm. I didn't get a velocity reading on it in the like five or
six starts that I watched, but I think it's firm, like it has
some bite, but it seems like it's not coming in there really slow.
And he got whiffs to lefties to right e's, like he was definitely using
it as a weapon to both sides. He also mixed in a change.
I didn't see a ton of those, and I think that's by far his
least used pitch. But it's there, and I've seen him dotted up well
and get some whiffs with it and get some soft contact too, but he
also can lose feel for it just a touch. Hia had a fifteen percent
swinging strike rate out eleven point seven to six per nine there, so like
he was really kind of overmatching batters. Walked a futuo many at high but
I think tightened it up as the year went on. I gif you look
at his kind of rolling game logs, the walks are way more clustered early
in the year, and I think he started to figure it out after May.
After the end of May May thirty, first he didn't have an outing
where he walked more than four, and he had four outings where he walked
four or more before that point, so like to end the year. And
then after June twentieth, he didn't walk more than three or didn't walk more
than two in any outing from there on out. So like I think he
tightened the command up to end the year. This is maybe bearing the lead
a little bit. But when he closed out his his stint at High A
at the end of August August twenty fifth against the Astros affiliate with six innings
of one hit, ball, two walks, strikeouts, he then didn't give
up a hit for the next nineteen and a third innings I think holy that
included part of the Houston outing. But then he went six no hit,
one walk innings against Washington's Double A team against the Nets Double A, and
then seven no hit innings at Hartford against Colorado's Double A team, again with
one walk. Then his last start against Reading, the Phillies Double A affiliate,
he went the first two innings without giving up any hits either, and
then he gave up a couple of soft singles in the third inning I think
there, but in that outing, three hits total, two walks, nine
strikeouts over five innings in that reading outing, and that was his worst at
double A. You know, if you look at it like that, So
the stuff seems exceptionally good, and it seemed like it held its effectiveness as
he went up the ladder. He also really improved his command in a noticeable
way throughout the year. So I actually think that Joander Suarez is a real
arm to watch, especially given the Mets history of coaxing pretty elite performance out
of sort of unheralded names, and Suarez kind of fits that bill to me,
like if I had to pick, and you know, that's sort of
what we're doing here, but if I had to pick someone to kind of
follow that Christian Scott path, like Suarez is that guy from the beginning of
June. Sort of that last outing where he walked four guys, he struck
out thirty two point seven percent of batters and walked seven point seven percent of
batters the rest of the way. That is plus like a slightly above average
command in sort of the limiting walks and plus the double plus on the strikeout
potential. So that's good for a two six seven fit over that time,
and again, a decent chunk of that was at double A. He's at
the point where it's sort of proven and he's proving it. So like he's
a guy that I'm I feel fairly confident if i dived deeply into him earlier,
he might have been on my list had taken our pitcher draft. Like
that's that's how I feel about Yeah, Jander Suarez, Like he's a he's
a guy and he looks at too. I mean, actually watching his motion,
I got a little bit of Edwin Diaz kind of vibes. Not quite
as much extension down the mound and kind of like with the arm action,
but just kind of the way that he sets up and the way that he
gets through his wind up reminded me a little bit of Diaz in some way.
So yeah, I'm way on it. I think this guy is like
actually really really good. And again nobody's really talking about him nice. I'm
gonna have to watch some heres slip by me. Four fqos on the season,
Matt, that's good, and yeah, he's a decent ground ball guy
too, Like you know, it wasn't It was forty five point five percent
at Hi A, but ticked up to fifty eight percent at Double A.
And again, I wonder if you eliminated some of those early starts in the
year, whether that ground ball race it might have been higher. In my
in my little date range, I didn't have the Grandble rate lag. Yeah.
Anyway, his last six starts, which were his last three in high
High A and then his first three in Double A, he gave up four
earned runs and six starts and those were all in one outing. It's covered
thirty four innings. He had a one point zero six CRA, a point
six two whip, eleven point three eight k per nine, a one point
eighty five walk per nine through strikes at sixty six percent of the time,
gave up no home runs. Yeah, that's what you call pitching there.
Yeah, And I think it's encouraging that he did improve a lot of those
things throughout the year. Like I do like that that he seemed like he
was working on stuff and not succeeding at it, but then pushed through and
for our benefit. Like a lot of that gets hidden, right, Like
you look at that A ball line, You're like, it's fine, you
know, decent, but not spectacular. And oh, it's really good at
double A. But it's just a couple of just three starts and that's not
very much like you're probably not going to put a ton of weight in that
by itself, and so a lot of people I think are going to write
him off, whereas if he had started the year the way he ended the
year, he would be like a top one fifty prospect. I think,
like, that's an incredible end of the year. Like that same those last
six starts that you quoted, that's a one eight four five again thirty five.
That's like an almost thirty percent came on as BB rate, which is
ridiculous, especially considering half of those are at double A. He's not that
picture. He's not quite this good. He I think had some fortune at
double A, certainly on the all those no hit innings, like they were
great, but you know, he didn't earn all of that. But he
I think is an actual dude and is one of my favorite little gems that
we've talked about. Thank God for the mets here, I guess, huh.
I like the Phillies. Yeah, to some extent, but that we
did it. We went through every division. Some whiskey to that should have
port a whiskey to to cheers you. Yeah, I need some new mutters
after this. I guess we're not We're not completely completely done. We are
going to talk about first year players, and we do have some like you
know, putting some stamps on some b sides. But we will do a
first year player draft episode, probably after the holidays, just the way that
our schedules are looking. Maybe we squeak it in before then, but I
wouldn't count on that. Yeah, and then leagues, I will post on
Twitter a just a complete little list of our selections at pitching specs. Yeah,
man, I don't know, man, I should call it. I
think we were ending on a high note with j like there was a lot
in there. I'm glad you ended with the Mats because I was like this
rough. Nleas is rough, no doubt at this at this roster rate.
All right, Well, we'll let Chicago Farmer take us out. We will
have great holidays if we don't talk to you before then, and we'll get
into We'll start the new year with some with some first year. Let's do
it until next time. Yeah, you all have miles an hour riding to
his head. He hop him down the first with the lumpbony his face,
and on the very next pitch he up in stove second face with greatstped He
wasn't born. He had the dirdy Yes uniform