Not five miles an hour riding to his head. You hop it down first
with the lump bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and
stole second face with gretest be he wasn't born he had? Yes, all
right. Welcome to episode twenty two of the Prospect B Sides podcast. I
am Nate Handy joining me again the rook Matt, how are you. How's
it going, Nate? I'm happy, man. We're like, we're still
in the bigs for another week at least, you know, they say,
getting to the bigs is one thing, but sticking around are a few weeks
in a row. I know, right, I kind of have a feeling
it'll be short lived, though. I think we'll be getting sent back down
even maybe before the end of this episode. I least. If it was
weird being in the majors and not talking about guys with an infinitesimal chance to
make it out of the minor leagues, I know, right, like how
to pronounce everyone's name really well and everything like it. It was odd.
But last week, if you didn't listen, we we did some MLB B
siding, talked about some dats that don't seem quite popular but might have some
fantasy utility for us in different formats and what have you. And we're going
to do a little bit of the same tonight, but with some pictures.
We plan on talking about a new toy that a friend of ours made for
us, and some interesting things that we took away from that. I wanted
to mention last week we had talked about Miranda, right and then of course
the twins signed Santana like the day that I think I finally got this thing
edited in out, So like we had discussed discussed getting played, appearances might
have gotten just as an infielder left the situation, they added another. So
that adds another little wrinkle to the Miranda discussion. But I still have hope
also too. When we were talking about Jacob Myers Jake Myers, I had
mentioned how I thought Quincy Hamilton might be the next guy up. I had
totally forgotten Matt about our twenty twenty one Astros B side selection. Kind of
the Corona is on, he's on the forty man, so I would put
him as the next young outfielder that might get a look there if Myers can't
take it. We know Corona plays a really good center field. So I
just wanted to mention those couple of things and correct myself there. But yeah,
there was a trade this week between one of your favorite clubs and your
favorite club. Well, I think we're kind of in there. We're kind
of in the middle of like a separation, probably leading towards divorce sort of
thing. Well, I was curious what your thoughts were on that one.
I had a lot of thoughts about the Santos Burroa and Delo trade. It's
the pick sixty nine trade, But that is a nice in that way.
I do think that Jerry and Justin for the Mariners to put on and Hollider,
they've done a pretty good job putting a roster together with the ownership limitations
that were seemingly surprised imposed on them after the season this year. And while
that is a huge bummer in and of itself, like having this incredible core
of pictures Julio plus some other star quality major leaguers and an obviously flawed roster
that you could throw some money at and turn into a perennial, you know,
five year window kind of contender, it's a bummer that ownership didn't want
to do that, and wanted to kind of cheap it out, but Jerry's
mostly done a pretty good job around the edges. And I do like this
trade in the if they think that Santos is going to help them this year
and next, they sold a little bit of future value to do that,
right, Like the White Sox are gonna win this trade on net present war,
right, Like, even though it's a five year contract, he's a
reliever. Maybe he's good for a year or two, But this is like
if Santos earns the Mariners five war over the next five years, Like,
that's probably pretty good. And I think that Barrowa has a chance to be
exactly the same as Santos, Like that's a non zero chance. Deluxe is
probably like a fringe fourth replacement platoon outfielder. It'll accrue some more. And
then Pick sixty nine is like a pretty good pick, not just the pick
itself, but the like million plus that it adds to their bonus pool.
So all that said, for that to be a good pick, that implies
that the White Sox do something worthwhile with it. Though, well, setting
that aside, you know they've got a new regime, right, maybe they'll
the guy from the office in the Hall is going to do a better job.
They do not have a new regime. I think that it's I like
what it says about the Mariners actually do realize that they I've got a really
good team and they are trying as best they can to put the best product
on the field. And Santos is an interesting case in and of himself.
Is like a guy that was a fireballer reliever, a guy that, like
I think I never would have liked as a prospect coming up, just because
he had control issues and was a reliever, and those guys are so volatile.
But it's interesting that his last year was so solid, you know,
didn't give up any homers, and I think that that appears to be a
skill of his. Kept the ball in the ground a lot, struck guys
out quite well, and then, of course for him most importantly, kept
the walks down. And I don't know if you saw this or in any
of the reporting about the trade, but Santos now projects as like one of
the top three relievers in all of baseball, just he did so much in
that one year and the computers seemed to be buying it. It's not like
this was an overperformance sort of year that the computers aren't buying. The projection
systems are saying zips especially, but all of them are buying him as a
mid threes er guy. And you know, striking out nine to ten batters
an inning, limiting the locks, keeping the ball on the ground, that's
impressive. That's a useful reliever if they're right. So I don't know.
I think it was an interesting sort of trade. My initial reaction was skepticism,
but the more I thought about it, I think it signals something good
for the Mariners. And I do think that the White Sox got decent value
too, Like I think they're going to win the surplus war calculations in this
trade. Yeah, I will admit it was a gets trade that I didn't
think was really just super lame. I think the sentiment from the majority of
Mariners fans that at least I have seen chat about it. I think you
might have been putting a little bit of lipstick on a pig there, but
I thought you made some really good points. We'll see, man, We're
I finished. I completed my first first year player draft of the year in
the medical one. I think it went. I think, oh, I
mean, we'll find out I got some guys that I had wanted, but
my competitive juices this time of the year started started getting going. Man,
we're a week into February. You know, I used to be a guy
before basketball games listening to Rage against the Machine, and like, I start
to feel that sort of like that angst this time of year. So that's
going on. And then our good friend mister Clegg, I don't know if
you saw, put out a little tweet comparing or contrasting the Dodgers triple A
rotation to the Rockies major league rotation, and man, I gotta tell you
that to use a poke the bear analogy that felt like a little bit of
a flaming bag of poop thrown into the den. There it got me going.
I've issued a challenge to our friend. I'd like to podcast to fight
him on this debate you. I don't know if you've seen this or aware
of this, but I need to look it up. I don't even remember
who it was, but someone was trying to start up like this podcast where
like some fantasy people call each other out have a little fun debate session.
And I threw that out there the crisp I don't know if he wants to
smoke Matt, well, well bring the smoke. What are you thinking here?
It sounds like you're landing on the side of your Colorado Rockies starting five,
you're going to take them over the Dodgers triple A rotation there, Yes,
I mean I don't I want to save I want to save my my
fight for the ring. But yes, I do not agree with mister Clegg
that the Doadger's triple triple A rotation is better than the Rockies Major league rotation,
the point being that it's debatable, like that's says something about all right,
I don't know, I don't know. There are some guys in the
Rockies rotation that are that are good for sure and have showed decent skills in
the past. And of course pitching in Colorado is miserable. It's so hard
to do that. One just hit, just just poked a lout of my
bears, Matt, your prospect thing me feeling the need to defend the Rockies
and all the bad narratives surrounding them. Like. I didn't mean to get
into this too much. I just wanted to put out here for eight listeners
that I have issued a formal challenge to mister Gotlin has been thrown, so
we shall see if he responds. Let's talk some pictures. Let's talk some
MLB B side pitching. Matt and I'll I'll let you go first. What
do you go for? Right? Again, I wasn't quite sure how deep
we wanted to go, and I kind of selected my guys that I wanted
to talk about across the spectrum of fantasy of relevant pictures. There are a
couple of guys that I wanted to touch on that are probably like twelve team
mixed relevant, like really shallow leagues, and then a couple of them that
are, you know, your deeper leagues you should consider someone as a streamer
or maybe something a little more. And then a couple for our super deep
thirty team, like anybody with a pulse you should roster. I wanted to
start a guy that I actually just took in an FYPD. When I was
talking about this a little bit in the Dynasty Dugout discord, I mentioned that
I was considering taking Steven Mattz with my first round pick, my only first
round pick in my thirty team first year player draft. And again, it's
not a true FYPD. As we talked about, it's more of a supplemental
draft. So this is where the first international project prospects, the free agents
that come over from Japan and Korea, the first year players from last year's
draft, and whoever's left in the waiver wire. They're all available. You
can't pick them up and touch anybody in the off season, but this draft
you're allowed to swoop them. And I had a kind of back after the
first round pick that I had just traded for and sort of as a throw
in to another deal. And as I was looking at the draft board,
you know, we'd done a lot of prospecting. We'd lined up a bunch
of guys, have a huge, long queue, mostly of first year player
draft guys, and the name that stuck out to me at the top of
my board was Stephen Mattz. Like, if I'd picked fourth, I think
I would have also taken Steven Mattz behind the big three Asian imports. And
when I said this in the dog A discord, someone was like, you
play in a league where Steven Mattz is relevant and I was like, yeah,
I mean a this is a thirty teen points league, so any pitcher
that has a job, they're relevant and worth rostering for somebody. But b
as the more I thought about it, like Stephen Mattz is better than that.
He's actually in that tier of quite good pictures that are underrated, partly
because of injury concerns. And he started the year pretty poorly last year as
well, and I think that has depressed his stock generally. But I wanted
to talk just a touch about why Stephen Mattz is actually quite good. He's
spent most of the last three years running a FIP of an almost identical three
point seventy nine in twenty twenty one, three point seven eight in twenty twenty
two, and three point seven five in twenty twenty three. The bugaboo is
that over the last two years he's barely thrown one hundred and fifty innings,
so like that's about half of a normal workload for a starter. And last
year in particular, his first half was terrible, and then he turned it
around after being demoted to the bullpen and pitched quite a bit better in the
UH in the second half for six' five era in the first half and
in the second half it was two point one six, and then he ended
the season with a lat injury, so maybe that's another component to him being
sort of underrated going into this year. But he's got a solid pitch mix
that I think he's got answers for lefties and righty's. He doesn't have appreciable
splits assuming he comes into the spring showing some health. I think he's got
a rotation spot on lock for the Cardinals, and they've got a good defense
that's a pitcher's park, so both of those things helped him play up.
I just kind of buy the skills here. He limits walks, He gets
a decent number of strikeouts in a small sample at the end of last year,
and then in his full year in twenty twenty two, which again was
also a bit of a partial season, he showed kind of a higher strikeout
upside that he's approached before. But he was up to ten strikeouts per nine
in those two stretches, and I think that that reflects that his curveball and
his change up are good pitches that he can get swinging strikes with that change
up. He gets called strikes with the curveball, and his sinker plays really
well like he can get card strikes on either side. Of the plate and
those things are a little bit less sticky than the swinging strikes, but it's
these are plus pitches. And I think he's also upped his velocity a little
bit in recent years. You know, he was a bit of a fireballer
early on in his career and then the velocity has trended down. But I
think his velocity on his two seamer was back up in the ninety five I've
ranged this year and that is pretty good. So Steven Mattz, I think,
is someone that if you've got ail slots to burn, if you've got
a kind of roster that can take a flyer on somebody who might spend some
time in the injured list, I think Stephen Mattz is absolutely worth rostering again
a late draft pick in your mixed leagues. Certainly, I'm considering him in
some NFBC formats in the later rounds because I just think the skills seem to
still be there and health permitting, this could be a guy who runs you
a three to seven er, potentially better in front of the defense. If
the defense takes a step forward for the Cardinals like it has in previous years,
then this is just a ton of value in a guy that people are
writing off that sixteen people pass seventeen people passed on in my thirty team mix
league points, and I just think that is crazy when a guy has this
kind of skills and the opportunity that's that's upside for somebody that is I think
under owned. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't think a Mats would have
lasted that long in my thirty teen points similar drafts. I was surprised that
he was still on the board. I mean, like I said, after
Yamamoto, Imanaga and Lee, I think that's would have been fourth on my
board, and especially in the way this format is set up, I just
think he's thrilled to get him at pick eighteen or whatever it was before we
came on. I think it had just come out a couple of hours ago.
But I was had Nick Pollock's top four hundred starting pitchers for this season.
He's slid in Matt's one fifty seven, with the first line being I
don't buy it. So interesting he is. He is also one of the
folks out there that are not not in the Mats camp. But yeah,
and in NFBCS he's going average draft position of three to seventy one or average
draft rank of three seventy one. I think his average draft position around four
eighty. So I mean again, this is like more tailored towards some upside
with a really late round pick for you or a deeper league. But I
just think the skills are still there and Matt's is worth targeting. Yeah,
No, I don't hate it. You know, Like we have talked about
several times before, doing this sort of pitching B siding, there's a very
different component to it than hitting. Right, I think it's it's much more
we can see a very unpopular in fantasy arm go from obscurity to cy young
consideration. We don't necessarily see these types of bats jump from yeah or that
sort of lack of popularity to almost winning MVPs. Right, Pitching is much
more wild west. I mean, this is part of why pitching is so
much better than hitting, because in a lot of ways, anything can happen,
and a lot of things like we'll probably highlight with a few guys and
I'm going to talk about like things change relatively quick. We're gonna stick with
the Cardinals. With my first guy here, I want to talk about Zach
Thompson. Who got twenty six years old. He's got one hundred and one
career major league innings. He's rostered in twenty two percent of fan tracks leagues,
which is less than Maddix Bruns, McCary who we know you Love,
Cole Wilcox, Sam Bachman, Jose bo In Woods, Simeon Woods, Richardson
six seventy four, ADP and NFBC currently labeled the Swingman's six starter ish by
Fangrafts. He has forty seven major league appearances with ten starts. Nine of
those came last year. Zach Thompson is not without some pedigree. I believe
he was a first round pick if I remember correctly, several years ago,
and in kind of Cardinals fashion, maybe looked at by dynasty and fantasy owners.
Is kind of a boring guy, lacking that electricity and that big K
upside That was so But I'm excited to see the rest of Zach Thompson's career
here if you just look at er from the last couple of years his first
two MLB seasons two point zero eight in his first thirty four innings twenty twenty
two, four point four to eight. His next sixty six innings in twenty
twenty three. If you're just looking at that surface sort of stuff, you
might not be getting the whole story here his whip too. His whip jumped
from under one to one point four to two. But I think there were
far more meaningful improvements or maintenance in areas in twenty twenty three than those drastic
looking surface level changes. And I watched a decent amount of Thompson as a
prospect, and he was always a little bit tricky for me because he didn't
quite have the arsenal that got me too excited, and he never really had
the execution that got me too excited. Neither were really bad, but nothing
really in either direction made me like really want to kind of get excited,
right, But he simplified things in twenty twenty three, not using the sinker.
Now it is good to little bit tricky because he throws a slider that's
labeled a cutter. But I think that's like there's some play in there.
Sometimes it's more like a slutter. Sometimes he's throwing it more like a manipulates
it a bit, I think so, I think so, But it gets
kind of lumped up in stack cast as a cutter. I think he kind
of ditched whatever side of that that stat cast was was calling more of a
slider last year. By nature, He's really a four seam fastball curveball guy.
Curveball was always kind of the more lauded. I think it got like
sixties right as a prospect, but just from a production standpoint, now,
granted the usage was only seventeen percent. This manipulated slider slutter cutter probably his
most productive pitch, definitely getting Chase, getting swinging strikes. His four seamer
averaged ninety three point six, which is just a smidge velocity wise below MLB
average used that about fifty four percent of the time. Curveball was twenty seven
percent of time, And like I mentioned the cutter slutter thing, there's not
really a change up in the arsenal. But you know a lot of times
you talk about like stuff plus models and those types of things. The big
missing point, right is the relationship that the pitches have with one another,
with which in my opinion, is a giant part of the puzzle of what
makes a successful pitcher. But I think with Thompson there is I think good
usage and pitch selection and sequencing with him, and there's several instances in pitching
history where a guy is simply changing the sequencing totally changed the production of a
pitch. You know, I think we talked about Zach Graanke when prior,
but the three offerings and the sort of stuff plus models are all around MLB
average. He ran a twenty five point one k percentage, which is nicely
above MLB average, which is twenty one point six percent for starters and above
the reliever's average of twenty three point seven percent. His eight point seven percent
walk rate is lower than the average relievers and just a had higher than the
average MLB starters. He runs a nice ground ball rate forty seven point one
percent, and then like as a starter over his last ten appearances last last
year, which is really his first go at getting to start in the bigs,
you know, he ran like a four to three eight era over forty
nine innings. He's struck out fifty one the only fourteen walks. Guy hit
a little bit, but nothing, nothing too crazy. He might feel kind
of really vanilla at this juncture, but it might be like a vanilla with
some chocolate syrup on top, Like we like the sum of all parts kind
of guys, right, and he's got I think the weaponry weaponry here is
fine. I think if there's just a little bit of elite in his execution
in command, which you know, maybe that's just wishful thinking, but I
think he could he could be really good. You know, we talk about
DL Hall types and Joe Boyles who have these astronomical walk rates and you know,
execution questions, and we're always hoping on on better stuff there, improvements
there, but we don't really talk about these types too much. And what
just a little bit of improvement can do, I don't know, just kind
of in my opinion, if that happened here, I think you could be
looking at an extremely valuable fantasy piece with a nice trunk of that counting stat
k love. The biggest bugaboo with him is going to be limiting the hard
contact, you know, which shocking. It's a huge issue for every pitcher
in the majors. But you know, I think that could come with a
little bit more tightening of the screws. Wouldn't be the first guy to do
such a thing on the back half of his twenties. I mean, we
see guys. To me, the pitching prime is like thirty thirty one.
I mean, we see Merril Kelly types get real tight and a lot more
fantasy exciting, much older age than Thompson here. And I don't think I'm
the only one out there who thinks Zach Thompson could get a little bit more
exciting. I think there's something to that. And one of the things I
was thinking about as it related to Matt's as well, is that I expect
the Cardinals defense is going to be better. It was rated pretty poorly last
year. And whether it's a combination of Victor Scott coming up and playing center
field, Jordan Walker getting better, a little bit less time of our buddy
Alec Burlson out there. Even in Arnatto bounce back, I think Edmund plays
really good defense. There's room just to see the batted Balllock swing back.
Our guys way here and Thompson and Matt's both might benefit from just that natural
regression to the mean in a positive direction. His three pitches like all Hubber,
They're all like thirty thirty one percent CSW, which is nice. He
gets average to above average chase on all three offerings. Like I don't know,
he just lacks that super you know, maybe he's like a fifty command
guy or fifty five guy, like if you could be like a sixty,
to put it in scouting terms, I think he could be really good.
I mean it wouldn't be the most radical change we've ever seen a picture make
over one year, but at this price. I put out some I put
out some Trey offers, some of my thirties and stuff. We know the
role is maybe questionable. I don't know if he's maybe he earns the fifth
starter spot there. More likely he's probably going to be the next man up
when someone gets hurt, and we know that that's gonna happen, mm hmm.
And that what else you got for us? I wanted to give a
shout to an old favorite of mine, under the radar guy who's coming back
from injury. JT. Brewbaker, Brew Baker. I have dated brew Baker
several times, all sorts of leads. Is he bad? Is he hurt?
I don't remember he's hurt. He had TJ in spring of last year
during spring training, missed all of twenty twenty three. Okay, but I
was kind of on him as maybe a semi sneaky breakout guy going into twenty
twenty three, so I was really bummed. I had him in an N
only league and in a deeper dynasty league as somebody that I got essentially for
free. In both spots, he's a sinker slider guy primarily, but his
curveball is sneaky pretty good, and he'll mix in a four seam and a
change up, neither of which I think is particularly effective, but both show
flashes, both just being a different look than his sinker slider primary approach,
but also I think when he locates them well, they can play up fine
enough. His four seam fastball is actually sort of interesting, and then it
gets a lot more horizontal run the average four seam. I have seen a
bit of weak contact come off of that. Now, could they tweak it
so that it maybe it was even more effective? Probably? But I like
Rubaker overall. He's pretty good at maximizing that his portfolio, and he's been
in the course over three hundred and fifteen and two thirds innings in his major
league career, has run a twenty three percent strikeout rate and a sub eight
percent walk rate, so both better than average. I guess the rate's kind
of like right about average, maybe just a Hairover for starters, but the
walk rate is better than big league average and a solid fifteen point five percent
K minus BB over his career. He also gets a decent number of grounders.
You might like to see him get a few more. He's been right
at forty four percent, and that's what he was in twenty twenty two.
But he looked pretty good in that spring training before he got hurt. And
he's I think almost twelve months removed TJ, So he's ten months removed right
now from TJ. Likely to be back in the middle like May I think
is his estimated recovery timeline, and he's going nine to seventy five is his
average draft rank in NFBCS. I'm sure you can get him for a song
in your dynasty leagues. His average draft is seven hundred and forty nine,
so very near the last picks in those drafts, and I like that in
a in that kind of format. He still the projections are a little bit
soft on him. The bat hates him for some reason. Steamer's the high
projection at a four or five three ARRA projection projections are projecting him to be
worse than he's been over three hundred innings in his career, more walks,
fewer strikeouts, and I just didn't see that coming out of him in the
times when I had him and watched him. I just like it as an
injury bounce back that people have forgotten about. I don't think he's going to
be crowded out of that Pittsburgh rotation. Pittsburgh does have some really nice minor
league arms coming up, but I really don't see the need for them to
push any of them. So, like I would be sort of surprised if
we saw a lot of Paul Skins this year, I'd be surprised if we
saw a lot of Jared Jones or some of the other upper Miners guys.
So I think Brubaker is going to come back in May and get slotted right
back into that rotation. It's sort of a boring profile, but I think
it plays. So brew Baker is one like, don't forget about him in
your drafts. If you need a solid back end start throw, I think
you could do worse. And as an injured throw in a trade, I
definitely would be asking after burw Baker nice. I think brew Baker is very
solid MLB B side arms selection. Yeah, I know that he's definitely helped
some of my team's different formats too when he was healthy and he had some
decent little runs. My next guy. To be clear here, I had
Ryan Feldner cueued up to talk about here well before this morning's events with mister
Cleig. But I want to talk about Ryan Feltner. And I know Colorado
Pitcher could eliminate him from your consideration in different formats, and I understand all
that. But we talked pitch for Oklahoma City. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't agree with that, but we talk We talked about making some
changes. Right here's one that I think we got a little glimpse of.
Feldner had a very scary injury. I don't know if you saw that,
Matt, but he got a line drive back Adam and fractured his skull and
put him out from what May middle of May to end of September. He
came back for two starts, which was nice to see him come back.
I mean, it was a potentially life threatening situation. But Feldner's twenty seven
years old. He's logged one hundred and forty seven career MLB innings over the
last three seasons. He's currently rostered in five percent of leagues. I mean
that, you know, that's that's less than some of our B sides,
less than Rockies pitching prospect Jordi Vargas. He's currently going to nfbc's ADP is
seven to fifty one, currently labeled the fourth starter in the Rockies rotation by
Fangrafts. I've seen you little blurbs and stuff that he'll be competing for a
rotation job. I think Feldner's pretty solid rotation piece heading into the season for
the Rockies. His thirty two MLB appearances, thirty one one of them have
been starts. Twenty twenty two nineteen starts, twenty appearances, five eighty three
ERA one point four to one whip. You know, stuff that isn't going
to help a lot of our fantasy leads. Here twenty twenty three started,
he got eight starts in before the injury. Again big era, an even
larger whip. Right. But and I heard Feldner talk about this too.
It did seem to me and to him that there were some really positive changes
starting before the injury. He felt like he was on his way to a
breakout season, and looking at some metrics you might see why he may have
felt that he went from a thirty point four percent hard contact rate to nineteen
point five percent, which that's that's top of the scale, that's ninety eight
percentile. Home runs were an issue for him in twenty twenty two one point
four to eight per nine, fifteen point four percent home run. The fly
ball rate. Well, the home run per nine dropped two point four to
two, which is ninety eight percentile. The home run per fly ball dropped
to five point one percent ninety ninth percentile. His weak contact went from four
point three percent to seven point six. Hitters pulled the ball thirty six point
one percent of the time against him. That's ninth percentile. Like in the
good way right, home run the flyball right, that's an astronomy. It's
a fantastic five point one percent is ninety nine percentile. Ground ball rate ticked
up a little bit, but I think it was more than like him coming
up like sixty fourth percentile. Now his arsenal, he's heavy slider guy.
Right, thirty one point four percent. Pitch that he used the most most
performance wise, it's not that great. Gets some chase on it, but
he doesn't get he doesn't get whiffs on it. Part of the reason why
he threw it a lot is the for seamer, both by stuff plus metrics
and performance just wasn't very good. It was hard, it was firm.
On the season, it averaged ninety four point eight miles per hour, but
it's just not a very good shape. He coming into the season he felt
like his sinker was his best pitch. The sinker is not his best pitch.
He has since said that sort of moved on from that. And here's
the exciting part, Matt and the change that happens. When he was hurt,
he went worked out at the new Rockies pitching lab. Yes that's true,
the Rockies have a pitching lab now. And that fastball he came back
with a couple more ticks on it. He hit ninety nine a few times,
which he had never done before. It averaged let's see, so before
the injury was looking at the game logs here, ninety four point one,
ninety four, ninety four point four. He came back, it averaged ninety
six ninety five and a half. Of course you got later in those those
last few outings and he would dip back down to his previous velocity. I've
heard him talk about how he believes that those changes are real. He believes
that they're going to hold. So long story short here, the biggest thing
that was missing, I think from Feldner's arsenal was an effective fastball. And
if you're a velocity purist, he already went from a hard fastball to now
more top of the scale. He's been talking about changing his plan of attack
to becoming more of a power pitcher. Now well, he put up great
numbers for fantasy purposes. I don't know. I doubt it. I had
been stacked against him. Every bat at ball, whether it be on the
ground, a line drive, or a fly ball in that park is in
the bat at ball's favor. But we have a guy who's gonna be different,
and I don't know, Let's see what it looks like and if it
goes well, this is you know, an example of a pitcher making the
change relatively soon that could change a lot of outcomes production wise. Well,
and again, not to harp on the defense, but I think the Rockies
have the potential to have one of the better defenses in the game. Running
out there, you know, Doyle is one of the best center fielders and
best pure defenders just period out there. I think if you're looking at Tovar
and McMahon and Rogers, like that's pretty good skill positions in the infield.
And they've got some other good athletes to run out there in the outfield with
Nolan Jones too. So I like that defense. And of course it's still
impossible to play great defense in Colorado. It's the park is just way too
big and the ball just flies way too far. But I think those sorts
of things help incrementally, and you might be surprised at the skills, especially
on the road for some of those guys, some of these pictures, like
you're saying, I could definitely see them playing up even more on the road.
Yeah. I mean, well, for one, it can't get much
worse than it did last year pitching wise, starting pitching wise for the Rockies.
I mean, if you can limit hard contact like that, not leat
hitters, get out in front, and not give up home runs, I
mean, you're going to give yourself the best chances that you can in chorus
Field. So I don't know, I know, I'm a Rockies fan,
but I'm kind of excited to see what this new look Feldner looks like and
if one of these guys can put up some decent numbers, maybe decent enough
to help our fantasy leagues, you know, Feldner will be playable. Every
starting pitcher is going to be, you know, potentially on the table in
a thirty teamer thirtyeen points especially, so I don't know, we'll see,
let's go to another kind of deeper league option. And especially I would say,
probably not that interesting for your roto formats. But Wade Miley man,
he just keeps sticking around. Oh. I love that you brought up with
Miley. I thought you might because he shares some things in common with your
your boy Mark Burley. He's got a six pitch mix that he mixes pretty
well. Three of those are his go to in his four seen fastball,
his cutter, his most used pitch, and his change up. But he
also mixes in a curveball occasionally, and a sinker and a slider, and
his bread and butter for the last few years has been the cutter. It's
the pitch he throws the most. He has incredible command of It will come
into righty's we'll backdoor it to lefties, front hip it to lefties like He's
moved that pitch around and it is his primary weapon in getting hard content or
getting inducing soft contact rather because he doesn't miss many bats. He never did
even in his peak. Now he's solidly in the six strikeouts per nine,
but he still can induce scround balls only six percent last year, but fifty
two percent the year before, which is plus plus. His velocity rebounded after
an ugly stint with the Cubs in twenty twenty two, and you know it's
ninety, but it's plays because he gets good movement and again has really good
command. And I wonder if he underperformed in some of his strikeout metrics last
year. He ran one of the lowest strikeout rates of his career last year
over one hundred and twenty innings with the Brewers. But I wonder if we're
going to see that rebound positively a little bit next year, because I think
his slider shape is slightly different than it has been in previous year and might
actually be a pitch we're throwing more. So he still is going to lead
with his cutter and change up and then mix that four seam fastball at the
top of the zone and inside to both lefties. And righties to get soft
contact. But I think mixing in a few more sliders. I think currently
he tends to throw that about seven or so percent of the time, and
I wonder if he bumped that up to something like twelve or twelve to fifteen
percent of the time, whether we might see an uptick in his swinging swinging
strike rates and therefore strikeouts because it's a pitch that has more horizontal movement than
average, and especially compared to his cutter, which doesn't move side to side.
It's much more of a downward shaped cutter. That's how he gets ground
balls and soft contact. But mixing in something that sweeps a little bit more
across the zone and out of the zone as hitters are thinking, oh,
this is the cutter, and then it's the slider that is down in a
way to a lefty, I wonder if he might be able to get a
few more strikeouts with that. He saw quite a bit of success in limited
show of that slider. It was actually his best pitch I think by run
value per one hundred in a yeah, it was almost a little more than
fifty percent more valuable than his cutter. Now, obviously the cutter he threw
way more and so you might put a little more trust in that. But
I think it's sort of a hidden fourth pitch that he might lean on a
bit more next year. And add that to the fact that he's definitely going
to get a lot of run in that Milwaukee rotation, especially after Burns got
unceremoniously shipped out, and in your deeper leagues, that volume plays, and
I think I'm just here to say that while I don't expect him to be
a three one six, three one four er guy like he's been the last
couple of years, I think it's worth noting the performance even though the strikeouts
aren't really going to be there. So you might get some quality volume here.
Think for for one er over something like a hundred in thirty one hundred
and fifty innings, and that's super useful. So don't write off Wade Miley
just yet. I think there still is some pitch tweaking that he can do,
and maybe that he's already started doing, and that that might lead to
continued performance as he continues to get older, aging like a fine wine or
cheese. I guess that's better from Milwaukee. I'm always down for some Wade
Miley love and what makes me love him even more is, I think probably
his worst stretch of his career, he decided to use on the Cubs.
He would love that. And this is how crazy thirty teen points leagues might
be. In that but like Miley was, like, legit my ace in
the thirty teen points League team for a good stretch last year and that team
made the playoffs. Nice. You can't do it with such types in those
Is that the show? Is that the one that I'm in? No,
because that that league's tough, like the pitching in that league. Man,
I was running out there ready to start the year with Dean Kramer as my
ace, and a lot of people love Dean Kramer. I like him,
but I I was not really excited for him to be my ace. Right
all right? I want to talk about a guy who I admit, after
I have dug in on him here more, I traded him to mister Quagg
in RAS thirty and I regret it now, well maybe I'll regret it.
But I want to talk about Johnny Burrito, who, as a prospect back
in twenty twenty one, was very much kind of like a B side ass
guy, right, someone I knew nothing about turned on and I legit was
kind of blown away and became very much a fan. But I was just
too naive at the time. I just thought, Hey, I don't think
this guy's stuff is good enough. But of course I love the execution in
the command, right, Matt. So I'm like going, I don't think
this. I don't know if this guy has the stuff for you know,
no one's really talking about him. You know, I'm not going to put
him out there, right, which I no longer subscribed to such ideas.
But Johnny Brito, it turns out, gets to the Major League and we
get to know more about it, has like really good weapons, really good
weapons. I knew he could kind of spin it. I knew he could
spin it. I know East West game looked really good. He's really interested
me in a lot of ways. So he's he's twenty five years old.
Last year was his first year in the bigs. We got in ninety in
the third innings. He's rastered in thirty percent of leagues, which is less
than Grisepho throwing Susannah barrierra, which is kind of wild to me. He's
going like seven point fifty in NFBC Vangrass has him down in the Triple A
currently labeled like the seventh sp but he's behind several names I don't think are
a lot to make the rotation there they happen behind. They have him behind
right now, it's Musgrove, Darvish, King, Pedro Avila, Randy Vasquez,
and then down in Triple A they got Adrian Morejean and then Brito.
I know, yeah, he's gonna get some run. I think, yeah,
yeah. I think they initially had him as like their long reliever on
their point being, I think he's in the mix. I think he can
win a job in the rotation. If not, maybe he's you know,
sitting as their long reliever. But there's gonna be some major league starts this
season. Now the stuff like the stuff. Plus he's got a two seam
well, I don't know if they call it a sinker. I think they
call it a sinker, sinker, two seamer whatever. Now you could see
that it's guy. They had some wicked life to it. But looking at
PLV pictureless stuff plus model, they gave it a five point two, which
is pretty off the charts for a two seane fastball. For a sinker that's
really high. I'm not the biggest stuff plus guy, it's measuring some tools
in the vacuum, you know. Like we mentioned, there's there's a lot,
a lot of other things I think in play that are more so or
just as important, and I think Brito's a great, a great example of
this. Like his curveball got a five point four to one his change up
above average, which as a press his change was labeled a sixty. It
was supposed to be his best pitch. The other pitches weren't graded out so
hot fifties and forty fives and things. He did get the sixty control and
command grades. There's also a four seemer, but I think the four seamer
is far and away, I think his worst pitch. But last year he
used the two seemer thirty two percent of the time, change up twenty nine
percent of the time, curveball twenty percent of the time, the four seemer
seventeen percent of the time. He has some phlocity. His sinker averaged ninety
six miles per hour. What I think Brita's biggest issue is so he's got
these these nice looking tools or whatever, but it's kind of like I got
a hammer and a chainsaw. They're not really like tools that go together all
that well, Right, he's a two seam change up guy with velocities at
ninety six and eighty eight. Like I don't know, there's there's some sort
of like missing ingredient, I think, And I think that explains why his
very nice weapons. Folks they trace the change up, they don't really trace
the other pictures. The swinging strike rate's pretty pedestrian. Other than the change
up. His K percentage was nineteen point four. So I don't know what
the Padres are gonna do with him. I don't really view the Padres as
a team that maybe I don't think they have all the same sorts of resources
or pitching philosophies beliefs in some of the quote newer school stuff. I feel
like they kind of just let pictures go and do their thing more so,
but I don't know what do I know? But there's a sixty command guy
here with really good weapons, and you know Matt that that is like that
that's the two things that I don't want to see married. But they're just
not driving together yet in his young career. But Johnny Brito is extremely interesting
to me, and I think there's plenty of stuff here to work with and
be a successful major league pitcher and a successful fantasy pitcher. I like it.
He's a guy I rostered in a thirty teamer I want to say last
year, early last year, he was someone that I liked what he was
showing in terms of inducing ground balls, limiting walks, and thought he had
a chance to be a depth starter. So I think he still is on
that path with the padres and Brito's sinker with that sort of movement, that
sort of teeth twenty eight point six CSW just doesn't really add up the change
up twenty six percent CSW. So Meryl Kelly, I think, is who
I was thinking of off the top of my head. Okay, he's a
sinker change guy and has some success with it. So you know, maybe
if you want to dream on adding another pitch and the command tightening up just
a bit, you could see Brito becoming a version of Meryl Kelly, and
that's a big leaguer for a long time. It's more electricity with Brito,
though, next guy we're going this is more like potential breakout into a top
tier arm. This is a guy who is getting drafted reasonably hot. You
know this is I think his average position in NFBCS is two eighty three,
so, you know, not up there, but pretty significantly better than anybody
that we've talked about up to this point. But it's cutter Crawford. I
generally think in my approach to fantasy baseball is that we individual analysts are dumber
than the projections. Like the projections already know all the information that we know
and contextualize it better than we do, and the numbers that they spit out
I tend to trust, especially in the projections that are an amalgamation of a
bunch of different inputs, and so your ATC's or your fangraphs depth charts,
I think that those remove a lot of risk from the equation, remove a
lot of biases, and help place everything on a single scale that you can
you can use to help overcome your own biases and make better decisions going forward.
But there are always guys, especially younger guys, that I think you
can see glimpses into the kinds of significant leaps in performance that projections really struggle
to deal with. This happens all the time. As we've talked about with
pitchers, but I think it's interesting that the projection systems are so down relatively
speaking. On Cutter Crawford, after having a really good kind of first full
year in the majors, he obviously debuted in twenty twenty two and got you
know, quite a lot of run seventy seven and a third in twenty twenty
two over twelve starts twenty one appearances, just a hair under nine strikeouts per
nine and three point three eight walks per nine. But he had some bad
luck and pitched to the tune of a five four to seven er and lost
his starting job early in the year. In twenty twenty three, ended up
getting it back, obviously, injuries in that rotation and there were lots of
opportunities for Boston in twenty twenty three, so he ended up starting twenty three
games and got another eight out of the pen. Built up one hundred and
twenty nine and a third innings last year and was very good. He had
a three to three expected ERA according to stat Cast, a three eight FIP
very good. That's a plus starter, especially over almost one hundred and thirty
innings, and ran a strong strikeout rate twenty five point six significantly above almost
the standard deviation above average, and only six point eight walks six point eight
per walk percentage good for an eighteen point eight K minus BB very good overall.
He also induced a few more ground balls than he had in his previous
year, limited homers a bit, and got a little bit of babbit luck
and maybe a touch of left on base sort of neutral left on base luck.
So his luck factors were kind of some were positive, some more negative,
somewhere in the middle, and he ran a four to zero four RA
I watched bunch of his starts, though, and I think there's more here.
It might be that I caught some of his better starts. But watching
the pitch mix, it seems to me that he has answers for lefties,
he's got answers for righty's. His command seems good to me, and not
just in the limiting walks kind of way. Using what is a pretty diverse
pitch mix. He's got a four seam fastball that I think gets good spin.
He throws it at the top of his own a decent amount and gets
pop ups and fly balls, gets out that way. I think it has
good ride on it. He has a cutter as you might expect from someone
named cutter Crawford, and that is a good pitch as well. I think
it has more vertical drop and more horizontal drop than you would expect sort of
an average cutter to have. According to statcast, he has a split finger
that he throws a decent amount. I think the command of this one was
the worst. He would throw this one and it would be way out of
the zone some seriously non competitive pitches for his split finger, but it still
had some potential. It showed flashes. And then the pitch that I was
most excited about was his sweeper. He threw didn't throw it very often,
only six point seven percent of the time, but it was his single best
pitch I think significantly. So he has a real feel for spotting this pitch.
Some combination of the way that he threw it and the way he located
it, he got really good results. I want to see him lean into
that a bit more, maybe at the expense of his curveball, which I
think it's hit a bit more. I like the depth of his arsenal.
I like that he has solid command of a lot of it. And I'm
also maybe betting a little bit on the New Boston regime. Craig Breslo is
a really smart pitching guru, and hiring Kyle Body is also usually a good
idea. I think that having all of these different tools in the capable hands
of those kinds of craftsmen, I am just solidly hammering the under on all
of these are projections from the pitch models. So Cutter Crawford, for me,
as someone is like he's debuted, he showed some success, he showed
some wartz. I'm seriously buying what he's selling and think that maybe the price
it's underpriced. I'd say for what I think the potential could be here.
So Cutter Crawford for me is a huge buy. I again, he's going
two eighty three in NFBCS around guys like Michael Waka, Injured, Mac Scherzer,
lance Lynn Mackenzie, Gore, Edward Cabrera, and for my money,
I'm taking him over all of those guys, and then some of the guys
that are going just ahead of him, Seth Lugo, John Means, Rhys
Olsen, todg Bradley, Emmitt Shean. I don't know. I think I'm
taking Cutter over all those guys with the possible exception of rhese Olsen, just
because the park I think is quite a bit better and he has a lot
of similar things to like about him too. All that to say, I
just think that it's worth sometimes betting on a breakout for these guys that are
like two and three years into their career, and for me, Cutter Crawford
is one of those guys that I'm most excited about this year. Man.
I admittedly have not paid much attention to Crawford either coming up or in the
majors. But you are not the only one who likes Cutter Crawford. Mister
Pollock HadAM fifty five on his list. I gotta read that list. It
sounds like he and I agree on a few guys. Yeah, there's a
lot to read. I wanted to bring up Cody Bradford, who is like,
so not my kind of profile in that I don't really love lefties who
can't spin it, and I think that's probably going to be Bradford's maybe biggest
question mark or the inclusion of a third offering. But Cody Bradford, who
had a fantastic, fantastic year last year in Triple A and the PCL which
has nothing to shake a stick at. But last year with the Rangers,
he got in twenty games, eight starts. He's twenty six years old,
he logged fifty six innings last year, and he's rostered in ten percent of
fan tracks leagues Matt. That's less than Freddie Tarnick, Noah Cameron, fellow
Ranger Mitch Bratt seven hundred and forty ADP in NFBC. Yeah, Fangrafts currently
has him labeled as their fifth starter. Probably true with all the injuries that
they've gotten that rotation. So some MLB opportunity I think is in front of
Bradford here. But you know, he's kind of your kind of classic soft
toss and lefty, and that his four seamer average ninety point four miles brower
last year. I don't think the fastball on the stuff plus models gets any
great scores or anything like that. I don't think I've heard on a few
occasions some much smarter pitching folk than I talked about some of its unique attributes.
Sometimes I think extension stuff gets way overblown, but I think he does
have pretty good extensions, so maybe that helps the ninety miles per hour play
up a little bit, but by far his most used pitch used pitch last
year, fifty four and a half percent usage, you know, not too
shabby. A ninety mile per hour fastball getting thirty thirty two percent CSW.
I mean he's got execution on his side. It's probably his biggest weapon.
Throws strikes at a high percentage. You know. It's kind of interesting a
two pitch guy like this without a lot of velocity getting a twenty two percent
k raid in the bigs. You know, his walk percentage is historically low.
He was five percent last year. That's that's the top of the charts.
Granted the fifty six innings. You know, as you might imagine,
there is some hard contact there. Thirty one point two percent hard contact last
year, which is not great, you know, scouting grade wise, this
is like a fifty five fastball low VLO. I mean, we've we've seen
I don't know, maybe Tommy Romero a little bit. I don't think it's
the you know what, he was right handed, right, I mean it's
not the same, but like that, a low v low maybe tough to
square up. Maybe you getting enough whiffs, but I don't know. Kind
of just an interesting guy to me, not really my style. But I
don't think I'm the only one who who thinks Cody Bradford might be kind of
a unique situation maybe somewhat unique success in the bigs. I love this shout
this kind of guy, I think is so fascinating a low velocity. But
I was kind of wondering that. And I'm no expert on this. I'm
no pitch shape a pro changle expert and all that stuff, But I was
kind of wondering if Bradford's fastball was one in which those models just don't really
measure well, Like, are there some characteristics with it that are so different
that it doesn't pick up all that well. I mean, I've heard people
talk about certain pitches like that before. Well, I do think there's something
too. The farther out on the tail you are of the Bell curve,
it's not linear, right, Like, if you're really far out on one
edge, it's not a linear progression that it's that much x percent better.
So I think there's something to that that, like it can look, it
can play up even if if there's something particularly unique about the shape or the
trait, And for Bradford, it's certainly the extension is part of it.
You know, his seven feet seven point three feet extension is in the ninety
eighth percentile according to stat cast, and despite having way below average velocity even
for a lefty, looking at that heat chart on stack cast, like he's
just pumping this thing down the middle. It's not it's not good command,
it's control. It's like I'm throwing it in the middle of the plate and
letting its spin and its extension play up. And so I think I like
watching him last year. I was I thought he was kind of paint in
some I mean maybe, but looking at the chart on stat cast, like
by far, the high percentage is right in the heart, like not even
in the shadows. Maybe it has a slight tilt towards up in the zone
a little bit, like there's some some of the heat markers up in the
zone. But that's a lot of fastballs in the middle of the plate and
he's still got good results on that. And I think that that speaks to
the way his spin plays. I think he's an almost perfect active spin guy.
So all of the spin that he gets on that pitch is imparted in
the magnus force getting that backspin to make it seem like it drops less on
its way to the plate. Plus his extension, I think help it play
up. So his fastballs are getting more pop ups, more fly balls,
more soft contact. I was looking for this before, and it was right
in front of me. But what do you think is strike percentage on the
four seamer was last year? It looked pretty high. Seventy two percent,
seventy five and a half percent. That's that was really hot though, Like,
yes, throwing this thing down the middle, Like I wonder if a
little bit more command of that pitch, like up so that's not quite down
the middle, whether that might just talking about, you know, be a
starter. I do that fastball, that change up combo probably would do quite
well against the righties, but I think I think the lefties he might need
something else throw as a slider. It was fifteen and a half percent of
the time, I mean through twenty one curveballs too. But it doesn't seem
like he likes throwing that pitch either. His curveball. This is actually one
of the worst I've ever seen. His run value per one hundred pitches pretty
good, is positive one, Like if you have one per one hundred,
that's pretty good. His curveball minus twelve point two. So this thing just
got annihilated eight seventy five slug. That is so bad. That's interesting because
I mean, if I'm reading these things right, his curveball got the best
PLV grade out of any of his offerings. But I don't think that's really
dude, what's that It got tattooed? So yeah LV or no. Yeah,
that's a small sample. I mean it was only it was only twenty
one of them on the air. And you're right, he had a really
good year in h A. I do wonder if that's a guy that might
because that's a really really good line in Triple A around Rock. So I
do wonder if he's an additional pitch away from being good. A guy who's
pretty good like that true active spin and a good change up. Though that
means he's like a pronator, right, Like he's better at his wrist pronating
over and so I think the breaking balls can be a little bit tougher to
teach for those guys, you know, like think Bryce Miller or somebody or
even Brian Wlu like those guys with really good pronation, good active spin on
their fastballs. I wonder what pitch might work for him to get him to
have something maybe a little more east west, or a weapon against same handed
batters. Well, when guys can't spin it real, well, what's the
what's the pitch? It's a cutter, right, Yeah, and maybe that
maybe that's the thing for him. I'm fascinated. This is a great shout,
Nate. I'm really interested. I might see if I can get a
share on the cheap. Bradford's super interesting and like, hey, you velocity
purest guys, how come this eighty nine mile per hour fastball right down the
middle? People can't hit it? Yeah? Man, And I'm on that.
I've started working on a study and an article that I'm going to write
up. But we talked a little bit about it, and Bradford might be
a great example to throw in there where I think velocity just gets so overrated
as a measure of is a pitch effective or is a repertoire effective? And
I think we see this in prospect reports all the time. We see this
in talking about big league performance of particular pitches like Hunter Green is so great
because he can throw a fastball over one hundred miles an hour and isn't that
so incredible? I remember I think it was the opening day start he had
had against the Braves two years ago. I think it was it. Maybe
it wasn't open to get It was early in the year Green versus my Braves,
and Green just chopped the Braves. But it was because he threw a
ton of sliders, and his slider is really good. His fastball was still
getting hit and it was outs and foul balls and stuff, but he wasn't
getting whiffs with his fastball, even though it's over one hundred miles an hour,
Like you think, he threw like twenty fastballs over one hundred. And
I felt this as a player too, that there were guys who could throw
it ninety five ninety six that we were salivating over there fastball, like,
yeah, throw that fastball, We're gonna crush it. Remember I can't remember
the guy's name there was. He was the Friday night starter for Arizona State
one of the years that I was there, and we got a great scouting
report on him that he loved to throw his fastball up and in to righties.
He was a righty, and you know, it was like ninety five
ninety six, but the thing was flat like it wasn't to us. It
was not a special pitch. His offspeed pitches were really good and it's come
in with solid But I hit a home run off of him and he because
I knew what pitch he was gonna throw, and when he threw it,
it just looked so fat, like it didn't move in an odd way.
Versus a guy like Preston Gimmet again old shout from the University of Arizona,
who he threw from such a weird arm angle and had such weird spin even
though he was like a ninety to ninety two guy in the fastball, that
pitch was freaking impossible to hit, just the way that it moved. He
had really good backspin and a super weird arm angle that was right over the
top. He had great commands too, but those things were more important than
the six miles an hour in velocity separation between the two guys. And I
think that that's like been sitting in my head for a long time and hearing
guys talk about, like we talked about this a while back with Logan Henderson,
how I'm so excited about the way his fastball plays, even though it
averages ninety two, and we're talking about in the Dynasty that I got Discord,
and somebody is poo pooing Henderson like I'd be way more interested if he
was throwing ninety five, but ninety two, like whatever. And then you
look at a guy like Tristan McKenzie, who also averages about ninety two and
has one of the best fastballs by run value in the major leagues, and
it's like, Okay, we're missing something in this constant reflection or constant return
to just talking about fastball velocity. And I think even Chris Clegg shared a
chart about the expected whobar maybe the results of the whobba against fastballs of a
certain velocity. And it is true that the faster you throw, the lower
weighted on base of the balls in play. However, I think that is
more of a correlation, not a causation thing, because it is also true
that as fastball velocity goes up, so too does induce vertical break and spin.
So the more like the faster you're throwing all of the things equal,
the more spin you're getting on the fastball, so the more it seems to
rise and fight gravity. And I think that that's the thing that's actually important
about it. It's not that the pitch itself is faster, it's that the
induced vertical break that you get is actually the thing that's important over a certain
speed. I mean, I think these things break down both on the high
and the very low ends. And I've been working on a study er aut
this and i think that there's some truth to this, and I'm going to
write it up. But I think guys like Bradford and like Tristan McKenzie and
like Logan Henderson, like some of the other b siders that we've talked about
that maybe aren't velocity kings, their fastballs can still be plus to double plus
and can be like great bets to be successful going forward. So I'm super
interested. This is another one to I'm excited to follow. Like you can
see in some of Bradford's underlying stuff is when you throw ninety, it can
be a good fastball and it can be hard to hit, but when it
is hit, it's kind of hit harder than higher velocity fastballs. And maybe
but maybe that's the location piece of it, right, Like he's thrown a
bunch of fastballs right down the middle, Like if those are better located because
he didn't really have a homer problem in the miners, like double a eleven
point eight percent homer for flyball, that's like a touch above average, and
then in the PCL five point nine percent homer for flyball. So again like
probably some luck there, Like he's probably not a true talent five to nine
homer or flyball ratio guy, especially with the number of fly balls he gets.
It's a noisy stat. And so like, yeah, his basketball did
get hit a bit in the majors, but I don't know it's there's enough
year for it to be pretty interesting. I'd say JP Frantz is another guy
that I had rostered in a super deep league when he was in the upper
miners. I think he was in like Triple A in twenty twenty one for
the Astros, was having a lot of success. Nobody was really talking about
him. He's I don't think it was on any prospect lists of note.
And he had a really great twenty twenty one, striking out a lot of
batters in the miners, limiting the walks decently well and getting ground balls too
at a decent rate. I guess it was kind of up and down he's
more of a flyball pitcher. But France had a pretty great, I mean,
debut year. Got called into action quite a lot for the Astros last
year through one hundred and thirty six and a third innings and ran a three
eight three ERA. It's another guy who writy with a below average velocity fastball
in the ninety three miles an hour range, but and he throws it a
fair amount, like that's his forcing fastball. He throws quite a bit.
But I think he's another guy that has like decent spin on his fastball and
has gotten solid results even given that it doesn't look like a It's certainly not
a fastball that you watch and you're like, oh my god, I gotta
see more of those. But I think he spins it pretty well and commands
it pretty well. He didn't get many strikeouts last year in his first big
league season, excuse me, only seventeen point four percent K's last year,
But I actually think there's more in the tank here, and I think he's
gonna get more strikeouts, both on the back of the high spin fastball that
he has, but he also has a solid five pitch mix, throws cutter,
a change up, a curveball, and a slider. I don't think
any of them are bad, and that's like his curveball might be his worst
pitch, but all the others to me are plus to maybe to average,
And when you've got four average to plus pitches, that to me signals that
there's a lot of upside there and there are gonna be outings and years where
he can put it all together. So I'm not gonna say too much more
than that, just that, Yeah, he didn't earn his three eight three
ERA last year. His FIP was almost a full run higher at four sixty
six. His ex FIP was a full run higher at four eight. But
I like the skills, and I think there's significantly more strikeout upside in here
than most rankers or projection systems are giving him credit for. Given the strikeout
rates that he ran in the miners and the quality of the arsenal, he's
another guy that the arsenal you might look at the velocity readings and look at
the results and say like, eh, I don't know this is a depth
starter, but I think there's a chance for more. This might be a
solid kind of number three. And I used him as a depth piece and
a trade, and I gotta say I kind of regret it. I wish
he was one of the back of the rotation arms in my thirty team or
where I had him. Yeah, four forty six average draft position or average
draft rank, right around Alex Cobb, Wade Miley, and Joe Boyle.
So an interesting group there, and I think JP France to me, has
the maybe the most upside of all of them. Although I guess if Joe
Boyle actually figures out how to not walk fifteen percent of batter, maybe he
has more upside. But JP France is one worth filing away as a late
dart throw. I'm curious. Did you trade for it's away when he was
still a prospect or had he? Yeah, So let me ask you this.
Have you regretted trading away some prospect bats or prospect arms? More bats?
That's I'm opposite. I have I have traded away some arms that I
wish now that I had, not way more so than bats. Yeah,
best one for me here. This might be a little too wild for some
folks. Maybe not though, but I want to talk about Ben Lively.
Oh, I like it nice, So then talk about Journeyman here, right?
I mean pull up his fangraft page and he's thirty one. He's thirty
one. He signed as older. He signed away. Yeah, I know
right. He signed a one year contract with the Guardians for seven hundred and
fifty k after he got in what twelve starts with the Reds last year,
Peer at nineteen games talking an ascension to the bigs and a trip to Korea
coming back. You can look at all there's so many. There's so many,
like just just surface. Yeah, yeah, there's different like sometimes you
walked a lot of guys. Sometimes he did and sometimes he struck. Like
all that stuff. It's all over the place. Right, Let's I just
kind of want to make it simple here. I watched Lively last year for
his His first handful of starts were really really good, and most of his
starts were pretty good. He had a blow up outing where he gave up
thirteen runs they must have just hung him out to dry and then seven runs.
But other than that, every other outing, I mean it was very
competitive. Did not put Zero's up put decent on the scoreboard. Fastball slider.
The slider is his best pitch. I think he up the usage of
it as the season progressed. He used it twenty three and a half percent
of the time. His four seamer he used thirty two percent of the time.
There was a sinker as well, so those were his three main offerings.
He used the sinker twenty two percent of the time, change up,
curveball, cutter thrown in, but whatever sliderduced well for seamer did not.
But what drew me to him, Matt was I just happened to throw on
my case. I think his first start last year, maybe he was the
second one, but my man was just painting the edges. Just everything was
on the edge. Man. He left nothing over the middle of the plate.
So that got me really interested. I was desperate in that league that
I had mentioned, and I'm way overpaid for what I should pay for lively
to help me out at the time. But I find it also interesting.
At least the plvs pictureless stuff plus stuff like his fastball got a pretty high
mark. So take that fo Yeah, even though don't think Nick cares for
it very much at all, but my interest here. He's currently listed as
a swingman for Cleveland. He's rostered in four percent of leagues. You know,
that's less than some of our b sides. He's not getting drafted.
I'm one of those leagues. I'm a proud Ben Lively owner. I mean
those thirty teen leagues where you just need to get some arms. Yeah,
but we have seen Cleveland take guys with less than out more fastballs or you
might think are less than optimal, and help them. So I'm curious what
will happen with Cleveland here? And is this a good fastball that isn't that
hard? He throws it like ninety one, But is this a good shape?
Is this a good fastball? And Cleveland's going to help him a little
bit? I don't know, but with the command that I saw on stretches,
and I think maybe that might be just Lively's things. He can be
really good for a little while and then he just kind of loses it.
But the execution that I saw for him in that little stretch, I thought
was could definitely play, and he had some good major league success. Nobody
wants him just kind of to keep an eye. Just kind of an interesting
guy in my opinion. Yeah, interesting. I was drawn in by the
strikeout and walk ratios like that. He'd been fairly successful at getting whiffs and
limiting walks, but just was giving up all the home runs. I'd run
a study on this a while back that generally speaking, you still want to
trust the strikeout and walk ratios rather than the home run rates, because he
ran a two point h three homer per nine rate last year, and like
basically nobody ever has had success with that kind of home run rate. But
it's also not very sticky, like it's not he wasn't He was in small
park and had a fastball that I think was getting lit up. So,
like I said, maybe some improvements with the fastball. We got a bit
of a different Ben Lively this year. I'm excited to see it. Nate,
great, great picks. There are some fun ones in there. Yeah
you too, Man. I love that you brought up Miley so R MLB
B side arms, Steven Matt Zach Thompson, JT. Brubaker, Ryan Feltner,
Wade Miley, Johnny Brito cutter Croft for Cody Bradford, JP Franz,
Ben Lively right on, Matt. Some winners in there. Now, Matt,
let's talk about Reevon Scooter. You want to talk about can we can?
We? Yes? Oh my god, I love him. So let
me set this up a little bit here. So my guy Justin, who
hooks me up with some fantastic tools to help me watch baseball through the season,
made us something that I love. On fangrafts, you can't look at
a prospect pitcher right and get stuff broken down like first time through the order,
second time through the order, et cetera. Right, So what Justin
did is he pulled from MiLB dot com. You can go to splits and
it will it will break down prospect stats by inning right, first literal inning
of the game, first inning, second inning, third inning, et cetera.
But the problem is part of the problem is they don't update that.
You can look at a guy who threw one hundred innings and they'll have like,
oh, he pitched four innings in the second inning, Like, no,
that's not correct. But Justin's wizard and they have all that stats behind
the scenes. So he pulled all that for me. So just in a
literal sense, well, were all of the minor league picture stats in the
first inn in the second inning, third inning, et cetera. Right,
So then I got to playing with that, and what I did is I
just split it first, second, third inning, fourth, fifth, sixth
inning. What were all of the pitcher's stats and those two groups, and
then I had to, like, I really spent a lot of time just
kind of like weeding up guys. Right, you've got piggybackers. You've got
guys who don't come in until the fourth inning, so that's not going to
be a great representation of their stats the first or second, third time through
the order. There were guys that didn't go deep enough to really make any
sort of difference to So after weeding all those guys out, I got my
spreadsheet. Here there were roughly three hundred guys. I thought we could maybe
glean a little idea, a little look at how their their stats may may
have gone as they got deeper into the games. Right, looked at nothing
super fancy. Here, looked at er whip, strike percentage, wall percentage,
K percentage, home run percentage, batting average against, ops against.
Right, just stuff like that. So what is that? That's one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight categories?
Right, eight different stats, And Matt, your man Reedvon Scooter was far
and way the best looking dude here, Like, i' man, this is
this is insane to me. Okay, So those like eight categories or whatever,
there were fourteen pitchers who improved in all eight of those in the third,
fourth, and sixth innings of their starts, right, Reedvon Scooter Jackson,
Wolf, Trent Baker, Dustin Say Signs, Jacob Miller, your Man,
Kaiwa Tang, Josh Stephen, Tyson, Guerrero, Cooper Jerpe. But
mind you, there's a pretty small sample size there. Surprisingly to me,
rouber sealinis my B side. Also surprising to me, my Blue Jays B
side, Ryan Jennings, Luis Devers, John Klein, and another B side
Matt Gilbert Diez RVs. Was bar and way the most improved statistically, like
this guy in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings, which he went
that deep in a lot of his games, right, Yeah, he was
one of the top innings pitch this year, one hundred and ft three,
right exactly. And so I broke it down like this too. So in
innings one through six, like forty five point three percent of his innings were
the third, fourth or sixth inning. That's a very high percent, way
higher than a lot of a lot of dudes here, right, His era
from the front half to the back half three point six zero to two point
three four. His whip went from one four to eight to point nine.
His strike percentage increased from sixty four point nine percent to sixty six point seven
percent. His walk rate went from seven percent to five percent. His k
rate went from twenty five percent to twenty seven percent. The home run percentage,
I guess stayed the same. It went up by very marginal, marginal
amount. I just rounded it to whole percentage points. And then his batting
average against dropped almost one hundred points from two nine one ninety seven. That
was the most substantial difference out of any picture across the board that we looked
at, And I found that kind of fascinating that from your looks of our
vs. Why do you think he was able to do that? I think
it gets to the depth and quality of the repertoire. You know some of
this when we were talking about this, as we were diving into some of
these results over the past couple of weeks. I hypothesize that some of this
is noise. Like some of these guys, it's going to be it's it's
luck in some capacity. But I also think one of the commonalities of some
of the guys that were listed was that they do have deeper repertoires that they
can make it more times through the order and still surprise batters consistently. And
I feel that that's the way that Van Scooter approaches a lineup, like he
has stuff that I think plays really well, irrespective of the hate that it's
gotten from some quarters on the evaluation of the particulars of his pitch mix.
But I think that the combination of the way he locates it, and that
the release points, the shapes, and the way that he locates all of
his pitches play together to make each app bad against him look pretty different even
if it's your third or fourth time seeing him. So this is one of
the reasons why he was so exciting to me as I was watching him and
watching him this past year and evaluating his tools and tang. It's interesting that
he's another one that popped on this list because he's another one that I was
like, this arsenal has depth, it has quality, and it just seems
really difficult to hit against him, doesn't matter if you've seen him a bunch
of times. And I like that and the fact that both of them pitch
deep into games and have the innings built up. I think they're both really
exciting pitchers. You know, like you said, a lot of this this
is harry and noisy. I don't know what you want to take away from
it, right, but you know we talk about and we like guys who
can actually go deep into games, right, be a starter. So maybe
this gives us some insight into into that with some of these arms like Tang
right, only thirty three percent of his innings we're in the fourth, fifth
and six, right, Yeah, because he has lots of challenge getting that
deep in games because of his walk issues. Right, and you talk about
how there's attacks when you get deeper in his games, Right, you should
be easier to hit as pitchers see you more often, right, But also
too, like you have to account for there are games where you don't get
to the fourth, fifth and six innings because you got blue up early.
Right, So that's going to affect things like your era and whip and whatever.
Maybe the most interesting thing on all of this was whose percentage of innings
was we're in the fourth, fifth and six. That might be just the
most interesting part of it. I don't know. I do want to highlight
a few guys here and a few things that they did. Wilmer Flores is
a guy who I found really interesting. I know he didn't have a really
great year, but I thought a combination of stuff and execution in twenty twenty
two was really good. He kind of fell off a little bit, but
there were some nice signs here, and I think he had some outings where
he just got gave up a lot of runs early. But he was a
guy that when he did go deeper into the games was was pretty good and
arguably better my guy CJ. Culpepper nat thirty six percent of his innings were
in the fourth, fifth, and six. It accounted for thirty and two
thirds innings on the season. Guess howbody earned runs he gave up then?
Zero? Nada. I know you shared this with me already, and that's
impressive. Nada. I mean, that might just be a good stretcher or
whatever, but nobody does that. Nobody did that. Some pictures who seemed
to lose some substantial cagews deeper into starts, like my guy Dylan Ray dropped
ten percent over a pretty decent sample size. Your guy Isaac Coffee dropped ten
percent, Jack Lighter dropped nine percent, Juan Corilla dropped nine percent. Yarro
Eriarte dropped nine percent. But like interesting, yeah, only I mean only
thirty two percent of his innings were were there. But Trace McDermott dropped seven
percent, Frank Mazokato dropped seven percent, Kyder Montero dropped six percent, Luis
Perrellis dropped six percent. To Ko Roby dropped six percent, Jordan Wick dropped
six percent. Zebie Matthews dropped six percent. That was a little interesting.
That is interesting. Cole Wilcox walk percentage dumped quite a bit eight percent.
Ike Buxton walk percentage went up six percent later and starts tink Hence walk percentage
went up four percent. Well were his strikeout rates down four percent already?
Not high rate? Right? Yeah, that was kind of interesting. Higher
ops allowed to Mitch Bratt's batting average guns swim up over what one hundred and
seventeen points. Joe Rock gave up a lot more hits Dylan Rey as well,
which makes a lot of sense to me. Can Dana, So I
don't know, kind of some fun. So can your boy get us these
data for previous years, because I think we could have some fun using ubility
if it is directionally projection affected, you know, probably because my proxy for
This is just like do they throw innings. If you're throwing innings, you're
having some success. This is interesting although they are small samples, but I
think the things that you're calling out mat in are their case going up or
down? Are their walks going up er down? Like? Those are the
things that are stickiest in smaller samples and are also more predictive of just overall
skill. So I wonder if we can break this out a little bit more
granularly for some of the guys over the past, like say three or four
years before, and see where they land in the major leagues if it helps
us with breakouts. Like you know, a guy that I'm curious about is
someone like Reed debt Meers, who really ran some pristine lines in the minors,
and it's taken his lumps a bit in pro ball up to this point.
He's had some success, but also had some growing pains too, And
I wonder whether it's it tells us anything more about his like underlying depth of
repertoire. This is a log of the history of twenty twenty three minor leagues.
I'm not going to take it as too much more than that, but
you know, maybe maybe there's some signs here. Maybe there's some breadcrumbs of
some things we might want to pay more attention to. I don't know,
Hey, and anything that confirms my bias that tin kNs is actually stink.
Hence, I think good Leod Matt Jackson job first, second, and third
innings forty three in a third innings total there he walked three percent of batters,
right, and then four when he went four or five six, which
was twenty and two thirds, his walk percentage was zero. Yeah, he's
fun. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Strike guys out and don't
walk them. Yeah, good starting point. Strike them out at like thirty
three percent or whatever it was and walk them at like two and a half
percent. That'll probably play. Yeah, I think I think it should.
I hope he stays healthy. I hope that back thing isn't isn't a concern,
because I'm quite excited about watching him and the bigs. So, I
don't know, Matt, you got anything else he wanted to talk about or
should we rather? I don't think so. I mean, that was quite
the wide ranging conversation. You know. We talked about minor leaguers, fringe
major leaguers, some potential stars. I mean, we were all over the
place today right out. Well, there's some muddy arm stuff. I think
we're well, we got sent back down to the minors. That so shure.
We'll have to work along anyway, Nate, we'll have to work on
some things. Maybe we can get back up to the biggs later. But
yeah, I don't know. I don't know what we're gonna talk about next
week. We'll figure it out. But hopefully there's there's some deep arms that
might help you in some leagues at least short term or what have you.
Spot start stream. I don't know, but I think we'll let Chicago Farmer
take us out. Matt be well, talk to you next time. See
Yu ritten to his head. He hop him down the first with the lump
bone in his face, and on the very next pitch he up in stove
second face with greatest speed. He wasn't born. He had the dirdy.
Yes, Ni Borne