Nine, five miles an hour, riding to his head. He hopped down
first with the lumpbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and
stole second face with greatst be he wasn't born, he had yes. Well.
Welcome to episode thirteen of the Prospect B Sides podcast. I am your
host Nate Handy, joined again by the hottest rookie in the B siding land,
Matt. Matt, how are you my friend? Burning up? You
know it's turning fall here, and so we've got the central air pumping even
though it's like a lovely fifty degrees outside. So I'm hot. So,
Matt, we had the forty man rosters get settled. What yesterday was the
deadline? Some players that we've talked about in the past couple episodes here that
got protected and unprotected, And I was just curious, maybe you had some
thoughts on some of these guys, as Troy Johnston was not protected, So
you think Rule five draft is gonna happen for him? There? I gotta
think some some teams would be, uh, would be interested or taking a
look. I gotta think so. I mean, he was one that I
think we speculated about. Would he get protected or not. And you know,
he's the kind of guy that often goes unprotected in Rule five draft just
because it's not upside play. It's more, you know, depth on your
big league squad, Like he's going to be a big leaguer, but how
much impact is that going to be? But I think it's weird that Miami
didn't protect him, Like that's kind of a guy that they might need,
right, But I don't know that that one was a bit odd to me.
Yeah, and I saw another one of your hitter draft d's playe Krim
went unprotected, but you had kind of for so a that happening. Yeah,
I think that that one makes more sense to me because the Rangers have
just a lot of depth, especially at the positions that he can play.
And he's worse too, I think than Johnston. Just the overall packages is
not quite as good. You know, obviously, with Nathaniel Lowe and Justin
Foscue firmly ahead of him in the exact same position, it's not a big
surprise to see Krim go unprotected, But I wonder if they're if at or
might might pick him up and see what he can do. Yeah, I
was kind of looking at two different, three different kind of sources to gather
this information. But I think Turso or Naels also went unprotected. Yes,
a little interesting in regards to the Rule five draft perhaps and then maybe maybe
some lesser names that that I don't think are really uh probably Rule five radar,
but but what do I know. Alberto Rodriguez or Williams Sedanio, Yadiel
Sanchez, Shay Whitcombe, Miguel Palma, a guy that I'm going to talk
about tonight, Dan Frees, Christian Serda, and JJ Dirazzio who we talked
about last week. Those guys all went unprotected, but I'm guessing they probably
stay where they are, right. We did have some of our peace siders
get protected, which is nice to see, especially for them. Kyder Montero,
who was my Tigers pitching selection last season, Kennedy Corona, Darryl Hernees
with the A's pitcher with the A's that we had briefly mentioned, Basso got
protected. Pitcher with the Rangers that you had briefly brought up, Jose Corneel,
and then Matt, look at this are three giant arms that we got
into the most your boy tang Trevor McDonald and Eric Miller all made the forty
man. I was pleasantly surprised to see that McDonald made it on my couch
here. I didn't think that they would think that would be a guy that
they need to protect from other teams. But there they go. They they
done did it. Yeah, that one was a surprise, But I think
it is a real feather in your cap to call that one and say,
hey, this is a guy worth following, because, like you said,
the production history isn't long, but what he has done has been really impressive.
That is the kind of guy that you could see get scooped up,
shoved into the back of a bullpen and someone carries him all year and then
they've got him for cheap for a long time. So it's like the kind
of profile that you can see somebody scooping in a Rule five. But great
call by you to see that one coming. Yeah, we'll see how that
goes. And then my Phillies picture selection. Obviously we haven't gotten there yet,
but I saw they protected a little spoiler here, Samuel elde Gary,
who's a left hand pitcher in their system in the lowers still, so that
was kind of interesting to see now, Matt, we have done the AL
West, the NL West, We'll be getting into the AL Central tonight,
right And I had kind of just zoomed out a little bit and put a
little list together of games that we have brought up in the shows, and
I noticed something kind of interesting that I wanted to just bring up here.
In our drafts. AL West we had six players, the N West we
had eight players. In the AL Central, which we'll talk about tonight,
we had seven players, and then in the remaining three divisions we only selected
three players apiece in our drafts. I find this geography a little bit interesting.
Now. Do you think that we have a West Coast bias here,
you being in the Northwest and me being in the Rocky Mountains or West Coast
Best coast baby, or do you think that it just so happens that b
siding is a little richer the further you get away from the East Coast and
all of the coverage over there. On prospects, I am gonna guess that
this isn't a product of East Coast bias, you know, while there may
be some of that, I mean, but I think of like I picked
Caleb Durban and he's a Yankees prospect, right and sure that's like is the
Pittsburgh minor league hype machine up and running? You know? Like are people
really hyped about the Nationals pipeline or you know what I mean? Like,
I just don't know if that East Coast bias extends down to the minor leagues.
And I'm guessing that this is more just a product of who who is
available within the realm that we're looking at, but there could be something to
that. No. I have noticed over the last couple of seasons and wondered
about this. I feel like the Kale League, the Northwest League, the
Texas League. I kind of feel like maybe we've had our best B side
success stories come from those leagues, which of course are further west. Maybe
even the Midwest League to some extent too. So I don't know, just
something I noticed and it's a little curious about. And I don't know,
Matt, if you saw the Welsh and the toasts of the Welsh here,
if it wasn't for Chris Welsh prospect one, this podcast probably wouldn't exist.
So thank you Welch. But he was he and Frank Stample from CBS I
saw interviewed Carson Williams after an AFL game. I don't know if it was
All Star Game or what it was, but he says something really interesting to
me and let me And this kind of started a couple of years ago when
I had first started doing some stuff at pitcher List. I was in their
discord and I had brought up the notion of minor leaguers. How do I
say it, sort of playing pitching, hitting to development versus pitching playing,
et cetera. Two results right, And I got a lot of I got
a lot of pushback during that conversation. Folks. You know, no way
these guys are competing. They're out there to produce the best that they can.
I don't know what it was. Maybe a year or two later,
I heard Jeff Ponce talking to the then Mariners double a pitching coach, and
him talking a little bit about how it is tricky, how that is a
tricky thing for a coach, results right now versus results later becoming better for
the future. But fast forwarding to this interview, I heard Carson Williams say
something to the effect of talking about the AFL saying, this is practice right.
They had asked a question about his AFL stats. I believe, but
he said this is practice, right, he said, the minor leagues,
it's all practice. It's all practice for the big leagues, that thing,
that concept is kind of always at the forefront for me when I'm watching some
minor leaders, specifically pitchers. I don't know, I was going to say,
no, I was going to say, I think that that can be
a lot more true for pitchers than for hitters. And this gets back at
something we were talking about a little while ago, where a pitcher can really
pop up, I think a lot faster than a hitter can, you know,
learn a new your development gets better, and all of a sudden,
one off season comes and you're throwing harder, or you've worked on your pitch
shapes, or you're positioning. Like one change can do a lot for a
pitcher, It is a lot harder to do that one change. For a
hitter. It is a lot rarer, I think, to see a big
change like I was just working on something, but now I'm doing it for
real as a hitter. I mean, it just happens. The pitch sequence
happens so fast that you kind of can't fake it, you know, you
can't really be like, oh I'm in practice mode. It's practice mode ends
up looking like real competitive mode, you know what I mean? Like that's
I think that that's it's just a harder thing to turn on for a hitter,
especially game to game or definitely at bat to at bat. So I
find, Yeah, what Williams is saying about this is all practice for the
big leagues, that is true, but what is practice look like for a
hitter versus a pitcher. For a hitter, your practice looks more like this
is what game speed is going to be at the big league level, and
you don't want to throw away those reps. So I tend to think that
you see a little more of that experimentation on the pitching side, where I'm
focusing on a pitch that maybe isn't my bread and butter, isn't good because
I wanted to get it to okay rather than the bad where it is.
Whereas with hitting, it's like your approach is your approach, and your swing
is your swing, and it just you are using that same thing over and
over again. It's tough. I know in my experience, like I was
constantly I was a tinkerer. I was always had some little change to my
stance or hands or bat position, or was always thinking about what pitch was
coming and what I was trying to do with that pitch, probably to my
detriment, honestly, Like, that's probably too much thinking the slow part of
your brain rather than competing with the fast part of your brain. You know
those psychological terms. But I think that was me who wasn't very good,
and these guys, like the guys that are really good, they're constantly competing
and it's a lot harder to fake it as a hitter. I think it's
funny you mentioned that thinking thing. There was at some point in the Rockies
season there was some sort of team meeting that some players had talked about,
or maybe I heard it from a Bud Black interview, but the gist was
Black men got all the young guys together and was basically trying to tell them
that they needed to stop thinking that they're going to be at the best when
they were at the plate brain shut off. Strongly agree. You know,
I are many many listeners don't know, but my hobby for keeping in good
shape is playing tennis. That's sort of a recent thing for me. In
the last couple of years I've picked up tennis and I really love it.
It's so fun. But it's been a fascinating reintroduction into this idea of how
do you get better and how do you perform? Because tennis, like baseball,
there's a lot of room for thinking, a lot of like what would
I do in this situation or this thing is happening and I have to make
a split second decision. Do I throw it to second, do I throw
it to first? Do I hit a cross court? Do I hit it
down the line? A lot of similarities, But I find myself in tennis
thinking too much, and recently I've been playing quite a bit better, I
think, and part of this is because I'm doing a better job of shutting
off that thinking part, and I'm just like, yeah, you hit a
slice serve out wide, rather than thinking about, oh, that means I
should slice it back cross court short to draw you in and then do this
Like, that's too much thinking to happen in the half second that it takes
from the ball to gain from their racket to mine. Instead, it's just
watch the ball, see the spin, and just let your shot happen.
And that has a lot of similarities to hitting in baseball. And when I
was going best at hitting, it was definitely because I was in and wasn't
thinking about too many things and said was doing See Matt, this is reason
number seven hundred and fifty four. Pitchers are better than hitters because hitters have
to be brain dead individuals up there. Well, pitchers have to use their
their brains, they have to use their heads, they have to think about
their choices. They do. But I think that the act of executing a
pitch is still the same thing. Yeah, you get the chance to think
about it ahead of time, like I'm gonna throw this pitch and I'm going
for this location. But in order to make that actually happen, you kind
of can't think. You can't like overthink about where is it gonna go.
Sure, I maintain that the performance of a pitch is the same as the
performance of a swing. It's just that because you get to initiate the action,
you can plan a little bit more ahead of time, you know what
I mean? Sure, I agree there's but they still have to use their
brains where hitters don't really have them. So, yeah, except no pictures
call their own game these days, it's all to do and Oh, I
don't know. I see some of those guys pushing some buttons on that thing
like that, like and gallon, gallon, and that's it. Maybe more
of them should call their own games. Anyways, let's let's get into it.
Huh. Let's get into the al central here. Last last week I
had made some sort of snide remark about how this might be torturous, But
I don't think b siding in this division is torturous. We took, like
I said, we took seven players in our drafts. That's the second most
out of any division. Why don't we start with your Chicago White Sox as
behind you. It's it's it ain't easy, Matt. It ain't easy.
Forty three years of this and I think I've I've got a foot out the
door. But yeah, okay, let's uh. I don't have much say
about pictures because I selected Tyler Schweitzer in our Pictures draft. I like the
look of him and his potential as a starting pitcher in their system. I
think has a nice, full starter's repertoire that has been getting some teeth.
I'm looking for him to be in Double A at some point this next year.
Will get a little better idea. Last season, I had selected Cole
Simus, and very reluctantly I didn't know if he was going to be a
starter reliever. He did not have a very good season. I did not
have a ton of interest in Cole Simus. I do think that he could
potentially be a serviceable reliever. But enough of him. What do you got,
Matt, You got any interesting arms? Well, I'll start on a
down note, because you know, you seemed like you were leaning into someone
trying to talk you out of your fandom. Here on the pitching side,
it wasn't great. The two guys that I think people are familiar with and
maybe have some broader interests in Mana and Mistrini. I think both are pretty
well known and are I think both decent. They've both got a shot to
be real contributors. But they were way too owned for this, so they
were not interesting to me. And the guy that I was going to take,
I realized I mostly was going to take based on what he had done
in the Yankees organization, so I was going to take one Corella, but
he came over in a trade this year with the White Sox and was pretty
bad after the trade. Like I watched some of the video, and you
know, he's like twenty one, kind of a skinny, athletic looking right
hander, and the stuff plays decently like he gets his strikeouts pretty well,
except that they really regressed after the trade. The walks also ticked up from
acceptable to not good, and I was like, you know, we got
to give it another season before we can call this really a White Sox B
side. He's someone to monitor because I think there's a lively arm there and
the stuff looked okay, maybe he can pull it together. So I decided
not to go with him, maybe also hedging with like the White Sox might
screw this guy up. So I am picking on the pitching side, a
guy by the name of Mason Adams. He is an athletic looking righty as
well, little bit more of a three quarter whippie delivery ninety one to five
on the fastball. He might throw two fastballs. I saw a lot of
two seamers, a lot of two seam sinker types, which works well from
that arm slot, and he gets a decent number of ground balls off of
the fastball as well as his other pitches too. His gyro slider slash cutter
is pretty firm. It's in the mid to upper eighties. I got it
a lot in the eighty seven eighty eight range. So like that paired with
this two seamer that's kind of running the other way. Also gets a decent
number of ground balls and a decent number of whiffs. His line for the
full year, he ended the year at double A. He spent most of
the year at high but he ended the art at double A. Twenty seven
percent strikeout rate, six point three percent walk rate. So you know how
I love that combo right, striking guys out and not walking them. That's
a recipe for success. So I liked what he had. You know,
he mixed in a curve and a change that was a little firmer than I
would like. I think the change maybe doesn't play. It was really like
primarily two pitches in the two seam and the slider cutter. But then he'll
mix in some curves as well and then ask us a few change ups to
lefties. Yeah, it's a it's a four pitch mix that I don't know.
For someone that got drafted in the twelfth round in twenty twenty two,
he looked pretty good. And whether that's a development win for the White Sox
or just a diamond in the ref that they found. He looks like a
back end starter material to me. So I liked what I saw out of
Adams, and he seems like a true White Sox that nobody's talking about.
I mean, he was zero percent owned when I saw this when I pulled
this in September. I haven't looked at the the latest fan tracks members,
but Mason Adams, I think is not someone that is finding a lot of
coverage on other lists. And I don't think he was on ba's top thirty
for them, and I haven't seen much on him otherwise. So Mason Adams,
I think, is a nice diamond in the rough for your Chicago White
Sox. Right on. Nice. I am not familiar. I purposely do
not pay much attention to the White Sox farm system. I don't need the
double pain. Obviously, I'm not completely naive to what they got going on.
I will tune in and watch some guys from time to time, but
in all I try to I try to avert my eyes to it all.
So thank you. I had no clue who that was. So right on,
that's Matt I think last season, I think we picked pretty nice B
sider here in centerfielder Jacob Burke, who hm I think has has a chance
here now. He's still as of September was still only one percent rostered,
so still very much in B side territory. He was in the AFL this
last month. I think he did some things that Beckhead had mentioned that he
kind of got his attention when he was down there. Plays his game really
hard. Let's see, he was in single A and hi A this season.
Eleventh round draft pick out of Miami last year, Like I said,
hit two ninety four, three ninety two on base, slugged four thirty nine,
hit what like six home runs, stole nineteen bases. But yeah,
especially in that system, I think I think he's got a real shot to
get some time. It's not like he's got a leap frog a old ton
of talent, I don't think. So. Another guy to keep an eye
on this season. Yeah, I don't know my short list here. There
are some names to some extent, right, DJ Gladney Wilfred. I don't
really particularly care for either of those those bats. I don't know if you
watched any Matt Oh, Yeah, I actually love the White suck system for
B siding. I'm going to jump in here because I actually think there's a
ton of interesting guys here of one type or another. This was one of
my favorite ones to go through. There were actually a lot that I watched
because I kept being like, Oh, this guy's interesting for this reason or
the other. But Varus is someone I wanted to touch on just because I
think he's so funny, Like he looks like he shouldn't be fast, but
he's fast. You know, he's kind of rotund, but he stole twenty
four bags this year, and as a corner outfielder, he's got some athleticism
to him that you wouldn't really expect just seeing him stand there. He hit
seventeen homers, you know, over basically a full season, so it's not
nothing with the bat. And I'm not sure how their double A park plays,
but I seem to remember being average to below. You know, it's
like a real a decent showing for to put up seventeen humbers. So I
actually liked Varius quite a lot. He was almost my selection, but ended
up ended up moving away from him because the k's were a little high and
I did think that he was being maybe a bit more opportunistic with his steals
rather than like this is showing that real plus speed. I do think Varius
has a future eighty grade though being out of shape and fat, I know,
I was like, what is this eighty grade? I don't think so.
Yeah, he's he's pretty portly, okay, okay, well fair enough,
fair enough. I don't know if you watched what this tenth round pick
got ole miss. Last year, tim Elko hit like almost thirty home runs,
but I think the majority of those were maybe an a ball or high
a. He strikes out quite a bit, though I don't know about I
don't know about all that there. They do have this catcher who well,
I kind of liked that that. I watched a little lefty Michael Turner,
probably more of a potential real life prospect. I don't. I think he's
a little light hitting. And then I was curious what you think about loidl
Chappelli. I think that's how you say it. I love him like I
love it, like, yeah, he's one of those. He's one of
those. He's like five two and you love those, Yeah, I do.
He's tiny and he's he you know like that. He's definitely not someone
who wows you and even some of the other things that I usually like,
having really good plate skills, like you think with this kind of little spark
plug type, but he's got too much swing in the miss for me,
you know, strikes out when he almost twenty five percent of the time this
year. And yeah, he's tiny, but I actually love the way he
plays, like he flies around the yard. He hits a lot of line
drives, stole twenty six bags. He was someone that I also almost picked,
but ultimately I'm not sure that the plate skills are actually as good as
they've been so far, Like with you know, limited impact, I'm not
sure he's going to walk thirteen percent of the time as he goes up.
I think it's it'd be more like average to below there. And he just
doesn't have another carrying tool to really carry him, I don't think. But
he I loved watching him play. He was somebody that was really fun.
I figured you would because he was short. Okay, to actually get to
our pick here, I think we're are we selecting the same guy? We
are? We are? So I'll let you talk about him because I have
like three other guys. I also wanted to mention, I'm telling you about
the White Sox. Al Right, okay, all right, Well I was
gonna go with Brooks Baldwin, who was a what twenty twenty two to twelfth
round pick out of North Carolina? What is it Wilmington? Is that right?
He's played third base, shortstop, center field, second base, first
base, but then when he was promoted to Hya, he strictly played shortstop.
I don't know. Watching him, he felt like more of a second
day draft sort of talent to me than a third day Yeah. Probably more
of like a line drive hitter and does hit some home runs. He had
fifteen home runs, but you know they're more of like line drives that leave
the part struck out twenty one points seven percent of the time, walked to
ten point six percent of the time. He slugged four sixty. I don't
know. There's just like a little mix of hit and pop here that I
think could play. This was interesting to me, Matt, you and I
wanted to ask you about the park factors here. And I don't know if
you looked at this, but he had some pretty drastic home and away splits
this year. He was awful away. I thought that was kind of interesting.
It is interesting, but I don't think Winston Salem is a big park
factor one way or another. Okay, all right, the look of him
from the left side there. I don't know if you noticed this, and
we had talked about this a little bit, but I noticed that he dips
his head in his swing often. I don't know if that's something real concerning
or not, but I know that we talked about not wanting to see that.
But I don't know. Overall, I just kind of felt this was
maybe my best option, and I think he does have a shot to be
maybe sort of like a utility type for that organization. I think he is
fairly decent defensively. He'll be in the uppers as a I don't know what
twenty three year old this season I'm guessing, and I don't know. I
think he's liable of putting up some numbers that would get Dynasty owners' attention.
He stole twenty two bases. I think he can run a little bit.
I don't know, Matt, what do you think he might have been a
little bit more optimistic? I don't know. I agree with everything that you
said. He isn't someone that I like. He wasn't on my list to
draft in our hit or draft. I think that he is sort of a
limited ceiling guy, but I liked that he did a lot of things pretty
well. You know, he is athletic. I do think he can play
multiple positions. He strikes out below average, a blow average amount, walks
a slightly above average amount, has some power, you know, it's probably
a fifty, but he also probably has a fifty or fifty five speed and
athleticism, and I just like that combination of things that it gives him a
little something to fall back on. He played some short this year, he
played some third, he played some outfield. Like I don't think a big
league regular, but I do think he's a guy that makes the big leagues
because of that utility kind of profile. That's what that's what kind of stood
out to me about him is that you know, in two or three years,
he's going to be twenty five, but he's going to be on somebody's
twenty five man roster because he can do a little bit of a lot of
stuff. And I agree that he was the best of the kind of B
siding options for this team this year, and so I fully co signed this
was my pick as well, but I wanted to touch on at least it
feels to me too. Sorry, it feels to me too like the White
Sox have forever like struggled to get some left handed bats in their lineup too,
so him being a left he might might benefit him a little bit in
that system. He's a switch hitter, right, Yeah, he's a switcher.
Yeah. Yeah, he's better as a lefty though. Yeah, but
I did like this right handed swing too, you know, I thought that
his I noticed that sort of dip that you were talking about on the left
and on the right hand side it's sort of a smoother but I think a
little more line drive, contact oriented swing. So it's yeah, he's good.
I think he's an interesting kind of kind of guy who might fill out
a roster on a decent team. I liked Baldwin as well. This is
Brooks, not not Drake Brooks, not related though I don't think, I
do not think they are related. No, I wanted to touch on Sean
Gusenberg. You know, he is a speed over power guy, but again,
one of those interesting ones that has played first base, second base,
left field, so they've moved him around to see see what he has.
Everything looked a tick below average to me. So whereas like Baldwin, I
thought maybe was like average to maybe a touch above on a couple of things,
Gusenberg was like maybe a slightly above average on speed, but below average
on hit and power and everything. So it didn't quite add up to me.
But I thought was an interesting guy, especially with some of the diversity
and skill set. I think the guy that I was most excited about this
is somebody that I only saw what Twitter clips of. So here's here's someone
that I cannot wait to get to full season ball next year. Javier mcgoyon
only played in the DSL last year, but he was seventeen, so really
young. I don't think he had a big signing bonus in their last year's
J two class. His line was one of my favorite, like one of
the best in the DSL last year, forty seven games. He hit three
p fifteen four seventeen five eighty two, ten homers, eleven steals, struck
out fourteen percent of the time, walked thirteen point six percent of the time.
Like again, it's the DSL. A lot of these numbers don't mean
anything, but I liked that he did that kind of a line and just
had a three twenty three bab it to me, that says like, a
he's young for the level, even for the DSL. If you're seventeen in
performing, it's way better, far more predictive than if you're nineteen and you
do the same line. So I liked that and the way that he got
to it, I think is really interesting. So he's a name for me
that is like, if I need someone to really speculate on at the very
back end of a roster, like mogoy On's a guy that I might take
the later rounds of any deeper FYPD this year because if there is some some
signal to that line, then this is the kind of guy that might come
to the Complex or to full season ball and really show out and become one
of those guys that everyone gets super hyped on. So Mogoian, I only
saw just a couple of clips of him online, but I think he's really
interesting. Okay, and they they can't trade him for James Shields anymore.
That's good. I'm not saying he's going to be to tease, but he
he is interesting. Man. I don't you have a fan of the of
the Rakies and the White Sax. It's not it's not glorious. And there's
a lot of Rackies jokes, but turn them into White Sox jokes. They're
better. Sucks jokes are better, all right, Matt, Let's go to
the Mistake by the Lake Cleveland. We've had a little success here, I
think, at least with some bats. Jose Tania has made the big leagues.
He was a pick a few years ago. John Kenzie, Noel,
you're kind of a fan, aren't you. I am. He's running out
of time to put it together, but I've been a fan of his for
a while. He's only like twenty two years old though, right, I
know, but it's a long minor league history of striking out too much and
showing power but not quite getting it to enough. And I don't know,
we'll see. I thought it was kind of interesting he hit twenty seven home
runs in Triple A this year and that was good for a four to twenty
slug. But I think that was a success though. I definitely traded those
shares away. In twenty twenty two, I went with kind of reluctantly,
Christian Cairo. I saw him playing. He hit two ninety in the AFL
this year, I don't hold out a bunch of major league hope for him,
but I don't I don't think that that's over with. He's only twenty
two years old. I don't know. I thought that was kind of interesting.
Last year I went with Aaron Davenport as my pitcher, who I had
liked as a deep, sleeping pitching prospect from his draft, and he repeated
high A and I don't think anything has really changed or progressed there. But
I do think he might still have a chance as a reliever with his fastball
curveball combination. But this season I happened to be a little bit excited about
the arm selection. I'm gonna go with Jackson Humphries, who was a twenty
twenty two to eighth round pick out of North Carolina. North Carolina, a
prep pick. I think he's currently nineteen years old. If I'm not mistaken,
Lefty, this isn't like a nothing prep prospect here. He was eighteenth
ranked lefty in Perfect Game twenty twenty two and was gaining some momentum as a
draft was nearing. He's listed at six one, two hundred pounds, but
he seems a little bit tall to me than that. Interested that Cleveland who
does interest in things with pitchers, I think sought him out and paid him
six hundred k. Humphreys is starting to hit some top thirty lists, I
do believe, yet there's still that much dynasty popularity. And I very much
liked the minimal, minimal looks on the archives this last year. After thirty
four rookie ball innings, he got in six A ball starts in August and
September. I watched, I believe I watched all of those four of those.
I thought he looked. He looks pretty good. His fastball get up
to the mid nineties. He's got the full slider, curveball, change starter
toolkit. I think he may have been throwing a cutter too. On occasion.
It looked to me like there were some fastballs that were kind of going
two different ways. And you know, being a Cleveland guy, I do
think that there is some plus in the secondary offerings. All four of his
pitches flashed as with pitches see him getting strikeouts on all four of those offerings.
As a lefty, we did get a Fayetteville look that was pretty interesting.
I know it's not the greatest angle for a lefty, but it's much
nicer than a lot of a lot of the angles you get down there to
watch a lefty. Your boy Lofton went zero for two against him, but
he did take him to the warning track and that was that was one of
the rare hard hit balls. His era wasn't that great. And those six
starts five point three two, he had a one point one eight wh he
struck out twenty four and what twenty four innings twenty three and two thirds he
walked. I don't have total walks, but those three point zero four per
nine. Like I said, he did give up a couple of home runs
in those six starts, I believe didn't seem to get squared up too much.
And you know was was pitching, was trying to locate in sequence in
different ways, different parts of the plate, and overall I think just a
good looking, real solid teenage pitching prospect. And that was definitely good enough
for me to go with him with the with the Cleveland team. Here interesting
I and am almost allergic to pitching prospects that are that young. Like I
just think the bus rate is so high and it's so hard. It's just
so rare for them to keep their stuff and command and add to it.
It's like, it's one of the reasons why I think I care a lot
less about age to level for pictures than I do for hitters. So this
is a guy I didn't watch at all, so like, it sounds intriguing,
although I'm curious about the walks, maybe like that, if you're already
showing some walk signs, is that going to persist. It's not awful,
but it's just wondering if that's gonna stick around. But yeah, go and
teenage pictures. There's a combo of stuff and command here that I think could
definitely jump up in that system relatively soon. And yes, I agree,
young pictures are very tough. Old pictures can be very tough too. But
the only other guy that I really was watching her into is Ross Carver again,
who've kind of been into for a few years now. Was a I
don't know, like an eighteenth round draft pick of the Diamondbacks and then traded
him I don't know what the trade was to Cleveland. He was a Kyle
ofge arm that I thought had some really good looking secondaries and was kind of
hoping that Cleveland would help him develop the fastball a little bit more like they've
done with a lot of their arms, and I don't know if that's really
happened with him. He did have a decent I think AFL, but Ross
Carver was was. It was really just kind of down those two guys for
me. Yeah, this system was harder on the pitching side. Kind of
had to bend our roster limit rules to really find someone that I thought was
worth talking about. I mean, watched a couple of guys who might be
relievers in Zach Jacob and Franco Aliman, I think probable relievers, but I
just couldn't get super excited about either one. Although Franco Alaman did have a
pretty good year up in Double A as a reliever of thirty six percent strikeout
rate seven point seven percent. That's pretty good and it seems like he's going
to make the bigs as a reliever, but everybody else was higher on the
ownership percentage five percent for Parker Messic and I think, you know, I
love Joey Cantillo. I think he's someone who's has had that command. And
then the stuff ticked up and was super interesting and then kind of lost some
of his command, and I'm a little bit less interested these days, Like
I actually trade him a couple of times this year, But I still think
there's something there. He's kind of that b side archetype of when nobody was
on him when he threw eighty nine, but he was striking everybody out and
wasn't walking anybody, ated a little bit of a vlow And now everyone's like,
oh, he might be a real guy, and now he's walking everybody,
and I'm less interested. I like to joke around that I'll take a
prep piccher in a first year player draft, unlike Olympic years, like every
four years or so, I'll take one. He was one that I actually
took in a few leaks, but I think I have thus since traded him
everywhere. Yeah, Yeah, he's someone I still think I have a share
too in a couple of deep leagues. But and I think there's a lot
to like there. Hoping the guy that I'm gonna take here follows a somewhat
similar path, because you know Cantillo, I think when I pulled it was
like at fifteen percent, and I think that's likely to rise again this year
as he gets pretty close to making the major leagues. Wouldn't be surprised if
we see him in the BIGS next year. The guy I'm going to take
his call is named Will Dion. You would watch one pitch? I don't
know, have you watched have you watched any of Dion? So like you
see you see him throw one pitch? And who does Who's he trying to
be? Oh? I don't know. I don't have the tableau of him
on the mound hit in my head. Here he is a spitting image of
Clayton Kershaw too, yeah, down to the pause in the middle of mister
Parker does that too, Yeah, yeah, yeah, the whole thing.
You know, Lefty drop and drive, very similar action to Kershaw, but
throws his fastball tops out at eighty nine like what late career Kershaw uh fastball
top tat at not the mid nineties plus plus pitch that Kershaw had, So
that I think that's where people aren't really on him. He's three percent fan
tracks ownership, so it's still not that far off our usual zeros in one
percent. He's not on a lot of lists. I think he made Clegg's
Top five hundred, but just barely in the very very back end. But
I like what he's done. You know, even for five nine soft toss
and lefty, he spins that fastball so that he gets swifts on it at
the top of the zone and pop gets a lot of pop ups. He's
got a good curveball that he has pretty good feel for, and a slider
and a change and he'll throw all of them. So you know, he
has four pitches and he pitches off all of them. So I really like
this kind of pitcher, Like he sounds kind of similar to some of the
leftis that I've taken him so far in our drafts and in some of the
other organizations that we've done, And he really ended the year on quite heater.
You know, his last eighteen and two thirds innings pitch he had twenty
six strikeouts, two walks, and gave up two runs in that stretch.
So that was at double A. Like he's at near He's knocking on the
door at this point. And the only couple of reports that I had seen
on him all talked about how his fastball isn't plus, like it's a thirty
five fastball. And I know that you have some problems with the grades on
pitches. Grades generally but especially grades on pitchers. And he's the kind of
guy that I agree with you, Like you're really telling me that this is
a thirty five, so a standard deviation and a half below major league average,
even though it clearly has plus spin and is getting wfs at double A.
And he's left handed, and he has kind of a flat approach angle
with the kind of drop and drive and where his release point is. Like
to me, I don't have the stat cast data on these to see exactly
his extension pitch and plot it against all the others, But to me,
the deception on this pitch causes that fastball that there, it's no doubt Bigley
gaverage to me, like maybe a tick below. Maybe it's a forty five,
but it seems like a fifty to me, like a lefty that can
throw it like that, Like it seems like there's enough other things that cause
it to play up. It just seems like it's getting judged based solely on
its velocity, when I think we're beyond that these days in saying there's a
lot of things about a fastball, about any pitch that help it play up
or down based on the pitch characteristics, But we still talk about the pitches,
I think mostly from their velocity. I end up picking Dionne because I
wanted to talk a little bit about that, and his performance up to this
point has been really, really good. I think we're going to see him
probably make it to Triple A next year, and we'll see if the fastball
ticks up again. I'm not going to bet on it, both because he's
particularly small. He also looks kind of maxed out. He's twenty three.
You think it's gonna be twenty four next year. It's hard to see that
kind of velo getting added for him. But what I've seen already looks like
a pretty high probability back into the big league starter. So that that's a
guy that has used in deep leagues, I think I'm definitely guilty, even
someone who doesn't put a ton on velocity, a ton of weight on velocity,
like maybe your average fantasy player, and guilty of sort of riding him
off because of the velocity. I mean, maybe I need to look at
the fastball a little bit more. But here's one thing that is tough though,
Matt with B siding, is like, if we're just solely trying to
pick up some arms that we want to flip or try to get a trade
chip out of. It's just really tough to get people interested in a guy
who throws out the eighties and get any value at the trade table. No,
I agree with you. I agree with you, but I will say
that rather than this guy being that kind where I think the stock is going
to go up, to use the stupid stock market terms that we see people
talk about all the time, I actually think that he's a guy who you
hold in a thirty teen points league until he makes the back of the Cleveland
rotation in two years, and then you've got one hundred and twenty innings of
depth that was absolutely free that nobody had, you know. So that's that's
what I think. He just ends up sticking to the team and being useful
too, especially in Yeah, that's what I mean. That's what I mean.
It's like, you wait, you hold on to him for two years
and he's going to make the majors and he's going to be like, have
a season like Bryce Elder, did you know what I mean? Where it's
like people weren't really on him because he doesn't throw hard, and then he's
turned in a season and a half of like plus production. Right. Yeah,
so I might have like one hundred percent ownership of Tommy Henry right now.
Yeah, now that they're like the same picture or anything like that.
But another guy that I liked, and I think he's probably overperformed most people's
expectations so far in the majors, but he's sticking around and helping me because
he wasn't he wasn't getting anything on the trade table. I know that,
Yeah, and I gut like that for me was Tommy Romero from a couple
of years ago. And this is not a success story, right, Like
he was coming up in the Tampa organization, had one of those super high
spin fastballs, but he was alridy that topped down at like ninety one one
trick. It was like he threw eighty percent fastballs and still got people out.
But he never really could develop his other pitches. And so he's almost
he's almost the poster child for me of what I don't like about the Rays
pitching development because they really had him lean into his plus pitch. Yeah,
he didn't learn how to do anything else. Yeah, it's just like they
like I don't know, like a plastic piece like Okay, We're just gonna
get you, get you through and get your useful as fast as we can,
and this is your weapon, and rinse and repeat. We'll get some
more, all right. The Cleveland Guardians minor League, that situation, the
land of the noodle Bath. I don't know, Matt, this level of
raster. Yep, there wasn't a whole lot that I was super into.
There's Angel Genoa, Jake Fox, Jose Devers, Luis Durango were some hitters
that I watched a decent chunk of very much kind of the Cleveland sort of
contact hopepols. I think I don't know how much juice is in all of
those bats. They're all still very young, nineteen twenty years old. I
think you're going to talk about one of those, right, Matt. I'm
just kind of sticking sticking with a guy that I've written about a little bit
and I have enjoyed watching at the plate and in the field. And that's
day On Freees, who's I think twenty one maybe twenty two years old now,
Colombian who is at hy A plays third base and around the infield.
But I saw him make some pretty nice plays at third base. I think
that might be might be the best fit for him. But in three hundred
and ninety seven plate appearances, he hit eleven home runs, stole eight bases.
Nothing super crazy there, hit two sixty three point fifty six on base
twenty six slug struck out twenty percent of the time, walked thirteen percent of
the time. He's a switch hitter. I like his sort of all fields
approach, line drive. I think he mechanically looks nice at the plate,
stays real still, I think from both sides, not super exciting, but
I think he is a guy who has a chance. He is Rule five
eligible. I don't see that happening. But again, what do I know
about those things he was left unprotected? I don't know. I've got a
thing for a little Columbian bats who like to let the ball travel and try
to do some damage going the other way. I guess Jordan Diaz as well.
But I've liked the look of Freees for a few seasons now, and
I'm just gonna I'm just gonna stick with that. Yeah, I like free
S too. Like you said, he's a fun player. That profile is
interesting, and he has done enough I think to remain worth a follow for
sure. I feel like his home run total should have been better than eleven.
He's got some pop in there, but we'll see. Maybe maybe he
just needs to hit out in front more to realize that power, like you
like to say in that but that's right. But I think he's I think
he's a bat that could, you know, put together real professional abs and
have a shot maybe fit in nicely with with some of those high contact guys
that they are after. Yeah, that is definitely the Cleveland organization as a
whole. You know, we're referencing before he came on Jeff Ponce and Dylan
White's workover at Baseball America about the or rankings. Cleveland has the type.
They don't hit a lot of homers. They make a ton of contact both
in the zone. I don't think they chase very much, or maybe they
were mid in chase, but they just made a ton of contact. They
were just like super aggressive with the bat to ball control. And you see
a ton of guys like that in their organization. Tana Rocchio, Brito Devers,
Free Us. It's everywhere, man, It's yeah. Even they're popping
guys in de Laughter and Manzarto before, guys that have like real power.
They don't strike out very much, like there's a lot of contact in both
their bats. Yeah, and Cleveland's actually been an interesting order for me.
I've liked a lot of their guys through the years. I was a big
George Valera guy the last couple of years, and he had a really disappointing
year. And as you mentioned John Kenzie Noel he's another one that I really
like, but he's been a little disappointing the past year and a half or
so. And those are there like two power only bats. You know,
everybody else is like contact first, power second, or maybe never. The
guy that is my B side is a guy took in the in our hit
or draft in CJ. Kafis, who is like, yeah, I forget
about that. Sorry, yeah, first base, left field guy who just
had one of the best pro debuts of anybody, like literally including Wyatt Langford,
like his was almost as good as that, but small sample. It
is like seventy seven played appearances or something, and he hit a bunch of
homers, didn't strike out, walked, he did all the things that I
liked, and I just I was like, I'm stamping him. He's he's
my FYPD guy. I won't be surprised if I end up with him in
a bunch of places, just because I'm going to reach first consensus on him.
But I did like the look of a few other guys, you know.
Jose Devers is one you mentioned as well that he's a skinny, twitchy
athlete. I think he plays a good defense and that makes it likely he's
going to stick on the dirt. There's not a lot of power here,
and there's less contact than some of their other guys that are a little better.
You know, He's not Rokio who's running a twelve percent strikeout rate.
It's a little higher than that, you know, twenty percent at a ball,
and so that's probably going to tick up to be a bit too much,
and he probably doesn't have the power. But he is another one that
I liked the defense, and he might be one that carves out a bench
bat role at some point down the line. And then I'm a big fan
of cal Manzarto, you know, went to my alma mater, saw him
live a few times, and think that he is despite his sub par year
this year, this is a plus bat with power and contact and he's a
fun kind of hitter who he's going to be someone who I bet when we
see him in the majors, makes a lot of contact, doesn't strike out
very much. His exit velocities, I think are going to be really tightly
packed. His top end exit velocities are not. Plus they're not They're not
really really off the charts or anything. He hits all the balls that he
hits hard, and he hits them at good launch angles. And he's just
a fun hitter, right. He's like one of those guys that he's figured
out his body and his swing. And I'm a big fan. So that's
the pretty boy side of things. But Yeah, for me, I'm gonna
stick on Capus and dream on that seventy seven plate appearances, and I think
he might be the best draftee out of Miami out of University of Miami this
past year, which we'll we'll talk about later on. I think because couple
guys drafted, we've brought up a few former Hurricanes we have this offseason,
this exercise here the Detroit Tigers. I think we've had some b side success
stories here. Andre Lipschiz has made the big leagues, justin Henry molloy has
really become a quite popular prospect who's knocking on the door. I think we
did pretty well with our pitcher last season and Kyder Montero. Do you any
do you have any thoughts on Montero? Are you thank you? Yeah,
he's a major league starter. I think he's going to be a major league
starter. I'm not sure if he's going to be an impact major league starter
yet, but I like the tools and what he's done so far. I'm
a fan last year's bat. I went like, if we would have had
a draft, I might have I might have picked Manuel Sequera, who did
not have a very great season, but in part there was a lot of
injury stints. He's still quite very young, twenty years old. I believe
I'd like to see him get out of a ball and stay healthy. But
there's a bat there with some power who's up till this season, had a
pretty success well pro career, did well in rookie ball and his first stint
today ball. My pitcher this year is going to be I'm gonna say,
for the first year player draft. I admittedly wasn't really in love with many
arms here at this level. So with that being said, you got an
arm for us with the tiers. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you.
I think the arms were a little bit trickier. Looked at a couple
of relievers in Andrew Magno and Tyler Madison. Magno he was okay, a
little too wild for me ultimately even to be like, oh, this is
a big league believer. But Tyler Madison, I think that's guys, that's
Mattison with two teas is going to be a ladening reliever. I think he's
pretty good. You know, the stuff is power ninety five to eight,
looks like good ride. The slider is his secondary pitch, and it's good.
I mean it's firm eighty six to nine. I think I saw some
eighty nine's with good bite, and he gets a lot of swings and misses
with that curveball in the load of mid eighties. Like it's pretty firm and
has good movement with his curveball. He struck out almost thirty eight percent of
batters this year, a little bit on the wild side, which I think
is why he's a reliever with eleven point seven walks. But this, to
me, he just screams back end reliever and a pretty high probability one at
that. So Tyler Madison I think is one to keep an eye on,
like when they put him in the pen this year next, I don't know
he's going to be a guy who might get some saves, like he's that
good, and I just don't think the Tiger's pen is anything you're write home
about. My pick is is Brent Herder, who I'm sure you've come across
before. I don't think I've watched any Herder. Okay, yeah, he's
been around for a while. It's a twenty twenty one seventh rounder, so
you know, it's not like high pro, like high profile or anything.
But he's a huge dude, six six every bit of two fifty maybe even
a little more still even with that size, still sort of a pitch ability
kind of lefty. Tops out at ninety three, but most of his fastballs
are two seamers and the ninety one eighty nine to ninety one range. Didn't
love all of the secondaries like this is probably why I kind of hemmed it
hon and almost picked a reliever for this. He's got a sweeper that has
good action, like it gets big movement, but it got fewer whips than
I thought it should. Just watching it visually his other pitches. You know,
he mixes in a change to right eas and has a curveball that'll he'll
go to occasionally. Something about the whole profile just like aesthetically turned me off.
I don't know it was. It was a lot of things that normally
I like, and the way he put them together. I don't know whether
I just saw a few bad starts or what, but it seemed like I
just was trying to round down on everything, like, yeah, he's got
a ninety two to ninety three mile an hour fastball, but it's objectively worse
than Dion's eighty nine mile an hour fastball. You know, he's got a
big sweeper. But it seemed like everybody was seeing it pretty well. Numbers
on the year were solid, especially most of it. Spent most of the
year at double A and struck out ten per nine two and a half walks
per nine. Like I like both those things good fit. It seems like
when he's on he's really quite good, but he'll have times where he loses
it. So Brent Herder is a guy. Steamer actually really likes him,
projects him for a four to nine fifth next year. Based on what he
did so far, which kind of surprised me just watching him. That's really
good. So I don't know whether there's some park factor stuff worked in there
to make his admittedly pretty good double A line look even better. Yeah,
it's also saying this is a seven strikeout per nine guy, which that's what
it kind of feels like to me. He's struck guys out at a producing
clip so far. I think he's sort of over were performed in that aspect
of it, and I think he's more like a seven or eight strike up
per nine kind of guy. But he does get his grundballs, and I
think Steamer likes that and that'll help him play up. So to me,
Herder seems like a decent bet to make the back end of a bad rotation.
So Brent Hurt is my pick. I'm not thrilled with it, but
there might be something there. My good buddy Matt Vogel, who I stole
the phrase B side from B Side Prospects, I was just looking at one
of his trades that he made in one of our leagues, and Herder was
was part of it. It all very much checks out now, though,
because Vogel is very much a like Select four of the Fats and Nintendo Ice
hockey sort of guy. He likes the Biggs, So that's funny to me.
Brent Herder and James Gonzalez can go start an offensive line together, you
know, with a bunch of my pitchers are they're they're offensive lineman sized.
Totally met Big coming back. We're gonna see more bigs in the bigs.
I think kind of a healthy group of interesting bats here, kind of all
around the high A level. I think for me, maybe some of them
started to get some double a run. But South Stevenson, when he sold
seventy bases this year, I believe, yep, he was interesting. I
just I don't know about much juice in the bat there, but a guy
like that that can be useful to a major league team. Now, I
don't know he was at one percent, but jess Way Brisanio, is that
how you say it? Yeah? I think or Bano I'm not sure,
but yeah, he's someone I think he's really interesting. Yeah, he's a
young, like eighteen year old who has got some a ball run. I
don't know. I just I just felt like he was much more popular than
that. But maybe maybe I was wrong there, but young Venezuela and catcher.
I think it's got some got some juice in the bat. I watched
some of this. Uh, Clayton Campbell was from New Zealand. He was
a little interesting to me. Teenager and a ball. Some Chris Myers,
who was like a first base left field he had a I think he had
a nice little season. All these guys like Ops is like over eight hundred.
I watched some Brady Allen, I watched some ben Mi Mulgarry. I
think that's how you say it. I don't know any of those guys interest
you at all. Or Yeah, this was happy hunting grounds. I think
for the side it was kind of it was kind of unexpected to me.
But the list, the list got a little bit longer than I thought it
would. Yeah, you've hit on a bunch of the guys that I watched
and liked, and you know, to go farther up, like wen Seal
Perez was definitely a B side type guy before. He had a great year
last year and then got some run at the major league level. This year.
He hasn't he hasn't made the bigs yet. Oh he hasn't. Oh
that's right. You're right, got up, but I think but I think
a chance is close. Brady Allen was my pick, but I really wanted
to talk about just Bercaneo as well. Thought he's maybe the most interesting name.
I think we got a little bit of his statcast data in the Florida
League in the FSL, and it was really good, Like he hit the
ball really hard, didn't strike out very much, and it's like it's a
nice combination of things that seeing him next year at full season ball, he's
someone that high on my watch list, like he might be a really big
riser next year. But yeah, no, I watched a bunch of those
guys and they, like you said, they all have something. And it's
funny you said that about hi A for Detroit, it is actually one of
the very worst parks in all of the minor leagues to hit. So that's
a place where if a guy is performing well at West Michigan. Is that
right, West Michigan? Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's one of the
very worst ballparks in all of the minor leagues. So if you're doing well
there, like you should maybe round up and a bunch of these guys that
had success at there at high A you want to round up, and it's
why I'm for my guy. I'm choosing Brady Allen, who he made it
up to Double A and was awful at Double A, but he was so
good at HIA that I was like, and what I saw of the air,
I was like, this looks like maybe below average athlete, but it
seems like he's gonna play. Like everything else about him, I really liked
strikes out, maybe a touch more than I usually like, but I think
the power is real. Nineteen homers across five hundred and thirty eight plate appearances,
two fifty three, three fifty three for sixty on the year. I
was just like, this seems like a big league baseball player to me.
He's got some flaws and showed even showed a lot of him at double A,
and so he might be a guy that kind of flames out, and
a couple of the other guys you mentioned I think might have better individual tools.
But I liked the across the board production from Brady Allen. Doing that
at HIGA even as a twenty two to twenty three year old, was really,
really pretty impressive. The guy I'm going to go with, Matt is
a guy that I saw hitting in Allen a decent amount, And I have
kept a little bit of an Ion since his college days, and that's Luke
Gold. I don't know if you got into him at all. He was
a twenty twenty two to fifth round pick out of Boston College. Now I
am no year long, hardcore follower of amateur baseball these days, but there
are a few schools that, for some reason I kind of just keep a
little bit eye of an Ion. Boston College, Louisville now Iowa are a
few. But he had a couple of really good seasons at BC his last
two years, had a big cape in twenty twenty one. Now, the
first few months this season, I would say, we're pretty unremarkable down in
Lake Linden, Florida, And there was only a handful of broadcast games,
So I really I think he had just kind of showed up for me when
I was just kind of doing a generic look again for more aggressive hitters that
don't strike out a lot. He had an injury and then I think he
started to get it going upon return. But he from June sixth to September
tenth, three hundred and one play it appearances. He hit two eighty two
with a three seventy nine on base percentage and slept forty six with ten home
runs, which you know isn't the craziest line, but much improved in what
he was doing in a ball. But the trajectory of his season seem to
stick through his promotion. There's nothing alarming in the splits. He was batting
like leadoff or two hole when he got to West Michigan. Now he's got
a bit of an odd setup, kind of holds his hands really far back,
and he's got sort of an odd delayed leg lift. It's just kind
of slow, and maybe there's like this he lifts in, starts to bring
it towards the play and then kind of starts to step away from the plate
maybe a little bit. It just it just it's different, just looks a
little goofy, But I think it seems to work for him. And if
you look at his batted ball profile, according to Fangrass, it says that
he pulled the ball forty percent of the time, hit the ball up the
middle, thirty percent of the time, went opposite field thirty percent of the
time. That didn't really drive so much with what I was watching seemed like
he was either hitting the ball up the middle or pulling it. I think
his whole high a stint. I don't know if he even had one hit,
one actual hit going opposite field. There were maybe a few batted balls
that I had seen. And I do think that he hits through the ball
like we like to talk about when he hits the other way. Kind of
wondering if maybe he just found his timing a little bit and sort of hitting
the ball out in front more and having better results. I think he's got
a quick bat. Like I said, it's a little bit it's a little
bit odd, it's a little bit different, but I think he's got quick
bat, quick hands. Did seem to be on time, like I said,
later part of the season, with that sort of odd step. Like
I said, he strikes me as a fairly aggressive hitter, which I like,
looking to do damage. The k's aren't high. What did he strike
out twenty percent of the time, walk ten percent of the time, hits
almost seventy percent of his air And I think that that really kind of checks
out with his swing, and you know, mechanically speaking, I don't think
he really gets to all of his power. I think there's sort of talk
about lefties, particularly like Asian lefties, who kind of start swinging towards first
plate, swinging and leaning towards first base. He's right handed, and I
won't say he does it to third base or that drastically or anything like that,
but there are times where he just kind of seems to be swaying a
little bit. But AnyWho, I do wonder if there's some more power in
his bat that could maybe get tapped into, which would make him a little
bit more interesting. Did hit twelve home runs, he stole twelve bases.
I don't think he is I don't think he's fast. I don't know if
speed is going to be a big part of his game. I don't even
know if he's like that great of a second basement, which is where I
think he will be playing. But the Tigers took a fifth round pick on
this dude who doesn't play that great a defense because he's got a good bat.
I think I think he's got a legit bat that can make the bigs
and he's kind of a fun guy to watch with the plate. He I
don't know, Like I say, there's some balls where you kind of think,
oh, he got all of that, and distance wise, they don't
really go quite as far as you think, but lots of loud contact there
and I could see I could see gold putting up some numbers this next season.
But he just turned twenty three and he hasn't reached the uppers yet,
but I think that probably gonna be coming pretty quick here. And if he
started popping more home runs and hitting for decent average, I wouldn't be surprised
at all. Yeah, and he was a member of those those West Michigan
teams that I thought were pretty interesting few guys, I will say there was
a likely some interesting lineups that they were throwing out there for a good minute
this year. One of my most fun things that I watched this year doing
b siding was Seth Stevenson's ceiling bases. Yeah, Like you watch him,
you know he got seventy bags. That's a lot, right. I think
he's super good bastealer and all that. You know how Trey Turner is really
smooth when he steal places, like he's got that Trey Turner slide where nothing
in the world is gonna touch him and he pops up and it's all smooth.
Seth Stevenson is the complete opposite. He'll start his dive into second base
from like ten feet away from the bag. I swear he's got almost two
feet of clearance between him and the ground. And he's what like five seven
five eight, Like he's not a big dude, but you see this,
like tiny guy just full superman dive two feet in the air, ten roses
in the bag. Yeah, every time, it's huh hilarious. Like maybe
it was so fun watching that guy steal bases and the other guy in this
organization that I had really a fun time watching. I don't think it's gonna
come together as an impact Big leaguer And so he wasn't my pick, but
I just had to mention Eliezer Eliezer Alonso. He's catcher, first base guy
have to double a this year seven percent strikeout rate for him on the year,
so like the guy doesn't strike out and that kind of outlier performance.
I'm always like, Okay, how does he do that? Like is he
just super aggressive? What's what's his deal? And he is very aggressive,
but he also has the most insane to strike approach. Like coaches, little
league coaches everywhere want this guy on video to show their team because I kid
you not, he chokes up like five inches on the bat, gets even
closer to the plate, and his swing completely changes as he tries to not
strike out. And he's pretty effective at it, right like he you know,
seven percent is very very impressive. He's no Caleb Durban, but that
is super impressive. And then has the barrel control of foul off pitches off
the plate, anything in the zone he's swinging. Yeah, so Alisa Alonso,
he's worth watching just to see this wild two strike approach that he has
and if he can catch some seths even and steals like it's it's also very
enjoyable. To move on to the twinkies here. We selected a lot of
twins in our drafts. We did twins easy for me. Yeah yeah,
maybe maybe not a whole ton to talk about tonight here, But last season
I went with an All American from Texas State, Dalton Sheffield. Sheffield who
had gotten a little triple A run after his draft, and I thought it
looked looked pretty good. He kind of feels a little bit like one of
your guys, Matt, because he's he's small, but he kind of bounced
around a ball, hy A and double A this year. I think he
had some injuries as well. I'm not overly excited about his twenty twenty four
of the strikeouts kind of got to a point where I did not really foresee
you coming, but an interesting young potential, I don't know, middle infield
or utility type that'll be in their uppers this year, I think still.
Then I went with Jalen now In. Honestly I was a little bit more
excited about maybe it turned out, but I had talked with Jeff Ponce about
him on this podcast last year, and at that time, I think we
were both like, Hey, he's got a fastball slider combo that might work
well as a reliever, and I think maybe I don't. They're probably still
going to give him a chance to start. He got up to double A.
Not overly excited about about him, and then, uh, well,
we drafted Ben Ross and jo Owner Faljardo in our hitter drafts. The picture
draft, I went with C. J. Culpepper, who I've kind of
been a fan of all this season and kind of knew that that was going
to be my B side. So I didn't really get into a whole lot
of Twins pictures. For this, Matt I watched a few more. Pearson
Owl was my guy and if you oh, yeah, I'm sorry, I
forgot and you picked them. Yeah yeah. And he's the guy who just
doesn't walk anybody h and gets a decent number of strikeouts. So Pearson person
Ol is super fun. I actually saw him, I saw of his starts
this year, and I think he's really fun. But I also liked Corey
Lewis a bit. He has some in common with Pearson Ole, but strikes
out a few more guys and walks, you know, double the number of
guys. But I think he had a really good year, but he's I
think a little more owned. I really liked David Festa, but again that's
someone who is quite well owned. And then Zebbie Matthews is another one that
I wanted to highlight who he's got again some traits to Ole and that he
doesn't walk very many guys and gets a decent number of strikeout. So this
this was actually there were a number of guys in the Minnesota Pitching Organization that
I was like these they seem to have an organizational approach that I like.
So yeah, there's a few guys in there that I liked. Part of
me sort of not opening this box, so to speak, is I tend
to get really sucked into a lot of twins pitching for some reason. I
like the high A, the double A level, and I just didn't want
to look this year. There's a way that goes, and there have been
a lot of good, like sort of B side types. I end up
using a lot of them for trade chips and like that, or or I
really get super hopeful and then they sort of fade out. But I think
a lot of that was injury stuff too. But yeah, Brent Hedrick was
a guy for me that I like last year. This time last year,
he would have been my B side pick. I'm very sure of it.
I'm not sure if his ownership percentage had ticked up yet, but he didn't
have a very good year this year. I think some of it was injury,
but I can't recall. But he's knocking on the door. And he's
another guy that I think is twenty twenty two looked really good and so he
was another one that I was super interested in and then wasn't quite as good
this year. So if they're one of them, some good stuff. Yeah,
they're one of these organizations that I think gets knocked for pitching development,
but I feel like they do a pretty good job of at least collecting some
some talented guys. It's kind of rich, I think, But I don't
know any other guy. Being a White Sox fan, I hate talking like
this about the twin but they've got a lot of really good interesting bats too.
Yeah, Wichita one won the Texas League this year. That lineup is
pretty interesting up and down for most of the season. But I watched some
alex I Sola, a catcher that they had in the AFL, Andrew Cassetti,
and then uh, even what Danny di Andrade, I think is how
you say he was like their high brow. Wasn't he the big international free
agent signing a few years ago? Yeah, but I think he's yeah,
yeah, I think he started doing some things in a ball this year and
was still is still was one percent. In September, they added jar catcher
Jar Camargo to the forty man. I watched a little bit of using triple
A this year and then this guy, Uh, I watched up too,
but he strikes out too much and doesn't ever walk. I think that's like
a backup catcher man. Yeah, duel Or Tega is a young, well
well twenty two guys high Kyler Fedco. I saw an a ball Ricardo Olivar,
Olivar who was left unprotected, which I think makes a lot of sense.
He's a little bit older, maybe for Yah, maybe he's like twenty
one, this not yet creative guy in fan tracks, Rubel Cespids watched a
little bit of him and a ball and there wasn't much to see. I
think maybe like one series, but he was a little interesting. And then
dude, their second round draft pick from just a few years ago, twenty
twenty two, Tanner shobl I had him on some rosters, but he was
only at two percent. He's a good little batman. He had sixteen home
runs, stole twelve bases. I don't think he strikes out very much.
For guy who was supposed to kind of be a defensive utility type. I
think he's got a little bit more juice in the bat. Yeah, I
don't know. Man, the Twins they have it might not be a bunch
of pretty boys and highbrow shininess, but throughout their system they've got some guys
who can play baseball. No, I agree, and I took Fajardo in
this, but there were a couple other guys that made my short list.
Certainly for FYPD. I really liked Luke Keishall for their's EI their second round
or this year. Really good all round kind of player, you know,
not a star, I don't think, but has good contact skills, is
athletic and reasonably quick. I think he's someone who had a nice debut and
I saw him a bit in Arizona State guy and he's pretty good, So
I like that pick for them. Another guy that I saw years ago in
college, back when I had a friend coaching in the pack, Deshaun Cursey
junior. Has spent a long time in the minor leagues and I think kind
of put it together a bit this year, you know, full season,
made it up to Triple A. And this line is really good, you
know, two ninety four, three sixty six, four fifty five, fifteen
homers, thirty nine feels so if you're in a deep roto Minnesota's outfield,
isn't that good or deep? You know, like, and they've got injury
concerns. I don't think they are they bringing Taylor back. I don't think
they're bringing Taylor back to play center field, so Cursey might get some run.
And he's fast put at University of Utah. His swing is a little
stiffer than I remembered it from college, but I think maybe he's using that
to get to a little more power and sacrificing a little bit of contact to
do that. But here's another guy that that's a really good full season like
that. That's a really useful line, and he's someone that's just on the
cusp of making the major leagues too. So yeah, I agree with you
a lot, a lot of interesting guys. Yeah. I always think of
like the early two thousand Twins, maybe a little bit later as again used
to like to refer to them as pirana. So they beat you, they
kind of beat you one bite at a time, and it's like, yeah,
yeah, that's kind of how their their minor leagues kind of feel like
to me, like they've just got they've got a bunch of them. It
does seem like every year there's specifically a bat that kind of really really breaks
out. They're gonna have one this year, I'm sure if I totally know
who's gonna be. I'm hoping it's a guy Ben Ross here and like Noah
Miller is is a I know offensively, he has a lot of work to
do and I don't know if he'll ever get there, but he's like a
fantastic young shortstop Owen's brother, Wisconsin kid. He's had some flat I don't
know, like he started off the season really hot, but that that did
not stick. But I don't think he's he's I don't think he's well,
yeah, I don't think he's well owned, which makes sense, but I
think the glove with his glove, I think he has a major league chance.
So we'll see how that goes though. All Right, Matt the Kansas
City Royals, I think we've had one of the maybe one of the better
B side success stories from from the Royals and Michel Garcia. He got some
major league run this year. Well I think he did last year too,
didn't he a little bit? But he's kind of maybe being a guy.
Huh, what do you get any thoughts on Garcia? Garcia is a guy
that I really want to see succeed. Like a he plays good defense and
I think that's fun. So that infield for a little bit there, I
think had just like plus defenders all the way around, and that was made
for some nice highlight reels and helped save their big league pitching staff, which
is not very good a few runs at least. I really liked Garcia as
a pick, and I hope he sticks. He's got a lot of things
that he does really well, and he just feels like it hasn't fully coalesced.
Like I think that's a guy who might be a like twelve team mix
league relevant, which is like Fantasy star basically for the kinds of guys we're
talking about, and he hasn't quite gotten there yet. Yeah. And so
then last season I went with Diego Hernandez and somewhat because I felt he was
similar to Garcia in that he was kind of a very much glove first,
athletic, steels bases light bat. But he started to show some things with
the bat. He started tapping into some power and hitting some home runs,
and I'd seen him and some of their coaches talking about a real swing change
with him. He was also added to the forty man like Garcia was,
without much Dynasty attention, but I don't think this season those things really stuck.
He's still like a plus center fielder can still run, but the bat
and the power that he was showing just did not It just didn't happen.
There were some injuries too. I think he only got three hundred and thirteen
played appearances in, but he's still a guy on the forty man roster.
So I don't know. We'll see what happens with Hernandez there, but I
don't think twenty twenty three played out like he or they were expecting. No,
definitely a step back for him in where you saw Garcia and loft In
kind of take steps forward or at least keep progressing up the ladder and holding
their own. Yeah. Her Nanda's went the other way. Yeah, yeah,
but you know you'll have that Matt that will happen. I'm anxious to
hear your thoughts on watching some of these Royals pitchers here, but the last
several seasons watching Royal's arms down at these levels, at least the unheralded arms,
it's really tricky. See these guys that look athletic, they'll usually have
spicy offering or to a lot of them will have a rookie ball track record
of lots of walks and seemingly not having great command. But then they get
to the lowers and you think, okay, maybe have they figured this out.
There's kind of like a chunk of those types. And then, like
last year, I picked Adrian Alcantara, who elected free agency now and didn't
really have a great season. But just being me on my couch, it's
hard for me to I don't know, it's hard for me to sift through
their arms. I'm like, Okay, this guy's gonna stick. I think
I think this is gonna work. Even before the prospect b side stuff,
me picking up some of their arms in some of my deep leagues and they're
out of baseball the next year, so it hasn't It's been hard for me
here. I ended up going with another very small sample size of archives.
But I really did like the look of this kid, twenty year old Felix
Aronde, who got a total of two starts in a ball total of nine
and two thirds innings. He's six three, one hundred and eighty five lanky
Cuban that they signed in July of twenty one. This was his first year
state side. I think he got like thirty seven forty innings in at rookie
ball before his promotion at the end of the year. Fastball ninety three.
Maybe he's got a curveball, he's got a slider. Both of the breaking
balls I think tend to move more south. The fastball seems to get over
bats, at least in these two starts against this level of hitter. He
was kind of playing it all over the zone too, and getting whiffs on
all parts of the zone with the fastball. Now, I also wondered if
he was throwing two varietals of fastball. It was. It was hard to
tell, though, especially on the two broadcasts would often cut away when the
catcher was flashing signs too. To add just like another little wrinkled to all
of it. There's some stuff if you look at his rookie ball line and
his two starts that are a little different, Like his ground ball rate was
much higher, and the two a ball starts, the walks were much higher.
I think those are a little bit misleading if you're just looking at that
line. I saw a change up get called for in the first start.
I saw one called for, But then he just threw a slider or a
cutter, and the catcher was like, kind of like his body language was
definitely like, what the fuck man? Then I saw a grip a little
later that made me wonder about like a splitter or a split finger fastball.
Perhaps another young Cuban trying to throw throw one of those. We talked about
Espinosa with the Astros trying a few of those. I don't know, maybe
it's a Cuban thing. But then later in the second start, I did
confirm that there was a change up being thrown when he left one middle middle
and gave up a solo home run. It was not a very good pitch.
But these two starts, the defense like really really failed him, like
some players too that I think are supposed to be watered for their defense airs
and just plays that should have been made. He did have a few walks.
They made him pay for the walks, like immediately hitting a home run
or something. I don't really feel like those walks were super well deserved.
I felt like he was getting squeezed pretty well. I thought his command,
and I don't mean just control, like his command of his offerings was pretty
good. He was trying to throw to certain parts of the plate and stuff,
and I thought he was doing that at a pretty nice clip, especially
for a what twenty year old. Yeah, his second start, my spoiler
alert, well, I won't even say, but my cub's b side bats
selection got him after a couple of walks, hit a three run homer.
But other than a couple of home runs that he gave up, there wasn't
really any hard contact. There was like a couple of bloop extra base hits.
Like I said, the defense wasn't good. It was just kind of
some bad timing when those things kind of all went together. But Aronde,
I've gone with quite a few of these guys. I feel like short looks
and young at a ball, but I like this, and they let him
go fairly deep to pitch wise. I think he was like at eighty pitches
for both of his starts. There was a few occasions where the manager came
out and after he gave up like a walk in a hit or something,
and broadcasters were like, oh, yeah, I think he's going to get
pulled, and I was like, nope. He pitched like three more innings
and struck out the side once he got out of trouble a few times via
via strikeouts. But I thought it was a pretty impressive couple of starts.
The first one especially was really good. Who knows with my luck Royals pitchers
at this level, he might be out of baseball next year, but he
is not yet created yet in fan tracks. But good looking, young young
Cuban arm. I think here, well, I love your deep dives into
guys like that. And he's got a great first name. That Felix is
my son's name, so great, great first name. Nice. There were
some there were some interesting arms here, though. I felt like I almost
was gonna go with Shane Panzini. I don't know if you watch any of
him, but he was a fourth round prep pick. Got a New Jersey
Northern kid back in twenty twenty one who was in a ball all of last
year and then most of this season. Got a few starts in at high
A. He can throw, you can throw hard. He's got ninety five
ninety six on the fastball. I think, I think the secondaries look like
in a vacuum. Nice. But man, this guy just he just grooves
so many generic strikes. It kind of it kind of drives me crazy.
He and Maser Man like, what what are you guys doing? Yeah,
it's like they have like completely bought in or taken much too literally the idea
that like ninety six down the middle is just as effective as any anything else
or something. Yeah, and dude and Panzini, this is actually I was
watching him some today and this is what made me boot him off and go
with the Rondez was which might be very fickle and silly, but so several
occasions whereas Ketcher put down like a three for a slider or something, and
I didn't see him shake it off or nothing. He just like immediately goes
into his motion and just like pumps a fastball down the middle, and every
time it happened, he got freaking rocked. You got to hit hard.
I'm just like, dude, what I'm like, all right, I'm like,
I don't like you, man, I don't like you anymore. I
don't know what you're doing, why you're doing that. I really want to
watch some more of Hunter Pattison, who was their fifth round pick out of
Central Florida. Watch any of them, Well, there's not much to watch.
He had like Tommy John surgery I think maybe while he was still in
school, and he got like one start three innings in. So just a
guy that I'm kind of flagging. Eric Sarintola was a little interesting on the
surface level or meets the eye, maybe not like really loud stuff, but
he does get strikeouts. He was in the AFL. I didn't really check
to see how he did. Their Lunder Avila was the guy that I watched
a little bit. He got like twenty starts in. He's not created yet
in fan tracks, he was a little interesting. Andrew Hoffman guy from your
Braves, who I think has a really good slider, but I don't know
if he has like a fastball that fits with it really well to get too
excited. He was chopping up for the Braves and then he got traded and
immediately regressed, Like I think, I wonder if that might be related.
Yeah, no, who knows. Then I watched this sort of solid well
maybe a little bit older. Lefty was who did get up to double a
Tyson Guerrero. Think he's from your neck of the woods, somewhere up there
in the north northwest. But he was a little bit interesting. So I
kind of felt like there was a better group than the last couple of seasons
he had to choose from. But uh, yeah, end of the day,
I don't know. I just like the upside or ceiling like people like
to say of Aronde. So yeah, I don't know what do you got,
Matt. I kind of agree with you that there were a few interesting
names, Like I watched a couple of the guys that you watched and thought
there was something here or there, Like Avila, I thought he was one.
Then I've got a flag on in a couple of leagues to follow.
David Sandlin's A ball run was phenomenal, like that was one of the best
A ball runs this year, and then he was pretty bad in Hia to
end the year, and it was just a couple of starts, but it
made me wonder, which is sort of the real version. Do you know
what his raster percentage was? It might have been a touch high because his
able run was so dominant. Let me see if it doesn't, it doesn't,
It doesn't really matter to worry. No, I think it was.
When I pulled it, it was like four percent, So yeah, higher
than our our thing. But he's one that I think Jeff Ponce had written
about before about he sneakily had some of the best underlying metrics in the minors.
So while the overall on was good, he might have even earned a
better line. So he's someone that I'm watching and I think I have a
couple of places, especially if you can put some more innings behind it next
year. Frank Bozakato, he's someone that is way higher on than we usually
talk about. But just to compare, like, I didn't love what I
saw from him this year. I just thought the walks are just untenable at
sixteen point two percent on the year, And people get excited about the thirty
percent strikeout rate, but he's walking sixteen percent, Like, who cares like
He's not going to be a major league starter, I don't think. So
he's got to tighten that. Uh. I watched a good bit of Chandler
Champlain, who's this big old donkey Righty made it up to double A this
year for Kansas City and Champlain, you know, he's like kind of straight
over the top slider, curveball change, but he's a little bit kind of
flailing all over the place. Even despite that he has decent command. It
seems like, or at least the control. He doesn't walk a lot of
guys. All of his pitches seem like they play down rather than playing up
like you think. With his extension his fastball that's in the low nineties load
to mid nineties would play up, but it sure doesn't seem like it does.
I'm not sure if I got Yeah, I don't think I got good
Velo ratings on him. But it's just it just seems like everything together for
him plays down rather than you think with that kind of size and extension,
it plays up and its arms are flailing about everywhere. It's it's not the
cleanest delivery I've ever seen. They got they got him from the Yankees,
right yeah, yeah? Wait, wait are you telling me the Yankees sold
a lemon pitching prospect to somebody. I don't know if it's a lemon yet.
I just didn't love what I saw, Like he still had a decent
year, but I was just like, like I was gonna take him as
my B side just because he I liked that he threw one hundred and thirty
some innings this year, and like seemed like he held together and it seems
like he's got four pitches. But after watching him a good bit, I
switched to Mason Barnett, who is my actual B side selection. Barnett is
a righty with good ride on his forcing fastball and a decent breaking ball.
The performance as a whole, you know, he threw a good floor of
innings, made it up to double a one hundred and fourteen two thirds innings
this year. Twenty eight point eight percent strikeout rate and ten point five percent
walk, right, like, those are both good, you know, walk
maybe as a touch above average or worse than average, but that's good strikeouts
and the arsenal seems like it backs it up, and he seems like he's
poised on the mound. I think the problem for me with him is that
the secondaries weren't big with weapons. So his fastball seems good and it seems
like it plays well, but he either misses with his off speed or it
doesn't garner the whiffs that it should. So he's one that like I took,
and I like him, but it was more an indictment on the other
options. You know, it's more like this guy's maybe a forty overall wrath
of him me being excited about him making a rotation. So Mason Barnett,
he still has some time. He's only twenty two two draftee. He was
their third rounders, so they still they seem to believe, believe in him,
and he really has done nothing but perform up to this point. But
it'll be interesting to see if he can keep tightening up the command. That's
that's the thing. I think. If he can do that, if he
can up one of his breakers to being average or above, then maybe we
got a guy here. But for now, it's it's worth a follow.
And then Bats, of course we both like one of my draft selections.
Was it my first one? No, my second, Trevor Werner. He
was kind of hands down, kind of want it big for me here.
The only other Bats I really watched or thought about here, I think is
one is your selection. So I'll say that, But then I'll watch a
little bit of Peyton Wilson, who was their second round pick out of Alabama
a few years ago. Kind of fits the mold of a lot of Kansas
City hitters, I think. Kind of speedy, athletic, can play pretty
good defense, I think, but it's just kind of light hitting. I
think he was in the AFL a little bit. I don't know if I'm
super excited about him, but the guy that I imagine will probably be in
the majors with the Royals at some point, who'd you go with, Matt
Yeah. I liked Peyton Wilson too. I watched a little bit of a
couple of other guys. Kitten Wallace, he's a fall for me, just
you know, another decent kind of all around type without a plus tool.
I thought Tyler Tolbert had a really interesting line at double A this year.
You know, it netted out just to ninety nine WRC plus the league average,
but he stole fifty bags. And again, one of these guys is
playing all over short center right like that was somewhat interesting to me. Carter
Jensen is a guy that I think is maybe a little more owned because he
got some helium in the kind of international side of things. But he's a
nineteen year old catcher at HI a one o nine WRC plus with some power
and speed. Eleven homers, eleven steals in somewhat full season this year.
But he's someone who I think is a pretty good hitter. And I've watched
a fair amount of but my selection is Javier vaz Vaz is another of these
guys who's really light, hitting some speed. He's not a burner, but
he's a guy who's going to steal a few bags and can play all over
second base, shortstop, left field. I think second base is where he's
going to spend most of this time. He doesn't strike out very much nine
point seven percent strikeout rate, runs into a few homers, you know,
only eight this year. Again, that's probably what you're looking at, you
know, five to ten homers over the course of a full major league season.
But the contact skills are really good. I just liked the defensive versatility
as well, and I think that makes him a very very high probability big
leaguer. And that plus the very low strikeout percentage and the kind of line
drive, contact oriented swing with a little bit of speed. This is to
me, if you play in really deep roto or categories dynasty leagues and you
need like an absolutely free dynasty bat for some positional flexibility and a little bit
of speed and a decent average, I think Heavier Vaz is your is your
guy here, Like he's another one that I think he was zero percent.
Let me double check that when I pulled this h so I had him at
one percent. Yeah, I've already I've already got him rostered on a few
deep leagues. So yeah, I think I think Vaz is a very solid
B side selection here. Yeah, he's done nothing but hit like twenty percent
better than at league average at every stop that he's been at. Projected for
eighty eight WRC plus right now. If Steamer says you drop him in in
Kansas City right now, he projects for eighty eight WRC plus, which is
not like that's not a screaming deal. But for a guy that's one or
two percent owns and might get you some bags, Like, like I said,
he's sold thirty this year, that's not nothing. So how do your
vas He's just he's like again, he's not going to win you a league,
but this is the kind of guy that might fill fill out while one
of your studs is injured and pick up a couple of bags for you.
Or he's not break out and he's not very big, right, No,
he a small guy. Yeah, what do you think the average what do
you think the average height is here? Of your selections, we should have
average height weight when we're all done. We should because I do think that
like on the pitching side, I go bigger, like the guys that are
big fatties. And then on on the hitting side, a lot of the
guys that I like are sort of the undersized guys. I don't know.
I don't know, because I think part of it to me is like some
of that, I think it's overweighted when you're like when you're evaluating a guy,
and so much of what I come at it is like are the numbers
interesting? Now, let me watch you and to see, like, I
don't really care how big you are, but if the actions are clean and
you look like you can play, and you're performing, like, I don't
care what you look like. If you're short, you're not going to be
owned at a very high You're not going to be rostered at a very high
rate. If you're if you're like Venezuelan and hitting Abel and there hasn't been
a lot written about you, those guys slip through the cracks, you know,
if you if you don't throw mid nineties, those guys can slip through
the cracks right and like early if you're playing on the West Coast, maybe
that plays into it too, I don't know. Maybe maybe a quick anecdote
from my playing days, I had a teammate guy that I played against in
high school. We ended up in a bunch of the same tournaments and stuff,
and so knew him really well in high school and then it was my
teammate in college. Every single level that we played, I think he hit
one more home run than I did, like at every level, you know,
high school, like I hit six homers, he hit seven. Senior
year I hit eight, he hit nine. And it was funny, you
know, just like you know, we knew each other and had a nice
like friendly rivalry going. And then we went to college and we're on the
same team, and every year it was like he out homered me. And
he is like a generous five six, like maybe five seven, like small
second base, short stuff kind of guy, and I'm big, I'm like
six forward, two twenty in college, you know, like power hitting outfielder,
and he like out homered me every single season we played. And I
always, I always was impressed by how good he was, you know,
like that was it was always an impressive thing. And so I think maybe
he gave me an appreciation for those sort of undersized and overlooked guys like he's.
He was very good. And yeah, I think a lot of these
guys share something in common with I think I think a lot of your experiences
have probably molded you into a fantastic B side and mutter, here, well,
we'll see. I'm super curious just to see how our drafts and our
selections play out, because you know, you always like you'll pick out these
guys that I've never even heard of, even as I'm looking for him,
and I go back and watch them, I'm like, oh, that was
a good pick. So I have lots to learn from you, Nate,
lots to learn. I think the I don't even want to call it advice,
but all I got to say is, uh, you just got to
be stupid enough to talk about a few of these guys. I was thinking
about that, like you mentioned, I think in our first pods that we
did together about like what's your base success rate? And I think that when
I get a little bit of time, I might go back through and look
like, okay, if you just pick thirty names out of the hat,
like how many how many of those guys ending up being successful? Like sort
of what's our baseline that we're competing against? You know, because there is
something to that. I saw someone in s might have been on the discord
where like someone was being an ass and talking shit about somebody and I was
just like, you're just being a dick about this. But one thing they
said was kind of true is like, if you talk about literally everybody,
at some point, you're going to be right and you're going to get to
be able to go back like I was on him in September of twenty twenty
two. So fuck you, you know, But I don't necessarily think that
that, like cherry picking those results is the best commentary on whether you're actually
like being a helpful analyst, you know, so right? What I like,
I like to think that we, you know, for the for the
brave few out there, are at least bringing up some names and having discussion
and bringing some light to some players that nobody else really ever talks about.
And how many conversations, how many White Langford versus Dylan Cruz conversations do we
have to have, and how many of those are actually you full and go
back and forth and talk about the top five first year player draft order like
well for one that only affects at most five people in your league. I
think going through these with you, I think complimented each other well in a
way, like you've done really well. I think identifying players that have a
very high probability of making the big leagues, I think, right at least
through your drafts. I mean, I like to think that I've done that
too, but I have a feeling that your rate will be much higher than
mine. For here. But on the other side, I like that maybe
I've pointed out some guys that are very small sample sizes, but I think
do have some talent, and who knows, maybe maybe one or two of
those takes off some you know, like we've had some b siders that we've
got a little bit of a ball run and kind of really took off.
So we'll see. But I think we've done of kind of hitting both ends
of that spectrum. Yeah, I do think, and I do think we're
being realistic about what we're talking about here. You know, we're not saying
these guys are better than why at Langford and building Cruise, Right, Maybe
some of them are better than just way to Paula, But that's there are
some there are some pretty boy names that I that I would rather have,
some guys that we talked about for sure, maybe we'll get into some of
that. I imagine we probably will same here. I think we might actually
get into one of my favorite guys to hit on next week, so we
yes, yeah, so next week we will be talking well, I shouldn't
say Matt. I shouldn't say next week next time. Next week we have
a holiday coming up, but yeah, so next time we will be talking
the National League Central, which I don't think you selected anybody from the NL
Central in our drafts. I took three hitters, so I won't have as
probably as many hitters, but we will get into that next time. I
have been trying to supplement some things on Twitter, dropping some video and some
other things, try to highlight what we've been talking about. It's hard to
put video into world words. Sometimes you can follow me there at pitching specs,
you can't follow Matt there or anywhere. Maybe the Dynasty discord. Does
Matt really even exist? Or is this cat fishing? I don't know.
I am. I am literally on your video feed right now, so I
do literally exist, but they don't see that. I don't know they don't
they don't, But we will let Chicago Farmer take us out. Do well.
We'll talk to you next time. Matus 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 speed. He wasn't born.
He had YES uniform