Not five miles an hour riding too his head. He hopping down first with
the mount Bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second face with gretest be he wasn't born he had yes, uniforn. Welcome
to episode twenty four of the Prospect B Sides podcast. I am your host
Nate Handy joining me as always is the rookie Matts. How are you my
friend? The rookie with an exclamation point where we're getting excited. Baseball is
right around the corner. It almost feels like the spring except for the fact,
Nate, I can't watch most of the spring training games. What is
going on? Why this is? What? Are we trying to watch?
Some A ball pitchers in the Florida State League, like the three of the
major league complexes, have cameras set up routinely. This is a travesty.
Is it different than any other years? Does it seem less to you?
I don't think it is, but it remains really frustrating to me, especially
in the last couple of years, because I've been playing deeper dynasty leagues,
so I love being able to watch my guys on the same field, often
sharing at that sharing the field with these like no doubt major league studs,
all star players, and getting that visual comparison between them is great. And
then it's fun seeing everybody turn over, so you get to see the b
siders of say the Colorado Rockies, like they turn it over and every guy
they bring in is like interesting for some reason or another, and that is
so fun, especially in our dynasty world here where we're trying to see how
are these guys going to stack up? And it's one of the few times
when even if you don't, they're not always facing major league quality competition.
It's the same field you just saw Julio Rodriguez play, and then now you're
seeing Cole Young step out and getting to compare those two visually. Like that
whole process is so fun, and so it has been extra frustrating. I'd
say for me that the Maritors, most of their games aren't televised. This
has been true of the Braves for a long time. They never have a
home setup. So yeah, it's just been it's been extra frustrating. I
think for me this year, tell me if I'm if I'm off the mark
here, but it seems to me so for what will we two weeks in
a spring training two and a half weeks in with about three weeks left,
it seems to me, you know, maybe my memory is just off,
but I feel like we are getting less guys coming over from minor league camp
and playing in some games than we have in years past. Maybe that's maybe
I'm completely mistaken there, but it doesn't seem like, you know, even
when the guys come in later in the games, doesn't feel quite as muddy
to me as years past. I think it depends on the game, and
usually it's around this time. I feel like things ramp up the most where
you've got most of your major leaguers that are getting there two at bats,
two three plate appearances, and then they bounce and you're rolling through. You
know, we have seven pitchers that we want to get work, and the
lineup turns completely over and sometimes you'll see a third level replacement. But I
feel like now is the time where you see a lot of that. And
then in a couple of weeks, as guys continue to get reassigned to minor
league camp, it trickles down lower. But I feel like we've gotten to
see quite a lot of guys, like more than I actually thought, you
know, not always televised, which is super frustrating, as I mentioned,
but at least seeing some of the stats, seeing a little bit of the
box score, watching, I think we've those guys are getting in the games,
even if we don't always get to see it. It seemed to me
the ones come out or whatever version of the ones comes out of the game,
it's like the next rotation is like kind of always the same for most
of the teams. And I don't know, maybe that's how it has always
been early in spring, but I find myself already just two weeks in be
like, oh, okay, these guys again. Yeah, yeah, well,
I mean there's there's something to that. And it's actually one of the
things that I was looking at. On the hitter side, I think there
are a couple of teams that really are using spring training as the audition for
the big club. And that is a common thing that the Big Club will
say, the GM will say, oh, we're testing out lineups and shifting
people around. I think there's a couple of clubs that actually mean it.
One in particular is the Padres. The Padres are rolling out their B squad
every single time and it's the same guys, and sometimes those guys are actually
getting starts with the A players. I think it's out of necessity for them.
They have holes in the outfield. They want to see who are the
positional versatility guys that are coming up if one of their locked in infielders gets
hurt. And it was one of the takeaways actually when I was doing a
little bit of an analysis to prep for this, Like the top two guys
I think in played appearances are both padres minor leaguers, and a bunch in
the top twenty are as well. So it's just interesting there they seem to
be using the same guys. They want to see that like Triple A depth,
who has it? Who are they gonna call first? And I think
some people are showing out now there are some other organizations that I think are
spreading it around a bit more, and I wish we could see a little
more from some of some of the B sides, some of the deeper minor
league guys. But I'm also curious how they're going to handle the new kind
of minor league matchups. Did you read about this? Yeah, yeah,
yeah, the spring breakouts. See, I think that's gonna be an interesting
thing too, and hopefully fingers crossed those are fully broadcast as well. Yeah,
that'll be fun. We're gonna talk a lot of spring training stuff this
episode, but before we get into more of that, Matt, I want
to do a little housekeeping. Well, last time we had our boy back
on right, and we were talking about out Robert Klea and his he's great,
he's insanely yes. I don't know what Beck's EXI velocities are, but
Colas we're very high, and we were talking about that. I just want
to clarify. I had brought up that the Rockies don't have a complex team,
which is completely false. Matt. I don't know what I was thinking.
My brain flashed back to twenty nineteen when that was the case, I
suppose, but I just wanted to clarify that now the Rockies do have the
propensity though to skip a lot of their more marquee named prospects from the DSL,
A lot of their best guys they have, right, I mean they've
they've been pretty aggressive pushing those guys once they're eighteen up to Fresno, Right,
So I just wanted to I knew better, Matt. I don't sometimes
that your brain your mouth just does dumb things, and you know better.
I was going through some old show notes and I found my itinerary for what
would have been the next show before I went on an unexpected hiatus last year.
Right, and on the top, I still might edit this out,
but Matt, I did something so dumb, so dumb and embarrassing and horrible.
It's a horror story. It's horrific. I took my kid to the
movie. Now, this would have been a year ago, now, roughly
a year ago, right, you know. So we get in, we're
ordering the snacks and the popcorn and the drinks and all that stuff, right,
and I'm looking at at the time, I thought were the popcorn sizes,
right, But those were the soft drink sizes and then the extra large
soft DRNK. I mean, it's just disgusting. I mean I thought it
was the extra large popcorn. That's how large the soft drink size is.
Right. So I'm looking at that, I'm like, oh, we'll take
a large popcorn. We'll take d DA out of that. Well, the
large popcorn was four times that size. It's humongous, tub, right,
So bring that up to the counter. I'm like, well, too late
now, I'll just take it whatever. I grabbed that big old thing the
soft drinks, to grab the candy and all that stuff right now. Mind
you. Part of the reason why I went on that little hiatus is because
I was having some health issues. I was having some joint problems that doctors
couldn't figure out. Getting around was tough. So I was really sore this
day, right. My knees hurt, my ankle's hurt, my feet hurt.
I was on my feet all day. Just wanted to sit down,
right. So I got all these things and we're going over. You know,
it's like an AMC theater where you got to hand the guy your ticket,
you know, and all that, and so I got the little one.
There's a table right there. So I'm starting to put all the items
down so I can get the ticket out of my pocket. And as I'm
doing that, the dude's like, hey, you know, good day,
sir. How's it going. And I'm like, man, my feet,
my legs are just killing me. I cannot wait to just sit down and
watch this movie. And I'm pulling the ticket out of my pocket now,
mind you, I yet to make eye contact with this person, And so
I reached the ticket over and my man's in a wheelchair. Oh no,
and he just gives me a look like, dude, that is not cool,
man, you know that sort of like, gee, dude, talk
about your mouth unintentionally getting yourself in trouble. I sat there, like the
first half of the stupid Paw Patrol movie that I wanted to see, just
like, do I go back and apologize to him? Like what what?
I just feel horrible, like I didn't mean it? Like ah, So
that was a foot in the mouth moment for me. So talking about the
Rockies not having a complex theme as far from the stupidest thing I've ever said.
Yeah, I don't think. I don't think the Rockies complex team is
as offended as your movie pick there would be. Yeah, right. Any
who, let's talk some spring training. Let's talk some B sides. We
haven't talked about our B side selections too much. I've been periodically just jotting
down the roster percentages for the guys that we chose. I don't have like
the initial when we first brought them up and talked about them in episodes,
But I'm pretty sure, Matt, they're all like what not created to like
two percent? Right, maybe we Yeah, we had a couple that were
in like the three or four percent range, but those were pretty rare.
Most of mine, I think we're one and two, right. I think
I had shared with you, like just before Christmas, A lot of those
jumped up quite a bit because we don't have a lot of redraft leads and
that sort of thing, And now they're starting to kind of trickle back down,
right. But I'm curious, Matt, can you guess now? I'm
gonna take you had your Handy Morales as your as your NAT's B side selection,
which was, yeah, we talked about we talked about that he's at
he's at like thirty six percent right now, so so not counting him.
Who do you think are the top five rastered B side selections of ours?
Oh? Interesting? Top five. I'm surprised that position wise, how this
has played out thus far, it's very early. Someone like Luis Vasquez is
going to be relatively high, not a horrible guess. He's probably in the
top fifteen or so. He's at five percent now. Maybe some of the
other FYPD guys, you know, I know we mentioned like mac Krvath and
Werner is at eight percent, which is tied for six Okay, okay,
the top top five guys number one sitting at fifteen percent, which has actually
gone up since the winter, since Christmas time, so you know he's getting
he's definitely getting a little bit more popular. But is Troy Johnston? Yeah,
yeah, it makes sense. He was both of our Marlin selection.
And then the next four are all pitchers. Matt oh interesting, right,
at fourteen percent is Will Dion, At ten percent is Logan Henderson. Nice
at ten percent is Mason Barnett, and then at nine percent Isaac Coffee.
Okay, so you got four of your arms, one of your bats running
up the top five. Classic. Yeah. I mean when I talked about
Johnston, I remember saying like part of this was the game within the game,
part like he's an upper miners prospect. He hit really well. It's
one of the reasons why I was pretty surprised he wasn't a Rule five selection.
Yeah. I mean I think as a whole you took some like you
took more upper level guys, I think. Yeah, but you know,
classic rookie mistake here, Matt. You're spritten to start the marathon, you
know, well, well, we'll see, we'll see. I like,
I like those arms. I mean, one of the guys that I am
just dying to see make it into a spring game, but I don't think
he has, or at least not a televised one. It's Logan Henderson.
I mean, the report was that he might have added a tick or two
to that fastball, which, as you know, I already think plays as
a plus fastball, especially the way he locates it well at the top of
the zone and if he has another tick there and if his slider is better,
I mean, like, that guy is just phenomenal. So that's one
that I'm really really excited to see. And then, of course, my
other guy who did get into a spring game but we uh, there's no
video of it that I could find, was Leander Suarez, who is I
feel like I'm taking crazy bills a little bit effectively wild. The podcast Ben
Lindbergh and Meg Rally hosts. They've been doing a running bit on the uniforms
the sea through pants and how that's great, and Meg keeps saying that she's
losing her mind because they apparently had the exact same pants last year, and
she's like, I don't believe it, and then she sees pictures of last
year it's like, oh, yeah, those are kind of see through and
what is going on? So she's got this like collective delusion about it.
I'm feeling the same way about Leander Suarez. I every time I talk about
it, I kind of get a little mad. I don't. I'm not
really that kind of person that gets worked up and mad about stuff, especially
stuff like this. It's just like, yeah, you have your opinion.
It's a fine, like whatever, Like, well, I'll be happy and
move on. But with Suarez, it's just like I'm struggling to understand why
nobody else likes this guy. Like he didn't get taken in the rule five
he was Rule five eligible. That one is like kind of driving me nuts.
And I really hope he gets into a televised Mets game so that I
can see Suarez against some big leaders or at least some upper level minor leaguers,
because man, he's so fun. Any stats that I might reference here
do not include today. We're recording on Wednesday night. But yeah, he
got in one game for two innings, didn't give up a run. Whatever.
Spring training, Matt it's a televised practice, right, Yeah, and
sometimes you see guys working on stuff, but you also see some guys that
are like trying to make their roster or like trying to make their case for
that next level, and sometimes their detriment. I do think that there are
some guys that really appear to be pressing and other guys that maybe are showcasing
a new level or something new that they've worked on over the offseason. And
I think we'll talk a little bit about that. But yeah, yeah,
it's a somewhat of a reality check, at least for me. It hits
me a little bit, becomes a little bit more real. It's like,
man, there's not a lot of jobs that are really up for grabs here,
Like, yeah, you're talking to out a fifth starter job, a
couple of bullpen jobs, maybe a couple of bench bets, and yeah,
sure there's probably a few, I don't know, opening day infield job or
you know, but for the most part, I mean most most of the
rosters, Like you can, even just a few weeks into spring training,
you kind of know how this is all all gonna shake out. But I
did want to go through and perhaps a highlight and talk about maybe some more
of the interesting possibilities with a few positions. You know, it's tough.
What do you what do you take out of these initial what five inning samples
and twelve played appearances and stuff like that. But one thing that I that
I think is worthwhile to pay attention to is who's playing with who? Who's
running with the ones? A couple guys that I was kind of hoping on.
I was hoping on Casey Schmid or Jordan Diez perhaps coming out of spring
with an everyday job. Just by seeing where they're playing and when they're playing
who they're play playing with. I don't think that's part of the part of
the plan for both those clubs. Those guys are mostly getting in with the
with the twos later in games. I don't think that's a great sign right
now, well, especially in San Francisco after the Matt Chapman signing too.
Yep, Yeah, the Giants shortstop job might be a look, I mean,
roster resource, says Marco Luciano. Yeah, and they said they're giving
him a run at it, but skeptical he's gonna hold on me too,
which makes Schmid maybe being the odd man out hurt, maybe even a little
bit more. But yeah, they signed nick A med just a few days
ago, so you know, he's got a glove. I don't know,
we'll see. But there is one guy, Matt that has got my attention
enough that I had to do some digging and I had to had to watch
some film of him coming up because that got my attention. And that's Max
Castillo. Oh yeah, Phillies. Now he came up with the Blue Jays,
was traded to the Royals, who DFA on this offseason. The Red
Sox picked him up for a minute and they dfad him and now he's uh,
he's made two outings with the Phillies and he's on, you know,
on their forty man as of right now in the Phillies rotation. Well,
you got your five, it's probably set. But then after that it gets
a little interesting because they it really does. I was actually thinking about this
recently. Yeah, well rollout Wheeler, Nola Ranger, Swarez, Taiwan Walker,
and then Christopher Sanchez probably the fifth, right think, And then after
that, yeah, it gets a little gets a little weird. Like they
got Spencer Turnbull who they picked up Castillo, Kobe Allard. It's kind of
interesting. I don't know who's got the first turn and somebody goes down there,
But but Castillo, you might eat a lot. I wonder if he
and Kiway Tang go out to dinner often. Big Fella, big fellow buffets
he is. I think they got him listed at like six three to two
eighty. I'd maybe take the under on the two eighty. But regardless,
Castillo coming up, he really had his double A run with the Blue Jays
was really impressive. I don't know. I think he was striking out thirty
percent walks of as been kind of dietering on, maybe a whammy, but
he has been able to get them down at times. He's a right hander,
fastball change up. The fastball I don't think has ever been super remarkable,
been fine grows ninety three, ninety four. Maybe you can hit ninety
five from time to time, but the change up is probably if he's got
a plus pitch in there. It's been that one. And then the slider.
Now, when he was like striking out thirty percent of batters in double
A, the slider was a big part of that. Right, He's got
a gyro slider that I think now in the stuff plus model type things I
think kind of grades out as like an average MLB slider, but it was
always the command of the slider, you know, as he moved up levels
and that needed to be more sophisticated and executed better. He wasn't able to
do that, And his fastball command probably has never been real great either.
But he's also been a guy who just like hasn't really gotten super settled,
hasn't really gotten much of a MLB run. I think he's up to eighty
innings or something like that between a couple of teams the last two years,
but you can tell when he would get back down into triple A, the
slider usage would increase dramatically. So I think that's an area of development that
he's been working on. But let's fast forward to his first start this spring.
I think he went two winnings through like sixty percent fastballs. It was
televised. I watched it. Nothing was I don't think too remarkable at the
time or too exciting or outstanding, but he looked a little crisper. The
execution looked better than Castillo of last year. Both of his starts you got
stat cast stuff with it, right. So his second outing, he went
three innings. I don't think he's given up a run yet struck out four
or five. But gleaning the stat cast stuff, he looks a little crisper.
It looks like the tools pictures have gotten a little higher in quality like
last year per picture list, his three offerings were about MLB average in a
vacuum, but he's getting like three or four more inches of horizontal run on
his four steamer. His change up looked nasty as always. I don't have
like IVB numbers, but I think his fastball is also getting some more inverted
vertical break. And when you look at the just like the pitch plots,
like my man is making triangles and hitting edges. He's always been interesting because
you know, fastball change up guy. He's always been really tough on lefties,
and it's the righty's that he has struggled to get out at a higher
clip. And I think perhaps some slider, some polish on the slider execution,
slider command spotting that better would definitely help. Then, like his second
outing, Matt, he had thirty percent whiffs. That's that's not typical Castillo.
No, that's really solid. Yeah. Now, and I don't know
it's spring training, just a little bit of eyeball test, a little bit
of what I know from him in the history, a little bit of what
I'm seeing on the stat cast. I don't know his his forur steamer is
a little it's interesting to me. It's I think there's something a little bit
different about it that I can't really articulate. This is not my area of
expertise, but like he has stretches where he induces a lot of ground balls
with his four seamer, Like I think he had like sixty percent ground balls
on it last year, which is which is interesting. Yeah, I know,
right, does a profile with more horizontal run than you would expect that
of a four steamer or does he have a particular I can't recall if he
has got like a particularly steep release sometimes that's true. I was actually kind
of chatting with Jeff just a little bit about this last night, and I
can't really say, I don't know. Maybe I'm not saying run out and
get him anything like that, but a guy that I'm going to be keeping
my eye on a little bit this spring training, and I know you right
on right change ups and his strikeout against Jordan Westbrook, his three pitch strikeout
was he goes slider outside, he goes four seen inside, and then change
up for the swinging third strike bottom of his own, just all on the
edges, just a just a nice little three three pitch paint paint job there.
While you're talking about Castillo, I was reminded I was looking at the
Eno Cerrus's pitching plus and stuff plus metrics that he puts out for spring training.
And while Castillo's stuff plus is, you know, below average at at
eighty seven, the locations are really really plus at at one fourteen, So
his over pitching plus is really good. Just looking at a couple of innings
and some stat cast stuff, his location does seem markedly better. And if
you cool, if you can get that going with the slider and get right
he's out. At the rate he gets lefties out there, he could be
he could be a thing. I like it. I like it. Castillo
has maybe been my most interesting little little dive and look here so far this
early spring. But you know who else who has been continues to be damn
interesting? Is my guy read van Scooter, Hang on your guy, what
is this rasure? We play in one league together and I'm pretty sure he's
on my team, Mat for now. For now, I saw that that
trade offer in my inbox. But man, he uh what I think he's
been in two games so far? Two games, yeah, four innings,
He's faced fourteen batters, he's given up two hits, he's struck out eight.
And he had those two hits. Those two hits. One was a
seeing I single and one was a pop up that dropped. Like, I'm
not kidding you. He looks like the best pitcher in Major League Baseball,
Like, I don't know who else looks better than this. It is really
and I know that we we bring him up often in episodes, but Matt,
it's it's warranted. Like he's tied for eighth in strikeouts amongst all pitchers
in spring training so far. Eighth again, out of date stats by by
this point, because I think a couple of the guys through today, but
four innings, eight strikeouts. The only person who has the same number of
strikeouts in fewer innings is a guy named Walter Pennington, who got to say,
I'm not familiar with your work, mister Walter. But now, now,
Matt, you have already mentioned this on this show, that don Scoter
getting to the BIGS this season, You don't You don't think is crazy,
right? I think some things would have to happen in order for it to
come to fruition. I don't think he's their first call. If you know,
WU or Miller or somebody misses some time, who is their first call?
Because if I've done my homework correctly, I believe that after WU their
first five, they've got like three starters on the forty man, right,
Hancock, Stout and then RVs right, Like, yeah, I know when
when you initially said that RVs isn't on the forty man though, So that's
okay. I think, yeah, he's in camp, he's a an NRI,
but no a roster invitee. But I think I would have said that
Taylor Dollard might get the first start. Our first first look, it's probably
Emerson Hancock at this point. The GM Hollander was saying recently that they've been
really impressed with him, and I think Depoto had another quote too about how
he's seemingly holding his stuff better. I'm just not on Hancock. I think
that was a bad draft pick in a tough class, and he has not
performed and even in the times when he's going well, it's a sinker with
the rest of the arsenal doesn't really compliment it. So I'm pretty skeptical of
Hancock as a starter, like maybe a swingman. Maybe he plays up in
relief. I could see that kind of role. But I mean, for
me, as far as who do I think is going to be effective,
Vince Gooter is that guy. The only other one that I could potentially see
them maybe giving a shot before that is Levi Stout, and again, being
on the forty man makes it I think a lot more likely, But I
don't know. Man Jimmy Joyce is the other one who he's pretty good.
He's a level ahead. You know, he finished at Double A last year,
so he's the other one that I think might get a look before Van
Scooter. But all that said, if Van Scooter comes up to Double A
as expected and shoves like he did and like, hey he's been doing in
spring training, I just don't know. I mean, this is something that
I was saying I think when we first talked about him, is that I
think a lot of the skepticism around him is that the overall line you look
at it, it's like, Okay, that's solid. But he was twenty
four when he did that, and it's at high A like mah, you
know, like college guy at HIE. But he's gonna be twenty five this
year. He's going to be in Double A. And I think that most
of the league that he's going to pitch in the Southern League is going to
be in pitcher in pitcher's parks. And as we talked about playing in Everett,
playing in the Northwest League, that's a hitter friendly ballpark and a hitter
friendly league, and he dominated it. So he's going to go to a
more pitcher friendly league. And yeah, the competition is going to be better,
but I'm just a believer in the stuff. Like you watched it.
Both his eyes were televised. Did you watch him, Yes, yes I
did. Like you see that slider, the wind, nobody manipulates that he's
no one else he's hitting. Then he tilts it down and throws a slightly
different shape of that slider and gets whiffs Righty's lefties. It just doesn't matter.
And then the fastballs that he threw I think I mentioned in his second
outing, the broadcast gun I think had him topping out at eighty six miles
an hour, and it's possible that gun was a little bit soft, a
little bit slow, because I saw they have Luis Castillo in that same game,
sitting at like ninety two. And while I think he usually dials it
back in spring, that's a pretty far cry from his usual you know,
upper nineties, So I wonder if the gun was a little bit slow there.
But he he throws this eighty five eighty six mile an hour fastball and
guys are just topping it like soft ground balls, or or missing it like
there's some ugly swings like they take him out. Yeah, and his change
up plays off really well from his other pitches, Like you watch him in
his first batter of his first outing, he was a little uncharacteristically wild.
I think he went three to zero to that hitter, and then he just
dials in and just spot lone away, spot down and in spot up and
in change up below his own strikeout. So impressive the way this guy pitches.
And unfortunately he hasn't pitched in a stack cast stadium, so we don't
have any of the the we know he was sitting like low nineties though right
I'm not sure what I had seen was consistently upper eighties. Maybe maybe averaging
ninety is what I remember hearing from the broadcast. But again, he hasn't
played in any of the of the stat cast park, so we don't have
also, and also to like, you got a fair note like he's coming
in at the end of games against the twos and threes. But yeah,
that is true. So I'm still very excited to see him double a upper
levels how this all works. But I mean, dude, I mean every
test thus far, the man's dominated. Yeah, I mean, I mean
that's worth something, right, I mean, put it in front of him.
Now, good segue to talk a little bit about what's meaningful, because
this is spring training, this is hype season. Joe Boyle didn't walk anyone
in his first inning and struck out Mike Trout, so he's the next best
pitcher in all of baseball, right. No, you gotta take these things
with a lot of grain of salt. And I think I mentioned this when
we were talking with back last week. Your priors should update slowly. Now,
maybe you want to move them a little bit quicker with pictures when you
see, like, hey, a guy's velocity is down the pitch shapes look
different, or he's added a new pitch and it seems effective. Those are
the kinds of signals that might tell you, Yeah, something is different here,
or I should be more interested in this performance. And I think Bailey
Ober is a good example. I think Chris Clegg was tweeting about him the
other day and it seems like Bailey Ober has changed a couple of his pitch
shapes. The performance is backing it up. He's one of the very few
guys that is ahead of Reed Van Scooter as far as strikeouts per inning go.
And I think that in general, people overreact a bit too much to
spring training, and you only have to go back the last couple of years
and see this guy was running a two hundred WRC plus over his forty plate
appearances in spring, and theyvert back to the same guy that they always were.
That said, the things that I look at for both hitters and pitchers
are things like swinging strike rate. So are you getting whiffs with your pitches?
If you are, that might be a leading indicator that your stuff is
playing better than it has And certainly strikeouts are one of the things that stabilize
the fastest. But even then one good outing can buoy your surface level stats
pretty significantly on both on both sides. But what I think we're trying to
highlight is, you know, with Reedvan Scooter his two inning outing the other
day, this is what two days ago, he literally led spring training in
whiffs with twelve over two innings. The guy through twenty four pitches and half
of them were whiffs, two of them were soft contact. Like, it's
so impressive what he has been doing, and it's sort of like the underlying
metrics are backing up kind of what we had seen last year. To me,
it's like, Okay, you just hopped into even if it's twos and
threes in spring training, you just happened in the major league spring training and
you're making guys look just like you did in the Northwest League. So good.
It's a good first test. First test has been passed, and there's
a bazillion more tests to go. Yeah. Another one that pops on this
same leaderboard of the strike at leaders thus far in spring training is the guy
we talked about a couple of times ago in Cody Bradford, and I don't
know if you caught his outing that was televised a couple of days ago he
did. I was pretty impressed that he was busting out the curveball more.
Yeah, yeah, he thought he's he talked about that, used it in
college, and now he's just he's just trying to get a strike Steeler,
which I mean we we talked about that, Like, he had two pitches
that seemed like they were really interesting to us, but we were like,
I'm not sure the slider is it? And maybe a curveball to give a
different look. Now you're looking at three velocity bands like that, it's still
mostly a north south attack. But I thought he looked pretty good in the
outing that I saw, Yeah, from when we talked about him. He's
another guy so far, so good, looking up and up in. I
think that fifth spot is his. The loose I think, yeah, certainly
out of the gate with their injuries and the ain't gonna be cole Win and
Colwyn Cowinn sucks ud. Wait he went to drive line or tread this offseason.
I don't care where he went. I can go to drive line too.
It doesn't make me good. But Owen White, is that the other
guy? Yeah? Yeah, maybe it was that went to tread. We
can't talk about r VS and not talk about Trevor McDonald. Well, I
was gonna get to my man. He's working on some things. Dude,
Trevor McDonald's gotten in I think two games, is that right? Yeah?
Yeah, I think he had some gasoline on his tits. It's just nice
to see him get in there. Oh, I was wondering, did you
watch Logan Evans outing? I did, not, Mariners. He looks pretty
good. Man kind of got a nice at least the depth arm in the
twelfth round. There nice crob has gotten in a game we mentioned clean clean
outing a crob no no strikeouts, but no hits. No. Oh,
I wanted to ask you you didn't Eldon Ato might break with the club.
I think he might, Honestly, Yeah, I kind of think it might
too. I have too many Tanner Scott shares. And I'm kind of pooping
myself a little bit with the way that he's looked so far. And it's
not just that he's looked bad, he's looked bad in the way that he
was bad for his whole career before last season. So I'm a little worried
about it, to be honest, Like his control is poor, the stuff
is incredible and once he tightened up the control. I don't think the command
was even great last year. But Tanner Scott he was elite and he has
looked so bad so far this spring. And Maldono just I think he's got
maybe two or three appearances already and just comes in cutter, cutter, slider,
wipes everybody out. I mean he is, He's nasty. We see
a lot of questions like in the discord and stuff like reliever prospects that you
might want to grab, like I think Anthony Meldonado the Marlins is definitely someone
worth a look there. Michael Daryl Hicks has gotten in two a game.
Guilfoyle has seen him. Were they were going to get to hurt her?
But did the other two were they televised? You know, I don't believe.
So okay, I've been trying to track my arms and watch him if
they're on video. But Herder was on video. I don't know if you
saw his outing from yesterday, No, I didn't that Nate Brand. Herder
looked good and I think the vela was up maybe a tick or two.
It looked like he was throwing more change ups as well. I want to
say he Yeah, he was in a stat cast stadium. So we do
have some of ENO's stuff plus metrics, and they look really good for mister
Herder. That one eleven point six stuff plus one oh seven seven location plus
good for a combined one oh five seven pitching plus score overall. That is
really good for somebody who you know, he's this huge like six' six
maybe six seven lefty who I think has plus extension. Like you watch him
pitch and you see he is getting way down the mound with these big long
arms. And when I saw him and was turned on to him in I
think it was early on last season in High A, the stuff was like,
ah, I mean, he's like really easy and fluid as a pitcher,
but it's not exploding out of his hand. And I think the velocities
on the broadcast were in the upper eighties, maybe touching low nineties. But
I think it's it's better than that now. And maybe some of this is
that these were just kind of one inning stints, but Herder looked really good
in his one outing, and I'm the one televised one that I saw,
and I especially seeing the stuff plus numbers, it makes me double down on
my hunch that there's more there, and it might be the extension, it
might be the way that the pitch shapes play off each other. But Brent
Herder, for me, remains one of the most interesting arms. And I
think he's one that I mentioned really popped on some of the projection systems.
They loved his translation of his minor league line last year. So he's one
that I personally have a bunch of shares of. And while Herder might have
some difficulty cracking the rotation both because the Tigers overall rotation I think is pretty
good. They've got five very solid starters in their top five and then their
depth their triple A rotation is up there, I think for one of the
very best in all of the minor leagues. Casey Mayes looks revitalized. Wilmer
Flores, I'm on, I think that guy is really good. And Sawyer
Gibson Long I've been talking about for a year, Like I loved what he
did last year too, So yeah, Kider Montero as well. Like,
that's four guys that I think are big league starters, big league quality starters,
and that's their triple A rotation. Yeah, I want I wanted to
talk about their rotation real quick. So you've got school ol Flaherty. Are
we sure that the last two spots are are decided? It seems like Olson's
in. Seems like Manning and Olsen right, and they're gonna start. I
think that Manning spot is the most shaky. I think they're in on Olsen
along with the top three. Manning I think is maybe a bit on the
the wobbly chair call it, and it's not quite the hot seat yet.
But the way mys just looked the way say Gifts and Long looked last year,
I don't think they'll give Manning a super long leash. If those guys
continue to be really good and Manning remains kind of shaky, it sounds like
myz is starting in triple A right, just to get some more footing and
good. I think that's what they're saying right now. But again, all
of those guys, those those three plus Kaider Montero, I think all of
them are seeing the bigs this year. The Tigers Tigers starting pitching situation is
pretty pretty freaking interest and we just shoot, Yeah, I really like time
Addam too. So oh oh, I was talking about job job as well.
I know so job Troy Melton is another one that's really good, and
so Brent Herder in the packing order. Unlike with the Mariners, where it's
like there really aren't strong options in between Van Scooter and the big leagues.
In our opinion, that's not true in Detroit. Herder, I think is
on the outside looking in. This is his Rule five year, so this
is his last year before he has to be protected and put on the forty
man. And they've got a lot of starting pictures on that forty man right
now, so that that could be an interesting one if they ended up not
protecting him this offseason. I mean, and he does anything like close to
what he did this last year, he could be a first round maybe first
overall pick in the Rule five. And then just two more b sides that
I noted have made an appearance. My guy Ryan Jennings, who I think
was pretty dang good his first outing and then got roughed up his second.
And then well you had went with Andrew Alvarez right with the Nationals he got
Yeah, but I didn't like it, Yeah right right, palm Quist,
he was on a televised game and he looked great. I think one of
his outings was televised and the other one wasn't. But I really like what
I saw from pump Quest and I think he actually did face some of the
big league guys when he came in. He was like one of the second
or third guy out of the pen in that game, and he looked really
good. Huh, some of our B side bats have been getting a little
bit of run. We're finally talking about the athletes now. Yeah, you
got Brady Allen, at least early in camp, was getting into quite a
what he's got five games in. I don't know if he's really done too
much with the bat, but I thought that was out of you know,
we had talked about how they kind of had a glut of not same types
of players, but guys interesting kind of in the same spot, maybe up
the ladder, and for Allen to kind of come out of that group to
be the guy getting some major league spring training run is interesting. Good call
on your part. Well, it same to you on Jonathan Long. I
thought a couple of his at bats early looked pretty good for the Cubbies.
I think he looks noticeably bigger than last year. It looked to me like
he had put on a bit of that good muscle. So long it was
twenty pounds worth of muscle. Do you think it's been twenty pounds worth of
I don't know if it's I don't know if it's twenty pounds. But he,
as we noted when we talked about Long last year, he had shown
some pretty impressive power, smooth swing from the right side, just it really
extended well through the ball. And he looked a little bigger to me this
spring, and I thought that was noteworthy. You know, it's something you
expect and often can lead to some power gross especially at those ages. So
that was one that I'm good to see him in big league spring training.
You know, else is getting a lot of a lot of run. Is
your guy Luis Vasquez with the Cubs. Yeah, he's And he's been hitting
too. He's had a good spring. I saw him make an air,
though I didn't I didn't know that was really in his repertoire. It's not
really he's He's a slick shoulder for sure. Yeah, I don't know.
I think he's a squarely an option for them on the forty man. I
don't think he's going to break camp, do you No? I know and
I think they're gonna have him hang out in Iowa be their injury fill in
if they need somebody, if God forbid, Dansby goes down or corner or
something like That's he might be one of their first options up if they need
some glove to fill in one of those gaps. And he's not going to
out hit those guys for sure, but he's going to be a future big
leaguer on the back of his glove. And he showed a fair amount with
the bat, which is good and your I think this was your number one
bat in our draft, your guy, Austin Goffieer has been getting quite a
bit of run as well too. I mean he's good twelve games coming into
today. Is that every single game so far? I think so. And
he's he's played mostly second base, but he's I think he got a little
bit. Yeah, he got a couple of games at third, I think
two, and today he had a hit in a walk. I think his
OPS is up to almost eleven hundred. Now. I don't know, he
was like six or eighteen coming into today with with a tater who do you
get, I don't remember, but it was a Grand Slam. I thought
you hit me up. I thought it was like one of my pitchers or
something. I don't know. It was a nice swing. And again this
was one that I got a little a little testy about because Eric Long and
hanging at Fangrafts came out with his top prospects for the for the Dodgers and
really kind of crapped all over Gothier, like, no power here, can't
really play defense, like he's not really a guy organizational depths, you know.
I think he threw a thirty five plus on him. I'm glad that
Gothier is having such a good spring and looks like a real player there.
You know, he's not playing over Mookie Bets, but who is at second?
You know, But Gothier looks every bit the player that he showed last
year. There's line drives, there's spray to all fields. He's playing good
defense, like he's definitely a favorite of mine, and I was. I
was a little annoying on his behalf at the slights to his performance so far,
because he's very good. One of those lines too, Matt, I
mean, this guy can't crack tap one thousands. You can't crack Eric's top
fifty Yankees prospects. But I mean he can crack what seven eight major league
spring training games, and Caleb Durban's been getting quite a bit of run.
Yeah. Yeah, he hasn't looked great though. I think I saw just
one game that he got into and the performance hasn't really been there. However,
one of the things that but not too bad for a guy who's not
a prospect in their system, right yeah, yeah, I mean, what's
his triple slash at at this point? I think it's pretty bad. He's
like one for one for ten, but he continues to not swing and miss.
I think when I looked at this his swinging strike rate remained in the
single digits, which is quite good and is one of those things that you
might read a little more into in a small sample. But yeah, it
hasn't been the best start for him. We already mentioned him. But Troy
Johnston, is he gonna break camp with them? I doubt it. I
mean, they're gonna give Bell the run, and unless he gets hurt,
I don't think they're going to carry Johnston just to back up Bell, especially
when they got Burger too, like they could slide Burger over for and moved
their infield around one of their million second basemen could play. He's still doing
what he does. Yeah, Yeah, he's looked good. Drake Baldwin had
that basis clearing double the other day and I checked in on Baldwin again.
A lot of the Braves games haven't been televised, so I think I only
saw some highlights of some Baldwin seems like he's hitting everything on the ground,
you know, small samples still, But as I had mentioned when we talked
about him, that was kind of my issue with Baldwin. The power seems
real, seems like he's a decent catcher with maybe bordering on above average,
but he has a tendency to hit the ball on the ground a little too
much, and I think some of that has to do with his hand placement
and load. And he's hitting seventy five percent of his balls on the ground
so far, which again small sample. Those things take a little longer to
stabilize, but since that's something he's done before, I'm a little concerned there
isn't a change there. Yeah. I was watching the Dbacks game the other
night and the broadcasters were talking about how their manager was talking about your guy,
Christians Serta as someone who has gotten his attention this weekning. I think
he got into a major league game, but I don't think he's he's gotten
any at bats because my guy JJ Dirazzio has been nice. Oh I want
to This isn't a B side, but while I'm here, I wanna you're
a Braves guy. Former Rockies prospect Forest Wall. Yeah, he is having
quite a spring here, early spring. He's got three dingers already. He's
gonna be their backup outfielder, I think. I mean, do you think
that's x. Yeah, that's what he's auditioning for, and I think he's
got the inside track for it. You know, he plays good defense,
got a little bit of pop, got some speed. I think he's the
backup outfielder. I'm pretty confident in that. Nice nice also, uh not
just been getting a lot of run. They like Choo Alvarez. I mean,
he's a good hitter and it's going to be interesting to see what they
do with him this year, whether they keep him playing short, really see
at the upper levels can he stick there? So if he does, that's
sort of the one week spot on the Braves team, depending on how you
feel about Jared Kelnick. But Orlando Arcia is not some franchise cornerstone that they're
gonna keep there no matter what. I mean. He's on a he's got
two more years on his deal and it's you know, a couple million bucks
a year, But the Braves would move on from that for Nacho if he
shows he can stick there. Now I'm not sure he can. I know
that perhaps doesn't have quite the range though I think his hands are pretty good,
so and we'll see if the power continues to blossom. Like that's something
I think you had pointed out last year and said his hitting skills seem to
be quality, but the knock on him is that the power might be under
developed. He's a big looking guy. I mean, that's that's something that
seems like it's he's grown into some more power and if that continues to trend
up and he shows he can play shorts up, maybe there's a real guy
there. Yeah. It's funny, right man. I mean, we're what
a year and a half from his draft where they took him in the fifth
round, and he's already in much more valuable prospect than some you know,
what were they top five FYPD Prep guys who were striking out for now.
Nowadays things can change might mighty quick like that. Right. Yeah. One
thing that you know we touched on is sort of swinging strike rate is something
to pay attention to that for for hitters. You know, a few whiffs
here and there can, especially in small samples, potentially show issues maybe ahead
of when they might show up in a strikeout raid or an overall batting line.
But you know who's leading the spring training for kind of prospect eligible guys
in swinging strike rate for hitters? Who's got the worst swinging strike rate before?
He's a Mariner? He's a Mariner? Is it witt a Wolt No
Montes, No. We we talked on this guy briefly. We were talking
about B side mariners and how it's kind of tough to find it. But
Hogan Windish, who's had a pretty good year last year. He's got a
sixty five percent swinging strike rate. He's seen twenty strikes zero balls, and
he has missed a lot of them. So yeah, that's like on the
high end. But another guy that is something a prospect of some note that
I haven't seen any of his at bats yet, but a bi Malek or
Tease. He's got a sixty one percent swinging strike rate thus far. Again,
just ten plate appearances. That is somewhat concerning. You know, you
don't want to see that out of a slugger and that that might give you
a little bit of pause. Again, these are pretty small samples. Yeah,
I'll just run down quick the rest of the be sides that I've seen
getting some spring training run and you just holler if you want Billy Cook.
That's all got into a game. But I don't think he has had a
plate appearance. Alan Castro heard a beast is getting a good amount of run
there because on base percentage is like seven hundred or something classic. But he
does, you know, he gets ground balls and gets on bass. You
know, he's sort of like Shanuel without the super accelerated timeline to the bigs.
And I still think the Herdabiest is sort of a valuable hitter. Again,
like is in not the best context. So his skill set probably doesn't
play up at Great American Ballpark like it might at some other places. And
there's also a bunch of guys in front of him, But I still like
his skills. Yeah, Ethan O'donald's gotten into a few games. Dian Fries,
Ryan Ritter, Jimmy Harron. See my guy Miguel Palmer popped a home
run the other day. Yeah, Gustavo Campero, who Joe, Yes,
this sat down nicely, Isaac Collins, Juan Baiez, Ordered Fajardo, Cooper,
Bauman, Matt Krun. Have you watched any Kroun or paid any attention
to Krun? I saw one of the games that Krun was in. I
don't think I saw a plate appearances, but I saw him play. He's
playing right field in that game, and I think it's been a quiet bring
training for him so far. But he's again a guy that's like upper minor
league depth for an organization that doesn't have a lot of great outfielders. So
I think Krone in Philadelphia could be interesting. Yeah, I agree, a
guy that I kind of got my eye on in my deeper leagues in case
down the Road, Bryan Rincombe, terso Ornellis, Leo Reeves, Trenton Brooks.
I saw my guy Alex I had Discernia got into a game, but
he didn't get an AB and then oh, your guy, Blaye Krim has
gotten quite a bit of run and is I think both have been doing what
they do, like hitting the ball and playing mediocre first base, you know,
like they're both old for level quality professional hitters, but I think they're
pretty good and they seem to have continued that at There's still just going to
be in triple A. Huh yeah, I think so. Outside of an
injury of some kind, I don't see him cracking it. But let's talk
about Ornelli's for a little bit, because he's he's seen some run and as
I mentioned earlier, the Padres really seemed to be running out their backup squad
a lot. So I mentioned that the top two guys in kind of the
prospectum kind of sub age twenty seven have seen the most played appearances thus far
this spring are Eggy Rosario, a former target of mine that I still think
has some talent and sort of had last year ruined by injury, and Jacob
Marci, who is another one that a lot of the kind of scout the
stat line type models really liked. But he's got underwhelming power and sort of
looks funny, you know, an athletic looking but keeps getting opportunities and hits
pretty well, you know, not a lot of power, but good on
base and I think he plays all right defense. And they've played both those
guys at a few different spots. Jackson Merrill is sixth on the list at
twenty five plate appearances. Grand Polly tied there also with twenty five plate appearances
coming into today, and both continue to show that they look like leaguers out
there. So I think that that list of San Diego depth, including Ornellis
because he's gotten a lot of run in the outfield there, I think that
they're giving each of them an opportunity to win a job. In the case
of Rosario, it's probably in field backup, in the case of Marci and
Merril, it might be outfielder like left field, even centerfield. Wouldn't be
surprised if all of those guys, including Polly, see significant time in the
biggs this year. And I like all of them. I think they're all
quality prospects and obviously more owned than most of the b siders that we're talking
about outside of Ornellis, But I think that San Diego still are trying to
compete pretty hard, and they've got some significant holes that they're trying to patch
and some of the some combination of these guys I think is going to fill
those needs. We had talked about this during first year players stuff. What
are your initial thoughts on for Melo? The swing looks frint than it did
at the end of last year. I don't know if you picked up on
that. He's seemingly trying to reduce the arm bar that he has with his
right arm his bottom hand. It was somewhat pronounced in his time in the
colleague playoffs last year, but I think it looks a little bit more direct
to the ball. And he's fast. He is, he's got plus speed
and in a couple of my fypds this past year in the categories leagues,
I've tried to target him later on. You know, he has less hype
than a lot of the guys that go before him, but with that speed
upside, I think that there's some real it's pretty exciting, and he's hit
a couple of balls pretty hard too. I've been pretty impressed. You know,
he got beat one at bad I forget who was pitching against him,
but he got beat by what I thought was sort of a mediocre fastball up
and away from a rity, but it was really the only swing that I've
seen of his so far the spring that was non competitive, I thought the
others he's done a pretty good job of swinging at strikes, taking balls,
and when he hits it, he's for the most part, hit it pretty
hard. Now, I've liked my looks so far, I'm cautiously optimistic about
Farmel. We've been seeing him get more run than Colt so far. That
is interesting, and I wonder if that's partly because Cole Young is sort of
in that mix to and is a level above a pretty good early spring too.
Young is And I heard a couple of quotes from I think this was
Depoto a few days ago, just gushing about Emerson and how I think this
was in relation to the fact that he's bulked up quite a bit. And
Emerson looks much more physical that he did even last years as a pretty physical
high schooler, And I wonder if they're trying to make sure that he gets
as many reps as possible. So I kind of have a feeling he's playing
on the inner squad games and in the backfields rather than playing with the big
club, because you know, he still is pretty young, and he's got
into a couple of games, I think, But yeah, it's it's been
mostly the Cole Young Ryan Bliss show for the B squad in the big league
spring training games. So, uh, Emmanuel Valdez hit a home run the
other day and I think a ball off the wall. But you know who
has impressed me. I've lost a couple of games of Yeah, man,
he's got a freaking cannon. Dude, you've got a cannon and he's hit
He's hit some balls quite how hard. I mean he might get a chance
to get quite a bit of run here. Well, what do you think
about them? With the Gelido injury news? They were in an interesting spot.
They've got a few young guys that I'd like them to see them play
and see what they've got. Valdez has one, Bray's another, and then
the crop that's kind of just below them in the minor leagues I think is
pretty interesting. And so you know, with Mayor and Rumin Anthony coming fairly
quickly along with Saddan Rafaela, there are some spots that I think they want
to see who's going to fill. And in retrospect, I wonder if the
O'Neill move was a bad one. For them, and that they're kind of
locking up one of the spots where you would rather see do you have something
with one of your minor leaguers. And I don't know, it's an interesting
setup that they've got, and I just think they're in a tough spot with
the Al East and the injuries that they've had, and they're sort of middling
pitching staff overall, and what do you think that they're going to try and
do the game? I was just watching there is talking about all this in
the booth. One thing that they're talking about that seemed pretty certain is if
Raphael makes the club, he's the center fielder. But I don't know if
that's really going to happen. But yeah, so you got O'Neill one and
left, and then Duran. I mean, he's got to be the center
fielder, right, they would because where's he where's he going to move?
If they if Rafael is in center, actually they said that they would move
him to left field if that was the case, right, And you got
right right, You got your set of d right, And I don't know,
I mean, I think a Brave's at least this early is looking like
gonna make make the club. So, I mean, I think Raphael is
the guy out right. I don't think he'd break currently, that's true.
We might have touched on this. I sent will You're a bray you often
a trade in one of my thirty teamers because that team is pretty well set
up to compete, and I really wanted all of my hitters to have locked
in starting jobs, and I traded away in different deals Tyler O'Neill and will
you are a braid You not because I don't like both of them. I
think they're both good players that are I think are going to have pretty good
fantasy years. What I'm worried about is the playing time for both of them.
I wonder if Tyler O'Neil doesn't bounce back the way that I sort of
hope he's going to, if he and a bray You start split in time
and they've got Duran out there, you know they're going to give him six
hundred played appearances as long as he's healthy in center platoon A bray you and
O'Neil in in left or right and bring up Rafaela to see what he's got.
Play Yoshidah some and left. I don't know, you know, like
I'm just I'm wondering if there's going to be a bit of a time share
there, and I think it's suboptimal for this team and the competitive the place
they are on the competitive wind curve. So it's that's what I'm saying.
It's sort of a fascinating spot to be in, and the Gildo injury does
not do anything good for their near term future, and so I wonder if
like they eat some money and ship out Story and even Yoshida and Paveta and
see, like, all right, let's see what we can do with these
young guys and see who's going to be part of the next score, you
know, because there's a lot of good things to like. Justin Kassas is
twenty four, Devers is still just twenty seven, and both those guys sure
look like really really strong middle of the order hitters. There's a lot of
interesting guys in Valdez and Grissom and Mayer and Anthony, along with a bray
You and Duran that you could see in a couple of years that that's like
a new revamped lineup. And I'm just worried they're going to start some of
the development by sticking to Trevor's story and Yoshida and O'Neil instead of giving some
of the young guys a little bit of run, And this might be the
year to do that, to see what they've gotten those young guys. So
I'm curious to see how it's going to play out for them. It could
definitely turn into that sort of year, right, I mean, things are
never as good or as bad as they seem for one, right, And
we talk a lot about we'll spend months in the off season looking at roster
resource and how everything lines up and all that stuff, And it's like spending
months on like the time trial for like the Indy five hundred, right,
and like once the race starts, it's like, no, that shit matters
anymore. Man, Like it changes in like two weeks. You know,
I'm much more of a just get get the skills, get the talent,
get the players that I like, and then it'll just work itself out.
Right. But the other night, looking I'm giving a good look at like
my three thirty team leagues and how jobs might be, I was like,
man, I like all these players, but not way too many dudes who
don't have a full time job. Right now, Like this could be a
rough beginning of the season. Yeah, And as far as Dynasty's strategy goes,
that's one of the tough choices that you got to make. You might
have to spend away a guy that you really like, that you've held onto
and stock has risen, and then you send him away in sort of a
bad trade. I trade you lose because you need to consolidate, or you
need to make sure that the guys that are in your starting lineup have full
time gigs because playing time is king. Yeah. I have so many I
have so many pitching staffs in my thirties. Was pictures that I really like,
but it's like, yeah, they're sitting like the sixth, seventh,
eighth guy right now. Yeah, Yeah, I'm going to be so much
better later in the year. I think a couple more bats Matt that I
wanted to touch on real quick here. I thought it was interesting that the
Rockies brought Sam Hilliard back that might maybe not put a little damper on my
Sean Bouchard hopes of him playing right field and getting that every day. The
Shard's not off to the hottest start while a lot of the other Rockies are.
You think they're gonna platoon them. I mean, Bouchard's arrighty and Hilliard's
a lefty, so yeah, we'll see. I mean slam Hillary is just
strikes out so much. But they seem to just not care about any of
that. You you follow the Rockies pretty closely, have they said that Chris
Bryan is just the everyday first baseman, Like they don't plan on sticking them
back out in the outfield at all. I think in that so many words,
pretty much Black has talked about how right field first base DH is like
his room to play with the lineup and rotate guys. I imagine they don't
want to run Brian the outfield when they have some other options. I think
they really did do want to take that job and run with it. The
every day right Bouchard's interesting, and I think there are some skills there that
are are worth seeing what he can do. So I'm certainly for that,
Like I never want to encourage the Rockies not to play one of their younger
guys and find out what they've got. Like, I think that's a good
shift that they've made in recent years. If they are willing to let Tovar
run out there as a twenty one year old and see what he can do
even when he struggles. But I'm also sort of wondering, are they going
to try and get Montero some of bats. Montero's a guy that his strikeout
rate today accepting I think he had over three three k's today, but coming
into today he had like an eight percent strikeout rate. His swinging strike percentage
was like one percent or something. Definitely went up today after three k's.
But he's somebody that I've always liked. The power the bat seems like it's
it plays in course. He just really can't play defense anywhere other than first
sort of. So I wondered if there's a lineup where maybe Montero is playing
first and Bryant's out in left field, and they shift Jones over to right
with Doyle and center. Have they talked about that as an option? Do
you think Black's gonna go with that. I don't think we want to take
Jones out of left field, just because the size of the outfield there.
I think you want your rangeier guys and left and center. But Montero,
I think is best as a day and he was really pretty scorching hat to
the end of the year. Like he had figured some stuff out, and
ironically, Charlie Blackman was the guy who helped him figure some stuff out,
and they resigned Charlie Blackman. Who's going to be their DH guy. I
condone that decision. I like that decision a lot. I think what you
might see, or maybe what they'd like to see is maybe Charlie as the
season progresses, just fits a little bit more and more and Montero starts to
you know, if you can continue to progress, maybe he takes over that
DH role or well as that and fingrast step charts are projecting Montero for three
hundred and fifty plate appearances, so that's you know, more than or write
about as many as Bouchard elist as more than anyone else on their bench.
So I mean I could see that. I think it's certainly possible. And
you're also talking about I mean, Brian, it's just a matter of time
until he gets hurt, right and then I hope not. I want to
see a bounce back from him. It's a sad tenure in Colorado, I
hope. I think he's a good hitter for sure. I think our guy
Hunter Goodman's going to be starting in triple A to begin the season. Yeah,
I think that's probably right. You know, what do you think about
Beef You think there's another tier there that's been a time in a year or
two. I think there could be there, just hasn't been enough major league
run yet to say. But I mean, I think he's more or less
proven, you know, for his for that sort of profile and that sort
of hitter. I think he's proven at every level except for one. Well,
while we're on the Rockies, let's say something nice about their pitchers.
I saw you talking earlier today about Tyler Kinley and Justin Lawrence and they're having
a bit of a battle for that closer spot. I just took Tyler Kinley
in like the forty seventh or forty eighth round of fifty round draft and hold
last week, what do you got on those guys like you think that there
they seem like the two arms to own in the back of that bullpen.
But they are their skills or is it just opportunity? No, I think
there's skills. Lawrence man last year talking about this with my guy SPP.
I don't know what month it was in the season. Maybe it was around
All Star break, maybe a little bit after. But at that point,
like Lawrence was like a pretty high war guy because you know, their urders
were so bad and they were running Bullpen was running out there quite a bit,
and I thought Lawrence was fantastic, and they were running him out there
so often. I thought he was excellent. And then I think he kind
of tailed off towards the end because I think he was overused. And then
of course Kinley he came back from his injury last year. I don't know
how many innings he got in twenty or something like that, and they were
real great, but his end of twenty twenty one to the beginning of what
the first twenty some innings of twenty twenty two were just insane. Dude.
I haven't combined those two stretches, but I mean he was doing something crazy
like an Era under one, striking everybody at like he was an elite relief
pitcher for a short span there, and then the injury occurred. Yeah,
and he had a rough GOVID in Colorado last year. But he's one that
I think the skills be a little bit certainly better than he showed last year,
and I wonder if he's going to see some saves this year. I
like both those guys quite a bit. And there are two relievers that could
be in darn near any bullpen in the majors. Like they're legit. They're
just the their numbers are going to get a little bit wonky being in Colorado
and all that, but pitching on the moon, they're legit. Neither position
battles that have popped out to you this spring that seem worth noting. Well,
you know I traded uh Luis anhel Akunya with Darryl herne Is in that
one episode. Do you think Herne's is going to break camp? Is the
starting third baseman shortstop with the A's. Oh no, I think he should.
I don't think Nick Allen is very good. You know, Nick Allen
had a pretty good run in the minor leagues last year in the upper miners.
I think some of that might have been driven by the PCL environment.
And Hernees feels a little like Joey Ortiz's light to me, I think you
can pick it on either a third and short, but I think the skills
feel a little bit like Joey or to me, what do you think about
that as kind of a cop I don't hate it. I don't remember when
we were when we were talking about him, but he was a guy who
it wasn't obnoxious, but he hit it on the ground a little too much.
If I remember correctly, there is more, maybe some more hard hit
than you might think in that bat. It just might not be the right
shape, but yeah, trile A. You know, average EV was eighty
nine, which is right around big league average, and MACS one twelve,
which is smalid, but long jangle three point two way too low. Fifty
ground balls too low. And that's why I don't remember. I mean when
I first took him as my Orioles B side whatever year, that was what
drew me to him was kind of like the pop in his bat. I
thought there might be more of a budding home run hitter in there, but
yeah, the shapes now, but yeah, I think he's definitely got the
glove. I think he's got the arm to play third, and he's got
the skills. I mean, there's one league that I play in that we
might have talked about. It's a points league that does penalize strikeouts a bit,
and he's one that I grabbed as a depth guy for you know,
if he plays third or plays short, he might be useful in that league.
It's pretty deep, and his projected strikeout rate is seventeen percent, but
I'm going to take the under on that. I think he showed a new
level at Double A and Triple A last year, striking out just fifteen point
six percent of the time over two hundred and three hundred and eight plate appearances
at Double A, and her Name's only struck out ten point seven percent of
the time at Triple A over two hundred and fifty three plate appearances, And
that's like, Yeah, the PCL is a great place to hit, and
that includes being a better than average place as far as strikeout rate goes.
But there's real bat to ball skill here. And again the profile is just
he hits the ball on the ground a bit too much, but everything else
about it I kind of like, I don't know. Something about her Na
is that he feels like a sneaky guy that a little bit of elevation and
some run and he could take that third base job and hold it all year.
Got my eye on there, and then I'm a little bummed with when
Richie Pelacios is getting his run. But I still really like this profile.
I don't know if you've watched him at all, but they had him playing
some second base and then he made just a fantastic defensive play at second base,
and I saw he took Carlos Redond. Was that today? Yep?
Today? Yeah? So I don't know. I don't you know. And
the Rays are kind of tricky and tough. I don't know what they're gonna
do. Like out of anyone that roster resource might be the most off on
right now, Like it could be dumb. I don't know, but is
so tough man. I like a lot of these guys for different reasons.
Jose Series another guy that they project him for five hundred play appearances, and
the OBP is going to be terrible. It's gonna be sub two eighty for
sure. But he does everything else so well. Plays incredible defense, well,
turns and pulls his homers, and he's gonna hit maybe twenty homers this
year, and he's talking about getting up to swipe forty bags this year.
I saw some quote about that. Yeah, Jose, get it. I
was watching the Red Sox raised game the other day. He's talking about hitting
thirty home runs this year, talking about his defense, there was like if
it had been a regular season game, which obviously isn't. It's just practice,
that dude would have got a lot of shit the media because he like
quit on like two plays, like almost like back to back. Yeah,
yeah, I don't know what that was all about. Rais are tricky,
but he's another guy Matt that like, I love Plastio so like I love
the skill set, I love the profile, I love what might be coming
there. So he's just gonna sit on my team and we're gonna see what
happens. Yeah, the Raids are so tricky, man. You know,
it's funny. I was talking with you and back last week about some of
the glory days after we stopped courting, and I realized that a guy that
I played against in the Northland League, he's still kicking around for the Tampa
Bay Rays, Rob Brantley. I saw him in the spring training game the
other day, and that would played against each other. Yeah, that's funny.
Okay. Now we spent a lot of time talking about Miranda, but
uh, he's had a good little early spring here. He's hitting it now.
I saw sounds like he's going to be It sounds like first base DH
is going to be his only opportunity, which, yeah, and there's some
competition, but I mean, if you keep swinging the bat like he is
right now, I know he's getting kind of maybe a little bit of limited
time in the lineup because I think there's still uh, you know, being
conscious of his health and that could putting too much on his plate just quite
yet, but uh, he's been swinging it. Minnesota. Minnesota's just another
interesting set that if everybody's healthy, that lineup could be really good. But
if they aren't and they have some clear people that have some difficulties staying healthy
and Buckston and Lewis and Korea, that's a lineup that can just fall apart,
and that could be the Marina's benefit, you know, like this might
be one of those organizations that you target for one of those death guys that
might be on on that fringe and just expect there to be some injuries at
the top part of the lineup and the fill in people are going to be
quite good. You know. Walner and Kyle Farmer and Jeffers like those are
guys that maybe you want to place a bet on for cheap and see if
they run into four hundred and fifty five hundred played appearances. Yeah, and
it does seem to me like the Twins, no matter how how crowded their
lineup might seem at the beginning of the year, there's always some guys that
seemed to crack it and do some things. Yeah, like Willie Knello.
He was super useful in one of my deeper road leagues last year, like
infield and outfield eligibility, stole a bunch of bases, like and he was
free. He was a waiver wire guy, even in a deep league.
So Minnesota is definitely an interesting spot. And they've got some really interesting young
minor leaguers too. Obviously, my boy Manuel Rodriguez doing his thing in spring
training, striking out looking a lot, but hit a mammoth home run off
Craig Kimball the other day. And Austin Martin they're talking about folding into the
lineup up and seeing if he can place Mountfield. He's still around brooks Lee
too. Yeah, and and was better a bit last year, you know,
still not good, certainly not top five draft draft pick worthy, but
he did look a bit better last year. And then the last bat I
wanted to bring up Matt is edist Leonard who's had It's amazing what can happen
once you get a bat out of a horrible development system like the Dodgers and
it comes over to the Tigers. And I mean he was he was smoking
it last year man in Triple A and he's having a hot spring now.
And I don't think i'd like wager money that he's going to break camp,
but I think he's got a chance to and be a bench infield type of
guy, or or maybe he just sits in Triple A until there's an opportunity.
I've always kind of been a fan, you know. There was a
time when I wondered if he was just as talented as the as the Martes
Luciano's and to bars that were in the same league. And he kind of
just seemed to sputter out a little bit with the Dodgers. But they might
have a train. I don't know. I keep coming back to this Detroit
Tigers team and Eddie's Leonard is one of those guys. Ryan Kriidler is another
one that I was on after his really good twenty twenty two and he got
shuttled back and forth between the Bigs and Triple A last year and he's having
a great spring. I think I saw he's walking like thirty five percent of
the time in spring training. You know, again, small samples, but
it's always interesting to see that. And then another guy that I've been on
as a B side esque bat for years now is Buddy Kennedy who ended up
in the Tigers organization, and I think he still hasn't swung and miss yet
this this spring training in limited sample. So they've got an interesting Triple A
team. It's going to be pretty fascinating to watch and see who sticks.
Because I've already talked about Akil Badu before I know when sel Perez is another
one that we've talked about is like we like the bat, not sure where
he's going to play on defense, justin Henry Malloy Justice big B. This
is a really interesting upper miners set for the Tigers, and I like a
lot of their big leaders too. Tigers might be one of my picks to
overperform, and I think that they could win the ALE Central this year.
Yeah. I mean, it's not like that's some huge undoable task I'm going
to get on. I'm going to get on DraftKings and I'm going to start
laying a bunch of prop bets on the Toledo mud Hens because that seems so
good. They sound good. How many games do you think the Toledo mud
Hens would win in the BIGS this year? More than the White Sox?
Probably not, but it's not that crazy, like, especially when you look
at the pitching depth there, like that is a big league rotation. It
wouldn't be I think out of the gates like great. But there's a lot
of guys that I really really like there. I think the problem would be
is that defense I think would be bad because I think a lot of those
guys are more bat first hitters, which we care more about for fantasy,
and the pitchers are good, but I think that their defense might be a
little bit underwhelming. Although again you could say that about the big league squad
two. I mean, is there a plus defender in that lineup? Maybe
Parker Meadows. I don't know if he's plus centerfielder. Yeah, Bias certainly
isn't anymore he was at one. Any other bets you want to talk about,
Matt, we touched on pretty much all of the other ones. The
only other two that I wanted to touch on just talking about swinging strike rates.
One was Dylan CRU's swinging strike rates so far is a little worrisome.
Caught a few of his games and he does seem like there's a bit more
chase than he showed in college, and maybe that's partly why he struggled a
bit at double A last year when he met it up there. So that's
one just to keep an eye on. Slightly worrying at like thirty six percent
so far. I saw this going around the other day, but it's still
true. Spencer Jones hasn't swung and missed at a pitch yet, and you
and I've talked about this before. There are other things that he needs to
do to tap into his massive potential, but not swinging missing is a pretty
big component of that. So that's another one to watch. If if that
sticks and it brings his strike out strikeout right down into the twenties, even
that is potentially really interesting, even if he doesn't change his as launch aggle,
because he's again another guy that hits the ball really hard but on the
ground a bit too much. So that's one that you know, I might
be wrong about. I've been skeptical of him changing two fundamental things about himself
as a hitter. But if he's already doing one, maybe showing a little
bit better contact skills, that might portend his ability to get to more of
his ceiling than than I think. So I just wanted to mention that one.
I think other people are trumpeting it from the rooftop rooftops who've been way
on Spencer Jones, but worth noting when you're you might be wrong too.
So yeah, so, Matt, some rotation battles here or what rotations are
standing out to you? Well? I do of want. I don't wanted
to start off by pointing out how your mantang really screwed up this spring,
I think because I agree that Giant's rotation right now, like eek, what
is going on? Who is gonna be there? They're not like in the
running for Snell or Montgomery, are they? I've heard people wish casting Snell
there. But I think Zaidi said that they're out. I think he said
they're done after the Chapman signing. I think he basically said we're not in
on any of the available free agents from here and out where there's poop,
there's opportunity, right, I mean so you've got Logan Webb great, he's
good. He's good. Yeah, Kyle Harrison great potential, but I think
there's still a lot to be proven there. I mean, I know that
the walks got much much better, but don't feel super safe about that.
And then back that up with Jordan Hicks, is that really okay? I
don't know his his start the end other day, I don't think was televised,
but I wanted to see it because I think he'd showed a couple of
new pitches. I think he was throwing curveball that he hadn't been throwing before.
He'd been talking about throwing two seam and four seam and that that was
going to be a big thing. But I didn't. I didn't see that,
and I think the results were mixed. He's talking about was he talking
at all about throwing strikes? I don't care what pitch he used to do.
Yeah, I do think that was continues to be a focus for him.
He was throwing way slower on purpose. I think he was throwing in
the mid nineties as opposed to over one hundred. But I think that some
of that was supposed to be on purpose as well. Again, I don't
know how that's going to go. I love my boy Keaton Win, but
he's not healthy right now. And he's a guy whereby walks and that you
know, his nasty splitter walks are a thing. So I mean it's like
it's like the Giants rotation is to walks, what the Rockies lineup is to
strikeouts. Here, I mean, this is pretty iffy. And then what
they know? They got Black penciled in who fourth, fifth, sixth inning
dive there, Matt Black? You think that's what they're gonna do with him?
Well, no, just got Yeah, he was awful. Later I
think they got Spencer Howard somewhere in there on fanglass, like, I don't
know, he's not in their death charts, and they go they go pretty
deep, I think. So, I don't know. I'd be surprised if
Howard gets any starting pitcher ran because because Tristan back, he's he's like down,
he's out right yeah, And so man, man, this is like
your boy Tang would be in there right now, would definitely have a shot.
So I don't I don't know, I don't know what the Giants,
well, the issue. The issue is all the injuries with it because I
think the one positive note for them is Alex Cobbs sounds like he's talking about
or turning from his injury sooner. You know, he's got a hip thing,
and they're saying that he's going to get one hundred and five innings,
and I think that might be based on older information. So if he's more
like one hundred and forty, then this rotation starts to look a bit better.
Obviously, Robbie Ray is going to come back in the probably August time
frame. I'm guessing it's after the All Star break, and I'm pretty bullish
on Keaton win so long as the elbow is actually okay. I think that
he's maybe their second best starter. What do you think about that? As
a hot take? You think he's their second best starter? I mean,
I think that that outcome isn't super sizzling to me looking at who else is
here. I actually you were mentioning his walk rate, but he's really not
struggled with walks except for one stop, and he limited walks pretty significantly.
You know, it's a last year to me, I think. I mean,
his his biggest weapon is a splitter, and splitter is just not you
know, that's not the most precise tool out there, and it can be
an issue, it could be tough. He's did a pretty good job con
containing that, and he gets a ton of ground balls. And I think
one thing that the Giants are doing pretty well is there. The Chapman signing
just makes so much freaking sense. And I think Matt Chapman is just gonna
swoop up so many ground balls from these guys like Logan Webb, probably gonna
lead the majors again in ground ball rate. Jordan Hicks, he's a big
ground ball guy with his like you know, boring two seamer boring as in
like it bores in on the bat or not boring, like it's dumb.
Yeah. Keaton Win his splitter gets a ton of ground balls too. Harrison,
I think is the only one and then Ray when he comes back,
are the only two that are fly ball pitchers. I think that in that
sense, the Chapman signing makes me like the depth starters for San Francisco even
more. I am bummed that Tang was out of shape or something and pulled
an oblique or whatever it was like, because I really wanted to see what
he can do. I think he's gonna see starts in the in the Giant's
rotation of this year, and I think he's gonna do well. So his
pickle slipped out of his burger and bent over to pick it up. Well,
you got to you gotta have the pickle. You know, the pickle
is a critical part of the burger experience, and Kaiwai knows that. So
yeah, I mean, I hear you that there's a lot of questions here,
and especially for a team that makes noise about being competitive, this is
not an exciting rotation outside of Logan Web if your goal is to make the
playoffs and win the World Series. But I do like a lot of the
skills here, like Cobb for an injured old guy buy as a bounce back.
I think I have him a couple of places. And like I said,
I've got Hicks on one of my thirty teamers, and I'm kind of
looking through my fingers squinting, hoping that he can find something, especially in
front of that defense, because they can play defense, like I think they
can. You know, like you said, Nick Ahmed, if he gets
the Bowl of the innings because Luciano shows that he can't actually hit, that
is a hell of a defensive infield, especially on the left side. So
I don't know. It's it's interesting enough for me that you might round up
on some of those guys just giving their ground ball tendencies. Another rotation the
fifth spot might be a little interesting right now depending on an injury. But
Sonny Gray might not be ready for opening day, and so that might at
least to start things off, might leave a little room for our guys Zach
Thompson that we talked about to perhaps sneak in there. I could see it.
I mean, I think he's the next man up, and it doesn't
sound like Sonny Gray's hamstring injury is serious, but maybe he misses a turn
or two through the rotation, and hey, if it bolsters my guy Stephen
Mattz too, I'm okay with that. Well, talking about bending over to
pick something up, I guess Baz hurt himself some more picking up his gym
bag or something. Is that what it was like that I'm believing he's driving
me crazy, stupid rays. What are they doing well? I mean,
so I don't know about my fantasy team. If you ended the season on
the sixty day iol, can you just continue to be on the sixty day
io. No, I think they take everybody off in the off season,
but they can, so it doesn't that's so he's got to spend another sixty
days on Oh that's because I don't totally know. But my little tinfoil hat
self was like, yeah, are they just playing some games to keep him
on some il list because they I mean, he wasn't going to get a
full season run of innings anyway, So I get no. No, definitely,
so I get not using his bullets early in the season. But I
kind of felt like there might be some shenanigans there. I wouldn't put it
passed the major league teams to do service time shenanigans of one kind or another.
But I don't know he's getting service time. So it's not that I
don't really get it, other than like maybe they are trying to protect his
health, but that's not very raised like either. One guy that I see
a lot of folks questioning, understandably so voting Francis, who looks like he
might be getting the fifth spot in the Blue Jays rotation. The thing's like,
or at least I still I don't know what's going on with rodrig As
their Cuban signee either. I don't know if he's quite ready for a rotation
spot, but yeah, so this Francis guy, what I'm curious about is
now he got I think in twenty twenty two he got like a full season's
roun a starting in the minors, but then last year he was injured.
He only threw like thirty thirty innings last year, So I'm a little curious
about what his inning total might look like now. But at the same time,
how worried are you about that for your fifth starter to start the season,
a guy who doesn't have major league experience. I've watched him a little
bit in the past. I don't know if I'm how intrigued I am.
Obviously you got a deep league al only or a thirty team er might want
to take a look at him, But I don't know. Have you watched
him at all? Do you have any thoughts? I haven't watched him this
spring, but he was another one that's surprised me with how he popped on
the stuff, plus metrics from you know, Sarahs and he I think has
swinging great so far the spring is up above sixteen percent, which is really
good. Even in a small sample. This is an interesting one. He's
certainly looked a lot better than Alc Manoa. Tiedaman's health continues to be a
concern. The fact that they continue to like shuttle in back to backfield only
is worrying for Tetaman. So Boden Francis, I like this shout as somebody
that he could be like your Sawyer Gibson long from last year and sees a
rotation spot for fifty innings. It'd be really good doing so. Yeah,
I mean he's the fastball, fastball, curveball guy right north south. A
lot of these guys have a new pitch or a new something that they're trying
or have sharpened the tools, right, I mean this spring training. That's
one thing that I think is interesting about spring training is what are these pitchers
coming out with and trying? So, I don't know, maybe maybe he's
put some more teeth on his on his weapons here. You know, a
guy like him with his four steamer and his curveball, you know, the
propensity for home runs is there. Yeah, and he does give up a
decent number of fly balls and so that could play up. But I remain
pretty interested in him and he's one that I might knock on some doors and
see if he's available. Interesting how the story of the Dodgers rotation has has
changed, right, I mean they signed Packston and well where they gonna where
they gonna throw all these guys, And now it's like, well, who's
who's gonna be the fifth guy? Yeah? I mean I thought Shehan was
kind of a lock, but he's he's not right, he isn't healthy.
It's Gavin Stone gonna get the fifth spot there. It's kind of looking like
it, I think so. And I don't know how you feel about this,
but I prefer to she And how do you feel that's that's tricky?
Probably so, although she and like his second weapon has gotten a lot better
than it was coming up, So I don't I kind of I don't know
that. That's kind of a tricky one. It's a tricky one to me.
Stone and Fought are sort of inextricably linked for me because they both absolutely
dominated the minor leagues in twenty twenty two and then came up and were mediocre
to bad for large portions of their twenty twenty threes. But like Fought,
who I think figured it out late in the season and obviously into playoffs.
I think Stone's going to have a similar trajectory. I think he of the
younger guys for the Dodgers, like Bobby Miller and Gavin Stone, or the
two that I'm betting on, you know, not River Ryan, not Kyle
Hurt, not Emmitt Shean, not Michael Grove. And I care a little
bit less. I know that lots of folks resort to saying that change up
first, guys have bigger problems, and that maybe there's some truth to that,
But I don't think that's all that Gavin Stone is. I think he
has a relatively deep arsenal. He limits his walk. He's had a bit
of bad luck last year and maybe some of the stuff backed up a little
bit, But given what he showed in twenty twenty two, that guy's still
in there. And I think that that is a very very talented pitcher.
So I think for me, Gavin Stone remains really interesting and I think he
could take this and run with it for a pretty significant time. You know,
like viewers not healthy, Kershaw's not healthy, Shean's not healthy. So
to answer your question, I'd rather bet on Stone's career. But I think
I'd rather bet on Shehan in the short term. If he's health I think
he can ride that fastball right now. I mean that's what he does.
But I don't think that age is so well. She Han's been more successful
in the BIGS thus far. Right the slider has come along to the point
that I think those two weapons he could kind of where whereas I think Stone
still he has his arsenal in his game. I think he's got more things
to figure out. Does that make sense, Yeah, yeah, it makes
more. I think there's more Van and Stones game, but I think there's
She kind of feels like almost like a classic Raised guy to me in the
sense that it's going to ride a big weapon. But after a while,
what's he gonna pivot to. I don't know. Yeah, I just I
know the velocity is solid with Shean. I just don't think his fastball is
special, both in that I don't think he commands it that well and I
think it's one of the ones that has sort of middling shape, so it
doesn't play as well as you might expect. And I think his slider is
good. I like his she and slider. I've always thought OF's fastball shape
as being pretty top of the shelf. I don't think it is now,
and maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think that it's okay rather than
plus. And given that he's like routinely at ninety six ninety seven, you
might expect some more out of that. But yeah, I don't really think
that that's his calling card anyway. I think it's his slider, is his
LUs pitch. Angel's fifth spot is kind of interesting now that Bachman got hurt.
I don't know, is it Silseath that's I think they got penciled in
right now on raster resource. But I was watching the game yesterday or was
it today, and they're talking about Jose Suarez potentially getting that fifth spot.
Yeah, we were just talking about this in the Dynasty dug at discord a
couple of days ago, and Jose Suarez did have a nice run a couple
of years ago, backed up pretty significantly this year. I personally like Silsith
way more than Bachman, and I think it should be Silsith that gets the
first crack at that fifth rotation spot after Detmer's Sandoval, Anderson and Canning.
But Suarez, I think is going to see some significant innings this year,
I'm not totally sure the role. Obviously, they've got Zach Pleisach there as
well, and Davis Daniel had an interesting, if surprising cup of coffee last
year too. So they got a few guys, not many of them that
I think are great, But yeah, I think any of those guys that
we just mentioned are going to get a little bit of opportunity. We were
talking about the Red Sox a little bit with their rotation. Now that Jiulito
got hurt Is Borderline, the Borderline Shit Show got Pavetta, you got Bello,
you guy Cutter Crawford, right, he probably seems pretty pretty safe and
lacked in there. But then who's going to get the last couple of spots?
How can whitlock? Sure seems like I mean, they were the ones
competing for the fifth starter spot and I think they both get bumped up to
four and five. Now I don't feel good about it. No, I've
always I've always liked Murphy and Winkowski. I know Winkowski did great as a
reliever last year, but they've got him. It seems like they're stretching him
out now, They're they're giving him a shot at it. And Cooper Chris
Well through today, and he's I think or talks about him having a chance.
I gotta say, I don't like any of those guys. Like I
think Winkowski is a good reliever, I'm not sure I see it as a
starter. I think the same is true of Whitlock. I think Whitlock should
be in the pen. How is sort of frustrating to me. I've seen
him be pretty good but have trouble that third time through the order, So
he's more of a five and dive kind of starter. I like the arsenal
to get there, but it's maybe not quite deep enough, so he I
think profiles better as maybe a two inning reliever rather than a guy you're trying
to count on every fifth day. The Red Sox death beyond that, Like
Brandon Walter was really exciting to me a couple of years ago, but the
stuff is way worse than it was two years ago. A sort of a
low slot lefty that did have a little bit of velocity and a good slider,
and now he looks bad. I saw him in spring training maybe today
or yesterday, and it was not good, which continued to trend from last
year. So when are they gonna sign Montgomery. I don't think they're going
to I really don't. I just think they're gonna cheap out and use this
to rebuild. Like that we talked about a little bit on the offensive side
that I think it's more likely they trade some of their veterans that maybe they
overbid on in Story and Yoshida and make room for some of their young guys
and let the team kind of suck. I think they're gonna lose. I
think they're gonna be last in the Alias this year, and I thought that
before Giulioto got hurt, even though I maybe see a little more upside in
a couple of their arms, like I like Bello a lot, I like
Paveda, I like Crawford, but their depth is so bad on the pitching
side, and I think they've they're in a weird spot with their offense,
so they're in a tough spot. It's gonna be interesting to see how the
new regime approaches it. I'd love to see Chris mur if you get a
couple of starts and see how that goes there? What about your braves?
Who's the fifth starter? Sure seems like it's gonna be Ronaldo Lopez, depend
like, based on what people are saying, I've never been a Ronaldo Lopez
guy. Like literally ever so Bryce Elder not going to be in the rotation,
huh. I mean he's gonna get his starts. But I they seem
like they're going to give Renaldo Lopez the first crack at it. I don't
know, man, I've it's confusing to me because maybe some of this is
my own bias. I remember years ago when Lopez was breaking in with the
White Sox that they were I think it was like Paul spor back in the
day, was on the sleeper and the bus talking about how he's way into
Renald Lopez. He throws triple digits, wipeout slider, He's gonna be so
good, and the guy just got hammered all the time. He just gave
up hard contact, didn't strike people out, walks people. I was like,
you can't tell me that the stuff is good if the results are bad
like that, those things don't vibe. And the results were so bad for
so long. I think it really soured me on Ronaldo Lopez once he converted
to being a reliever, only he had some flashes that showed like, hey,
maybe this is maybe there's something there, And that's sort of when they
signed him. I was like, oh yeah, it says a you know,
maybe two inning at a time reliever, a fifth sixth inning guy when
things aren't going well, and that seems like a good role for him.
I was like, Okay, that makes sense to me. Like strikes,
he's figured out how to strike guys out a little bit more. Maybe his
stuff is playing better and he's got you know, his last three years,
he's got three four ERA two seven ERA three two seven ERA the last three
years as a reliever. Why are we messing with that? Like, what
what are we doing here that we think he's just gonna be a starter?
I don't I'm not sure I see it, But all the reporting Dave O'Brien
and the other folks plugged in with the Braves, it sure sounds like that's
where they're going, at least for now. That's interesting. I don't think
he's looked that good the spring either. So that's the other weird thing.
You know, one eight ear a maybe people are looking at but I'm seeing,
you know, three strikeouts and five innings and five one FIP Like that's
not very good. Maybe the braves do something with them and figured out.
But I mean, I don't think much of that story had changed from when
he broke in. I watch play like that, he would tease you.
I don't think too an arsenal change here. He's ten percent swinging strike rate,
which is way below average. Like I don't know, I don't know,
I don't really see it. I the depth charts, for what it's
worth, project Elder to have twice as many innings in the rotation as Lopez,
and I think that that's somewhat likely. I think those two are likely
trading off for the first couple of months while they see what they've got with
aj Smith Shaver and Hirston Waldrip, see if either of them have figured out
their walk issues. You know, smith Shava looked pretty good the other day.
Waldrip again, the stuff looks enticing and he's missing bats, but he's
also a little bit all over the zone even when he's in the zone.
And then Pascarinoa is another one that he had a really good run a couple
of years ago and then had some unfortunate injuries, you know, broke his
hand punching something and then had TJ. So he's another one. That even
when he was having success, I was a little bit skeptical of it just
because it was like mostly two pitches fastball, slider. But he was doing
really well with that mix, and it'll be interesting to see what he's got
coming back as well. It's kind of something there, he Elder, thanks
for your thirty one starts last year, your one hundred and seventy five innings,
you're ERA under four and your whip under one three, but you're out
of the rotation now. I mean, he's gonna get starts this year.
Like it's not he's not out out like Ian Anderson, right, he's not
hurt and maybe never going to pitch in the major leagues again. But Elder,
to me, I think the issue was his playoff start. You know,
like he looked good for two innings and then got demolished, right,
And that's like for a team that's set up like this, you can run
Bryce Elder out there every fifth day for months at a time, and he
can give you quality starts and he can eat up some innings. But I
think what they're hoping for is to not throw Bryce Elder at the end of
the season. Like that's what it feels like to me, like they're trialing
is Renaldo Lopez three innings in September, October, November, you know what
I mean? Like that, that's what it seems like to me, Like
this team so much is going to have to go wrong for this team not
to make the playoffs, Like that's weird to say in a sport like baseball,
but this team is ridiculously good and their fifth starter and shortstop and left
field are like maybe the only spots where you're like, I'm not sure what
this looks like by the end of the year. And so I think that
what they're trying to do is figure out is Ronaldo Lopez a guy that they
can rely on late in the year. Is that instead it just Misshov Is
it Bryce Elder? Like maybe Bryce Elder can return to form and really tighten
up his locations so that his stuff plays up. I don't know, but
that's my guess is they're trying some stuff out to see what sticks. The
padres rotation Matt, I think our guy Brito is looking pretty good to get
a rotation spot there. What we got Musgrove, do Harvish probably King,
right, I think the guy Brito, And then I don't know who's after
that. Vasquez, man, I think he had a rough one today,
he did, you know, I've watched a lot of him. He can
be so good sometimes and his his breaking ball can be just devastating sometimes.
But he's just I think, got a long track record of being wildly inconsistent
outing the outing. No what, I don't know, Matt Waldron. I'm
rooting for Waldron. Like my guy who I think should be the fifth starter
is Waldron. I mean, like, yeah, throw that knuckleball, Let's
let's mix it. I know, I know, like Grasser, resource had
like a Vila in there for a while. I don't think. I don't
think that's I don't think he's a starter, is he? What do you
think of Erie Arte? Know, he's like a top one hundred prospect for
some folks now and stuff, And I'm like, I don't know, man,
He's another guy who later in outings no bueno has been no bueno.
He to me is in that mix of how stuff high excitement guys that I'm
just not sold on. Like the walks have been bad basically everywhere, not
like awful, but not good. And he has shown some propensity to like
have his strikeouts like he had a great run at double A last year.
You know, fifteen and a half strikeouts per nine is really good. It
came with five walks per nine though, And I don't know man like these,
especially given the way that the stuff seems to back up as it gets
deeper into outings. Like he looks a lot more like an electric reliever to
me than the starter. I'm way more team Drew Thorpe, Like, I
think Thorpe is going to be a better starting pitcher again as a change up
first guy, a smaller statued guy, doesn't have like electric velo like Erie
Rte does. But I'm team Thorpe there. Yeah, erie Arte picked him
up everywhere, traded him everywhere. But I think I traded him everywhere too
soon. I should waited a little bit longer. It's got a couple more
one to bounce off of. You. What what's a Brewers rotation or maybe
last spot gonna be because I think it's well, it's Peralta Wade Miley,
but he's not healthy right now, Junis and I think Reya is probably solidly
in the rotation to start, but then dal hall Ashby Gasser, Joe ross
I don't know. I mean, is Hall a lot to be the fifth
starter? I don't know. I think he might be out of the gate.
He and Gasser, I think are are both going to be in the
rotation to start, especially if Miley misses much time. I think Colin Rey
is not good. Can't imagine they run him out there for the one hundred
plus innings that Rosser Resource has them projected for. I don't know, man
deal. Hall has looked a bit different. I saw, you know,
again highlights, so like we didn't see the full amount of his outing the
other day. It was just today. I think it was just today.
But he looked good. He's finding the zone and the electric stuff is still
there. And you know, I'm a fan of Gasser. I really like
his pitch mix, you know, deep and deep and varied again. Junis
to me feels more like depth. So the way I think this rotation ends
up looking maybe part way through the year, Freddy P, I think,
does this thing, maybe even takes it to the next year and keeps the
walks down and the strikeouts tick up even more. We've seen that from him
before, so I think Freddy P turns into an ace. Gasser and Hall
are the two and three, and then Miley's your four, with Junice,
Rea and Ross maybe filling in behind. I think Ashby they're gonna pen him
again. I don't think he's going to start, and then maybe they depending
on how injuries and things shake out. Don't forget about Carlos Afrodriguez, who
I think has a shot to take another step forward this year and prove he
can be a big league contributor as well. But to me, that leaves
Junis and Reya more on the out looking in again early in the season.
It sounds like it's going to be more of the old guys. So Junis,
Reya, Ross, maybe even Ashby are maybe going to get some starts
early on. But I don't see that working out that well in the long
term. And I think that especially if the offense looks takes a step forward
with some of the young guys and it looks pretty good, I wonder if
they'll they'll push the young starting pitchers in Gasser and Hall and Rodriguez to see
if they can pick up and push in as well. So the Brewers are
a tricky organization. They're cheap and they're trying to play cheaply with old guys
or rookies. There's some guys that I really like in there though, And
of course maybe Logan Henderson explodes and gets up there too. I don't know.
Another rotation that I think is a little murky and interesting is the Pirates.
You got color, Martine Perez, Marco Gonzalez. What's after that,
Matt Because I know Ortiz has got the crazy slider, but he's got to
wringle it in, he's got to tighten it up white a bit. Have
you watched him? Have you watched it in the spring, Yes, I
have. Fastball looked impressive of the Spring too. I thought he was super
slappy when I saw him. Yeah, I don't know. It hasn't been
the best execution of location, for sure, but it seems like the stuff
is better than I remembered. And that's He's the one that I think has
impressed me the most. Like yeah, Jared Jones is hitting one oh one,
like yawn, the guy is still walking a bunch of guys. He's
not getting punch outs with it, like wake me up when he starts striking
people out with it, like he was another guy who late and starts when
Yeah, I don't know. I know people are pumping with Jones, but
I'm not sure about that Ortiz. Of the guys that might break out a
bit, you know, Roonsey Contreras, Jared Jones, Quinn Priester, my
pick of those is Orchie. It's like, I think Ortiz is better than
those guys. So he's the one. And I'm not interested in Marco Martin
Perez. Like, if you need depth in a thirty teamer like yep,
he'll probably provide you that. Mitch Keller, I'm still not sold on.
I know he took a step forward last year, but I want to see
him repeat it because I worry that he's going to backslide to be the same
high velocity, bad shape, bad results. The Pirates's quite a bit of
money in him. I know that doesn't Yeah, but that doesn't instill a
ton of confidence. And you know, you know who was really good actually
I think got better in a lot of those stats later and starts was Jackson
Wolf. Yeah. I like Jackson Wolf. I've got him a couple of
places, and I hope I can use him on my taxi squad in a
couple of ways. I don't think he's going to rise to the level of
one hundred and fifty inning quality major league starter. But he's got enough funk
that there there's a real could be a useful piece there. So I like
Jackson Wolf. This one, which we were bantering about quite a bit today
that I had is I think the A's fifth starter at least to start the
year is kind of open right now. Medina got hurt. I don't know
if he's going to be ready for opening Day. I don't know if he
was locked in to that fifth starter spot to begin with, but I know
all of the boil heads in the Dugout are all excited that he may now
have a rotation spot to start the season. You think you think he does.
Joe Boyle is such a fascinating case. And we've talked about this before
in the Dynasty dug Out discord and on the pod too, But guys that
walk people more than fourteen percent of a time rarely turn out well. Like
there's a small handful that might turn into good season, like your Blake Snells,
that that might turn into volatile career. Guys that walk more than sixteen
percent of batters almost never and become major league starters. Guys that have a
season where they walked more than nineteen percent of batters over a decent sample only
become relievers. So for me, Joe Boyle, his whole minor league journey
has been this is electric stuff that is going to end up in the pen
as a high walk, high strikeout guy that might turn into a good reliever.
But there's no way you're doing this in the major leagues as a starting
pitcher. By god, it seems like he's trying to turn himself into something
of a control artist. Sixteen innings in the major leagues last year had a
eight point three percent walk rate. He had a good stint at Double A
last year when he came over from since he the trade, but every other
stop had a walk rate above sixteen percent, including in Triple A with Oakland.
So like, if you think Oakland worked some magic on him, it
disappeared in PCL again. Maybe that's the automatic ball strikes this time, I
don't see. Yeah, I had shared this in the Discord and some other
places a few times, but how many Major league audiings did he have last
year? Four? I think three? I know. I went back and
I looked at game logs, and even when he was with the Reds,
he had I don't know, four or five outing stretches where his walk rate
was around what was it, eight percent or six percent or whatever it was,
So when he was still with the Reds, So that wasn't like an
unprecedented stretch for Boyle. Now I'm not saying that he hasn't made improvements.
I don't know. Maybe Theys did do something with them, I don't know.
I'm just saying he has had stretches where the walks weren't as egregious before
and then they got I think that's a good it's a good point, Nate.
And this gets back to sort of the theme of the episode, which
was you should adjust your priors pretty slowly. Right, Joe Boyle has shown
us who he is for so long his entire minor league career, Like these
are just some of the most errocious walk rates that we've ever seen. And
I'm not sure a cherry picked like grand total of forty innings is going to
change my mind here, Like if you take his best stops Oakland double a
Oakland Major Leagues last year, and then the you know, five innings,
five and a third innings before today when he was pretty good again today but
did have a couple of walks, like Cherry pick his forty best innings as
far as walk rate goes, and yeah, he looks like a stud and
the stuff is impressive. But his second inning today, like we were talking
about, he went eight straight balls that were just non competitive, went three
to one to the next batter by missing a slider up, a slider down,
and a fastball arm side. Like that's all over the place. That's
not a consistent miss. That's not just barely missing, it's not getting squeezed.
That's the guy that I remember watching when I was like, these are
some gaudy strikeout totals, but whoa, these are also some gaudy walk totals
closely to like really have internalized his motion, but it didn't look different to
me. It looked the same, kind of like limbs flailing, a lot
of movie excuse me, a lot of moving parts. Like I don't know,
man, I still am not convinced, and it's probably gonna mean that
I miss out on boil. I've got him in one league, but it's
a limited keeper league, and there's a zero chance that I keep him,
so It's likely that this is the kind of guy that I'm going to miss
out on, But he's got to show me more to convince me that there
the walks aren't still a significant part of his game. To the question,
like, I think they are going to give him a shot at that fifth
fifth spout in the rotation. They also gave Fujinami a shot to start to
did do you know who? Who? I'm not totally sold has shown us
who he is or is gonna be. Who's that? Joey asked this,
Ah, Joey testes he also pitched also bitched today and struck out five and
didn't walk any and didn't give up ahead or did he give up it?
No, I don't think he did. I don't think. I don't know.
We have we have a fun Boil versus Estes feud going on in the
Dynasty discord and Dynasty Dugout discord Es. I think is still figuring out some
things and figuring out his repertoire and what works best for him. So I'm
not sure what to totally expect from him sometimes on an out into outing basis,
but excited to see that little fun debate play out. I don't know
who you got who has more major league starts this year? Boil or Estes.
Oh, it's a good question. I think I'll say Boil because I
think they're going to give him the first shot. But I don't think is
like breaking camp or anything like that. But yeah, and I do think
looking at their depth chart, I'm not even sure that he's the next man
now, you know, depending on how bad the knee is with Luisman Dina.
I think they want to see Medina next, That's my guess. And
then obviously Walder chucks out for a while, but they gave him a rotation
spot and they might give it back to him. Kyle Muller is another one
that they've put in the rotation before, and maybe they see what Muller has.
I guess I just see a few more guys that they're gonna run.
Yeah, you got Sas hang out too, and I'm a fan of Salinas.
I think I'm not sure if we've talked about this before, but Rouber
Salinas is one that he came over from the Braves along with ss in one
of their trades. Were they both in the Olsen trade? Probably? I
can't remember the Murphy trades A couple of them. Yeah, they did,
and they were like in quick successions, so they blend together in my head.
But Robert Selenis is a guy who looked like maybe he was following the
Joe Boyle path towards the major leagues, like high strikeout rates, but didn't
really know where it was going. But he's actually tightened up his command signify.
I didn't really really, I didn't really realize, but I threw some
of him on from last year just recently, and I'm kind of I was
even from the beginning. I was not into this. I was like,
all right, you got a guy in the lowers with a nasty pitch,
like just yeah, and for him it was the slider, like he would
just lean on his slider and just wipe out these jets everyone. But he
fair amount last year at Double A, and I'm I'm excited to see him
this year. I think that's the other thing about Selenas though, is he's
he's a little bit further behind, you know, yeah, just at double
A. He may start there again this year, but if he has a
good year, I could see him vaulting up. I mean, I was
impressed by the strides that he took last year. Yeah, boil Man,
he teeters that very fine line. I mean, I guess the A's have
the liberty to play around, give guys like that opportunity like they did with
Fujinami last year. Losing a couple more games on top of what they are
they are going to isn't that big of a deal. But here's the real
question with the A's. Are they going to move to Vegas? Poor?
What do you call somebody from Las Vegas, A Las Vegan, Las Vegas,
and yeah, I don't know you, but it sounds like they've got
those guys forking over a bunch of money again for another stadium. So I
don't know if that's a done deal yet. I mean, I think it
got blocked at the legislature. I don't think it's I don't think they what
they've asked for has been approved. They did this rush job. It seems
like on the stadium renderings, which are just getting smashed on social media,
they don't look good. It's like you ripped off the Sydney Opera house and
you said this is going to be a baseball stadium. Just don't pay attention
to any of the details, so that is I don't know. If John
Fisher seems like such an idiot and this is not going well, I don't
know, but there are the A's this year. They do exist. Yeah,
I don't know, Matt, that's a lot of there's a lot of
spring muddy. Yeah, for what it's worth. I don't know if this
was included in the intro, but Nate didn't think we had very much to
talk about today, and I assured him we had plenty to talk about.
And who knows what this will get cut up into, but we've been talking
for going on three hours, so we're we found a couple of things to
talk about. At least we did. We did. We should get out
of here. You can follow me on Twitter at Pitching Specs. You can't
follow Matt. You could probably chat with them in the Dynasty Dugout discord,
though I don't know what we're gonna talk about next week. Maybe we'll get
another guest on here. That could be a good time. Yeah. Yeah,
we'll be a little further along spring training. Maybe some more things happen,
some injuries. I don't ever wish for injuries, but if there was
ever a year where I wouldn't mind some pictures getting hurt and not being around.
It would greatly help a bunch of my thirty teen leagues. But it's
just not happening yet. Well, I'm not the evil person rooting for injuries.
I hope everyone is healthy and everyone has a wonderful season. Yet that's
what I like minors. I'm like, oh, you know, uh,
Tyler Anderson's got some blister problems, all right? Cool, Like, hey,
hey, hey, he's a key part of my rotation in our thirty
Well. This was episode twenty four of the Prospect B Sides podcasts. We'll
let Chicago Farmer take us out. Everyone be well, and we'll talk to
you next time. See y five miles an hour. Riding to his head,
he hopped down first with the lumpboni his face, and on the very
next pitch he up and stole second face with gretest speed. He wasn't born.
He had the dirty yes you, the bonne