Nine five miles an hour, riding two his head. You have it down
first with the Mount Bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up
and stole second face with gratest be he wasn't born he had yes uniform all
right, Episode twenty six. So the Prospect B Sides Podcast, as always,
I am Nate and joining me as always is Nat the rook or MTR.
You're going to MTR today, MTR next week, I'll upgrade to co
hosts. You know, like last time you anointed me a co host finally
and it's only been almost Yeah, I was twenty episodes together. Well I
was gonna like congratulate you because I was gonna call you the host MTR.
So I am co hosting MTR. I like it. Oh I'm wearing the
big pants today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you should.
Now it's spring break, so we're gonna talk the spring breakout games. I
know you and I have cruised watched some gotten into it, and I thought
it would be fun to kind of go game by game and talk about some
mud and some pretty boys and what we may have gathered from these showcase games.
That sound good to you? Yeah, it sounds great and can we
start by saying this as a whole is just such a great idea. Like
Major League Baseball had a really good idea and I was listening to one of
the broadcasts and it was apparently the brainchild of one of the folks that works
for MLB dot Com, like the Prospect team there. They worked with a
bunch of the folks at the teams and with the league itself and pitched it
as like the AFL Fall Stars Game, but as ill a tournament. That
was the original proposal, I guess. And the issue with like the tournament
aspect of it is it's still spring training. There's limits on the arms that
are available for this kind of an event, and they really want to keep
these guys on a schedule. But on the position player side, you know,
the real athletes, they were ready to go, like they wanted to
do more of these games. We do still have one to go. I
don't know if you saw that the much anticipated Mariners Padres matchup is coming in
on Saturday. I think so that'll be pretty exciting. That was one of
the ones that obviously, I as a Mariners fan, was the most excited
for. And I forget who it was, but somebody was saying that it
was ten top one hundred prospects were in that game, and that's never happened
outside of a futures game. So even like better than the Fall Stars game
that that had never happened and happened just between the Padres or is going to
happen between the Padres and the Mariners on Saturday, So we still have one
awesome one to look forward to. But overall, like great idea. Yeah,
yeah, I agree. Talking about that game that's coming, there's that
many top one hundred prospects. And I heard a rumor Logan Evans, my
Mariners b said arms selection this offseason was slated to start that game originally.
Did you hear that rumor as well? I did. The Logan Evans hype
train has has picked up, my friend, it is. Well, I've
seen a little bit has been the discord. Yeah, I've seen a little
bit on the discord, And if the reports start to be believed like it
sounds like the stuff has taken a fairly substantial jump forward, and I think
that it's going to end up looking like a great call. I'm super excited
to watch him. Hopefully he does throw on Saturday. You know, I'm
curious where they're going to assign him to start the year. Does he go
right to ever? It is there going to be some amount of play in
low Ay. Either way, we should get to see a fair amount of
him this year. Yeah, talking about his fastball velocity has reached the upper
nineties. You know that, you and I it's not like the biggest news
in the world to us, like, that's not what we're gonna get the
most excited about. But I was excited about his little East West game that
I had seen from him post raft and as we talked about last week,
right, I mean, I think, not so many words, but in
a roundabout way, a nice East West game might be a little bit more
tantalizing than a nice North South game from Pittrid, do you do you agree
with that? It certainly can be. I think, to refresh the listeners
on what we were talking about before, that horizontal location is just a little
bit ahead of vertical location when it comes to how well your fastball plays as
far as results, But both are way more important than how fast it is
or the ride or the approach angle. And I think that that's an interesting
thing. And from a philosoph standpoint, it seems like the Mariners are targeting
and developing more of these kinds of pitchers that have these East West types of
profiles, whereas you see a lot of organizations like the Yankees are pretty famous
for this. The Dodgers to a certain extent too. They want the north
South attack. They want that extra fat like the fastball that has a lot
of ride and a low approach angle and then a change up or a gyro
slider or a sweeper for that like downward attack part. I think there was
this was something that maybe BA Baseball America reported on the Mariners through the most
sinkers of anybody in the minor leagues, and that's an interesting trend to follow.
And in this game of chess between hitters and pitchers, it seems like
maybe the hitters are starting to figure out a little bit of the kind of
flat, high spinning fastball, and one way to counteract that might be a
return to more sinkers. So I wonder if the Mariners are seeing what they
can develop from that perspective, and I wonder if Evans might be a part
of that. Yeah, Logan Evans. His percent is at four percent now
on fan tracks. Of course, it was zero percent when we had first
talked about him this offseason, but he has increased his raster percentage like three
point seven percent over the last week. So wow, that's the spring training
hype there. Yeah, right, enough with the games that are still to
come. There were eleven of these spring breakout games. We had three rained
out, and obviously the Mariners is getting rescheduled, but the White Sox and
Cubs got rained out and the Giants in the athletics got rained out on the
same day. On that Friday, we had thirteen other games that went I
think, so how many How many of those were you able to watch,
Nate? I watched a couple of games live in their entirety, the Rockies
game, Tigers Phillies game, and then the rest I kind of watched after
the fact, we're bits of as they were going on. Now, the
archives got a little tricky for us. Of course, there were a couple
of games that were not broadcast at all. Some of the games that were
on MLBNW work just went to like condensed games that were that were pretty condensed,
I would say, So I didn't get to watch everything that I wanted
to see there. But I kind of went just like apropos to the Times
Matt, like I'll look hart right. I kind of just jumped around and
watched the parts of the games other games that I really wanted to see,
and I was focusing getting my eyes on players that I had not ever seen
before or seen very little love and mostly not in game action. So some
college guys who had not made their full season debuts yet were drafted last year,
or complex guys, or guys jumping from the DSL who may have pitched
an inning or gotten an at batter too. So I made a list of
all those guys and really wanted made an effort to try to get my eyes
on all of those. I couldn't for some, but that was my main
focus, not that I didn't see or take some observations away from some you
know, more pretty boy type names. So that was my main focus.
How about you similar in that I was antenna up or the guys that I
hadn't seen much of or that we had talked about but we'd only seen some
looks. Because one of the things that was pretty awesome about most of the
games that were televised were they had legit major League spring training level production.
I mean, not all of them. Some of them we had kind of
janky, minor league esque views that we're familiar with. But it was pretty
cool to see some of these guys in like actual high definition with real slow
motion swings that they would show on replay and hearing you know, actual experienced
broadcasters talking about them. I mean, also hat tipped to the team the
production teams. They had a lot of the directors of player development from the
organizations in sometimes heads of the scouting department. I'd say those interviews varied in
quality and insight, but there were some that you got some use, some
additional nuggets of information as they were talking about their prospects, especially some of
the ones that maybe are less talked about that are farther down prospect lists.
So that was pretty cool. And I did try and watch and listen to
most of the of the broadcasts where I could, you know, I kind
of had them on in the background and then with like something interesting when happening
happen, or there would be a guy that I really wanted to drill in
on and I pause and rewind it for that. But I ended up watching,
Yeah, probably eight of the games more or less in their entirety,
and then watch the condensed games for the others that were visible. So I
got eyes on most of these games, and man, it was fun,
like it was cool to see. So I agree, where do you want
to start a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun to see
the different level of players matching up against each other. And some interviews.
I think the interviews were my favorite part. Some of the interviews we'll get
into that we'll probably go game by game. I saw someone had the idea
that I like this idea. And this isn't to knock any of the broadcasters
that were doing these games, but they should have the minor league broadcasters from
these organizations doing these games. In my opinion, they know a lot more
about these players. Then then some of these these announcers that were, you
know, doing the best that they could be something that I'd put in in
the suggestion box for the future. Let's start with the call it the marquee
matchup of the ones that we Pirates and Orioles. You were you able to
watch this one, Pirates and Orioles. I did not watch very much of
this one. That whatever was going on at the time, I couldn't watch
it live, and then I watched a little bit of the condensed version,
but they didn't really have the ad bats of the guys that I had wanted
to see the most. So, yeah, you might have more lay on
this one. Well, it was an interesting game for a couple of reasons.
One, there is just there's a ton to talk about with respect to
the Orioles bats. But as happens in a game, you watch one game
and you might not get to see anything interesting for the guy that you're you're
most excited to see. Luckily, right, Baltimore has a ton of prospects,
and when we talked about their B sides, we went pretty deep highlighting
guys that we thought were interesting. And that's outside of your holidays. Norby's
Mayo, the SAO. I mean, like, there's Dylan Beaver's. The
guys that we were talking about also were interesting in this game in Billy Cook
and Ben Cosme and Brailn Tavera, John Rhodes got in this game, and
ry K Bradfield let off and on the other side, the Pirates, they
don't have a ton on the hitting side that's all that interesting, certainly not
in the muddy area. We talked about Jase Bowen a bit and he had
a really nice game. I know, Garrett Forrester is one that Chris Clegg
is pretty high on, and that's a name that I'm excited to see more
of. He had a couple of walks in this game. It's not that
great outside of their top couple guys, you know, Tamar Johnson, but
they're pitching staff. They threw all their big guns, headlined by Paul Skeins.
So we got in the very first inning last year's number one overall pick
versus the previous year's number one overall pick, who just so happens to be
the number one overall prospect for a lot of publications right now, in Paul
Skeens versus Jackson Holiday, and that was It was fascinating. Bradfield was interesting
to watch him, and I was actually as impressed by Skiens striking out Bradfield,
maybe more than him striking out Holiday. He threw a well located one
hundred and one mile an hour fastball by Bradfield to get the strikeout on him,
and making Bradfield swing and miss is pretty difficult to do. His swinging
strike erate is really really low. So that was an impressive outing for Paul
Skeens. And again it's one inning, but his slider looked great, his
change up looked wicked. I was just like man Paul Skeen's. The one
hundred and two mile an hour fastball by Jackson Holiday got a lot of the
love for the you know, pitching ninja gifts. But his sliders down and
in to the lefties and the change up on three to two that ultimately punched
out Holiday was special. And so it was interesting then to compare Paul Skeins
with three distinct really great pitches. I think he only threw the three in
that outing with this just litany of flame throwing, varying levels of command and
control, roster of prospects behind for Pittsburgh. So they followed schemes with Braxton
Ashcraft Hunter, Barco Curtis, who I didn't know, Riley, who I
had seen like a short ride up of and flagged as like this is somebody
that I want to get some eyes on this year, and he struck out
the side in his outing. And then Bubba Chandler, who was just ripping
nine to nine mile an hour fastballs to buy some guys too to close out
the game. So you know, Pittsburgh through like every one of those guys
looked like they could pitch in a bullpen, like a major league bullpen at
the very least. I think some people were pretty interested in Ashcraft. But
he his outing was I think the shakiest for me. He had a couple
of walks. He didn't look like he was commanding his pitches very well.
I was less enthused by that, even though he was bringing the heat as
well, and I think that popped for some people. But yeah, I
thought that was that was an interesting roster against really good hitters, and they,
for the most part carved up the Orioles prospects. The only hit in
the whole game for the Orioles was an Enrique Bradfield infield single where you saw
the eighty grade speed. I mean he was down the line in like three
seven. I think, you know, it's sort of a swinging bunt kind
of thing, but man, that guy is fast. So that's it.
It's funny just like how many of these guys kind of played to type in
this game. So there was like five five new guys quote new guys to
me that I had wanted to see. Curtis was one. He was a
DRAFTD I didn't get to see him. Maybe there was a couple of pitches
in the condensed. Tony Blanco junior with the Pirates, he only played in
the DSL, thus far I saw that he got a single, but I
don't think I got to get to see that. I was really interested to
see Tomas Sosa with the Orioles Tavera like you had mentioned, and then Leandro
Arius as well, those three with the with the Orioles who all struck out
and they're one at bats, and I didn't need get to see that.
I think I saw Sosa's one swing because it was I think seven mile per
hour four scene that got them pretty These were the guys that he was a
big guy. Sosa is a big guy. That's what I took away.
But yeah, definitely, And and it was interesting that a lot of the
guys that the Orioles brought in late were their younger, you know DSL guys,
the guys that haven't really played state side, and seeing them against guys
that have gotten up to double A. The Pirates pitching staff like they were
pretty clearly outmatched. It was an interesting reminder of the gap in talent,
Like I'm sure that that is the first time that they had seen consistent ninety
nine mile an hour fastballs, you know, in a game like setting.
So that's one thing that I think is really cool about this. If if
you don't watch a lot of minor league baseball and you get to see these
different levels come together on the same field, and there was a lot of
these rookie level guys coming in later in games, and you're just like,
yeah, you're not. I don't think you're ready for this, man.
It really is a good reminder of the levels in here. And just that
you know, the shorthand that we've talked about before is every level you should
adjust about twenty points of WRC plus, so like twenty percent more difficult at
each level. And when you're talking about somebody that could theoretically pitch in Triple
A this year, looking at a public Bubba Chandler, you know, he
might make the big leagues at some point this year, depending on how they
choose to use him, versus a guy who's only seeing DSL level pitching or
maybe complex level pitching. Like that is a lot of gaps, a lot
of talent gap between those two, a lot of experience gap, and so
that was just an interesting game to kick it off with. And you know,
it's one of the first two games on real real headliner matchups, but
a lot of other interesting notes in there. Yeah, it's funny, Matt,
So that's the big headliner, right, and don't I don't know if
you felt this way, but for me, I thought there were so many
better games and so many more interesting games. Definitely, that one what I
thought might have been the most fun game, at least for me, getting
to see players that I wanted to see that I haven't yet, and that
was the Tigers and Phillies game. I think we think we both watched that
in its entirety, but that that was a fun one, good mix of
muddy and pretty and new guys. So I don't know who who stuck out
the most to you there, but I know we've talked about jess Way Brasanio.
Now he has played some full season ball, he played some A ball
last year, but I don't think any of his games were broadcast last year,
so I don't think we saw him in Bradenton. Yeah, yeah,
so this was the first time I got my eyes on him, and I
got to say, just from a physical tableau like that was not what I
was expecting. I was expecting much more of an Eduardo Tajit, who we
saw in this game for the first time. Two type of physique, a
little bit rounder. But yeah, Racena was just like he's just kind of
a big body, like taller than I had in my mind's eye. Man,
I don't know what did he go one for three? I think he
ripped like a Yeah. He smoked his double off of Mick Abel Yeah,
yeah, which was at that point the announcers were saying the hardest hit ball
in the series, in the breakout series up to that point. I liked
the look of his of his swing and him at the plate. I think
he struck out once or whatever. But if anybody in this whole thing,
he might be the guy that got a little bit more interesting to me,
more so than anybody else. Yeah, he was already a target of mine.
I unfortunately left draft season and passed over him in a couple of spots
where semi regret it. I wonder. One of the things that was interesting
listening to I think it was Detroit's director of player development mentioned Versano, and
they did mention that they might move him off catcher, which you know,
like he seems like he's big enough obviously to the and the power seems real.
Maybe his back could still stick there. But you know the fact that
they're already talking about it and he's this young, like it, if he's
not a catcher, then it's like, Okay, he's got a high barticlear.
He's got to hit like Xavier Isaac, you know, for it to
be like, oh, this is a slammed kind of prospect. But the
power, the contact skills, it's pretty interesting. And the one thing that
I remember from his A ball data is that he might hit the ground.
Hit the ball on the ground a little too much right now, but it's
not bad, Like it's it's a decent batted ball profile, and the underlying
data, like his ninetieth PERCENTNLE exit is already well above big league average,
and it's the physique to look at him, it kind of backs it up
like he's got a nice swing. I think he was the only player in
this series that kind of after the fact, I was like, Okay,
I'm going to check my leagues. Where is he? Matt Roster and kind
of make that work because Yeah, he looks exciting to me, and like
you said, it's going to probably be very bad first bat heavy and that
can be tough. But I'm excited to see what he does this season.
Yeah. I think the other one that stood out in this game that I
really wanted to see, well, your guy Walton. I thought he had
a really nice hit and it was nice to see him live, Like that
was really really good to see, did it? And like I said,
this was a nice broadcast, and so we got a really good view of
Walton. Like I ended up with a bunch of shares of Walton because nobody
else wants him and this is like a Nate Handy special and I was able
to snag him late in quite a few of my deeper leagues, and I'm
really excited about seeing what he can do this year. So I'm a fan,
man, I'm a fan. You got me on that one, right,
I wanted to I really wanted to see some Carson Rucker too. I
don't remember if we talked about him in the first year player Draft episode,
but kind of either. You know, another Tennessee prep, Evan Carter,
who wasn't like real big on the circuits or anything like that. But the
Tigers had popped fairly early. I think they took him at the fourth round
or something like that, but he only got in as a defensive substitution at
the end, So that was that was kind of a bummer. Another guy
who I ended up with a ton of shares of Matt is Evan Sultabam in
Philly's third round pick. He got one at bat and man, he just
missed a home run. He took one out to the gap. It was
kind of true. I think he punched out in his other one. And
then a guy that that's the name Paulaco Grego. Yeah, that's a Kiwi
boy like me, yho Paca Grego. Yeah, he's somebody that I'm pretty
interested in. Two. I think coming into last year he showed some pretty
hitterish traits, like good bats of ball, maybe like a sneaky, you
know, down under hitter, and then lost all last year. I think
it was an acl right, Yeah, and so it was nice to see
him get one at bat he struck out, which was a bummer, but
I just yeah, I just wanted to get my eyes on him, and
I gotta say, you know, these guys that you hear about rookie ball.
Maybe there's a little bit of video out on him. I don't think
there was, though I don't think so either. Know, you know,
you just got out the stat line and they're like, hey, this is
an interesting guy. He was a lot bigger than I thought that he might
be from the left side. There there's a lot more physical look then I
thunk so. And then there was two other Phillies guys. Man, the
Phillies were super interesting. And evidently I'm like a big lower levels Philly bat
fan because I have a ton of these young Phillies guys on my teams.
And I was not intending to do such a thing, but uh, what'd
you think of your look of Tayit who had a giant DSL season? And
then what you did you get in there for a couple of that bats?
I think, yeah, I got a couple couple of bees struck out once.
I think that might have been against my guy Herder. I think he
might have got him for a strikeout. But like you said, little on
the rounder side already, and he's like nineteen, and I mean he was
dhing this game, like didn't catch I gotta say, I actually didn't know
either of the other two Phillies catchers, like I've never heard of them,
and so I was like, okay, yeah, maybe it's because he's extra
young and they want someone more experienced catching what we ended up being like a
litany of the kind of better Phillies pitchers pitching prospects. So maybe that had
something to do with it, but I don't know. I got to say,
like that did dampen my enthusiasm a little bit for Tighty, but it
was cool to see him, and again he's very very young and face talking
about pitching staffs. As we've mentioned before, the Tigers are replete with their
pitching and they threw a bunch of their interesting arms too, And so I
want to get into some of those guys in a bit. Ye, just
talking talking, just like the younger Phillies guys. Did you catch any starling
Kaba? Yeah, that was the last guy that I wanted to bring up.
Another guy who was just DSL didn't get to see before, not a
very big dude. He started. I think he flew out to the warning
track Apo versus Herder, which was kind of Yeah, I don't hate seeing
that. He felt a little. I mean, it's tough because what is
he's seventeen years old? Eighteen years old, he turns eighteen. What we
got three at bats? I think it was felt a little slappy to me,
a switch hitter. And are he small? Yeah, yeah, he's
not very big. But did you see the play that he had at second
base? They had him at second base? Yes, yes, that was
like legitimately sort of electric, looked major league quality. And this is a
thing that I was kind of hoping we would get to see. And I
was a little surprised he didn't play shortstop, because you know, no offense
to ring Cone, who's a shortstop, decent shortstop prospect in his own right.
But Eric Longenhagen just gushed about CABA's defense. I think he might have
stuffed him in his top one hundred or maybe it was like a pick to
click, like forty five plus kind of grade on a guy this young,
basically on the back of his defense, and that, you know, a
lot of times gets ignored by fantasy players because we don't really get points for
people playing defense usually. However, it does help force a player into the
lineup. And as I was mentioning to somebody on the discord. Today we
underrate the value of plate appearances across all leagues, you know, but especially
in your deeper leagues, where any plate appearance might be valuable. And if
a guy plays elite defense, the bar for their offensive contributions comes way way
down. And at this play was like he was lightning fast moving to his
right and in and it was a speedy runner. I can't remember who hit
it, but he just lightning fast hands, gloves it, side arm,
underarm, whip the ball to first base and just kept jogging like he knew
he had this play the whole way. And that sort of like stone cold
confidence is pretty cool to see. And like in the minor leagues, you
see a lot of like crappy plays, and you know, the farther down
you go like I saw some I actually saw Travis Bizana this week here and
he you know, looked great at the dish, but definitely had a couple
of plays on defense that I would be like, hmm, this is like
a below average defensive second basement and it's interesting to see that. But then
you see like someone like Kaba, I couldn't see Bizana making that play look
like that, like he might make that same play, but just in terms
of the defensive capability, like that was damn impressive. Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, you know, gloves can carry guys into into jobs and points
leagues. You can be productive. I mean, look at a look at
Crawford with the Mariners. Man, that guy has been like a thirty team
points guy for me for years. No one ever wants him, and he's
done just fine for me. And then he busted out a little bit and
had some offense. What did you think, I hurt Her? Oh,
I love that guy, and I think this is this is interesting because you
know, I had seen a lot of I saw. I watched quite a
bit of him in our when we did our al central picks and lowered down
in the minors, Like it was kind of tough. There were a bunch
of guys that I was looking at, and I kept coming back to hurt
Her, and I was like, I don't really know if I see it.
Man, it's like low nineties and the change up looks all right,
but he doesn't throw it very much. Like I kind of had to talk
myself into it. But then the more I watched him, as I was
watching some of these other guys, I kept like thinking like, wow,
this is he's always liked this, like it's always really smooth. He's always
throwing a lot of strikes. He could stand to throw his change up more
because it looks like a pretty good pitch. But even though he was mostly
a two pitch pitcher last year and had one of the best lines in double
A of any pitcher you know, so seeing him in this kind of his
showcase facing a decent crop of Phillies hitters. He threw three innings, four
punch outs, of course, no walks, give up a couple of hard
hit balls, but a couple of the hits were kind of seeing I singles
and give up just the one run. And I asked a couple of our
buddies who were there what they think, and our buddy Beck said that he
thought it was just okay. Didn't like the stuff. Thought it was like
swingman swingman kind of profile. But I also saw that his stuff plus numbers
from you know's this because this was a stat cast game, his stuff plus
numbers were comfortably well above big like a standard deviation above big leg gaverage.
And this gets to something I was saying before. It's like he's a huge
guy. You know, he's sick six maybe six seven and big, but
it's so easy and I think he gets such good extension that the fastball is
playing up. You know, I think he topped out it ninety four maybe
ninety five in this game. His slider looked sharper to me than it had
last year. And again maybe this was like we had a little better camera,
a little bit better set up, and he did throw a few changeups
in this game, even though it was just three nings. So I wonder
if that's been a focus for them. And they're director of player Development actually
said that they're really impressed, like they they love Herder like that, They're
like, this is a guy for us, like someone that we think is
maybe better than sort of the public prognosticators think. And you know, some
of that might be smoked the director of player dev. But the fact that
Herder got the start over time Adden, over Troy Melton, over Wilmer Flores
in a game like this, like it says something, right, And I
think that's something is that the Tigers aren't bluffing when it comes to this.
And I don't know, man, like I think other people are just missing
it because he looks so smooth when he throws, and it's not you know,
ninety eight miles an hour, it's all the other things about his pitches
that play up. And he was making guys look bad. Man. Yeah,
no, I agree, And you know, me and Matt put on
a tinfoil hat sometimes. But I just couldn't help but think that. I'm
like, they're trying to get their trade ship some value here. They got
director of player personnel in here talking them up. They're going to throw them
three innings. He's looking good there. You know, a lot of sp
prospects on the door step and Herd her like we've talked about, is going
to be forty man. You know, the decision needs to come last year.
And I don't know. I was just like, man, you guys
are going to trade this guy, aren't you. We're going to try to
Yeah, it's it's possible. It's possible. Yeah. And I also wonder
if that's like how they chose these particular prospects right, Like, you know,
you didn't see Jackson Job out there, and you know he threw earlier
in the spring, and they talked about Job a lot. Yeah, And
I think there's definitely an element to that in the AFL, you want to
get some exposure to some guys to see what happens. Maybe you get some
interest from other teams, so you know, there might be a little bit
of that GM gamesmanship going on here. Who knows. Yeah, I think
it'd be dumb, not too if you've got a guy like a Herder that
you want to you don't know how he's going to fit in and what have
you, maybe even get some interest. But the pitching as a hole in
this game was super into interesting. Man, there's a lot of good names
here. Yeah, what'd you think of Abel? I think I think I
of Abel? How I've kind of always thought about him, like, I'm
not that into it. It's how hard was he throwing in this game?
I had? Yeah, So I don't know, he's got a major league
velocity, doesn't command it all that well. Yeah, you get some k's.
You know we've talked about before. These are short stint outings. Abel
hasn't been that great the longer he goes in the starts and yeah he struck
out three over two. He did give up the home run young Yeah,
Yeah, I don't know, man, Like you know, he's not a
top one hundred type of pitching prospect to me and never really has been.
But you know, different different strokes for different folks. I guess, yeah,
I'm with you. I thought the command was just okay, even though
he didn't walk anybody, but he was missing spots all over the place.
And I was really underwhelmed by the fastball velocity. Like, you know,
I'm not a big velocityist anyway, but when people are describing this guy as
electric stuff out of high school and it's ninety four ninety five from the right
side, like, that's not electric to me unless it has some other interesting
traits. And I, yeah, I don't know. I can think of
probably one hundred arms that I like more than able, which is like that
doesn't say a lot like he's. He was very much underwhelming to me.
And of course I got to see my guy Griff McGarry, who I talked
a bit about before. He had a good outing, you know, like
one one struck up the side and actually showed some things that I think he
has improved his arm stroke a little bit. It looked shorter to me than
I had seen it in the past. Still gave up a dong and the
guy because of course he did, but got him too. I was gonna
say that I at least said something nice about Griff McGary like. It seemed
like there was some progression here even though he got gave up that home run.
Yeah, I mean, and to me, that's not like not too
much new. Maybe there was a little bit different armstroke happening, but like
I've seen McGary like carved before over multiple innings, like he's got that in
him. It's just, you know, we've talked about his potential issues and
why he can just completely lose it sometimes and for a whole season. Even
so, he's an interesting I'm not investing in him dynasty wise at all,
but but still a guy. And then uh he said arm got in there,
Alde Gary, what'd you think of him? Yeah, yeah, you
know, the command was a little spotty, like he was a little a
little wild. But the slider is pretty interesting. Like I do kind of
see what you're what you're saying there that it seems sharp and it seems like
it has some real horizontal plane action to it. He's got the whole kit,
the arsenal wise, I mean, he's mixing it up and throwing them
on. I thought he did pretty good. The first inning of the second
inning is when he got a little uh ran into some trouble. But yeah,
it was fun to see him. Watched a couple and then and then
yeah, the Cabrera that followed him gave up the hit to knock him in.
But yeah, I mean interesting arm for sure. Yeah, Flora's payment
at the end, he was pumping pumping some heaters and I was gonna ask
about Flores, like, you know, Flores had that breakout year in twenty
twenty two where I don't think people were expecting that much after his you know,
twenty twenty one season in complex in low A. But then in twenty
twenty two he went from high to Double A and looked great all year,
like jumped into the conversation for one of the better pitching prospects in the minors.
And then I guess he did the same thing last year, you know,
hyate and then Double A, and he spent most of the year in
Double A. But people were kind of like off him, you know,
and the performance wasn't that different. I don't know, Like, do you
ever read on why did people sour on him after he did moral? That's
the same thing. The numbers weren't as good, I don't think right,
but to me what year was at twenty twenty two. I had a really
tough time that When I was putting together that pitching prospect list of like Flores,
Olsen, and Joe with these guys, I was like, man,
I don't know. I didn't like Olson because I didn't like the headwhack thing
nearly as much as those guys. You know, you like Joe, but
he's a young guy. You don't know, he still hasn't put up innings.
He's a high school guy. But so I liked Flores the most out
of those three on that list, and I did so because I thought that
there was good MLB stuff with really good execution, like that guy would carve
it up spot pretty much his whole arsenal pretty well, I thought in my
looks. And admittedly I didn't really watch too much of them last year,
but I do know that in that tool it looked to me that there was
somebody like I don't know if he was trying something new or what it was,
but he got absolutely rocked in early innings of starts, got really blown
up in some games early on, but then he was really good when he
went late in too starts. So I don't know. I don't know what
you want to take away from all of that, But I have been a
fan Flores's interest. He was a junior college guy who was said to have
really big stuff but no command, and when he showed up in pro ball
it was that was not the case. Like he had. He had very
good command in my opinion. So yeah, even last year when his walks
ticked up, I still I don't know. I still really like him,
and he seems like the guy that stuff as should like more because he can
run it up to ninety nine. I think the slider is quite good.
I'm still in on him, yeh. I don't think the story's written like
obviously Job has surpassed him, and Job been in spring seeing seeing that has
been pretty impressive and backed up his impressive year last year. But I'm still
in on Flores too. I like him. This is a fantasy baseball show.
I have bought the dip, as they say on Floras in a few
spots when I could, so take that for whatever it's worth. But the
only other thing is just to touch on one more pretty boy. Watching Max
Clark's swipe second was pretty sweet. Like he's fast and has sort of had
sort of like a trade turner type, really smooth slide into second base like
that. That's one that I'm really interested to follow. I wonder if Clark
makes the Tigers look better than it seems right now, just just with that
pick, Like I thought, he had some good swings and he went over
to but had to walk and had to steal, and cautiously optimistic that there's
still that elite level that I think some expected, and you know, maybe
they will regret that pick just because Langford looks incredible, but I think Clark
looks really good too. Yeah, for sure. I think there was some
folks who think and I don't think I disagree with him. Got some FYPD
bargains on Clark there. Yeah, he's a primo athlete. They had the
Royals Brewers. That was a good one. But it was sucked to see
Logan Henderson leave. But hopefully it's nothing major. So Logan Henderson my b
side arm for the Brewers, who I am just through the roof about.
I think the guy's electric. It sounds like the velocity had ticked up over
the offseason and he'd been working on his slider, and so I was so
excited to see that because his change up is already up there with Drew Thorpe
and Gavin Stone, is the best change up in the minor leagues. Like
it's incredible. It's an incredible pitch. But his slider had like kind of
funky shape, and I think I always thought he released it slightly differently than
his fastball and his change up, and his fastball was like average ninety two,
I think, is the data that we got, you know, touched
ninety four, I think, but apparently in all spring in the backfields had
been running it up ninety six ninety seven, it had been averaging closer to
ninety four. The change up is still playing and all of that. But
he warms up, comes into this game in the fourth inning, and they
were saying on the broadcast that they expected him to go like three innings,
like it was gonna be like a Masarowski to Henderson kind of thing. And
unfortunately, he's like kind of raising his left arm as he's warming up in
between pitches, trying to stretch out that left side of his body. Throws
a couple of pitches just so happened to Trevor Werner, another b side favorite
of ours. And in the middle of that bat, he's still doing it.
He's stretching it out, raising his arm after every pitch, and he
gave up a homer to Warner on an up fastball that Werner tattooed, and
great swing by Werner on that one. Afterwards, like Henderson's stretching even more.
I think he threw one pitch to the following batter and had to come
out of the game because his side looked like an oblique of some kind.
So Henderson got hurt and we didn't get to see too much out of that
other than a really great swing from Trevor Werner. Yeah, that was a
bummer. I wanted to see him go more. But that swing that was
man Werner. I always think a moneyball of the old scouts, like the
ball just flies off his bat like whatever. But like that, Yeah,
that swing wasn't that. I mean, that looks so easy and it was
just like drop the head on it and that's gonna be a line drive over
the left field wall. Yeah, and it was smoked like it was a
line drive into the bullpen behind the left field wall, like real easy.
He stayed on top of it too, And that was a decently located pitch
at near the top of the zone. Yeah, I think it was.
It was like a cookie. It wasn't a cookie middle, No, And
I think the velocity was decent on that. If I'm remembering Ryan, I
think it was a ninety five mile an hour pass ball from Henderson. So
you know, it would have been fun to see a lot more of that.
But Warner looked great. He struck out against Miserowski, but showed a
pretty good eye, you know, took three pitches to run at three to
zero, and then he then swung at three straight balls and missed them to
strike it against Miserowski. But yeah, Warner looked good, and they talked
a lot about him that they're really excited, and he had obviously one of
the very best debuts of any twenty twenty three drafty. So yeah, yeah,
and I will say I have some FYPD regret with Warner. I did
get a couple of shares, but I played the game of Okay, I
can get them later in a few spots, and then I couldn't because somebody
else did. That kind of bums me on and I know folks were making
made some deals about his defense. I guess he committed a bunch of airs
last year in his short stint at third base. But like, and they
talked about this on the broadcast, like this was a two way guy.
Give him some time maybe east corner infield. I'm sure first base or third
base, But I want to make too much about the defense and all that
just just yet. He's twenty three, but like they were saying on the
broadcast, he has he's like seems younger as an everyday bat than a twenty
three year old. So yeah, and they did have him playing first base
here, and they talked a bit about that, but I think it was
more because they wanted to get Kaden Wallace out there, yeah, with some
reps at at third base. So a young guy that I was anxious to
see who made some noise in the DSL was Ramon Ramirez, and I think
he came in and got one at bat right, pinched hit for the d
eightpearances though, but oh yeah, I'm sorry he walked, so he had
to walk And what do you do, like ground out? Ground out?
If I remember, Yeah, what'd you think about him? I don't know
it was he didn't like overly grab my attention in any way bad or good.
Yeah, tough toll from kind of two plate appearances like that, but
he didn't look out of place, and the Brewers did throw out some pretty
good pitching prospects. He didn't face Miserowski. I think he faced Winkowski when
he walked, So that was, you know, a tough a tough look
too. Yeah, and he was a he was a new guy. He
was a draft I don't think had played full season ball yet Wikowski or I
don't even know how to say it, wick Rowski. He threw hard like
that. He kind of looks like a reliever to me, a hard thrown
reliever. And they were talking him up on the show. Actually thought he
looked pretty good and better than Note, which was nice to see notes too.
So that was that was another one that it was fun to see kind
of back to back. Yep. So no, I don't think he pitched
at all last year, right, not even in the complex. He was
coming from high school. I watched him a bit as a prep on some
showcases and things like that, and I was reminded why I didn't put him
on my first year player Draft list, Matt Like, sure, he's got
a fastball that appears to have some nice ride and curveball that looks pretty nasty.
But you man, he's he's so raw in my opinion, Like he's
a he's a thrower. He's got work to do. Could he be great
somedays? But yeah, I mean the Brewers do things. But that's yeah,
that's not that's not my cup of tea. Yeah, this first year
player draft season, Yeah yeah, yeah, and a couple other preps I've
seen before like that, but got to see Batante and Pratt. Pratt put
a charge into one. We didn't really get to see though, if I
remember correctly, we didn't really get the camera angle of where it all went,
but we just saw the center fielder I think, on the track with
the ball. Yeah, that seemed like an easy charge. But I like
Pratt. I'd liked the looks at him as as a prep. And then
I think a guy that a lot of people were anxious to see was how
do you say it? Yo free? Jef free, yo free? Rodriguez,
Uh, yeah, it might be it might be free, but I've
heard a lot of people say yo free. I don't know Jo free.
Okay, but he put up you know, he's a DSL guy, got
a lot of buzz. What did you think of him? I don't know.
He's uh, he's small. He is smaller than I thought. But
I'm pretty interested, like because he had really good plate skill, plate skills
coming out of the DSL. I think makes pretty good swing decisions. Didn't
look out of place in the battershbacks. I think he hit a single in
it for his one hit. But yeah, he's someone I'm excited to watch
more of. You know, it was tough to get a real read.
You know, they did give him three at bats in the game, but
play he did. And but yeah, Lara too. I mean Lara hadn't
seen much of him, and he kind of lived up to the building of
like kind of three soft pieces of contact that found gloves each time. Wasn't
overly thrilled with my look at Lara, But you're free excited to see some
more of And I don't know if you noticed our guy arian Amo. Yeah,
am I off here? But did he tone down the batwagon a little
bit? Because I loved his batwagle last year Perpendicular. Now it's only just
like abbreviated. Yeah, it was much toned down, and you know,
he got a hit, so maybe maybe that's a sign of things to come
for him. But I just thought he was one of the most fun swings
in all the minor leagues last year. That pre prep batwaggle was something.
I know he got into this game, but it was my Brewers B side
that, right, Juan Bias, Yeah, that's right. This is even
before this game. Some stuff on Twitter, but I saw some some side
views of his swing, and it's another Brewer with some sort of wild mechanism
in their in their swing or their load or something. But yeah, I
don't know if you notice his his leg kick is pretty pretty connounce. Yeah,
yeah, I don't. I don't know if I really care for that
too much. But he did hit a home run a major league spring training
game this year. That's attention. Yeah, big old like wind up leg
kick and then Beryl found it. Yeah, let's touch on the casey pictures.
You know, Mason Barnett I'd taken as my B side arm and he
didn't look very good. Pree Walks was I thought sort of uncharacteristically wild.
Normally he has better command, but tried to work around things, and I
don't know, he had an okay outing even though the underlying metrics were pretty
bad. No, Cameron's someone that I've had on a couple of rosters and
he just looks like a six starter to me, not that exciting, but
he looked okay. Chandler Champlain was one that they're scouting. Director that was
on talked about that they were excited to see what he could do this year.
Two clean innings, just one shrek out for Champlain. But he's one
that there's potentially interesting stuff. I think there, like pitch metrics might be
sort of more interesting, but I think he still has a little bit of
command challenges even though he was throwing strikes. But yeah, No, those
were those are the guys that I was most curious to watch. And then
Klein came in and had a couple of strikeouts to close it out. But
I hadn't I hadn't much to compare him to. I thought when we were
talking Royal's B side arms, I feel like you would like sort of him
and had for these guys, maybe at least three of them, And I'm
like, that's great, maybe, but not super super thrilled or super excited
about any of them. Yep, did Miszierowski. Did your opinion of him
change whatsoever? No, that's who he is. Like short outings, he's
throwing as hard as he could. You know, the angle is weird.
He's throwing it outside the zone. So he got five strikeouts in two and
two thirds. But if he had gone another inning, like the stuff starts
to drop, he just wasn't throwing any strikes. He you know, three
walks and two of those strikeouts easily could have been additional walks. He hit
two batters. That's the Maserowski experience. And people are going to see the
gifts of him whiffing guys with the fastballs out of the zone that he garners
chase on and that is impressive. But I'm just not here for that kind
of guy. Like, I don't think that's a starter. I think he's
going to be a wild reliever who or maybe it's like the Blake snell in
even shorter outings, right, Like it's it's that kind have an approach and
I don't know it's the stuff is electric. He is so goofy looking on
the mound, so skinny and wild flailing limbs and all of that. Just
I get the appeal, it's just not for me. Saw some tweets and
stuff going out about how his velocity dropped significantly, and it's like, man,
you gotta be careful with these guys. Like he can look great in
an inning or two, but like that's that's kind of how he's been.
I mean, I'm pretty sure his velocity is dropped when he goes deeper into
games last year, and I just whatever, we don't need to like dogpile
on him more. But just seeing these couple of innings, like nothing has
changed. I don't think with him, so neither does my opinion. Yep,
let's talk Yankees blue Jays. You want to do Yankees blue Jays?
Yeah, this was a really fun one, and then it really wasn't fun
in part because now watching the archive of this, there's there's like a HEIGHTI
moment super Bowl back in the day, halfway through the fifth inning, the
broadcast went to New York NBA coverage in the last like hour was NBA stuff
in it. It was right when like a bunch of these like DSL guys
that I wanted to watch like got into the game. So I was wow,
I was kind of bummed about this about that, but this had some
excitement and some some pretty boys doing some things right. I thought there was
a lot of interesting moments in this game, or at least the five and
a half innings that I got to watch or four and a half innings that
I got to watch. But you know what was the most interesting part of
this game for me, Matt once you see did you see when they were
talking about your boy, Caleb Durban. How awesome of a moment was that,
dude? So they got I don't remember if it was was Brad Osmis
talking to them, actually talking to the booth, but they were they were
talking about Caleb Durman, and maybe they were just relaying relaying what Osmis has
said and what Boone has said about Caleb Durban, but they were both then
you know, maybe they're just hyping up their guy here on a broadcast,
but they were both talking about how he's impressed them the most out of anybody
in camp, how Boom thinks that he's a major leaguer for a long time.
And then while they're talking them all up, Durban rips a double down
the line. Dude. It was anybody. He stole a couple of days
and he stole second and third, and yeah, I think it just stole
second this game, but he's stolen quite a few in in regularly. Had
he had third stolen, whether it was like a foul ball or something,
that's right. Yeah, Again, like seeing Durbin on a Major League quality
broadcast, they did the slow motion of his swing from the side, and
you see how still his head stays like this was on the double. You
know it was on an off speed pitch. He was out in front of
it, but his head stayed so still. He's locked in on that back
leg and then he's just got this incredible barrel control and he just kind of
slows down a swing just in the right way, barrels it and pulls it.
And that's something I had talked about that he does quite well. When
you watch him, it's like he's trying to hit the ball in the good
parts, trying to pull I'm trying to put it in the gap. And
that he did in that at bat too. I love that guy, like
and you were talking about which was surprising to me that they were talking about
his defensive versatility too. Right, So, yeah, they had a field
in this game. Yep, unless you're trying to unless you're trying to sell
them. It sounds to me like they think a MLB bench utility type role
is definitely on the cart on the table here. Yeah, that's kind of
how I summed to death, like when I was saying just how impressed I
was with Durban this last year. He has so much skill in some of
the things that is the hardest to do, which is make contact with the
baseball. And he's got some defensive versatility and he's got some speed and that
those things are gonna make him able to play in the major leagues for a
while. But it's hard to see that all translating as a as a regular
you know, like there are only so many jose L two v's who can
really make that work from a power standpoint. And I don't know if we
know that about Durban just yet, but he has done nothing but hit and
steal and play all over the diamond this spring. I loved hearing that at
a boon, Like, of course that's probably smoke or whatever, but good
for him, Good for him that he's opening eyes like this, and so
it was fun to see him such a good game after Like, you know,
he's what not even on Eric long Inhiggin's top whatever prospects for the Yankees,
and I think our buddy Chris Glegg I don't think he had him in
the top thousand prospects, right, So it sounds to me that even though
those folks might not view him as a legit prospect, it sure seemed like
the manager and bench coach did. That was super interesting to me. I
was anxious to see Boafron, But did I even see him? Yeah,
he started the game of DH right, I think we saw one he like
one at the backgrounded out or something like that. But maybe the guy that
I was most interested to see here because of all the praise and the hype
was Henry Lallane, and I did get to see him. That was the
last half inning before it went to NBA basketball. But what do you think
about Leilani there? So this is one I only saw some of the highlights
of Lelani. I didn't get to watch this whole game. It looked good,
I mean, it didn't look out of place in amongst these decent prospects,
which were of varying levels obviously, but there were still quite a few
of their upper level prospects, and I think Lallana is gonna rise up.
You know, he's already got a ton of helium from some of the hype
from Jeff Ponce and some of the others at Baseball America and some of the
videos that we've seen this spring. He looked good. But just like from
a fantasy baseball standpoint, like I'm selling all my shares, like I had
a couple, and I think I'm trading Lelane in both the leagues that I
had him in. So but again, we talked a little bit about the
why of that, but I thought it looked good in the bit that I
saw. You know, this is a this is a young guy, big
guy. Some folks are getting real excited and like future number one pitching prospect
and all the land. I'm just like, nah, I can't get on
that sort of bus here, Like no, no, I mean, it's
one inning, it's the first things. But he did not if you're hoping
for like a Yuri Perez Andrew Paynter type of ascension or something like that,
like I would not be putting my money down that it's with Henry Lalane here,
and maybe this is just optics, a little too much optics. But
I'd heard about like his athleticism for a big guy and stuff, and he's
got some like Hunter Pence in his shoulders. Man doesn't. He doesn't strike
me as the most athletic looking fella in the world, but I mean his
he's got a lot of limbs and elbows and stuff, and he throws strikes
fine enough. But anyway, he grounded out Gabriel Martinez, struck out Namala,
and then got Tucker Toeman to fly out to center field. Like,
okay, cool, we're not big velocity people, But I didn't think this
stuff was like super wowing to me from our little center field view. But
I don't know. I thought I was hoping to get a little bit more
excited, but I didn't, And maybe that's an problem. All right,
all right, did you? Oh so I guess you didn't catch any of
Jack Neely either. No, I didn't get to see Neely. I didn't
get to see Yeah, I didn't either, But I did think it was
interesting that Neely was who they went to like close out the game. Yeah,
and I know, uh Morodis Morodis the prep guy got to see him,
which is cool. I want to see him. There was a lot
of praise and hype and speculation about him. I was not impressed with him
whatsoever. You know, he got hit around, he walked guys like it
wasn't I didn't. I didn't see what I was supposed to be super pumped
about there. But yeah, and then there was some complex guy that I
wanted to see that. I don't think I got to Tahada Cruise Delgado.
I think that was all missed. I saw in the malls strikeout against Lelane.
I didn't get to see Minosa or Bonilla, two guys from the Blue
Jays that were just in the DSL, So I don't. I don't know
if you saw any of that, but I did not. I did watch
Roderick Arius and we got like a whole game of Roderick Arias more or less
right. Yep, he had at those three at bats. Yeah, what'd
you think? What'd you think there? I know there's a lot of a
lot of dynasty love there, and I see some some trades going down to
get some get some shares there. Yeah. I picked up a share actually
of him in another trade, and I'm excited to see more of him.
I will say one of the things, you know, two walks to strike
out, I think like a fly out in a ground out, you know,
he kind of it wasn't that exciting at the plate, you know,
he looked decent swing in a little bit that I saw, But I thought
he looked pretty good on deep. He had a couple of nice plays that
he looked like a shortstop. They did slide him over to second base late
in the game, so that Lombard I think they switched right, like Lombard
started at second and then switched to play short But I thought Arius had a
couple of nice plays in the bit that I got to see. So I'm
really excited to see him this year. Yeah. Of course, Jones hit
the two home runs off of some scrub pictures, so everyone's like, you
know, getting all crazy about that. But what, I don't know what
else. Did you any other takeaways from this game for you? Yeah,
it was nice to see Lombard in this kind of outing. You know,
he didn't have a loud game, but it was good to see my The
a couple of catchers that I like here for the the Yankees both played and
they both got singles. Ben Rice and Augustin Ramirez. I like both.
I think we got some side views of Ramirez's swing, and now he's a
guy that you look at like bad at ball shape and like checks out fantastically
far as like hitting home runs and whatever. But esthetically, you know,
I've seen him before, but maybe I didn't really see side views or something,
but I kind of hated his swing, man, I kind of hated
the look interesting. It seemed like really uh golf swingish to me or something
like. I don't know, I can't articulate these things that well, but
I was wondering if you had noticed anything like that, But I guess that
I did not know. What do you think of Brox Salvage's like gesticulations and
how fired up he was in this game? Yeah, I love it.
I had a great outing. I love it. I love when pictures are
like that, man, it's awesome. Gave up the triple to Addison Barger
and then struck out the side I think after that, or at least struck
out two to get out of it, and he was pumped. He was
he was pretty pumped. He's a legit prospect picturing prospect for them, and
they've like they do. Every year they've sent some guys out, there will
be some room to grow come up. Yeah, I mean he had arguably
the best outing out of any picture in the Spring breakouts. You know,
four innings, eight punches, the one hit and one walk. You know,
he looks good, big lefty, big stuff for sure, all right,
Matt. So the Marlin's Cardinals, I did not get to see very
much of this. I saw, I think, just some condensed game stuff
and I was looking to try to watch Fabian Lopez and Andres Valor, but
I didn't see much of those two. What did you see from this game?
So I wasn't able to watch quite a bit of this one. I
had it on the background while I was doing some work, so I didn't
pay as close attention to this one of some of the others. And I
got to watch on the weekend. But there were some things of note,
I mean, kind of skipping over the bigger names in this, like you
know Victor Scott and Mason Wynn and Thomas to JC, like we know a
lot about them. And then on the Marlin side, Jacob Maya I've seen
a ton of over the years, and he's a good shortstop that has a
light bat and I think is going to be a big leaguer, but probably
not an impact one. Our guy Troy Johnson got a knock and they talked
quite a bit about him on the broadcast with sort of glowing results like that
he's got speed, he's a really interesting hitter, had a great year in
Triple A, and it was encouraging that they had as much good things to
say about him. And you know, for what it's worth, the Marlins
batted Johnston third in this game, which still is a position of some respect.
I think he had a knock in an RBI he drove in Jacob Barry
in. I think it was like the fifth inning or something. Griffin Conine
was the big standout in this game. It a really long home run,
like he really got into this homer that he hit off Max Radchik, I
think he say his name, who actually liked. You know, he had
the worst line out of any of the Cardinals pitchers that threw, but Max
Radgick I thought had some interesting traits that might be worth following. And I
think he had a decent line last year if I'm remembering right, in the
lower minors. So he's one that the results don't say much, but I
still think he's worth a follow in some of your deeper leagues. For example,
I think he has as much interesting stuff as Gordon Grossefo does. And
we talked a bit about him with your buddy Matt on the last show,
and both through in this game, and I thought that Radjik compared favorably with
Grisefo. We also got to see Tink Hence do what he does well,
which is show out like a reliever in short stints. You and I were
texting in this game, and you ask you think anybody's mind is changed when
they see Tink Kents throwing like this, And I'm like, no, because
this is when he looks good. He throws two innings of three strikeout,
one hit. You know, the stuff was playing up. He was touching
ninety seven slider, looked good. But the stuff backs up the farther he
goes into games and it was not good command, even though he was getting
some strikeouts. But I realize now that I'm looking I watched like the first
five innings of this game live, so I don't know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, we were texting during it. I thought like we were watching
it. Yeah. Yeah, But when I asked that about hence, I
meant like in the other direction, like do you think that this is going
to change anybody's mind? And like maybe he hasn't like a top one hundred
guy, But it turns out that that was not the case, because he
was good for a couple of innings. But yeah, like you're saying,
this is how I knew what you were saying. I knew what you were
saying because he was like kind of wild and he was kind of like you
know, it was you see just how skinny he is and barely fifty percent
strikes seventeen strikes, thirteen balls in thirty pitches. That's not great. But
it goes to when he strikes out three and only gives up a hit and
people are like, yep, that's it, and it's like, man,
you've got to watch this guy through a whole like outing watch him for four
innings, five innings and yeah, I don't know, man, Yeah,
smell from fake in here. Yeah. The other exciting thing though, the
guy that started the game for the Marlins, Tommy White, is my first
real view of him outside of some high school highlights. Night White looked phenomenal
dude, Right, I know, you know it's funny to see the Twitter
hype and all this stuff, and like, you know, not to be
a turn hat, but I'm like, tell me you didn't do a great
job of assessing White versus Meyer without telling me you didn't do a very great
job of assessing White versus Meyer, because, like we've talked about, those
guys, in my opinion, should be valued very similarly in the dynasty sphere
here and White showed out. I mean, he looked fantastic, mentioned to
you and some others too, Like to me, in this look, you
had White that pitched the first and it looked really good. And then Meyer
came in and kind of struggled to throw strikes and lokate and execute his execute
his pitches. But for me, that's kind of like reversed from my previous
looks. White was the one that struggled to throw strikes more so than when
I watched these two the Meyer, but not on this day. White was
fantastic. And if he if he executes his three plus pitches like he did
that outing, that's going to get pretty exciting in my book. I mean,
people got Meyer pegged as like potential future overall number one overall pitching prospects.
Like, Man, if you're gonna do that with Meyer, you might
want to consider doing that with White too. Yeah. I mean again,
I don't have as much of a track record with these guys as you did.
Just in this one outing, White looked way better than Meyer. You
know, Meyer couldn't find the strike zone. Meyer's stuff didn't seem that impressive,
Like it wasn't like he was wild in the Miserowski way. He just
was like pulling his slider way down in a way that it wasn't even close
fastball. Didn't seem like it was nothing anything special. I think White was
throwing harder than Meyer, and usually you would want that reversed if you've got
a righty and a lefty and Meyer and White. So the fact that White
was showing out from the left side and Meyer looked pretty bad from the right.
I mean, Meyer and Able to me are sort of linked. You
know, they were teammates at Jesuit High School here in Oregon, and you
know, both highly highly touted prep right handers that you know, we'll see
if Meyer follows a similar trajectory. But as we talked about with Abel earlier.
Abel has not lived up to that promise. And I wonder if a
lot of folks that ended up with White in their fypds, you know,
fifteen twenty picks after Meyer, whether they're going to be the ones that are
thrilled coming out of this because we're way later. Man, A couple of
mine he went fifty sixty wow, whereas Meyer went you know much earlier,
top top half of the first round or whatever. Like a couple of those
I had to trade into, and it's be like, all right, enough
of this, I'm gonna nab some white here. Continuing on the mar Carlin's
pitching train, Jacob Miller through. He was fine. I thought. I
think some people were pretty excited about it, but I've seen enough of Miller
that I was like, eh, I'm not convinced there. Ike buxt In
through and he's someone that I've sort of tried to talk myself into in some
deeper leagues, but I don't think that's a starter in the long run.
And then my b side arm for the Marlins. He closed out the game
and Anthony Maldona, that dude is so filthy. I think he's going to
be a back end impact reliever as as soon as this season, Like his
cutter slider two seam combo is just disgusting. He was getting whiffs that weren't
even close to the zone because his slider just looks like it's going to be
right at the knees and it ends up at your shoelaces and he is so
nasty. Did he get optioned yet or is he still I haven't seen,
still has a chance break camp. But thanks for pooping on I beside selection,
just going right into all the praise of yours. Yeah, that's all
right. Buckston getting into this game. I don't think it was a bad
B side. Oh he's got some attributes, he's got some weapons, but
yeah, no he does. He does. And it's not like I said,
I've been interested in him before too. It's not it's not bad.
I just don't think it's a starter. And so the Marlins played a couple
of DSL guys in this game. Maybe in Lopez came in, played shortstop,
got a couple at bats. I don't know if I saw the at
bats at all, but number one of them had a line out to left
that was decently hit. I admittedly wasn't a DSL guy that got onto my
radar at all. But he made a spectacular play at shortstop where he went
deep into his right and gunned one and got a man. I don't remember
who it was. It wasn't a slow guy by an eyelash, but his
DSL stats a little bit. And I don't know if there's anything super crazy
offensively to get super excited about at the athletics. Shortstop is going to look
like hopefully he's in full season ball this year. We get to see something
it does it's braydon Tin or whatever it might be. But he got my
attention and I wanted to see Andres Velor. And I don't think I was.
I saw his at that, but I think you did. I did.
It was over one with a strike. I think I asked you and
you're just like, yeah, he's big. He's big. He's you know.
I think he was young for the DSL last year, so I think
he's turning eighteen this year and or maybe just turned eighteen. But I think
he's pretty young. But he's huge, like looks six' five, you
know, two hundred pounds or something. I mean, he is large specimen
of a human being. And I think he if I'm remembering right, he
faced Grocepo it might have been maybe he faced Roby late in the game and
struck out, but it was got off a couple of good hacks. Like
I think he put one ball pretty deep foul that was down the left field
line. He was a little late on but and ended up striking out.
But it still was interesting, interesting seeing him, and I think we're going
to hear more about him as as the year goes and he makes it stayside.
That was a fun one. Good to see some some of our guys.
Yeah, Levinston hit a home run. I think we talked about him
a little bit in the first year player Raft, But the Cardinals side,
for the most part, was like, Okay, I know a boy.
You guys yep. Mat The Angels Dadgers game I thought was kind of interesting.
Caden Dana definitely impressed some folks. He got Twitter a buzz man.
Did you see he didn't miss a lifting weights this offseason? No, he
looked jack. Yeah, he was already I mean big and strong, but
he looks bigger and stronger. The most exciting thing to me with his performance
there was that he was throwing the change up good amount. I know when
I when I rode him up a little bit for the dugout. You know,
he talked about his fastball curveball combination. But nice to see that he
I think he's making a concerted effort to try to improve the change up.
So I like that, of course. I mean he's kind of a popular
name on the pitching side to rise quite a bit this year, and I
think that's definitely a possibility. Yeah, yeah, for sure too. And
then with the guys that I was trying to to watch the complex guys,
Man, what a stark difference between the three bats that the Angels ran out
there for their little cameo towards the end or whatever and the Dodgers complex guys.
Like Angels threw out Skull Ortez la Verde and all those guys just looked
pretty overmatched. In my opinion, I think they all struck out in their
one at that And then I thought the three complex guys the Dodgers threw out
there looked pretty interesting. What is Albert Albertas He's got a strong, strong
lower half. But what he went a double is first at bat, I
thought it was a pretty good swing, and then he struck out swinging on
three pitchers the next that bat, and you could tell he saw MVP of
the game in his eyes, I think. But he was kind of impressive.
I hadn't seen him before strongly. What he played some second base?
Is that your hope, the guy that they traded for. I've seen some
of him before. M hm, A couple of things, I hope.
Yeah, yeah, Munos. I thought he had a really well he had
like an RBI sack fly if I was good at bat though. It looks
like a good sized lefty kind of the look of his swing there, and
I kind of wanted to dig on him a little bit more and get a
little bit more interested in him. What's that you're excited about Dodgers prospects?
Hey, wow, there are Dodger's prospects that I like. This is true,
but it's it's not always the Tulsa rotation that throws three innings at a
time and everybody loves Josh Waita. Paula had a couple hits in this one.
If you haven't watched a lot of him, that's what his hits look
like. Soft line drive the other way, reasonably hard ground ball through the
right side, those were his two hits. Okay, like yep, some
people are really into that, but I just think the pressure on his bat
is going to be so enormous. Dana struck him out in the first I
think too, so I did think his single the other way. One thing
that was visible with the much nicer cameras we got to see was his back
elbow was well separated from his torso on that swing, which is something you
see when hitters are actually getting extended and getting to their power. That was
nice to see. I don't know. I'm still, as you know,
quite skeptical of my boy. Gothier didn't have a good game this game,
but has had a really great spring training. As we've talked about, once
you think of the Dodgers' arms, they threw out a really interesting assortment of
them. I don't think I really watched too much of the Dodger's arms here.
I think I was kind of hopping around and didn't pay too much attention
to him. Honestly, I was pretty impressed with Robleski mixed speeds pretty well,
and again, the Angels lineup was probably the saddest of any of the
spring breakout lineups. For the most part, but I thought Robleski looked pretty
good. It was my first extended look at Jackson Ferris and he was pretty
wild. I thought, but, you know, interesting young arm to follow,
and that I didn't actually see the last two. I think this is
what the ones where I watched the first half and then had to get onto
something else, and so I missed the last half. But I'm pretty interested
in Edgardo Henriquez, who closed it out with three strikeouts. He's he's an
arm that Longenhagen had identified like a year and a half ago, I want
to say, as a converted infielder that he thought had huge velocity, a
potential to feel for a slider, and thought he might be a real interesting
back end reliever. And it's been like a couple of years of development and
not much has changed, I don't think. But I was kind of bummed
I didn't stick around to see see that. I don't know if that,
if anything about his outing jumped out to you, but he's one that I've
add in the back of my mind as a potential lateening, you know,
relief ace kind of thing if it, if it all clicks, and it
hasn't so far. But one inning, three strikeouts hard to do better.
I don't know much. Just say all right, I want but I wanted
to ask you, Matt, about fellow Washington State cougar in this game that
I had not paid much attention to. I don't think he played at all
post draft last year. But was Sam Brown, who started first base got
three at bats for the Angels. What do you know about your boy Sam
here? I actually know quite a lot about Sam Brown because he was a
transfer to Washington State from the University of Portland. So I have seen a
lot of Sam Brown. And he is not a prospect. I'm gonna say
that he's got He got into a Big league spring training game the other day
and actually ended the game with a quote unquote hit. But the hit was
a ground ball that got pounded into the dirt and popped up over the first
baseman who couldn't field it, and then like the winning run came home from
third or like it was basically an error. Was terribly hit ball. And
what I know about Brown is he hunts fastball basically only like he'd be one
who I would be astonished if we ever got his splits against certain pitch types
in the minor leagues is going to hit it way better against fastballs and just
get eaten up by pro off speed pitches. So very much not a prospect
at all, honestly, kind of surprise he got drafted in. Good for
him, like he got to play on the same field as Mike Trout this
this spring. But less than zero expectations for Sam Brown, all right,
So so nothing to see there. I had. I had to ask about
that there. Yeah, you know the Angels, they're they're funny. Like
we talked a little bit about Cole Fontinelli and he's gotten tons of run with
the major league club this spring training. And you're like, Okay, well
that's cool. But just because they're promoting these guys and doesn't mean they're someone
we need to really pay attention to too much. Like yep, I think
Funtinelle has some nice traits or whatever, but I think he's a little above
his head at this juncture. But I had to ask you about Brown,
so thank you for that. For sure. I was like, oh,
guy, I never heard of I click on his like Washington State. I'm
like, all right, man, yeah, you're holding out on me or
not or what I am not? I am not. We could do the
Nationals Mets briefly because I did watch most of this one that was going on
at the same time as the Cardinals game. Oh, the Brandon spro at
game where everyone realized that, hey, he's a good pitching prospect too,
right yep? And Nolan Maclain, Yeah he looked pretty good too. Yeah.
I did not watch a lot of this one. Spro at seven pitches
that got everybody all excited. Cora's outing or inning? What do you pitch
an inning? Watch? Inning? And then a couple of at bats from
the from the young guys. But but that was it for me. I
don't think we talked about Sprout too much in the FYPD episode. Maybe a
little bit. I mean, he was a guy that I threw up there
on the list and now I don't think there was really anything that was different
than what I've seen from him before or why I liked him. Maybe he
was throwing a tick harder, but that's you know, seven pitches, seven
pitches. But yeah, I like Spro quite a bit, and I think
probably a guy in fyp didn't get enough love as maybe he should have.
But what did you think of him? Yeah? He looked good and this
was true. If I think most of the Mets pitchers, I thought they
almost all of them looked pretty good. The one that looked the worst was
Blade Tidwell, but I've seen him look really good before, so I'm not
putting a lot of stock in his one inning. Noel McLain and Sprote back
to back both looked really good. McClain there, I think I remember where
they mentioned this on the broadcast, whether they're going to let him try and
hit it all. But he was a two way guy college, so they
might let him try that. But he looked good off the mountain. He
was up to ninety seven as well, and I thought his breaking ballocked really
good. I think strictly a reliever, though I don't I think, yeah
he was. I don't think they're going to try stretch him out at all.
The Met's pictures all looked really good, and Net's pitchers didn't do much
for me. And I know people are excited about Susannah's outing because he was
popping on some of the publicly accessible stuff. Plus numbers. You know that
guy on Twitter that we see sometimes in the Dynasty dug out Discord TJ stats
or something like he's got his own version of kind of stuff plus and was
saying that Susannah's popping, and I don't know, man. I watched that
whole inning of him pretty closely because it was my first real look at him
after hearing a lot of reports from him for the past few years. And
I just wasn't very impressed. Like he was throwing one hundred and two and
people were fouling it off or taking it because it wasn't close to the strike
zone. His breaking ball didn't look good, like it wasn't getting whiffs.
I think he threw mostly fastballs in his like twenty nine pitches. I counted
two whiffs, So it's like, that's just not very good for this pitch
that is supposed to be, you know, this really good pitch. You
know. He had one walk. He ended up getting two strikeouts, but
one of them was on I think a changeup which was okay, well located
below the zone, and one was on a fastball. But he gave up
three hits a walk. I just I was not impressed. Like people loved
the triple digits of it, but I thought he kind of earned that giving
up two runs. Yea, yeah, I did not come away impressed with
him or confident in his ability to make it as a starter at all.
Yeah, another guy who's caught a lot of buzz and rookie ball, and
I get it. I think there is like some really interesting clay there,
so to speak. But yeah, he's he's like a lot of velocity on
a fastball that he needs some more some more there for me to get too
excited. Was this the first time that you saw Scora? Yes, fastball
looked like it played. Do you think it's it's it's a firm fastball like
he was in the upper nineties, But he did a pretty good job locating
like it looked consistent out of his hand. And I don't think his secondaries
really showed out that well, but he threw decent strikes with the fastball at
least want to see more. But he might have been my favorite arm.
But you could see them on the side. Yeah, you could see though,
Like you know, he was like the vel king of this prep class.
But he's not just velocity like he can, like you said, Lokate
execute that pitch well. And I think it does have like a slider that
it's not like this wild arl offering. I don't think like I for a
v Lo king. I kind of like him more than than a Susannah,
if you will, m hmm, yeah, I can see that. Yeah,
now we might as a dynasty community look back and regret how far we
let Colin how falling drafts. I think I really like the look of him.
Then I like the look of his swing. I'd like to take a
picture of him his photo shop meteor thighs and put it next to little Wolt
because Colin has got a little stronger. I think as well too. But
how can Pratt to me are linked in my mind? Because I just have
no opinion about them yet and have seen only grainy high school footage and then
like a couple played appearances between them in minor league. So far, I'm
not sold on either. I ended up with no shares of either. This
isn't like a judgment one way or the other. I just I don't feel
like I know enough about them, and I'm kind of skeptical about both too
that I've heard touted as like these guys are dropping way too far down big
upside and are going to be dudes. Yeah, And I'm just I don't
know. I don't know if we've seen enough to make that case one way
or another, Like for me, like I would be more interested in taking
Kevin McGonagall over both of them. As far as what I know right now,
I totally agree. But think about where how is gone and some seem
getting plucked in like the sixties and some first year player drafts like Man,
he's been in like the top fifteen in a couple of mine, and some
of those lads actually ends up being like the late thirties. How Ca and
Pratt both mostly have been pretty early relatively speaking in my drafts. So Pond
Scott how so late in ress thirty and I was so pissed about it.
But both of those guys to me feel like the kind of guys that you
like for your fantasy teams potentially like solid across the board, maybe their fifties
fifty five, but like there's pedigree, they've they've played against high level competition.
They're very young, Like what if that becomes sixties across the board,
then we're we're talking right, And then I don't know this bias skin from
the complex third basement. For the Mets, he looks strong, man.
I think he struck out once ripped the hard, hard line drive to center
field and then any thoughts on this sort of dsl Darling rod Rigaz for the
for the Mets, Jeremy Rodrigez, Is that right? Yeah, he got
a double. I think in this game had ground ball wasn't very it wasn't
very big, it wasn't very big. Guy. I thought very skinny.
Pitch was kind of a yeah. I thought that pitch was a pretty meatball,
breaking ball too that he probably would have been a great pitch to pool
and he didn't. He didn't do that. He just kind of slapped the
ground ball the other way. I think it was a drive up in the
middle. Yeah, like and it was. It was, you know,
decently located away and I liked the swing decently. But he's small and like
the way that he's young, like he's skinny, Like you look at that
swing and I just watched the slow moo, which again these cameras seeing it's
like it's so great. You can really see in that swing how close his
back in his case, his left arm as a lefty, his back arm
is really close to his hip as he's swinging through and so like he hits
a line drive because he like made contact in a decent spot with where the
pitch was, but rather than driving it for a double like you might see
a big leaguer do, he doesn't have that kind of strength because I think
he's still really young, and he slaps it for a single, and that's
like part of it, Like he just doesn't have the leverage to get his
arms extended on that kind of a ball, And that's more typical of guys
you see when they're younger, and I think that's something I was critical of
Hustwaita Paula a bit last year. So he did a lot of that,
and you know, like I mentioned earlier, he might be getting stronger and
doing a better job of getting that elbow cleared, so you know, good
good swing. Just the note on Yo Hondih Handy Morales. He had a
knock. He was one for three in this game. But one thing that
I'm going to be watching closely with Morales is he seemingly has trouble pulling fly
balls. Like he hits the ball hard and his battered ball spray is decent,
but when he hits fly balls, it seems like more often there to
the opposite field, and that I don't know whether it was during the game
or what, but I think somebody mentioned that about or maybe that was part
of somebody's right up of him. It could have been long in Hagen,
it could have been somebody else, but they had mentioned that, And I've
started to notice that a bit. I've watched him a bit this spring,
and he does seem to foul off flyballs to the right field side or when
he hits the ball in the air, it seems to be the center at
a right think in this game, his hit, I want to say,
was the like just a single up the middle or something like So it's just
something to keep an eye on with him as we get more data this year.
Because he's got good power. He does hit home runs, but I
wonder if there might be some more in there, if you would to pull
more of those fly balls. You know, No, Handy, you watched
the Braves game, right, I did. I think I had just hopped
around to get my eyes on Drake, Benitez and Guanipa. But what were
your thoughts on who they play? The Red Sox? Yeah, what were
your thoughts on the on the Braves Red Sox game. Let's start on the
Red Sox side. I mean they a bit more was happening on the offensive
side for them. Roman Anthony did his thing where he showed really good plate
and disciplin, put a couple of swings on things with not a lot of
loud contact to show for it. He played right and center, a couple
of walks, Marcella Mayor three punch outs, and again this wasn't like the
cream of the crop that the braves were throwing out there from on the pitching
side. So yeah, again we might I think this is a big year
for Mayor. I know he was hurt last year and that might have depressed
his performance, but I still think there's more to see there. Kyle Tiel
showed his barrel control. It was super impressive in this game. Again,
I watched a bit of him last year, and I've been a little skeptical
of how high he's been pushed on some other rankings just because it seemed pretty
babbit fueled. I don't think there's a ton of power there, and so
you're really saying like, yeah, this catcher is going to be elite at
running high babbeps in order to see like a ton of value there. But
he showed that he's kind of earned some of that. Like I think one
thing that I might be coming around on with respected heals that he might be
more of that line drive hand manipulate the barrel all around the yard kind of
guy, so you might expect slightly higher babbups from him. He really great
barrel control and a slider down and in that he hit for a double,
which I was pretty impressed with. Saddan Rafaela. His homer was good.
He's been good all spring if you've watched any of him. He's really pushing
to make the Red Sox roster. And again, I think that might be
at the expense of our guy. While you're a bray You and Miguel Blise
was good to see in this game. I think he's been more impressive in
some of the backfield games he was. He didn't do anything of note.
He struck out once, walked once in this game. But my guy Alan
Castro had a couple of our guy, Sorry, our guy Alan Castro had
a couple of nice hits in this game. Showed off his athleticism too.
He stretched one into he scored from first on something, or he did something
with his legs that I remember being impressed with it. Must have been he
went to second when he got a hit and drove some runs in. I
think that's what it was. It's nice to see he in a classic Castro.
Yeah, yeah, a couple of hits, and I noted down that
he might look a little bit stronger. He was, you know, athletic
looking last year. But I wonder if he put on that proverbial ten pounds
of muscle in the off season or if it's just the new performance unis that
are really making him pop. But he looked a little bit bigger than me.
Red Sox their lineup was fun like they did a lot of had a
lot of hits. Got to see a lot of them. That was really
good. Wilcolm and Gonzalez is somebody that I've had interest in before. Gonzalez
started the game for the Red Sox. He was okay, he was wild.
He's been wild in the past three walks, one strikeout over three innings,
and I think his success was more because the Braves lineup was less interesting.
Overall. Our Braves picks, for the most part, guys that we've
talked about before in Nacho and Drake Baldwin. They didn't have great games.
Nacho worked a good walk and that was the first inning Baldwin went over to
with the k. He did throw out a runner and looked really good on
that. I think he had one steal against him. Yeah, Blie stole
against him. Oh and then Paulino got third. Oh yeah, he gave
up a few actually, but his cut stealing of nick Yorkey threw this ball
on a dime to get him at second. I noted that down. I
thought that was a really good throw and nice to see. But really,
the only guy who did anything of note on the Braves was was Drake.
And I know you wanted to get eyes on a Drake for one. Yeah,
it hit a triple, and he also walked and the advertised for a
bitch fastball. Yeah, and he got a steal to off of Peel,
who is who was supposed to be, you know, quite a good catcher
as far as preventing stolen bases, he had a good game. You know.
Again, hard to draw a ton of conclusions out of this, but
the triple he was motoring on the steal, he's showing speed. Hard to
get more of a read than that, to be honest, but he was
the only one that really showed out for the Brave. So it was nice
to see. What'd you think of the Glenipa over from the DSL. What'd
you think game? He let off, played center field, played the whole
game. Really No, I mean he seems smaller than I thought, Like
it seems kind of on the shorter side, like when Nacho was sort of
like towering over you, like, not just not a huge dude, you
know, Yeah, but I thought he was quite a bit bigger. Not
a ton to note there. Sabaios was was good to see him play.
He had a couple of plays at third that looked like sure handed and had
a walk. Do you know anything about Diego Benitez? He was new to
me. Came over Benitas. It looks like looks like a strong kid,
but I mean what he went over one. He was one of the higher
regarded guys in there. Two years ago DSL class, which I think was
like the first international class that the Braves had had in years, remember,
because they had all the penalties from the what's his name era? Why can
I remember that guy's name? Coppol Ela lied about a bunch of people's signing
bonuses and whatever and got got suspended her band and then I guess it was
lifted. But anyway, this was their first I think Benitas was part of
their first like significant class after that, but was just okay in the DSL,
I think, and then even worse on the complex. So Guenipa is
sort of the next one. And then obviously they got Perdomo this last class,
and he's supposed to be the best that they've gotten internationally sin Setunia.
So so they just like throw in their like top signings from the last couple
of international classes into this game. Is that what gotcha? All right?
Well, Matt I wanted to This is crazy to me. So the Astros
Cardinals game on Sunday morning at what eight am Eastern? Is that? No?
No excuse me? It was eight am at ten am Eastern? Not
broadcast? Like, is that a little weird to you? This is really
weird to me. I mean, you've got this system that is always ranked
at the bottom, yet arguably the best system of the last second, y'all,
yeah, this is We're gonna handy tinfoil hat time. Just just make
sure you get your at home, your handy hands. Well, we're gonna
not broadcast this System's Spring breakout game and shove it Sunday morning. Why could
you imagine them doing this to the Dodgers. Well, I'll say I'll say
this, like we praised the idea and the execution for the most part at
the outset. But I am so motivated to watch these games, Like this
is why I watched spring training games is for so I can see these kinds
of players. And they made it so hard to find them. They made
like even on their on the like MLB dot com, this is where how
you watch just so you follow the streams, you go to those pages.
None of them actually linked to the streams. You couldn't pick and choose which
games. It was bafflingly hard to find where to get the streams. And
I've heard from some of the folks that actually went to the games that even
on their tickets some of the games, some of the spring breakout games were
sort of combined with the big league games spring training games, and so some
of them started earlier then later, And I think this was one of them,
right, Like I think this is one that like started three hours before
the big league game, and so that's why it was early, Like that's
the reason why it started at ten because the big leaguers obviously aren't going to
play at ten. They're like other teams did that, they shove their game
that early. I don't know, man, Like I don't think it's a
conspiracy so much as like it's just how they had to do it to make
it work for the teams and the schedule and all of that. I've at
least wondered about this, But like, I think the Astros don't want hype
on their prospects, you think, so, I really think there's I really
think there was something to that. Anyways, they had four player rookie ball
level players that I wanted to see but I couldn't. But We've talked about
Quinn Matthews before, and I guess he was like pretty impressive from what I've
been told in that outing, thrown pretty hard and what have you. I
think you only pitched an inning though, but yeah, just just the last
thing. No, So I didn't want to. I didn't watch it at
all. I didn't watch it any You couldn't. You couldn't, you couldn't
watch any of it. I don't know. I just thought that was quite
peculiar that it was the Astros that got tucked away out of sight Nate and
his conspiracy theories. I tell you what, guys classic, Well, we
didn't get the Rangers game. They had a few rookie lefs I would have
liked to Yeah, I really wanted to see. I wanted to see that
one. They had a bunch of guys that I wanted to get eyes on.
I don't think any of them did particularly well, but they had guys
that I was interested in seeing. We didn't get the Reds Guardians game,
right. That was also on radio. No, that one was broadcast,
but it was a mostly press box camera. They did have a camera,
but it wasn't the bad version of spring training, you know, like how
some of the Spring training broadcasts like it's just two cameras and not a ton
of production. But it was the radio crew. But I did get to
watch some of this, but it was hard to like, hard to read
too much into it. Not a ton to report. Louder didn't own the
Louder throw in the other one. He threw the other one. Oh,
I was saying. Doug Nigazi through to start the game for the Guardians.
He threw three innings and got six punch outs. He's someone that I have
on a couple of teams. I think I inherited one share of him.
I think that's the show maybe with you. He was one of my late
picks in the in our dispersal draft. He's a name to you know.
There's some there's some stuff there that I think is interesting. Hard to see
much out of this game done. That's Rockies game I watched. I watched
that. I don't know. There wasn't too much other than these three complex
players that the Diamondbacks throughout there. I feel like I pretty much knew.
I didn't really take too much away from this game. So this guy Jones
from center field, Dude, what is that? Man? They're trying to
classic boy? It's a Rockies highlight for one Drew Romo RBI single. They
turned that MLB turns that into look at Drew Jones. Great throw from center
field, shallo center field. You got ninety four miles per hour on this
and didn't throw the guy out. But this is our Drew Jones hype tweets.
Yeah, silly, that was something. There was this little fire hydrant
d h guy that the I never heard of that the Backs throughout there Barriga,
you know the Diamondbacks have. Yeah, I don't know what he I
don't know. I think he really did much. Two k's and a soft
grounder to the picture. I'm like, okay, well, I don't know
why they're throwing him out there. Reuben Santana one ab towards the end like
a guy took his And they had this lanky left that took a walk and
stole a base although he was really out, but they didn't give Romo the
call. But yeah, I don't know. There wasn't really too much exciting
in this game for me. The Rockies threw out you know who you think
they throw out their top prospect. They've thrown Goodman out there, you know.
But did you watch this one at all? No, No, I
didn't have the pitching. Look how Dolander look. It was like an inning.
He looked fine. I don't know, didn't really I feel like he
got yeah, yeah, I feel like Dolander got got like a quick ground
ball. It was just like some weak content. I don't think he really
got deep into any counts and it was over quick. Nothing else saying yeah,
palm Quist, Yeah he looks fine. He looks I mean interested to
see. I don't know, man, I mean they have like no starting
pitching depth. So does pump Quist get a shot in June or something?
I wouldn't I wouldn't put it past them. I don't know. Speaking of
Rocky's pitching, you see that the Rays just traded for Joe rock I know,
right, Yeah, I thought that was interesting. Joe you know a
guy, Yeah, the guy that we've talked about. It's like, I
think there's a pretty interesting reliever look here with the you know, big guy,
maybe struggle throwing strikes over long outings, but the stuff seems pretty interesting.
And I've liked some of what I've seen out of rock But yeah,
pump pump Quist is you know, I think more our type of guy,
like throw strikes, seems to just get everybody out. And even though he's
a lefty throwing ninety one, like it's great for sure. Uh, I've
got to see your justa Luis. But I mean we've seen him before.
Lin gave some guys some trouble. Yeah, he's throwing a little bit harder.
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, nothing super interesting in this game.
It was nice to see Sullivan. Oh that's what I wanted to say
talk about So they were talking about his fastball. That's up, that's up
our alley. Matt doesn't throw hard, but nobody can square it up.
Very interesting lefty basketball there. How did gilbertz look for looked amazing the first
inning and then not so great after that, didn't make it through the second.
It just kind of feels in that look. Maybe I mentioned that before
and that tool Diaz was actually better later and starts, which was very surprising
to me. I forget who it was that he got. He got somebody
on just an absolutely disgusting curveball, right, We've seen that before, and
then it was a good win. Maybe it was good win. And then
we go and then he goes back and then he goes back to it the
next pitch right and just spikes at like six feet short of the plate,
you know, and you're like, yeah, that's that's the olber Diz for
you. Yeah, while Sterling Thompson was was batting because he threw a wild
pitch in there. Yeah yeah, and I think maybe even a run did
a run score there a runner advanced or something runner advanced? Yeah, yeah,
just kind of classic. Yeahs there. Agnosis is nasty for a reliever
for the Rockies. He came in, he gave up a couple of hits
to be struck, a couple of guys out. I'm anxious to see him.
I think we'll see him in the bigs. But yeah, then I
think we just got one game left, right, man, the Twins and
the Rays. I gotta say, we were talking last week with Bogel right
and talking about Winnaker, and I was like, man, I don't remember
why I just kind of crossed him off my list, and I was watching
this game and I quickly remembered why I crossed him off the list, Like
I absolutely hate his swing, big step, and like, yeah, he's
like this, he's a really good athlete and this big guy, but man,
he just it looks like that thing needs a lot of work. I
don't know. We got he's big and tall, and he's like I kind
of know what you mean, though I'm not sure all the levers are working
together just yet. Yeah. Yeah, but I was like, yeah,
that's that was it, That's why. But yeah, so I don't know,
soa Soto Charlie Soda there. I don't know what you thought of him,
but I'm like yeah, when I remember when I remember why I crossed
him off the list too, like I know he got rouffed up or whatever,
but didn't have anything to do with that, Like, my man throws
hard, but that delivery is just violent and he's a thrower checked out with
all of the high school looks that I had gotten into. I'm that a
huge fan him there, And then I thought this was kind of interesting that
did you see this? I had no idea who he was. Chris crisos
Homo, this reliever that came in for the for the Twins towards the end,
pastball slidder guy, not like overly impressive reeks of a reliever, but
he was signed by the Red Sox International Class twenty eighteen and then the Twins
signed him like last year and he pitched in the DSL as a twenty three
year old and there was nothing in between on Baseball Reference or I was just
clear. I'm like, where where did he come from? Where was he?
Like? Wow, he was playing baseball or not? But I got
all pumped. I was like, who is this guy from the DSL that
the Twins are thrown out there? And then I was like, oh,
yeah, okay, that's not mysterious, but not very exciting. Look,
ask you, I mean I was curious to see this Jose Rodriguez guy from
the Twins and ask you just, I mean he had no chance against your
guy. Yeah, he's going to be a good reliever. Ben Ross didn't
takehim yard. No, I know, we did have the we had b
side on one of my bats. Did take one of your arms yard,
but it wasn't the right. They didn't quite sync up either though they were
inning off. I think they would have seen each other. But yeah,
my man, Ross, what do you do? He grounded out? Is
one at that? Yeah? They were talking about his athleticism and he is
very athletic, but uh, dude, check out how b side. This
kind of is right. Notre Dame College in Ohio. You know, you
hear about colleges getting rid of their baseball programs and all that. My man's
school is closing down like the whole university. Funny they were talking about the
only other athletes of note from Notre Dame College in Ohio or Mma Fighters.
I watched a good trunk of it. It was it was exciting. Eight
to eight. This is where Isaac, Oh, yeah, Isaac hid a
couple of home runs, so he took Noble I don't know, I don't
know who Noble is, took him yard and then took this twenty three year
old DSL guy who probably spent like four years in prison or something. I
don't know. On the race, got to see Santana wasn't super impressive to
me and anyway, but just one at that, But I've seen some prep
stuff from him. Not really a guy that I'm super into. Yeah,
I don't know. Even the pictures for the Twins weren't like really exciting.
Kishull got in there. I don't really have too much to say about that
game other than what I like I said, I just like I said,
I just saw the highlights. It was mostly Xavier Isaac. It was mostly
like just the guys that we already know a lot about, and we've seen
a lot Isaac and Cameron Arrow and Carson Williams on the race side, and
then Brookslee, Austin Martin, Manuelardriguez on the Gabriel Gonzales on the OH the
Twins side. I was impressed with a pitcher that I hadn't seen before.
On the race, I had the guy who closed out the game, well
finished the game. Zuraga. He's a smaller right hand right hander, but
man, his fastball looked nasty and cut off a couple of breaking balls.
He was kind of interesting. I think he showed up when I did like
a ninth inning dig as well. Potential young reliever to keep an eye on.
Yeah, spring breakouts. What I needed just starting to jones for some
like a ball and stuff. I just want to start watching some minors and
this was pacified me for a couple of more weeks here. Yeah, all
in all, it was fun and obviously we talked for over three hours about
about these games. But please, please please do this again, Major League
Baseball, but make it easier to see this was it was difficult. We
were sharing around links to make sure we were to actually watch the feed,
and a couple of them weren't broadcasts at all, and some of them had
obviously like the crapcams. So hopefully they get like good feedback about this and
good ratings for however they evaluate these things. I know that a bunch of
the people that were on the broadcast, like Jonathan Mayo and Jim Kallis from
Pipeline MLB Pipeline they were on various broadcasts hyping it up and like how pumped
they were about this. And they had a few other people, I think
Lance Bridowski or how we say his last name, who's all over Twitter and
stuff. He was doing the Cubs White Sox game that got rained out,
but they were talking up how excited they were to do this, like in
the pregame show for that one too, So a lot of people were pretty
excited about this, you know, this being the first time they did anything
like it. I think it went off fairly well. But yeah, please
do it again, and please make it easier to watch and change your priors
slowly. Right, these are showcases one inning, what have you. Yeah,
Like we mentioned, especially for some pitchers, it can be very misleading.
Yeah, well, we just talked for three hours about minor leaguers,
Like, are we going to talk about Shoho Tani being four and a half
million dollars into gambling and the best player that we've ever seen might be getting
suspended because he's under federal investigation? Are we going to talk about that?
Or I can't say that I know too much about the situation other than it
smells fishy. Yeah, was sort of joking at the end because it's like
the biggest story in sports and we just spent three hours talking about baseball and
didn't mention it. Yeah, because we like to talk about baseball on that
freaking drama. All right. So that's episode twenty six of The Prospect.
Besides podcasts, just a couple guys who watched some spring breakout games and just
sharing some notes. I don't know how helpful or that may or may not
be, but is what it is. Yeah, Like you said at the
end, change your prior slowly, like these games don't matter. It was
one look at a bunch of these guys. It was just some interesting things
that stood out to us, and we've found the games fun to watch,
right, and these guys have been playing a whole lot of baseball before this
one game. But we will let Chicago Farmer take us out, you will,
and we'll talk to you next time. Bite five miles an hour riding
to his head. He hop him down the first with the lump bone in
his face, and on the very next pitch he up in stove second face
with gratst speed. He wasn't born. He had the dirty yes uniform,