Not five miles an hour riding to his head. You have it down first
with the lumbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second face with gradest be he wasn't born, he had yes uniform. All
right. Welcome to episode eighteen of the Prospect B Sides Podcast. I am
Nate Handy, joined again by the four eyed rook Matt. How are you
forget it? I'm even better than the three eyed raven. I'm a four
eyed rook. So we're looking into the past, we're looking into the future.
We're prospecting for your B sides. Such a mystic deep cut there,
I guess it's not that big of a deep cut. Game of Thrones was
like the most popular show on television for like a decade. So yeah,
my wife was really into it. I got too confused. It was way
too too many characters. Yeah, we loved it. It was a fun,
fun watch for us. But the ending was left a little bit of
a sour taste. That's what That's what I hear. It seems to be
the consensus opinion there. But AnyWho, first year player Arms, Matt,
first year player Arm episode. I think there's a lot of contradiction, at
least for me thinking about and how I play this dynasty game, how I
play this Dungeons and Dragons baseball, and think about pictures in first year player
drafts more so than hitters. Your league format, league size, or the
length of your your spec list and things of that nature matter significantly more in
my opinion. Would you agree with that? I definitely agree with that.
Like, this is even more than in your hitter evaluations. You got to
know your league format really well for this. Yeah, to the point of,
like, there are lots of leagues where you should draft no pictures in
FYPD, even the ones that are at the very top of the list.
To others where like if it's a you know, points league where you've got
a ton of minor spots, like maybe you do want to bump up some
of the some of the pictures in your fypds. But yeah, even that
I think changes the evaluation of the kinds of pictures you might want to go
after too, so very much. It's a big what if you know what,
if your league was this, then maybe one arm is more interesting than
another. Totally agree, And I'd like to get a little bit more specific
with some of that for me. The first thing that you want to know
about is what does your league define as a prospect picture? And in my
opinion, there are certain formats and rules with that that kind of make pitching
prospecting kind of pointless. Like if you have to have your picture on the
roster on your major league roster when they're called up, like forget about it.
I think that just totally sort of ruins the demographic. And even more
so, I know a lot of leagues probably use the fifty inning pitched rule.
I want to bump that up. I mean, how many guys are
would you say, like fully major leaguers after fifty innings pitched. There's a
lot of up and down in the beginning process for pitchers. So no,
so true. That is so true, And I think is a big part
of why I end up fading a lot even of upper miners arms, because
in a lot of my leagues, I'm sort of in a competitive cycle where
I want to win every year. And if a guy loses miners eligibility and
now I have to carry him on my active roster and he's gonna have some
growing pains, isn't going to get a full shot might bounce between starting and
relieving. That's not a guy even in really deep leagues that I'm interested in,
right, So, I find that the league, like the one that
we're in in the show that league, having a much longer leash for your
minor league eligibility is really helpful, especially for evaluating pitchers. You might be
more interested in holding a guy for a couple of years, because even on
the top pitchers in baseball, a lot of them took a few years to
get there. And if that's kind of a fringe guy after promotion to major
league status, you know, maybe you let go of them too early,
or that's when their value is at its lowest. On the flip side,
that's also when you can pounce in trades on those on those leagues too.
I do blame just sort of standard dynasty formats for some of this pitching speculation
hate that's out there. Also, I think it's very different if you can
pick up prospects or that during the season. I would dare say that in
a lot of leagues, especially the smaller types, if you can pick up
prospects during the season, I think that greatly reduces at least my motivation to
roster a lot of pitching prospects. I think you also need to pay attention
to what the rest of the league is doing, because even in formats like
that, even though I may shy away from from rostering a lot of pitching
specs, if the rest of the league is shying away from it, like
I'm in one right now, I'm kind of a hoarder. I'm hoarding the
bigger name pitching prospects that I want to explore a serious relationship with Matt that
I feel comfortable getting into the long haul with. And I think that's something
you have to think about too when you're looking at the profiles of what pitchers
you're getting into. There's different types that I would want to commit to,
and very much high brown names like we've talked about a little bit that I
don't want to commit to seriously, I might play some of the game within
the game with those arms, and maybe we'll talk about one tonight. I
think you're the league size, like, but if you can pick up prospects
in say a thirty teamer, I think that does change a little bit though,
because of how massive that league size is. I mean, I found
in playing a thirty teamers just kind of completely not doing it. That didn't
help me. I found myself very short with pitching options after a year or
two, and trading for them can be very expensive, especially in points leagues.
If you're trying to get somebody who's a present day contributor in a thirty
teen points league as a pitcher, expect to pay quite a lot for that.
And prospects that can be had cheaply a year maybe a year and a
half later, if they're now performing in our stalwart in the rotation, you're
going to have to give up way more than you would expect given say just
your basic prospect dynasty rankings. And then if you're in I am not in
one of these, but I'd very much like to be. But if you're
in a large league where you cannot pick up prospects during the season, I
feel like then you really need to invest in some I would be very check
about which ones I select in those types of leagues, but I think there
you have to. That's interesting. Why why do you say that? What's
what changes about the format there that makes you place a bigger premium on getting
a pitcher in the draft, And say a thirty teamer where you can't pick
up prospects in season, where else are they going to come from. They'll
come from trades, right, that's always an option. They'll come from waivers.
Now, like you know, say, who would who would be a
good example. Let's say maybe Cole Reagan's wasn't rostered last year, and you're
in this theoretical thirty I imagine, Well, I guess maybe maybe that's not
the greatest example. Maybe Andrew Abbott would be a better example. Sawyer gives
him long as a real example, like he was not rostered late into the
season in my thirty teamer and one of my thirty teamers, and I picked
him up. But to your point, like in my experience in smaller leagues
like that, there's somebody who's holding a large amount of their fab just for
those situations. Mmm mm hm. So I think it's gonna be very,
very tough, and there's still a lot of volatility with those those types of
any young arm coming into the league. So I think I think a league
like that is just more like Major League Baseball, where you've got to try
to invest, you've got to try to grow your own I think to stay
pace with the leaders of the league. I don't know, do you think
I'm off base there? I don't think you're off base. I was trying
to think about it in terms of the couple of leagues that I'm in where
you can't pick up prospects during the league or during this season, and that
way, sorry, go ahead, Well, just in those leagues where the
only way you can acquire them is either in the draft, which is pretty
limited in the couple of leagues that I'm in in terms of the number of
rounds and the number of minor spots, or when they debut then it's a
waiver game where you can drop a bunch of fab on them in waivers.
And in this sixteen teamer that has those rules, so not even that deep
of a league it was, and it's a points league, so it really
does favor pitching. And that's the league where I really pushed up some of
the performing arms last offseason and drafted Fot and Gavin Stone with like my second
and third round picks in that league. And I would say it didn't really
pan out for me yet, but I wonder if it will in a year
or two. Whereas I don't know, it's just again neither of them was
very good in their initial call up, and so maybe the price was down
and maybe I could have traded for them. It's hard to say, but
I just mean I did place a bigger premium on some arms in that league,
partly because it was going to be harder to acquire pitching. I thought,
Yeah, I just know that in thirty teamers, kind of no matter
what the format, you never have enough arms, and you can always get
something at the trade table if you think you have an extra one. Now,
maybe somewhat conversely, in a smaller league where you can not pick up
prospects, I would almost maybe never draft a pitcher, or just stick to
the very high brow sort of guys like a Skeins or something like that.
You know, I currently roster three pitchers in my sixteen teamer that you cannot
pick up prospects in season in my thirty teams, Yeah, and one was
inherited and he's just still there now in my thirty teen points where you can
pick up prospects. And this might play into more of the nature of the
league and league mates and sort of the way that I have tried to gobble
up all of the breakout pictures early, I'm like rostering probably fifty to fifty
arms to bats, and to be honest, I would almost like to up
that a little bit. That might be a little bit extreme, But I
also question, like, is it really that much more worthwhile to hoard more
bats than arms? Like, again, it just depends on your league and
one of the components of that. It's not just the format, it's also
your other owners. Are they interested in trading? What are their preferences?
You know, I just made a trade in one of my leagues where I
had a couple of owners really after Ben Brown, who is someone that you
and I had both talked about that we were kind of down on. Maybe
the Cubs actually think he's a reliever. He had some commands issues last year,
some injury issues, and then when he came back after injury, was
only pitching one or two innings in relief. So I was kind of down
on him. But because he still was on a couple of top prospect lists,
these guys were like, no, this is the key piece in this
trade. And I'm like, really, like, I have a bunch of
other arms that I think are more interesting than Ben Brown, But man,
if that's the sticking point, like yeah, I'll trade you Ben Brown,
no problem, and so like that sort of it really depends on are is
there a market for that? Like can you find willing trade partners? Because
there are other people in that league who have no interested in minor league arms.
They're only interested in high upside DSL or complex league level bats that might
turn into the next Acuna or Tatise or somebody with the superstar ceiling, and
they don't care at all about the boring back of the rotation types that I
think I end up being drawn more too. So that's another piece that plays
into it, is like knowing what's the propensity of your league for trading for
that kind of picture? To me too, there's also a real life sort
of musical chairs component to it, like what's more numerous, what's more abundant
hitters who get real opportunities at an everyday role or pictures with a real opportunity
to get into a rotation and stick if they do well. What year was
this, twenty twenty one? I think it was twenty twenty did a little
little research where we compared MLB draft histories and NFBC draft histories, and one
of the bigger takeaways to me was that there wasn't a huge difference between college
arms and college bats as far as reaching, at least one time peaking to
certain NFBC ADP heights. The difference was pretty nominal once you got passed.
I don't know what was it fifty picks or so or halfway through the first
round or whatever it was. And now, granted, none of that says
anything about sustainability, right we see, just generally speaking, on a macro
level, like hitters probably sustain their jobs or their value there more so than
hitters, or more so than pitchers, right, I think we see a
lot of pitchers who can have one bang or season and then kind of kind
of drift off more so than hitters, do you think so? Or even
college arms that there ended up, you know, being in the system for
a little while and then converted to relief two and then they're right a reliever,
even one that sticks around in a cruise war. But you think about
a guy like Andrew Miller or somebody like that, who was highly touted arm
coming out of the draft, great college career, couldn't really start in pro
ball. They gave him a shot game, a shot but then he hung
around for like fifteen years as a reliever. So I think that happens a
bit more than with high schoolers, who I think it's more likely that it's
stuff regression or injury and bust and then never make it. Just looking at
one of the charts from that research, and it goes from draft pick number
one to one hundred, and the sort of curve and the decline of just
the probability of making the MLB with college bats and college hitters is pretty much
the same, and with prep bats and prep hitters is pretty much the same.
But now mind you that this is from MLB drafts, what two thousand
and one to twenty fifteen, and I do think I do tend to believe
that things are a little bit different now. When you're talking about like prep
pitchers at that time, it would take almost five years until they made the
BIGS, whereas college pitchers were at like three. I think we could probably
speed that up a little bit now, though. Do you think some teams
definitely are I still think there's that kind of standard progression that you see the
teams use. It'd be interesting too to look at it on the international side,
because that's where I wonder if that it's even more pronounced, just as
they have to make the Major League, so the forty man within six years.
Otherwise it's there are free for all, and so I think their bus
rate might be higher because some of those guys get rushed. I've seen that
theory bandied about before. But I do think some teams are pushing some of
their high schoolers faster. I mean even at the top of the draft with
Baltimore and Holiday just last year like that, they've pushed him so fast he's
in Triple A already and it's going to be in the major leagues next year.
So I think there is a little bit more of if a guy's ready,
we're just going to keep pushing him. Atlanta has done this with pitchers
too, and they are like, you were drafted last year, Well,
we're going to keep pushing you up and see where you make it, Like
Waldrop made it up to Triple A this year. Looking at some of this
stuff now, great, So this is very loose science. I wouldn't even
use science divining rad type of just rough guestimate idea with a lot of imperfections
in the process. But during that time MLB picks twenty one through fifty just
kind of across the board. College hitters, prep hitters, college pitchers,
prep pitchers all pretty much had the same sort of results as far as peak
NFBC ADP. So I do think that you get to a point in the
MLB draft, however, you want to look at that the talent in the
draft where it becomes just pretty much even across the four demographics as far as
fantasy potentials or as far as sort of a macro sort of sense of odds.
But now I will say there were some demographics that I found doing this
stuff that were kind of interesting, Like you're sort of smaller named college infielders
were pretty much just as if not a little bit more successful than like your
mid first round prep arms of that time period. Your college arms that were
MLB picks twenty one through fifty may have been in sort of vanilla, if
you will. As far as fantasy success, we're equally good shots as hitters
in that range. And you know from this sample, a prep pitcher drafted
twenty one through fifty in the MLB draft had twice reached top twenty five fantasy
heights out of one hundred and fifty six. I don't think it's any secret
that folks think that drafting prep pitchers can be very fruitless. But Matt,
I dare say, and folks like Jeff Ponce and Trevor Hooth at the time
that I did this, we're kind of trying to tell me that they thought
things were different now with prep arms, and I tend to agree with them.
I am much more likely today to take a shot on a prep arm
than I was then, especially this draft class. I don't know if you
took a look, but I shared a little list I got. As of
right now, I've got about ten arms that I would think about seriously sort
of committing to and getting into a long haul commitment with, and four of
those were prep arms. I don't think a list like that has ever looked
like that to me, has been split that evenly. Are you more likely?
Are you with me? Or not so much at all. I'm generally
speaking just out out on the ideas of drafting a pitcher in FYPD, and
I say that mostly from the context of the leagues that I play in,
and so my deepest league, this thirty teamer, where we have something like
fourteen hundred prospects rostered or something. I was just looking through my pitching staff
minor league pitching staff. It's Julian Agiar, Matt Canterino, David Festa,
Jacob Lopez, Cole Phillips, Lion Richardson, Ywander Suarez, Reedban Scooter,
Brandon Walter, Ricardo, Jan Christian Scott. I acquired Canterino, Festa,
Phillips, Richardson, and I think those are the only ones via trade.
All the others were available at some point on the waiver wire in that league.
And again, some of this is like timing when you pick people up
and when you're in and so b siding has helped with some of this,
like I picked up Suarez, Van, Scooter, and Scott all pretty early
on in the year after I was starting to look at like who's kind of
rocketing up with a great K minus BB or who has an interesting line in
sort of a small sample, and having a few roster spots to be able
to do that, I was able to pick those guys up. Agiar,
I think was on your recommendation last year. Those guys are all I think
pretty valuable or going to be really valuable. I drafted none of them.
So I think that that's my general philosophy is that even in really deep leagues,
you're going to be able to find valuable pitchers in your waiver wire,
and it's a lot harder, and that they pop up so much faster than
hitters. We talked about this a while ago, that it is really hard
to fake being a good hitter. It's pretty easy to see through a high
babb a crazy out out of this world homer to flyball ratio, or like,
oh, you're having a ton of success, but you don't walk and
you're striking out a lot, Like is that power really going to carry you
through those things? The things that make really really good hitters are very difficult
to fake and for the most part, relatively easy to see. So your
good hitters are easier to evaluate. Like we've said this on B siding before,
that it's getting harder to find under the radar hitters because general fantasy community
is getting better at saying who is a good hitter and what's valuable, and
so are the I think public prospecting lists, especially the folks doing it on
the fantasy side. You know, they think about Jeff Ponce and Dylan White,
like the stuff that they've done in BA about taking Jeff's experience in the
scouting world and all the depth knowledge that BA has there and applying Dylan's scout
the stat line type of formulation. I think they're doing a really good job
of identifying some of the under the radar prospects really fast, and then they
aren't under the redar anymore. On the pitching side, though, one offseason
at tread or at drive line, one pitch tweak from a smart organization,
a change in pitch usage, like it happened so fast, and then Christian
Scott pops out of nowhere and was like second in the minor leagues and K
minus BB rate last year, and like he wasn't anybody like that, was
not on any fantasy lists. He wasn't on an FYPD top one fifty when
his draft year happened. So for me, like Christian Scott's one of my
favorite arms in the miners, I think he's going to be a really good
major leaguer, top fifteen maybe arm in all of the minor leagues for me,
And he was free in this deep, pretty competitive league. So all
that to say that in general for fypds, I'm shying away from pitchers,
and especially prep pitchers because the opportunity cost is so high, I think.
So we definitely have done a lot of work and looked at a bunch of
these guys, so we do have some recommendations. But for me, like,
it's unlikely I'm taking any of these guys in any of my draft.
That's fair enough. So we'll just understand that you're a chicken and I am
not. M Okay. It also has to do with it pitchers are terrible,
and you know, hitters are the real athletes here, so well,
you know, I dare say or chew on this. I don't think.
Maybe I'm just fooling myself, but you know, people will talk about investing
in pitching prospect as being very volatile and all that. I feel like if
you really watch a pitcher, I feel like a lot of that risk is
mitigated if you really if you sit down and you watch all of Hidden Dana's
you know, tublevised starts. Now, granted, who's got time to watch
all of these guys, right, that's the hard part. But I feel
pretty dang safe with some of my pitching investments because I know exactly what I'm
getting into I might not have all the data and all that stuff, but
I know what kind of picture I'm talking about here. I think there's a
lot of I don't want to say, maybe lies or untold parts of the
picture when you look at spreadsheets of pictures, whereas I think spreadsheets for hitters
tell a lot more truth than they do compare to pictures. Do you think
that's fair to say? I think it is because some of the things that
are publicly available for hitters still remain really strong markers of success, right,
Like even if you don't have their ninetieth percentile exit VLO, you still can
get a pretty good sense for how much power is there, and a couple
of views of their swing you can see a lot about how are they spraying
the ball right? The things with pictures. I struggle with this because I
think, on the one hand, it's still so valuable to know their strikeout
percentage and their walk percentage, and that that remains one of the very best
predictors at any level for how good a pitcher is this going to be.
You can learn a lot more if you watch them and see how are they
getting that, Like what's the pitch shapes, what's their go to pitches,
Like you can learn a lot still by watching them, But I still wonder
if we're missing some things when we're relying on stuff like how hard are they
throwing or what's their spin rate, or like it's almost like, because we're
getting some more specific numbers, we're over prescribing how good we think they are.
And I don't know if that's necessarily the right takeaway. And I still
think you can find a lot of guys who are just stat sheet darlings as
pitchers, and then you watch them and you're like, oh, I'm underwhelmed
because the fastball's ninety and the changeup looks okay, he's not getting like crazy
whiffs, like pitching ninja style swords, right, But that guy still might
be really good because we don't have all of the information that teams do,
or we don't have all of that underlying data that tells us that actually that
release point is unique, the approach angle is unique. Is actually getting outlier
extension on top of good spin and those things. I think I've described it
before with a guy like Reed Van Scooter, who I think just put up
one of the best lines in full season baseball and still remains not ranked by
a lot of people, and when he is ranked, it's ranked really low.
But I think that what he showed us with nine point eight six k's
per nine and two point five walks per nine and a fifty seven percent ground
ball rate at a great hitters park, we're missing something about his arsenal that
we're he's telling us with the results, you know what I mean, like
that k rate, that walk rate, that ground ball rate. Though even
though we look at the stuff models that I've seen referenced about him that they're
like, oh, it's underwhelming, it's not that good. This is a
back end kind of guy. I think we're missing something still about that,
and we should buy into some of those statistics a little bit more. Yeah,
fair enough, I know. I mean I've I've said this before,
maybe not quite in this way. For me, I value actually watching pictures
in games full season ball. And for me, it's like, if I
don't feel like you're using your stuff, well I'm not. I'm not interested
in in an investment sort of way. Maybe I'll play some game within the
game with that with that picture, but you need to show me that you
are using your stuff. Well that's why I've always kind of been a stand
offish with Kyle Harrison. Amazing stuff, right, great angle, all of
these things. And I now, don't get me wrong, I think he
has made improvements, but like early on in the in the Lowers, it
was just throwing throwing your your good stuff up there loosely around the plate and
getting results. And like, yes, there is dynasty value on that guy,
and yes he could turn into something large, you know, something very
useful, very valuable, but that's just not the kind of guy that I'm
gonna have a dynasty commitment with. And I'm okay with that, at least
as of right now. I think my sort of process with all of that
is going well, and I have very much upped my investment in pitching prospects
over the last couple of years. And to be honest, it's the only
reason I have a decent team in a few leaks, because I have become
relevant on the trade table with a lot of those Just one thing quickly,
with that study from a few years ago, just because we're a few years
into the future, a little part there was just discussing investing in a prep
arm, a first round prep arm, you know, taking the at this
time this draft, it was a Nick Bitsko. What is Nick Bitsko up
to these days? Anyways? I don't even know, but he was a
popular either. He was a popular prep arm at the time, right,
So it's just kind of postulating, Hey, what's a better bet? Do
you take a Bitsco or a couple of deeper college arms? This example,
I used the what was he the sixty sixth pick in the draft and the
one hundred and twenty second pick in the draft. So who would you rather
have? Matt? The idea was take a first round pick, use a
first round pick on Bitsco, or use two picks at the end of your
draft on these two guys. Right, So what would you rather have right
now? Would you rather have Nick Bitsko or Clayton Beeter and Ian Biddell?
Definitely Beeter and Banel, Right, And you know, I'm sure there's examples
from that draft class that wouldn't look so great as well. But I still
do maintain you wrote this like two three years ago, right, Like that's
pretty pretty good. Yea great examples, But and I do think that there
is if you can, if you can afford it, if you can make
it work. An insect type approach to pitching prospecting that I think can work
really well. And this is a small microcosm of how that, how that
might go. AnyWho, enough of that, let's talk about some actual players.
Should we tell? Talk about some actual players? I guess I don't
know if you saw I did add another tab to that Google back sheet that
I had shared last week, forty arms I might draft in the right situation.
Forty yeah, now, grants it. I don't know these names.
I've got ten arms. Like I had mentioned earlier, that I would,
depending on the format, depending on my situation, I would put some sort
of value on use, some sort of valuable asset to sign up for the
long haul, just quickly. Paul Sken's noble Mayor, Thomas White, Rhet
Lauder, Hurston Waldrup, Alonzo Treadwell, Chase Dolander, which if you want
to take him completely off of your list because he's with the Rockies, I
will not argue with you. Brandon Sprout, Blake Walters, and Steven Echavaria
at Travaria at Travaria, for whatever that's worth. Now, I do not
want to sit here and pretend like I am some well scholared individual on all
of these arms. I have ten pieces out of a two hundred piece puzzle.
I'm trying to put a picture together here. I have spent a lot
of time watching as much as I can. I don't know if what I
think we came up with Matt fifty or there fifty six pitchers from the first
year from this last draft class that had televised outings in full season ball this
season, I watched every single one of those. Good for you, now,
not two great lengths. Some guys I turned on for one or two
at bats, some I watched the whole inning, some I watched the whole
outing. But now, granted, a lot of these guys put up like
twelve innings on the season, so there isn't a lot to watch anyways,
but at least just to get an idea, right, is there a Ricky
Titaman out there from a JUCO that got a little glimpse. Now I won't
say that I found anything like that, but there are some names that I
put on the back of this list of forty arms that caught my attention during
that video dive, and a couple of them had already caught my attention.
But they're my B side selections Matt that I have not talked about yet.
Did you watch any Logan Evans of your Seattle Mariners? I did not.
Well, he is my Seattle Mariners B side selection for this year, so
Logan Evans. I am not going to be drafting Logan Evans, but if
you're in a very deep league where you feel like you have to invest in
some arms, maybe an idea at the very end. He was a twelfth
round pick out of Pittsburgh. He racks some killers spects, which I appreciate.
He's a righty. He got in three games, twelve innings right,
so very little to see. But what we did get to see I thought
was pretty impressive. Matt got a fastball that I think mid nineties, two
different breaking balls. He mixes in a change up a little bit. I
don't know if I shared gifts of these forearms I'm want to talk about in
that sheet. But he gets my guy Cole Fontinelli on what I believe was
a fastball slider crew ball slider. But the outings, I think there's two
outings I think to watch with him, I just felt like looked like a
decent arsenal and had some teeth on it. And that was enough to be
my mariner just watching that gift. Now he's got some nice run on that
two seamer, I know, right, yeah, you know he was pitching
to both sides of the play. I thought pretty well that outing And yeah,
I don't know, like you just talked about the list of arms that
you got for free that turned into guys cel Evans looks at the beginning next
year, you never know. Let's get into Kaid Morris here. Kid Morris
is on my list that basically right after those ten arms. So if I'm
in a deeper league, I might take a shot on rostering Kaid Morris.
He was what a third round pick of the Mets this year out of Nevada
at the time of the draft. I don't know why or how it came
to be, but his name came up, and I started trying to bruise
YouTube and all that stuff and watch a little bit of Cad Morris. But
when we talk about like he might just have a lot of qualities that I
look for in pictures, right, I think he's got a decent to potentially
above average arsenal as a whole sinker that he throws at ninety three A slider
eighty two four Steamer ninety two, a change up and a curveball command might
not be like, you know, I don't think we're talking towards Kirby here,
but I think there is some potential because he's he's like athletic and even
though he's a bit funky, I think somewhat fluid in his funkiness, if
that makes any sense. I like the landing spot with the Mets. I
think the Mets, especially on the sort of command execution end of things,
has had some success with some guys. And I very much liked his what
we got one look. I think in pro ball not the greatest angle at
Saint Lucy, but I dig, you know, there's it's funny when you
start to dig around on different systems arms, you'll start to see like different
profiles and types where you're like, oh, yeah, they're trying to get
like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of some cy young guy they
had a few years ago or something like that. Right. I feel like
the White Sox were always looking for like Chris Sale number two and stuff like
that. And I think there are some characteristics Morris that are are a bit
like the Grom not in like necessarily the way that he looks on the mound,
but just kind of the profile of offerings and the athleticism sort of letticism,
the size that he might have. I watched Kid Morris too, and
even found some of his highlight videos from college at Nevada, and I did
like what I saw. He didn't have a great year in his draft year,
and the Mets still popped him in the third right, right, that's
interesting, you know, mid major college, kind of underwhelming draft year,
but still some things to like. You know, almost ten k's per nine
walks were okay, And I think that this Arsenal might play up for ground
balls. I think they looking at the kind of sinker curveball. Both of
them seemed like they got a decent number of grounders, and that maybe he
could play that up as he kind of ownes his craft as he gets up
in the levels. But he was one that I was actually I watched a
little bit of him, was like, Okay, this might be interesting.
He's become a little bit of a cheese ball to me, Like if we're
talking about not spending high draft capital and plucking a few college arms at the
end. Cad Morris is kind of on the top of my list there for
that sort of demographic and he's only I mean, he's rostered in what not
a lot of percentage so low. Yeah, and you know you're still a
third round pick. Is not a nothing? Would they pay him like six
hundred K, which isn't the most. Is probably a bit of a money
saver in the third round, But yeah, kid Morris, I'm kind of
into it as a cheap spec arm that I would draft in, you know,
our thirty teen points league if we get to the end and there's nothing
that I'm super into. Another first year player that's my official best selection is
Jaden Ham with the Tigers. I don't know if you've watched any Ham.
It happened so Ham. The Tigers popped him in the fifth round. He's
out of middle Tennessee State paid him about four hundred k. Excuse me,
Kate Morris was six hundred and sixty seven thousand. It's a bit more than
I had said. But with Ham, he's got the sort of IVB fastball
that plays up in the zone really well, and he's got a breaking ball
to play that north south game. I don't know, if you're watching the
video of that at all, there's a slider and I think he does tossing
a change up from time to time, but I'm not really banking on that
being a big part of his game. But we got a nice look at
him in Bradenton, and yeah, I don't know, I just kind of
want to thank the Lord for Bradenton. I know, right, we did
get a little stack cast stuff there, pretty small sample here, this ninety
six pitches, but he threw the four seamer fifty seven times average v LO
ninety three point three through the curveball times you lo eighty. Yes, change
up was his third most used pitch. I mean in this short sample that
he got plenty of called strikes and whiffs. But yeah, another college arm
that I would that I'd feel pretty comfortable with sticking in the back of my
draft and trying to play that game. And then the last b side that
we didn't cover. You got to save a Taiwanese arm for the end,
right, Matt, Yeah, we do help me with the name. Do
you know how to You've talked so many Taiwanese pitchers, Chen Way Lean,
Lynn shen Way Linn that right, yep, Cardinals signed him in like July,
maybe even later. Yeah, I think it was July. So he's
eligible in this year's first year player drafts. He's I think he's twenty two
years old now. He got in four A ball outings. I believe it
was pitched the like twelve innings. Nothing too crazy. We want to get
into the numbers. Except if you like velocity, Lynn's going to help you
out here. His forcing fastball averaged ninety six miles per hour. His sinker
that he threw much more often average ninety four. And then there's a slider
was his most used change secondary and then there was a change up as well.
And he's big too, so he's big, long arms, long legs,
he's tall. He's tall, he's six seven, he's lanky. I
think he's far from polished. But if you want to take a little bit
of high upside, perhaps a little bit of a project sort of thing,
in a deep league where you can't pick up prospects in season, I think
we could do worse than Lynn here. I know I played in a thirty
team league that had extremely large drafts. You couldn't pick up prospects in season.
So a league like that I felt like I definitely had to take stabs
at pitchers like this because you weren't going to be able to get him on
waivers, and chances were somebody had them rostered already. Yeah, so those
four arms round out are B side selections for the year, Matt, I
don't know. Nice. Can we cheers a beer for fully rounding out our
B sides? Let's cheers a beer. Let me get one though. One
thing that's interesting about Lynn as well is that he's a very Uncardinals like prospect.
A lot of stuff, poor command so far. I think that's so
interesting. I wonder if that's like a different philosophy for them, that they're
trying to go for a little more upside than they have in the past.
I mean, I think that maybe they're learning that only going for guys with
number four starter upside probably not the sole winning strategy. Yeah, no,
I agree, And it used to be a part of that changing direction.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely doesn't feel like a Cardinals pitching prospect for the most
part, have no qualms with your the top of the board. Like if
you get down past pick I don't know, eight or nine, maybe then
maybe i'd take skiings then and I look, I think Skimes just had an
incredible college career. I'm still probably shooting for either more present production from one
of the Japanese imports or one of the higher upside bats until maybe about pick
eight or nine, where I'd pop Skiins on the back of that like kind
of eight player tier. Then Meyer, louder Waldrop White seemed like another nice
chunk where if it's like in the back part of like call it if it's
if I had a pick in like the twenties, maybe I would take one
of them, like if they had fallen there. That seems like a reasonable
spot. And yeah, you know, Dollander was the number one pitching prospect
coming into this last year and so sure, bad landing spot in Colorado and
not a great junior year, but I still think there's a lot of talent
there and it's worth following Ken Heaver game in form. So I don't know
the Walters are Etchivuria very well, but the rest of them, that seems
like a pretty solid grouping. Now tread Well I watched a bit of and
I think that that I probably wouldn't include him in that tier, not that
I don't think he's good I think he's got some potential. The numbers were
not overwhelming in college, and UCLA is usually I would say pretty good at
producing decent pitching or getting quite a bit out of their pitchers, and so
I think what we saw from him was probably like, that's about what he
has at this point. Now. Can Houston coax a little more out of
him? Maybe, but that's He was one that I watched and I think
wanted to like a little bit more than I did, so I probably wouldn't
put him in that kind of top grouping. I'd put him down more in
the bigger bubble of like pick your poison kind of names. He I liked
him, didn't love him fair enough. I was kind of a well cheeseball
before the draft, and then when the Astros took him, I was,
let's go but all and some got like almost a million and a half,
Like he's he's a prospect. He's like a real real prospect. He's already
had Timmy John, which might be nice. These ten guys here. I'm
not gonna get super serious unless I feel really good about the combination of Arsenal
and Execution and our guy Hurston Waldrop. I do have in here, but
I don't feel that great about that. He's the thirteen percent walk rate guy
yep in college too, and in pro ball even after they scrapped the kerkball
that he had no feeling for. Like I made this point in the Dynasty
dugout discord the end of the day, and I kind of stand by it,
Like guys that have those kind of command concerns rarely work them out.
The ones that do are the ones that have thirty percent to forty percent K
rates to go along with it. Walter could be that kind of guy,
and the Braves have had a recent history of coaxing a little bit of extra
out of some of their college arms. But I also think we might be
ascribing a bit too much credit because of Spencer Strider, because you look at
some of the other arms that the Braves have had, like that maybe have
performed a little well, a little better in the minors, but haven't really
panned out, like Dylan Dodg, Jared Schuster, even Joey Estes like who
you know, I know you love and expect more of, but like it
still hasn't all clicked together in a successful way as a fantasy relevant picture.
Just yet how much of this sort of Atlanta is good at unlocking pitching are
we saying is actually because Spencer Strider is a unicorn and they got a bit
lucky on it, And how much of it is like this is an organizational
thing that they are getting more out of some of these pictures. I think
what seems to be happening more is they're drafting pictures, developing them okay,
and having them pitch in picture sparks that maybe they know play even better for
pictures than others do, and then trading them away. Because it seems to
me like the Braves have used pitchers as the cornerstones of a lot of their
trades lately, even guys that were top one hundred prospects, like thinking back
to Joey Wentz or Kyle Muller, those guys that also had command concerns,
neither really ever figured them out, but they ended up being components of big
and small trades. I guess Wentz was just for one of those relievers.
I forget which one, But anyway, like all that to say that I'm
less likely to sort of appeal to the authority of the Braves pitching development and
project that kind of command improvement on Walder, but I do think that there
are real concerns about his ability to throw strikes enough to get major league outs.
All that said, I do think that his stuff is right up there
with Schemes and Meyer, like the fastball, the shape, the splitter is
maybe the single best pitch in the draft this past year, if he can
bring it together, like okay, yeah, you maybe want to dream on
that upside. I think I'm gonna end up with him in one of my
leagues where I have the Braves and so you inherit their like top pick or
whatever pick you want from them, and I think he's pretty clearly the best
pick for the Braves, So I probably will end up with at least one
share of waldrop But I'm just flagging some concerns about that profile, and it
gives gives me pause. I don't disagree with that at all. If you
think you're getting Strider two point zero with Waldrope, like, I'm I can't
get on that train. Could it happen? Sure? Now? I will
say, though, did you watch any of his full season stuff this year?
Mm? Hm, yeah, I watched most of it. Starts Actually,
I kind of felt he was the guy I was thinking was just off
my board, not going to really consider. But watching the video, I
got a little bit more confident. I felt a little bit safeer that obviously
I still kept him here now realistic gonna pop him in my leagues, Probably
not, because he'll probably be long gone before I would do it. I
felt a little bit better watching him. Did you still think that, like,
I don't know, he didn't seem like wild to me. There were
a few that really got away, But uh, I thought he did.
I thought he did a good job at least, like a pretty good command
keeping keeping stuff south, giving stuff down. Yeah, And I do think
that that is mostly his issue. And part of that is like the splitter,
if he doesn't have feel for it, it's just gonna be below the
zone every time. The splitter is just a tough pitch for eOne. Really,
I mean, look at like Keaton Wynn, that's his name, nasty
and kind of just all depends on if he can command that well enough,
well enough or not he's gonna find major league success. But but yeah,
yeah, I still felt like the other pitcher pitches for Wilder, he like
you'd see the catcher like up up and then it'd be a fastball in the
zone and like you look at his like strike percentage and that's like a win
for his strike percentage, but it was a huge miss for his command.
Or actually, I want the slider off the plate and like just barely and
it's like reaching way off the plate, you know. So you know,
I saw enough of those that it was like, and what was his strike
percentage in the major in the minor leagues, like fifty nine percent or something.
Yeah, that's too low. Now, granted these were I think these
were probably all prep guys, but he didn't feel like that to me.
It didn't feel like a Joe Boyle to me. Yeah, I agree with
that. And like I said, there, Harris the line x Bruns was
the worst command I've ever seen in my wife and that yeah, he's not
on that level. And there is enough stuff here that like you can look
at this and say, yeah, maybe this was just a debut. The
Braves now have an off season to help him get right with the command,
and then he's going to do the Tyler glass. Now, just throw everything
in the middle of the plate and let your pitches work. That might work
for a guy like Waldrop, and maybe that's what he does next year and
he brings the walk right down. But yeah, you know, do you
have more confidence that Waldrop could be a starter or Misslerowski. Oh that's a
good question. I think Waldrop, like we've actually seen him do it for
a pretty long time, and we've never seen Miserowski do it. So I
think with you, I will say though, I would definitely, I would
definitely take the first four guys well before Waldrop, Skian's Meyer, White,
and Louder. Talk to me about White that I think that's the highest I've
seen anybody on White. Well, it's interesting to me, Matt. I
mean, for anyone who's paid attention to, you know, perfect game stuff.
Meyer and White have been one A and one B like quite some time.
The way that the Marlins worked it is they they drafted them like one
A and one B. Meyer was paid four and a half million, White
got four point one million. And what dynasty wise, we're looking at Meyer's
thirty seven percent rostered right now, where White's at twenty six. Like,
man, if you really want Meyer and you miss out on him, get
White a little bit later. And I think both these guys have like really
big upside, these might be the two guys, two prep arms. And
maybe it's because I've paid a little bit more attention, but I feel like
these these are the two biggest prep arms for me, maybe ever, or
at least since I've paid more attention, or maybe Andrew Paynter was just so
dang impressive, and I wonder if these two might be able to get to
that point. Interesting might very much be wishful saying wishful thinking there, But
I like these two kids a lot. So like with Meyer, obviously you
got a righty and a lefty. To me, the only like real separation.
Noble's arsenal is a bit smaller. He's like two pitch guy right now,
not that he doesn't have a third offering, but White's got like three,
I think, really good, Like that's that's there. Am I like
just executes a bit better, and White, you know, can can get
a little loose at least that's kind of how it's been, or how it
was when I stopped paying attention, you know, their last showcase. So
I don't, I don't. I don't think that there's a big difference in
dynasty investment there between those two. I'm by that I'm a little worried about
what Meyer's shown, just I think that he's got the fringe the beginnings of
some command concerns that make Abel who was his high school teammate and drafty a
year before, like kind of similar in you know, they're both drafted about
the same quote unquote value and both were super highly touted prep guys that have
good stuff. But maybe the command is going to take a little longer to
come around. So while I have seen some really glowing reports on Meyer,
I'm pretty interested in White. You know, like, as you said,
if you like Meyer and miss on him, take White and feel like you
got basically the same kind of value. Yeah, I agree, you know,
for for whatever it's worth. And granted again, like I'm seeing like
just glimpses, flashes, little bits of showcases. I do like to watch
showcases during the year. But I would say I think both of these guys,
as far as their execution at that level, I think was better than
Painters at that at the same juncture. That's why I mean Painter got with
the Phillies and I don't know if it was just physical development, technical stuff,
whatever, whatever it was, there there was something that I mean,
he just pumped up a whole another couple of tiers with the execution from what
I had seen him on the circuit. If you are in a league where
you feel like you have to invest in pitching to some level, the three
guys on the top right here, I mean, you do it here,
take those take those gambles. In my opinion, here's here's a question for
you, Nate. Where are you slotting Yamamoto and Imanaga amongst this group?
Oh? Well, I mean I think you'd have to take Yamamoto first.
But even in that, there's like there's some contradiction too to me, because
like I don't feel like super confident with Yamamoto in the way that like I
don't know that much about him. I know that he's been phenomenal in the
second best league in the world. That's a lot of weight. But it
was pretty great in the WBC too, Yeah, Yeah, I did see
him then. Looks pretty phenomenal. That's and that's what's dangerous and tricky with
Bruce of your player draft stuff too. As you see, I mean,
Darius Vines was probably probably had the best showing one day outing of any minor
league I've watched in the last like three years, Like it's that make him
the best prospects? Does that make him the guy that you should invest in?
Like I'm gonna I'm gonna trust that Yamamoto is probably the best bet here.
I would say for me, like you couldn't get me to trade Yamamoto
for skens Meyer, White, Louder and Waldrop together. Yeah, I think
that's that's for me, Like the fact that a he's going to produce immediately.
He's the Dodgers ace right away Hammerglass now, I guess, And he's
got a much longer track record than any of these guys. I place so
much value on right away that like even if he wasn't as good as he
already seems like I think that that gets underrated in this that he's going to
contribute to your team immediately, and in Dynasty people underrate that value, Which
gets me to my second question, where do you slot Inmanaga in this?
See and Middlely, I haven't really paid much attention to him, I don't.
I know, he's he's like thirty right, so, like I know
they're going to be in first year player drafts in a lot of leagues and
stuff. But I don't. I don't consider them prospects. They're you know,
they're they're newcomers, they're yep, this is you have to make this
decision. And a lot of fypds. I know you got to make this
decision in fypds. That's why. And it's it's a real question for me
because I've got this one draft coming up. Points league. I traded for
the first overall pick, and I have the fourth overall pick as well,
and I'm legit wondering if I go Yamo and then in Maanaga at four,
Yeah, if I'm in if I'm in a large league, if if I'm
in a thirty teamer thirty teen points, yeah, I'm gonna take him.
Probably, I'd take him over Louder, I'd take him forth, I'd take
a shot on those other three. Just if he was the same age as
Yamamoto, then maybe that would be different, not that thirty years old or
anything like that. But I think there is enough length and value there.
I'm the leagues that I play in are long standing. They're not going anywhere
putting it in those kinds of terms. For like a guy who's going to
slot into maybe your third or fourth best pitcher in your rotation right away,
in like in Nimanaga, I just like I think those kinds of guys are
worth more than a first round draft pick, most of the first round draft
pick. And again like depends on the league and all of that good stuff,
but I don't disagree. I now. For for a long time,
I've been the guy who I took Kim like second in the first year player
draft over from Korea. Yeah, what was that picture that really actually kind
of sucked for the Rangers. The Japanese guy that took over. I picked
him over prospects. I shouldn't not have picked him over. He busted,
he sucked, his fastball was horrible and got crushed. I took I took.
I think it was Yamamoto as well, the guy that the Blue Jays
had a few years back. I think he was a came over in like
twenty twenty. I took him early in a first year player draft. Uh
Hara, who you're talking about? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so and
and I understand that these guys are not the same level picture as I get
that, but I have been bloodied by taking the Japanese pictures coming over.
And I don't think it was a bad process. I think pick some bad
guys that do it with Yeah, I'm really curious about this, and I'm
going to return to this question as they get closer to that draft. I'm
very very very likely to take a Yamamoto first in that pick. I'm guessing
Langford goes next, and I'd be curious who's third. But sitting there at
fourth, if I have to choose between Skins, Imanaga or Cruise maybe or
Jenkins, I guess would the other one likely to be there? I might
try and trade back, honestly, because I Thinkaga will be around. And
maybe it's just the wishful thinker in me, but I can't get down on
drafting the thirty year old pitcher over Cruise or one of the guys that would
have been a number one overall pick most any other draft years. It's gonna
be interesting. I mean, part of this is that's just that's too much.
That's that's too much for me to It might very well be the responsible,
smart adult play, So kudos to you for being like that, but
I just I don't, I know, I would never click that button when
I'm sitting in the draft room. Part of it is is the league like
K's get just destroyed. So guys that you think are really really good,
if they have a strikeout rate above twenty five percent, they're like not that
good in this league. So that like Akunya was far and away the best
player in this league this past year, but it was because he dropped his
strikeout rate down to whatever was like eleven percent or something, absolutely insane.
So Cruise, I think, is going to have a bit more swing and
miss. So even though he's got some power and speed for sure, and
I think it's gonna be quite good. I think for and it's gonna be
a little while, Like I don't think the Nats are going to rush him.
And that's the other piece is like my roster is fully set up to
just compete now, Like I just made a bunch of trades. I was
like a tweener, I could go one way or the other. And now
my roster is like a bunch of old guys who are good and ready to
go. So that's the other reason why I might shove in the Naga my
board. But again, like it's one I don't know, I don't know
what to do with that one. It's it's one that I'm gonna have to
sit on a bit more. Yeah, no pickups in this league too,
So that's the other reason I'm like, I like that format so much.
That's putting on your big boy pants format. In my opinion, I want
to play more of us. But you know, Matt, if you're like
different, I like that. I like that if you're a stuffist, though,
Matt, the way that I feel like pitching development is now with all
of the technology and science and labs behind it. Like if you're really if
you're really a stuffist, you I think you've got I think you've got to
be willing to draft prep pictures. Why because these kids have such good stuff
and when you talk about trying to hunt highbrow offerings and uh, these kids
aren't like horrible, wild out of control monsters either like h this class,
I don't this class maybe, or just kind of in general, like the
high end high school pictures these days are really freaking good in my opinion,
way different than I think five six, seven years ago. I don't know,
man, I just I just don't know. Like, looking down the
list of performers, it's just such a mix, like you're hunting for stuff.
And again, this is like comparing some different eras for sure. But
you know, I looked at twenty twenty three auction calculator, who were top
performers in a rotal league for pitchers. Garrett Cole, he was I thought
the best pitcher in that class to play against him. Blake Snell, Okay
Stryder college guy. That stuff got way better after college. Zach Efflin,
Kyle Bradish, Zach Gallon, Leuis Castillo, Kershaw high school guy, Hall
of Famer, George Kirby college guy. Stuff got better in college. I'm
just saying, like, I don't think that the high schoolers have a monopoly
on using the more modern techniques to improve their No, not at all,
but I think But I think major league clubs are getting more confident and wiser
and plucking the right ones and getting them before they get to college, more
so than when it was just the day of the radar gun and oh Riley
Pint throws really hard. He's the guy. It'll be like what I shared
earlier, where there was like, okay, we had like two prep guys
picked twenty one to fifty that became like you know, fantasy studs. My
gut tells me that in ten years, when you do that same study again,
that number is going to be a shit ton higher. Yeah, maybe
I'm a little bit jaded by the Mariners and Braves high school pictures from the
past few years. Like looking back on the Mariners past few drafts, every
time they took a high school picture early, they haven't really panned out.
Yeah, twenty twenty one, Michael Morales was their third rounder, Bryce Miller
from A and M fourth rounder, Bryan wu cal Poly sixth rounder. So
the one that they popped early was is the one that's by far the worst
of that trio. And that goes back to Sam Carlson and whatever that was
twenty eighteen or something. Twenty nineteen George Kirby first rounder Isaiah Campbell turned into
something sort of and then their high school guys like didn't pan out. So
maybe that's my bias. I don't know. It's like that they're a good
pitching devi an organization and their high schoolers have not panned out. I don't
know. There was I feel like back in the day there was a big
chase to get Clayton Kershaw, who was an ultimate prep arm story. And
I feel like a lot of major League clubs kind of chase that dream.
But whatever. Like I said, I think they're just better at it now
and I just trust more, especially with Matt, you and I. We
just delved through every organization. Right, there's a lot of poop man.
Oh yeah, there's a lot of a lot of arms that you zero interest
in having a share of. Right, Yeah, several organizations were was like,
man, does anyone here have like a pitch that gets me on the
edge of my seat a little bit? Right? Yeah, I mean there's
more than the ten prep arms that I have in here from this class.
It's like all of those guys, there are more of those moments where you're
just like, whoh okay. Then watching all of the Cardinals organization or all
of the Nationals organization, Yeah, there's so and the ten that I sort
of picked out and put on my list, those are all guys that real
relatively speaking, I feel good about their ability to use that. Plus stuff
like like Walters. Walters might have the best sort of execution that I saw,
at least in a little bit of a stint. And his stuff is
hard like velocity and movement, like it's a I don't know, he just
looks so much more exciting than so many of the dregs that we force ourselves
to watch. Man. Well, I'll admit I've been a bit of a
downer about pictures in general and drafting them in fipdes. But I did run
through and found a couple of arms that I think are worth at least following.
These are guys that I might put on a watch list. Like,
again, I'm probably not drafting any of these deeper names, and like I'm
probably not getting any of the higher brown names, as Nate likes to say,
because I'm gonna wait way longer on them. But I did find a
couple of guys that I think are worth at least keeping in the back of
your mind. You can see that the names on my on my list here,
I mean that'll get you through that whole list, will get you through
the deepest of first year player drafts. I mean there's guys on the bottom
there that aren't gonna get drafted even you know. So those are just kind
of my different points in the draft, big small, whatever that I would
take take a shot at. I think there's plenty of dudes in there that
are going to go unknowned in your definitely any leag you're in, definitely,
But I popped a couple that either you dismissed her or haven't quite looked at
you. Yeah, So let me let me talk about a couple of these
guys. That's what I want to know. So the first one that I
think is somewhat interesting is Jayce Stofel. Stofel was an eighth rounder for the
Twins this year out of the University of Oregon down there in Eugene. He's
a TJ guy. He blew out this year in his draft year, but
he looked really good before that. I watched most of his start versus Arizona,
which I think was on. He had a really athletic delivery, commanded
pretty well with the fastball, and had a plus change up. I mean,
it's definitely plus. It's not like the best thing I've ever seen.
It's not like a Logan Henderson disappearing change up, but it's good. It's
a good change up and a slider that was solid, and I think he
mixed in a curveball as well. I liked his overall package, and it
was a bit of a bummer that he blew up. He liked his package,
Yeah, I sure did. I sure did. He stuffed it pretty
nice. And he's one that I'm pretty interested in seeing what the Twins in
particular can do, because I think the Twins are good at coaxing a little
bit of extra velocity out of their pitchers, and if he does that,
like he could be a real find for them in the eighth round. Again,
he's not going to pitch next year, so this is someone to keep
an eye out for in twenty five. But thought he was interesting. Quinn
Matthews, lefty for Stanford, fourth rounder, most famous for throwing one hundred
and fifty six pitches in their regional game against Texas or Super maybe that was
the Super against Texas. That outing is worth watching just to see that because
that doesn't happen at really any level anymore. And I think mostly there's good
reasons for that. And you know, there was a big hullabaloo about him
throwing one hundred and fifty six pitches in a game prior to the draft and
all of this stuff, and he had some nice quotes afterwards about how,
look, I'm a senior guy, I'm not a big prospect. I wanted
to do this for my team. I put the team on my back.
All super cool stuff that I would have been just so pumped about as his
teammate, and like, probably bad for him in the long term, but
anyway, he's still a prospective. Note he's really tall, like six seven,
I think lefty up to ninety four, but I saw mostly like eighty
eight to ninety two, and kind of a straight fastball rather than like with
sink or anything. But his changeup is comfortably a plus pitch, and he's
got really good command. He was the best pitcher statistically in the PAC twelve
last year by I think some margin. He was. He was pretty good,
and I also liked his sweeper. His sweeper got strikeouts both to lefties
and to righty's, and he commanded it all over the zone, which I
also liked. He would go up with a fastball even at ninety and get
a whiff. His change up lives below his own, and he got swinging
strikes from lefties, from righties, from soft contact. Corn Matthews is pretty
fun. Yeah, no, I'm with you, I wrote. I felt
like he's the volvo of this draft class. Interesting and a guy who you're
not. I don't think you need to draft in a small league but the
kind of guy that in a thirty team league you bump way up out of
anyone you might feel the best that you're going to get something out of that,
out of anyone that you don't have to pay a lot for. You
know, an average two points league is money. Bump him way up if
you want to be your boring, responsible pitching speculator in a large league.
And he went to the car Knowles as well. Who have you know some
history of developing pictures. I think him he is more of their classic type
as opposed to Lyin, But I do like him, and he has the
chance to move pretty quickly. Harry's didn't pitch in pro ball after incredible usage
that he had in college. But he's one that I'm interested to see how
the stuff plays in full season involved. I expect he'll start at loway and
he might move pretty quickly. I agree. I want to touch on too.
I got I have a personal cheese ball here, Dylan Custed, Wisconsin
Prep arm. Now, obviously I'm biased towards Wisconsin guys, but I followed
Kusta for the last couple of years and I legitimately like him as a prospect,
not just because there's plenty of Wisconsin guys I've followed that I have no
interest in. But he uh and talk about the sort of competitor and guy
that I think is just honing and pounding his craft, like I get like
Joey ESA's vibes from from Kustad, but like with probably sharper and more dangerous
offerings, mid nineties fastball, He's got a really sharp slider. All of
those things have gotten better over the last year couple of years. In his
national showcases, he took it to the big boys and dominated them. The
Twins popped him in the fifth round for a half a mill large league.
You want to have some fun, I would marry Dylan use that idea here,
that's a fun one. Didn't know anything about him, but unlike no,
no, no, but like you know, like unlike Esses, who
was a prep catcher more or less in the you know, day three pick,
You're like, I'm not so sure if the offerings play as he moves
along, like I feel like with Houston, it's like, yeah, they
those are going to play at least until you know you get to the to
the upper uppers. Like his his fastball slider combos it's good made the best
prep hitters. Uh, look pretty horrible. Travis Secora. I think it's
how you say it. I don't know if you've seen any of him.
I think it's huge. Yeah, yeah, guy can guy can throw a
hundred. I want to say, that's kind of like all his game is.
But I don't think the secondaries are horrible. And you're talking about a
high school kid. But and he went to the Nationals, Like, oh
man, look at Nationals. Now they got a guy who can break glass.
Look at this kind of like Lynn right, like, oh, maybe
they finally realize they need some sort of power arm or he's just going to
break like Denniburgh did well. And it's not a it's not a one for
one. But I want to at least like kind of keep an eye on
here, because if you remember Kate, I know he's college guy, but
Kate Cavali, I mean he was he was just he was just a big
fastball more or less, and he got to the grindstone and he worked on
all of his secondaries. So not my classic sort of guy that I would
make a bet on and stick to, but I might I might hear in
a larger league like we were talking about hitters. What's the repercussions? Just
drop him in somebody else. But he's interested if you like velocity, you
want a big power picture out of this prep class. Like he Scora was
like the vlo king of this very good class. Not the demographic that I'm
interested in playing in. But you know, he could be a guy who
he's not like. He doesn't strike me as a like out of control guy,
like a fairly athletic. He's a maybe a little bit of a sort
of upper body, but uh, I don't know, Like you watch a
guy like that, You're like, Okay, I could see it getting tighter.
I could see it tightened up. Some guys you watch, you're like,
oh yeah, no, I'm not gonna better on that at all.
All Right, I got a couple more here that I think are somewhat interesting.
Lucas Braun for the Braves. He was a sixth rounder out of cal
State Northridge. He's listed at six foot, but seemed like maybe he's a
touch below that, so a little bit smaller, and I wonder if that's
part of the reason why he fell. But he had a solid college career.
I think he transferred into north Ridge from either a JC or a D
three school, and then was solid in college, but I think was even
better after he made it into full season ball. Has a really good slider.
I read the BA draft report on him and they were like, oh,
yeah, the slider is decent, But watching it, I was like,
this thing is electric. It is more of the gyro slider, some
more downward breaking. When he put that at the bottom of the zone,
everybody was swinging over it, and he had a couple of really nice outings
that were on video in pro ball. So he's one to watch. Fastball
I think was up to ninety five and again comes in at a slightly flatter
approach angle. I don't think it has a lot of the plus traits of
some of the fastballs that we've talked about, but the plus slider and a
change up that he threw sometimes I thought were interesting enough to mention. And
I'm interested because one thing I do think the Braves too well is help optimize
pitch mix and pitch usage, and I wonder if they did a little bit
of that with him, because the other part of the base Ball America report
on Brawn was he was very fastball heavy in college, like seventy percent plus
fastballs, and his fastball is fine, and especially in college, but he
reminds me of Tyson Miller in that his slider's way better and he probably should
throw that more than leaning on a fastball in the load of mid nineties.
So Lucas Brown I thought was pretty interesting. He's a follow for me.
Another one that I saw live actually was Owen Wild for Gonzaga. He got
drafted by Tampa in the seventh round, and he had decent peripherals, although
his results were more good than great in college, and again, the West
Coast Conference is fine. I think often you might see pitchers who kind of
should dominate there, and Wild didn't really dominate. But I did think that
his fastball maybe had some of those plus peripherals or plus underlying shape traits,
because he was spinning that really well at the top of the zone when I
saw him, and guys that usually handle fastballs pretty well were either popping his
fastball up or swinging and missing on it. So I thought that was interesting
and I made a note of that. And you know, getting taken by
the rays, I think that's something that they prioritize as well as having a
plus fastball shape or something interesting about your pitches. Not an overwhelming recommendation for
me on Owen Wild, but somebody I think to watch. And I'm curious
what the Rays ended up doing with him? Was he was all right,
all right, well, there's a couple of a couple of pieces of some
first year player draft arm puzzles there god speed and don't spend too much,
and if you do spend a lot or at all, they just make it
those top four guys. But and man, I got some questions from twitter
verse. Yeah, sure, I guess my better judgment. I asked twitter
verse if they had any questions, so very much, assuming that I get
zero responses. But I had three people ask good questions. I think,
all right, which one do you want to do first? Brian C at
Baseball Fan One? Who are your favorite post injury pitching prospects to make the
show or be moving back up boards this year? And who are you out
on hmm, I mean Mike Wiser or major League I'm assuming that he was
pitching prospects for me. Mike Burrows and Kate Cavally are at the top for
guys who are injured should be coming back this year, I think Burrows.
Maybe Burrows doesn't come back this year, but those are my two favorites.
I mean, I think I was all about Cavali after just watching the secondary
development. He's got a rotation spot waiting for him, I'm pretty sure whenever
he's ready. And I think that is a guy who you know, has
front of the rotation sort of upside and ability. Mike Burrows. I mean,
Burrows was he was creeping in top one hundreds, and then Tommy John
just everyone seemed to forget about him. But I like Burrows, yeah,
And you know, I like both. I think Cavali is one that did
kind of come into pro bawl with little command and a big fastball, and
I think he put it together quite well. So I'm actually quite a fan
of his now Burrows coming into last year too, So yeah, he was
someone I was really excited to see and was bummed he got to one guy
that, uh, he's back from injury. But I'm Jake Eater. I
don't have faith in that he's the guy that I'm his whole. He was
a reliever in Vanderbilt. He had like a nice like what twelve thirteen start
run to start his pro career and he's never been that. And mind you,
he blew out his elbow when they gave him for the first time starter's
workload. Like I'm not I'm not making any of that that eater is ever
going to be the eater that some had thought before his time job. And
I'm still a little down on Max Meyer. I think he's a plus slider
and not good anything else, and that I know he had a really nice
run prior to debuting. I just think that's like a at best kind of
five starter. Maybe it plays up in relief and they put him in a
high leverage relief role, but Myers and of course not excited about him.
And of course the the best pitching prospect in the land is recovering from Timmy
John right now as well Andrew Paynter. I was going to say, I
don't think the advance gooder had a j just kidding. I love Andrew Painter
too, He's incredible. We talked about a few guys during our division series
that that were oh man, there's a couple of guys last year. Then
oh, I'm curious to see, if you know, if you want to
get real B side. Pablo aldonas if he pitches this year. There's a
few other former b sides that didn't pitch like at all last year. Yeah,
I don't remember off the time I had, but a couple a couple
other ones that I'm really interested to see are jar Richie and Cole Phillips.
Oh yeah, yeah, good call, formerly of the Braves, but Phillips
now with and Richie still with the Braves. I think both those guys should
see a decent number of innings this year, and I'm really curious what they
what they look like. I've just seen greeny backfield video and some perfect of
stuff. I think Richie can paints a little bit. Yeah, That's what
I've heard, and has plus stuff too, So you know, he was
one that I was kind of curious of that trio for the Braves was that
last year with Murphy, Richie and Phillips. I thought that Richie maybe was
the one that was the most interesting. But yeah, so those guys are
once that I'm interested in, and then honestly a bunch of the poor Rockies
pitchers that all got interested last year. Jordy Vargas, I think, is
one that I was really excited to see Hughes and didn't. Chris McMahon also
get TJ like all those guys I thought were interesting at one level or another
and sucks they're all out next year and Candy's just going seven every night,
just laughing at him, all right, and then uh Greg at Greg who
camp a stuffs. Beyond surface stats, what are one to two things you
look for in a pitching prospect in the low levels that could signal a breakout?
I mean, I think it can be my rad of thing, my
rad ism I saying that right, no, thank you, and could be
a myriad of things. But I think we talked about a lot of those
during our b siding. But I also think it's just kind of synonymous throughout
any level. I want to see guys with stuff that can miss bats,
that can get guys out force week contact, but they know how to use
it and they know how to pitch. Furthermore, in the lowers, I
want to see guys like like Joey Estes was and working on the offerings that
are not his best and becoming We're working on becoming well rounded pitchers with full
arsenals and not trying away from filling up the zone and potentially getting your tits
lit from time to time, like comes with the territory if you're if you're
going to be a matador or excuse me if you're Yeah, and I said
already in this episode, but strikeout minus walk rate remains the best predictor for
sort of the widely available data you know that you can even get for high
school kids and college kids. And then you add in the batted ball profile,
so ground ball percentage, flyball percentage, in field, flyball percentage,
those combine to tell you a lot about what is working for that picture or
what isn't working. So understanding I think the other thing it's not so much
the what are the surface stats, it's how does that compare to their peers,
So like knowing what are the averages both at that level and at levels
that might be successful. So like you look at a guy who's on in
the complex or at low A, and if they have a strikeouts per nine
of nine and a walks per nine of three, you look at that,
and you look at the major leaguers who have that, you're like, oh,
that's pretty good. Like that's a really valuable pitcher who has a strike
out rate of nine and a walks per nine of three, just as a
baseline, ignoring everything else, that's probably not very good for that level.
You look at the guys who now have strike out rates in the major leagues
of nine and have walk rates of three. At those levels, it was
almost always better. So they actually had a strike out rate of twelve at
that level and a walk rate of two at that level. So I think
that's one thing that if you're just scouting the stat line or like checking your
box scores for your favorite team, that you can get misled by if you
don't have the broader context in mind. Yeah. Also two in the lowers
like you, We've talked a bit about this, but you want to be
cognizant and aware of pitchers who might be putting up gaudy lines and dominating those
lineups with just like one really good secondary. Think we saw that with Myrtle
Beach two years ago, and they had a great staff, a lot of
them threw really good change change ups that hitters at that level hadn't seen that
sort of quality of and those guys all put up really good numbers. But
then it wasn't anything like that as they moved up, So you want to
watch even a couple of Royal B sides. Roybert salinis right. I mean
he was insane k rates and now you know as he moves up, you're
like, yeah, you know, that's probably a relief pitcher. I don't
know, he's he's showed some things. I'm I'm interested in him still,
But I was going to say, even a couple of my B sides this
year, like I'm thinking of Jose Flury guy has dominated the lower miners,
like all those markers that you look at look incredible, but then you watch
him pitch and you're like, oh, yeah, it's because he's dominating with
one secondary. That's been true of a couple of my my B side arms
that like hats like one pitch is they're really leaning on for their success and
that's a lot harder to do the higher you go, for sure. And
then I got one last one Matt from my good buddy Steven Porter SPP.
He wants us to do a B side version of Shelley V's tweet where she
asks one prospect your higher the most, one prospect you're lower the most,
and one prospect who will rise up lists In twenty twenty four, now I
want to do this. I'm gonna pick. I'm gonna I'm gonna speak for
you and you speak for me. Oh okay, okay, all right,
so you know tell me if I if I did well or that. So
one prospect that Matt is higher on than most, I'll go with read on
Scooter. That's good pick, good pick. Okay? Is that all right?
One prospect he's lower on the most is JDP Jess Wade to follow,
And one prospect Matt thinks will rise up lists in twenty twenty four. I
feel like there's so many that I could say. I feel like that's the
gist of what we've kind of been trying to talk about. But let me
go with let me go with CJ kafas good one. I don't think that's
who I would have picked. I feel who would you have picked? I
want to see more a CJ. I think the one that I would have
picked is Yander Suarez. I just think that guy is going to be a
no doubt top one HERD pick in six months. And yeah, like I
was just like watching that guy and blown away. I was like, this
guy looks like the pretty boys in the draft, and yet he's doing it
a double A and nobody cares, like that's what I was going through doing
a kind of a top one hundred rank exercise. He's like at forty for
me, Like I, I just think that he's going to be there for
for a lot of people. Yeah, he's the other one. All right,
shit, I gotta do this for you. Well bet that you're higher
on the most and I'm totally with you. Is uh oh shout? What's
the dude who caught the soft line drive from JDP in that jan Cel Luis?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yan Cel Luise. I like
to I like to look at that that guy's swing too. I think that
was a banger call on your part. Yeah. I would swap him in
JDP in most prospects, we can swap the league and get something extra.
I know. I actually was just trying to trade for Janzel, but we
didn't quite line up. And I even though I really like him, I
couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. Okay, you're putting me on the
spot here. He's going to rise up. I think Trevor Warner is going
to continue to crush in pro ball and that he's going to be a top
one hundred fantasy prospects really soon, Zach Decenzo, Graham Paully kind of like
ends up at the back end of most public top one hundreds next year.
And I think that's one that that you would pick to be a fast riser
cool I as far as pictures go, I think I think you're higher than
most on CJ. Culpepper And I'm with you on it. I think that's
a really like that's one that I'm not seeing talked about anywhere, and I
think he's pretty interesting. Do you see the DA put him in their top
ten? Did you see they? Well, maybe I just don't follow everybody
else because that's like, and that's a pretty solid system. I think there's
some good guys on that system. He still rastered a pretty low percentage.
Yeah, but I like, I liked that pick a lot. That was
one when you picked, I was like, hmm, that's a that's a
good one. So I see if he needs, like he needs to just
like sharpen one of those secondaries to get more miss more bats, I think,
and then he can he can be all right in the uppers, I
think. And I wonder if it's the curveball that did not get a very
favorable grade in BA, but I think they might be selling them a little
short. I agree. I thought that pitch actually had some utility, and
I think sometimes that one gets under rated. There are a lot of that
you think are overrated. The issue is I think I generally agree with you
on a lot of them. Let's go. Well, the easy answer is
Colt Emerson that you think is overrated, like that you're your positioning of him.
I know you say you still like him, but the way you've talked
about it is like, it's cool. I just don't give as high grades
for little whimps. You know. That's a funny one. Yeah, I
don't agree with you that one, But is that fair? I think that's
a fair one. That like, I don't think I like Emerson, you
do, Okay, I don't think he's overall like over it. I just
think maybe in some circles I'm not quite as high on him. Yeah,
well then I'll go. I'll go Mazerowski because I think you and I agree
on that. Yeah, he's a believer and people aren't really living, aren't
really reckoning with that fact yet. Yeah, that's fair. Take those all,
right, SVP. There you go. All right, Matt, should
we should we wrap this one up? All right? You know, best
of fu drafting pictures. Man, it's tough. Matt is a pitching hater.
I'm gonna I'm gonna draft some opportunists. Just watch, just watch,
sit back. I'll show you. I'll show you how to do this.
Matt in the show. Well, feel free to uh follow me on Twitter
at pitching Specs. I did share this Google sheet that has a list and
some gifts of arms we talked about tonight and some commentary. Don't follow Matt
on Twitter because he's not there, but you can catch him in the Dynasty
dugout chatting and uh, you know, hating on some guys and loving on
some others, but always bringing some good intelligent thought to it. And uh
yeah, I don't know. I'm not really sure what we're gonna do next
time, but we'll figure it out. Maybe we'll have a guest our big
Like off season homework is like kind of done that kind of grinded a lot
here and I'm going to continue to get into some pictures. I still have
about one hundred and fifty arms. I just at least wanted to learn a
little bit about somehow read some reports. But uh but yeah, I don't
know. We'll have We'll let your Kigo farmer take us out and we'll talk
to you next time. Be well five miles an hour riding to his head.
You have it down first with the lump bonius face, and on the
very next pitch he up and stole second things with gretest me. He wasn't
born, He had bail uniform.