Not five miles an hour. Riding to his head. He hoped down first
with the lumpbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole
second face with gretest me. He wasn't born, he had bad yes uniform
all right. Welcome to episode fifteen of the Prospect B Sides Podcast. I
am Nate joining me as always is the man of many monikers, many labels,
the rookie Matt with the rookie who is not a bad and mutter in
his own right. If you are joining us for the first time, Matt
and I have been perusing every organization, going very deep, looking for prospects
that might be rostered in zero two, maybe not even created in fan tracks,
looking for someone who may be worth rostering or keeping an eye on.
Been going down division by division, one division an episode, and tonight we're
going to talk about the al East. Matt, How are you though?
You doing all right? I'm doing great. Got to play some tennis earlier
tonight and we're recording a little bit later, so I'm ready to dive in.
You're not doing quite as well as me, though, I have to
say, oh tell more. The last twenty four hours Man the White Sox
have locked down their ace for this year, and Eric Spetti they have locked
down the back end of their rotation, plucking Shange Rohan from the Red Sox
and the Rule five draft after shoring up our middle infield with the young and
nicky Lopez. Who thank you, Jerry, thank you. I really really
am looking forward to this. Did you also hear the rumor that Jerry Reinstorf
met with the mayor of Nashville at the winter meetings? Dude? That yeah,
I mean, of course, I mean that I don't know saw that
come in a while ago, just being sarcastic and playing the parts of what
I imagine Jerry wants us peons and moronic dumb people in the room to think
it's unfortunate, because it's like, damned if you do, damned if you
don't as a White Sox fan, because you know, he had the biggest
drop in attendance rate, not of anyone in baseball last year. I do
believe. So hey, we'll just stop giving you our money and then he'll
just pivot to look at my poor attendance. Who's going to help me buy
a new stadium? So the John Fisher away, right, I fell for
it last time. I really did think he wanted to win another championship.
Maybe he really did. I don't know, but uh yeah, I'm just
I'm I'm I'm kind of just over this. This is pretty hopeful, hopeless.
I don't even like any other players really, like, I don't know
what what I'm gonna watch, what's gonna get me going? I mean Luis
Robert, I mean, fantastic talent. I do like watching him, but
like I don't really like him, like he's not like a fan favorite or
something. Andrew Vaughn. I hope nothing about the best for Vaughn and think
he puts in the work and is talented. It's always fun in a way
to watch eloy him and has play the outfield. So yeah, yeah,
yeah, there's like not even like a picture that I there's always the white
sex have always my whole life, had at least like one picture that I
was like, oh, he's one of my favorite pictures in the league.
And it's like, not even that now. So maybe that'll be Mike Soroka.
I'm just gonna I'm gonna progress in my life and just move on and
let's go Rockies, you know, big upgrade huge. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, AnyWho Rule five draft was today, Matt Adam was, Yeah.
I don't, I don't know. Probably not the most exciting Rule five drafts.
I don't know how exciting Rule five drafts ever really truly get, but
I enjoy them. It's always fun. There's a intersection of B siding and
Rule five drafts. Dale Santos probably the headline. If there was a headline,
right that doesn't that doesn't bote. Maybe it doesn't bode too well for
Noel. Maybe it doesn't matter Noel. They at least play in the outfield
a little bit. I still think they might want to see him see if
he can stick in the outfield, whereas DBLs that's first base DH you know.
So, yeah, I did see. I don't want to. I
don't want to like give out their content, but I don't know. If
you saw Dylan White and Jeff put out a little robo scout twenty bats,
no, I didn't see that one available in the Rule five And I won't
name the names. There were three of your B side selections that were that
were there, Oh nice, one of mine and then one of mine from
last year. None of those guys got selected. I will talk about one
of them tonight. Though I was sort of interested that Johnston didn't get picked
from Miami. You know, I thought he had a chance to be this
year's Ryan, nota just he's like a well rounded hitter and he's yeah,
he's probably first base only, but he played a little bit of left field,
and yeah, I thought maybe one of the outfield starved teams might try,
especially if they're bad Cleveland or something, they don't have a very good
outfield. I think, just for me personally, the most interesting part of
the Rule five draft was Dariel Lopez was not protected by the Pirates in the
minor league portion and the Giants picked him up. I'd be lying if I
said I completely understand how the minor league portion works. I know there is
a list here, man, I know there's a list of players that has
kept secret or maybe a few writers get access to and then they can like
pick minor leaguers that aren't protected. And I don't know what the ras I
don't know. I don't know how it all works, but just kind of
surprised the Pirates didn't have him as one of their top X number of prospects
in their system as all see how that goes, I guess, But shall
we get into it? Shall we get into the Al East? Let's do
it? Where are you wanna start? Let's just let's start with the Yanks.
They've been in the news today. But have they a lot of tweets
out there in the in the birdland that kind of lacked the don't really quite
bring it home, you know. I guess. I guess we'll see Soto
be a Yankee soon. I don't know. Yeah, it seems like but
yeah, okay, the Yankees Yankees last year, I selected Taylor Aguar,
who was a Colorado prep who went to I think Grand Canyon if I remember
correctly. Yeah, he struck out like all the time I did see.
He did hit seven home runs. He does have some some juice in the
bat, but I don't I don't want to waste any more time talking about
him. And then I chose as the Yankees pitcher last season, Joshuaye panic
Wall. I don't know if you've ever seen him, Matt, I didn't.
I have not. I did do a little video review of him,
I think a couple of seasons ago. Kind of smaller Panamanian picture, right,
hander just kind of throws a lot of junk and had some like really
impressive outings in the lowers. But he didn't pitch it all last year.
I think he had Tommy John So that much to report there. Chaparo was
a selection a couple of seasons ago. I don't know. Maybe he still
has a chance. There's a lot of power in that bat. Yeah,
and he's with Arizona now, so they lose Dal Santos and add added Chaparo.
That's interesting, But this season the bat I'm gonna go with. This
is another other pretty small sample size by me, but a young infielder by
the name of Jose Kloman Airis. I don't know if you watched him at
all, Matt, there wasn't much to see. I did, but he
Yeah, but he's a well he played second base, third base, a
little bit of shortstop. Rostered in zero percent of leagues. He was not
a big signee. In the July of twenty eighteen class out of Venezuela,
the Yankees brought him stateside his first pro season after only six DSL games.
He didn't do much production wise in rookie ball that year and twenty twenty happened,
and then I don't know the story. Twenty twenty one, he only
logged eleven rookie ball games, and then he didn't play at all in twenty
twenty two, So I don't know if that's injury, if he's just a
practice cloud guy, if you will, or what. But then this season
he got activated from the sixty day IL in the beginning of July. He
played one game and then doesn't play for a few weeks, and then he
hit two home runs in that first game, and then Matt he just kind
of explodes onto the FSL For the last twenty five games. He hit two
forty four with a four to ten on base a five to sixty four slug
and hit seven and hit seven home runs. Hit seven home runs in his
first twenty five FSL games. Like seven home runs in a month down there
just doesn't really happen. So that is what kind of got me interested.
Just from a just looking at a player page stat sheet. Eleven of his
nineteen hits went for extra bases. He did strike out twenty five percent of
the time, but he also walked twenty percent of the time. Again,
this is one hundred plate appearance sample, so very small. But you know,
being down there you do get some stack cast data. Yeah, how
did the stack cast stay? To? Look? He had a fifteen point
four percent barrel percentage on a forty one point six percent swing rate, a
max VILO of one hundred and six something, and an average of ninety four.
Now, the stack cast sample was only seventy one of his one hundred
plate appearances, so again really small. So I had to watch him,
right, but there just wasn't many games to view. Two in fact,
both of them he played second base and hit ninth the two games broadcast for
August first and August third at Bradenton, of course, so I watched all
the at bats. See what's up here? Four pitch walk? Then he
got picked off. He had a fairly well struck ball fly out to center
field on a first pitch fastball ninety nine mile per hour exit velocity. Then
he hit a double to left center field on a three to one fastball one
hundred and five miles per hour, went off the top of the wall F
nine on a well struck ball on a three to two fastball ninety eight miles
per hour, and then he lined out to center field on a three to
one fastball. The second game, he had a good six pitch battle to
earn a walk against so I think as a decent pitching prospect Owen Collington.
Then he had a five pitch walk and he had a pitch clock violation walk
on a three to two count. Then he struck out swinging on a two
two slider. Those were the nine viewable play appearances. He's listed at five
to eleven one seventy three. I don't know if that if that's his weight,
it's a very strong one seventy three, some strong forums. I feel
like i'd really have to bring it if I was going to like shake this
guy's hand. I don't know if I mentioned his age. He's twenty one
years old. But he's got a bit of a leg lift, a bit
of an effort in the swing, if that's a good way to say it,
you know, not like the calmest, easiest looking swing. I mean,
he seems to have a good eye. I did peruse like some other
game logs and look at, you know, the little little pitch charts and
count some things. I do think he spit on a couple of good pitches.
He only hit the ball on the ground twenty one percent with a flyball
rate of over fifty uh. The swing though, I did like dig the
look of his swing again that we're just getting it from the front. So
I don't know, but very much the guy who I think a swing that
can you know, put the ball in the air at a good rate.
And I did see him hit that one fly out to the opposite field.
I felt it was like good spin, the right kind of spin going opposite
field. I don't think speed is part of the equation, but you know,
beats me. He was two for three on stolen bases on this month,
but that isn't saying much in a ball I didn't get any real looks
of him running so in this system that is popular, and I wasn't really
jazzed about and any other bats kind of down at this uh restor rate.
Coleman airas is just kind of a very curious story to me. Minuscule look
with some of these numbers. I don't know, Matt, let's put it
on the B side board and let's see how crazy I am. Super interesting.
I'm definitely gonna watch those Bradenton games and check him out because that is
an interesting story and no word on what caused him to miss a year and
a half. Basically, I don't know. My Google, my Google,
my Google searches came up empty. Interesting. I know he wasn't like a
big eyebrow signing that year, So yeah, I don't know. Well,
my hitter, we've already talked about in diminutive short king Caleb Durban. Oh,
yeah, that's right, he of the refusal to strike out. I
did have I did have Durban on my list, but I but I will
admit that I I was gonna go with Coleman Arris before Durban, uh,
even before you got into him. Now today would I would I make that
same choice? No, but I wasn't gonna jump ship on my guy here.
And did Johnny come lately? Fair? Fair? Yeah? I mean,
looking at the rest of the organization, it's not great. Like I'd
say that there isn't a lot of competition for for me, for for Durban.
One other guy to note was a guy got traded into the organization late
this year in Jay Savina, who I think you've talked about before from Milwaukee,
have I I thought I thought you might have talked about him. But
anyway, Jason Vina is like yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe a right
handed hitting guy that outfielder a ton of power, like kind of absurd amount
of power for his size and everything. He strikes out a bit too much,
but he's still had success now for kind of two full years, back
to back years of showing pop as a younger than level hitter. So he's
someone that I think might be interesting to follow next year. But the strikeouts,
you know, he almost thirty percent of the time last year, and
his power wasn't quite as prodigious it was the year before. So anyway,
I mean, it's just a guy to follow. I've I've picked him up
in a couple of super deep leagues. But yeah, I like killed Durbin
here. I did my Yankees process here several months ago. Now that we're
in December, I have a little list of names here, but some of
them I don't think I even I can't really even get a picture in my
head of at this point. But Aaron Polenski, Anthony Hall, Christopher Familia,
Dinson, Duran, Jeus Rodriguez, Juan crisp Omar Martinez were some guys
that I had watched. I don't know if you watched any of those guys.
Yeah, I watched I watched Polenzki because his numbers looked decent, but
he's someone that after watching him, I was like, I'm not I'm not
into it. Like I he had good numbers this year, but I after
watching him, I was like, I think this is just a below average
across the board kind of guy who's had it, who had a good year.
I also watched Jeus Rodriguez, and I did like some parts of his
swing. He's got a little bit of one Soto to him, like the
way that he sets up and then the way he takes pitches. He's got
a little bit of that Sodo shuffle in there, and he's pretty fast.
He's pretty athletic for a catcher. But I thought I think he was in
the Port of State League two and his eggy deals were kind of pretty bad.
I do recall getting my short list here together and looking at some of
the stack cast stuff from the ABE guys and not being super impressed with what
I saw there. To put it, just very vaguely, yep, all
right, should we go on the pitchers? Then let's do it? All
right, I'm gonna go. I was actually thinking about tyrone Yuli during our
draft, maybe just missed it. It might have been a bit of a
reckless pick on my part, but he is. He's now twenty two years
old, right hand pitcher, listed at six four one point eighty from the
Dominican. He spent all of twenty twenty three in High A. Sixteen starts,
sixteen games, all starts, seventy nine innings. He ran a four
fifty six ERA one point three whip. He struck out ninety, which was
ten point twenty five per nine. He did walk four point nine per nine,
gave up some home runs one point four to eight per nine. Threw
strikes at sixty four percent eighty one pitches a game. The first game of
his that I threw on, I probably watched. I probably watched about five
or six of his starts. The first one that I threw on was July
fourth. I'm going to digress here for a second, man, and I
might just delete this, but there's something really odd that happens. And maybe
I'm just being too much of a weird out here, but there's always a
date that becomes very prevalent, especially when I was doing like video stuff,
doing a lot of gifts and stuff like that. A picture had a really
interesting outing, a really good outing, really bad outing, or some sort
of video that I wanted to take out of an outing. There's always a
date that is like, for some reason, lots of guys have these things
on the same day. Like this year it was July fourth, for some
reason. There's a ton of July fourth outings that I have highlighted and pulled
stuff from. Year before it was September eleventh. The year before that,
it was like April twenty ninth or something like that. But I don't know,
just this weird thing. So like when I I had like my video
gifts, like all on spreadsheet and stuff whatever, and you sort by date,
there'd just be like a huge amount a video from those days from all
sorts of different pictures. Anyways, Yeah, it's just like this weird thing.
But anyway, so July fourth start, I kind of felt like it
was a good microcosm of what I saw from Yuli here that game. He
starts off with some wildness in and out of the zone, leaving a few
balls over the heart that get hit hard. One is a solo home run,
one is a hard hit double, one is a flyout. He strikes
out two guys, and he like goes on a run whereabon he strikes out
six in a row swinging. He's looking super locked in executing some nasty looking
stuff and mixing it up. Well. His fastball slider combination kind of leads
the way, but there are other offerings that are mixed in there and earning
some cold strikes and some swinging strikes. Kind of strikes out a few more
the rest of the way, maybe got squared up once. The rest of
the time didn't give anything up except for like one more walk. He's got
a fastball and I think gets up there about ninety six ninety seven. I
think he throws two varietals, a four seamer and a two steamer, a
slider that's probably his best secondary change up. You know, just an uncommon
primarily against lefties. Is pretty dominant the splits. He's pretty dominant versus righties.
Okay, against lefties, I guess. And I don't know what the
story was. He was shut down early August. I tend tofying especially well,
you don't get to watch a lot of Yankees and a ball, but
you do get to see them in high A and over the years put it
generically tantalizing looking guys, wicked sliders, good velocities, good fastballs. I
think it's fair to question, how do I put it, the legitimacy of
some of the nasty system there. But Uly strikes me as a guy who
I know the walks are probably a bit alarming. But like I said,
but I liked in the looks that the walks usually came in bunches together.
He was able to prolong multiple innings of being pretty pretty dialed in. You
got a right hander here who's dominating at high a at times like we're really
dominating, really cruising through a few innings at a time. So you know,
outlook, I'm not going to make any any strong bets on Yuli here,
but I think he's definitely got some electric stuff, perhaps enough of the
polish to stick as a starter. Interesting. I mean, I think a
lot of it kind of reeks like potential, really good reliever. Yeah,
well, you know, maybe that's fine too. You know, I've got
no problem finding good potential relief pictures b siding here. Well, I'm glad
you said that, because that's who I picked in the system. And to
the point that you made a couple of weeks ago about there being perhaps a
bit of East Coast bias in the prospecting world. With that in mind,
I was like, oh, yeah, anybody that has any success in the
Yankee system, they just get talked about ad nauseum and their roster kind of
just goes way up. I mean at the top of the system and Thorpe
and Hampton and Salvage and Warren, all those guys are way over the thresholds
that we usually caroused. And then even the sort of mid tier guys like
a Justin Lang or something like, they're still pretty pretty well owned. And
again that's not even a guy that gets me that excited with a sixteen percent
walk, right. But anyway, I'm just saying, like, when I
was going through this, I was like, boy, I'm pretty deep in
this system and I'm not seeing a starting pitcher that I I'm really into.
But I did see a couple relievers that are pretty nasty. And the guy
that I'm gonna pick is Jack Neely. This dude is huge. He's six
eight two fifty easy, but he like just looks like a huge lumberjack.
You know. He's not tubster like some of my other dudes that I've but
his stuff is wicked, you know, runs it up to ninety eight.
You know, I saw most of his fastballs in like the ninety six to
seven range, and has a gyro slider that seemed like especially when he located
it down, guys were whiffing over it all the time he did and I
went back. I mean, he had a great year, you know,
two seventeen ERA over sixty six innings again all in relief. Struck out one
hundred in sixty six innings, so thirty eight point six percent strikeout rate and
seven point seven percent walk rate on the year. He did give up a
few more homers when he was in double A again shorter sample just seventeen point
two innings and double A, but gave up two homers per nine and a
lot of them were on the slider when he left it up. So while
he has good control, does it walk many guys he does? I think
need to tighten up the slider command a little bit because when he keeps it
down it nobody was hitting it. But he did seem to have a tendency
to leave it up, and he gave up an absolute mammoth. I think
like extraining home run to Jase Young or late in the season that I saw
as it was an uphanging slider that just crushed. But overall, this is
just a power, you know, middle to late believer that the Yankees seemed
to grow on trees and nearly. I think of the guys that I looked
at had I thought both proximity and stuff wise, like that guy looks like
he's going to be in a big league pen in potentially a higher leverage role.
Too nice. I'd like that You've you've plucked some relievers. It's give
some reliever love. It's not an area that I that I dig around in
too much, but I wish I did. Just Yeah, you know,
a lot of and a lot of the best relievers were guys that were starters
and then get converted. So it's it really is like this is you know,
I'm not advocating for picking him up anytime soon, but if you see
the name as he progresses to double A and triple A next year and the
Yankees need a middle world lever like they might pick Nealy. Yeah. The
Boston Red probably one of the better B side success stories here. When Saddani
Raphaela, nobody was rostering him that was actually that was actually I can't take
the credit for that though. That was that was Shelley V who turned me
on to that and suggested that last season, wouldn't say wear the greatest.
I went with a young bat that was in a ball at the time,
Miguel Ugueto, who really was on and off injured most of this season,
only got two hundred and five played appearances in. But I wouldn't say he
was producing quite well. I'm gud that I'll probably still pay some attention to.
Maybe it was just health that held him back more or less. When
I selected him, I saw a little bit of him and I I just
liked the look of him from the left side of the plate, thought he
had nice mechanics and a potential power stroke. Pitching wise, I went with
Wan Daniel and Karnassion, who I don't know. I wouldn't say had awful
production. There was some stuff that was okay maybe, but he pitched ninety
nine innings. Those were all at all at Hia as well. But I
think he was just kind of a young arm with some arsenal that I thought
had some interesting qualities. Struck out nine per nine, walked under four per
nine, the era and whip were not very pretty, and I admit I
didn't really watch a whole lot of Wan Daniel in Karnassion this year. Yeah,
So then this season I'm gonna go. I wrote a little bit about
him already and shared a little bit with you, but another extremely small sample
size look pitcher, I'm gonna go with left handed hidden Mullins. Mullens was
a twelfth round pick out of Auburn in the twenty twenty two draft. But
if you follow amateurs, you follow a perfect game. This is probably a
familiar name to you, as he was like the third ranked left hand pitcher
in the twenty nineteen class. But his Auburn his college career was really decimated
by injuries. I don't know, forget how many innings he had logged in
total there but not many. I think Tommy John was part of it,
but I think there was also some other injuries involved. But he finally made
his way back this season at the end for two Rookie ball and two A
ball appearances. In total, there was three point two viewable innings. I'd
say at least the first outing, I wouldn't even say Mullens was really pitching
trying to knock off some rust, trying to throw some strikes with his fastball,
change up, slider, arsenal. But in those capern I was nineteen
point six y four. He did walk some guys, but out of all
the guys roster this rate, in this system, I'm just going to take
a put him as a kind of a priority. Watch see if some of
the talent from yesteryear kind of maybe shows back up. Maybe he can stay
healthy. Just a flash of some pretty dominant innings. We did get a
good angle in Augusta that I have shared. Hard to tell, but fastball
I think was ninety three ninety four. I know he could get it up
there when he was a teenager. A few clicks more than that September second,
he's at Augusta if you want to take a look at him. So
you shared that date with me, and I went and watched after we had
first talked about him, and I did come away pretty impressed. You know,
it looks the stuff looks legit, and he did look pretty rusty,
which is to be expected coming off such a significant injury and long layoff.
But yeah, this one, I was like that at any level, over
any stretch, when you can do strike out half the batters that you face,
like, that's worth paying attention to you. And yeah, I mean
I think so he got nineteen outs and fifteen of those were strikeouts. It's
a I don't think that rate's sustainable in that but I do not think so.
No, no, even if he keeps walking seven per nine, if
he's also averaging twenty strikeouts per nine, he I think is the best picture
of all time. I'll break my rule against guys with bad command if he
can keep punching out twenty for nine. Yeah, I'm watching. I'm watching
the some of his sliders right now, and I've got some lags, so
the video is going slow. I wonder what stuff plus measurements will kind of
say about that pitch. I wonder I remember it moving quite a bit,
like, Yeah, it had a lot of movement, So Hydden mullins,
let's uh a little blast from the past maybe and see what happens. I
like that pick. I like it better than my here. I really struggled
with the rest of this organization, especially on the pitching side. It's another
popular system, so it's tough, right, and the arms that I like
in this system are way too popular for us to b side and made it
tough for me. I watched a bunch of guys that are just like a
bunch of Dalton Rogers, and I was just like, the command doesn't look
there, even though he was getting a lot of whiffs. Hunter Dobbins,
who I sort of liked but ultimately said, doesn't have the stuff and isn't
quite gonna make that transition to being a reliever useful. You know, we
had a solid season at double A, but I just, yeah, I
thought on balance the stuff was going to tick down as he went up and
couldn't tuck myself into it. So I kind of cheated here, and I
did take a three percenter, So I'm taking Isaac Coffee, and I so
three percent owned in fan tracks when we pulled this in September. I think
a lot of that is from just scouting the stat line, because most publications
look at his be low and say this isn't sustainable. He's not gonna He's
not gonna keep it. But one thing that gives me some hope about Coffee.
Unlike some of the other guys in this velocity range, like eighty eight
to ninety one, he has a huge outlier trait in where he releases the
ball, so he's a very very like drop and drive, low release,
low arm slot righty that I think it's so unusual that the velocity plays way
up. I mean, the guy got thirty one and a half strikeouts this
year end of the year in double A, had really good command at high
A, and then the command ticked down a little bit for the second half
of the year when he was in double A. Thought that arsenal. You
know, it's this really low slot, fastball change up from the same spot
that he throws to right he's throws to lefties, gets a lot of outs
on and then his slider and cutter, which I think we're new for him.
I think I read an article about that that he added certainly the cutter
this year and was leaning on the slider more. But he uses that four
pitch mix in any count and can command all of those pitches and really had
a phenomenal year. The one knock other than the velocity and sort of the
kind of traditional scouting of his stuff, the one knock on him is homers
and he gave up on the year like one point six five six' eight
something like that. Homers per nine, so he gave up his fair share
of homers and then some. And I don't think that's an accident really either.
You know, the fastball all not missing a ton of bats. You
know it doesn't have that missing at the top of the zone even from its
odd low angle. And then the change up I think is still his best
secondary pitch. And again, if you miss with that change up, it's
a little more likely to go for a home run. So I unbalance,
I think Coffee had a great year. He's got a lot of unusual traits
that I like, and the sort of b siding archetypes that we like to
talk about at least and highlight. So even though he's a little bit more
owned than normally I would go for in this exercise, like three percent is
my absolute outer limit. I just wanted to talk and give some credit to
Coffee's unique traits that he brings to the table and say, I think there's
something here even if the velocity doesn't tick up, as it hasn't really yet,
but he's got a chance to continue to be successful with this kind of
profile, and I think that's more than most folks are giving him credit for.
And then the last thing. You know, Steamer just read his stat
line and gave him a projected him for a four to nine er dropped in
the matrix this year, which by itself is really good. But I think
that Zips was even more bullish and projected like a four to six something era.
So both of those projection systems really liked what they saw from Coffee this
year. So I think again, just another thing to note. You know
that he's going to get dinged for his whole career based on the velocity,
but the command, the mix, the odd angle, the art arm angle,
I think are going to give him a shot. So Isaac Coffee is
my big here. They they took him fairly high in the draft, did
they? At No, he was a tenth rounder. Was okay? Arms
wise, like you said, I was pretty tough. The I was like,
gonna very reluctantly go with Grant Gambrel, the another yeah, last from
the past, if you will. I think has battled some injuries in his
career. I don't know, but I think I don't really remember the reason
why I was going to go with him. But then I came across Moons
and I was like, oh, yeah, this is this is far more
exciting. Gambrell had a decent, decent year. I mean, he was
guys that I looked too. He was in a right yeah, okay,
all right, bats, what do you got for Red Sox bats? Mat.
Yeah. I picked a guy who was Rule five eligible and didn't get
picked and wasn't on any of the sort of Rule five guys to know boards
that I saw out there, and so I'm going with Alan Castro. You
know, you know that's my pick. Nice nice, all right, all
right. Well I was a little validated by that, even though I was
kind of bumming that nobody even was talking about him as the Rule five selection.
He was on that robo scout list like that, Oh he was,
Oh he was okay, okay, yeah, I didn't and read that one,
but yeah, no Castro. I watched him ranked him for our draft,
and I think he was maybe like eleventh or twelfth, So it was
unlikely I was going to take him unless we were just like picking the exact
same guys. But I liked him. I really liked what I saw.
He had a level of athleticism that I think a lot of the guys that
I ended up taking in the b sides they don't really have. And I
say this not just that he gets some steals, although he does, but
he seems very athletic in the box, the way he swings, the way
he plays defense. Even I caught a couple of glimpses of him for a
switch hitter. I really liked both of his swings, which I think is
unusual. Usually there's one that I like a lot more than the other.
I thought that the lefty swing was really smooth, but the righty swing was
just as smooth and maybe even a little bit more polished. I don't know.
I just my notes on both were like, Wow, I really liked
how he sets up, and why is nobody on this guy? And I
guess a couple of people do have him ranked. I think BA had him
like down low twenty or high twenties in there or green. I think he's
Yeah, I think he's currently thirty on thirty line. Okay, he is
one percent rostered, so yeah, yeah, he's got some guys invested in
the owners and he does. But I really thought that he had a good
year, and really he's been a consistently solid performer. Other than a small
cup of coffee to end, the year at low A. Last year,
he's been sort of a twenty percent better than the league average hitter at every
stop. He's been fairly young for level. I mean, he was an
international guy. That's why he was Rule five eligible this year. Yeah,
Alan Castro, I'm kind of into it. I was like, this is
this is sort of an under the radar athletic guy who can do a little
bit of everything. That was kind of my notes here. It was just
like it might seem kind of boring on the surface, but after watching him,
it was I thought a bit more interesting. I've read some reports that
I felt like kind of even like speed and athleticism, I thought was maybe
a little bit under sold in some of those. But like one thing that
I thought maybe most interesting about at least his numbers, was but he got
three hundred and six single A plate appearances in and then finished with one hundred
and eighty six high A plate appearances, and the walk percentage dipped from six
point seven percent to nine point two, and then the k's jumped from seventeen
point six to nineteen point four, but the ISO, the batting average,
and the slug all increased. He hit four home runs in that short high
a stint after hitting three in the longer a ball stint, he was pulling
the ball a little more at five percent, while the line drives kind of
stayed the same. His home run to fly ball rate jumped, obviously,
But I don't know, wondering if this guy is deciding to be a hitter
instead of a lame walker, Matt, I think he's got a little bit
of both in him. And yeah, you know, I I do like
the plate decisions, and I love that he dropped his k rate as he
climbs the levels this year. Yeah, you don't see that a whole lot.
No, and he did it while continuing to walk. I mean,
I do think there's a potential plus approach here. And yeah, that sample
at Hya looked really good. Yeah, and he's stole nineteen bases. I
mean, I don't Sometimes you gotta be careful with stolen bases and the lowers
and thinking about the future. But yeah, like you said, was really
sold me was. I really like the look of him at the plate.
It's an easy, well balanced head, very still swing. He's not drifting
and that coming forward. You know, the kind of guy that, if
you like, stuck a pole down the back of his jersey. He would
just kind of like stay right there on the same spot. Despite not being
like a power guy right now, the kind of swing where I do think
a lot of times you will just hear people generically, in my opinion,
generically just kind of say, well, you know, if you add some
muscle to his frame, you'll hit more home runs. Like this looks to
me like mechanics the guy that that holds true that if he does get stronger,
I think there is some more power potential in there without having to change
a bunch of mechanics or what have you, or approach, or at least
his approach in high A. Now, the splits were he was much better
from the left side, hit for more power, hit more racial. Yeah,
he was like two seventy three seventy six four to twenty five as a
lefty and two ten three nineteen two ninety only one home run from the right
side. Interesting because I did like his righty swing quite a bit. He
had doubles at a higher clip than anyone in low Ah, even more than
Basalo. But yeah, and Basala had fourteen more games, but then he
also hit twelve home runs. I don't really know what that's saying, but
uh, maybe kind of a guy that does nothing real great, but a
lot of things really well. Kind of like you said, and I don't
know, maybe a little bit juicier than than maybe the reputation is right now.
I don't know, I agree with that. And you know, just
on the doubles point, he reminds me a little bit of will you or
or bray you in that way like that was sort of a brain who's calling
card during the minors was he didn't hit a ton of homers until what like
four or five years into his career, but he was just racking up doubles.
Yeah, and Castro is only he's only twenty years old. I don't
know if we mentioned his name his age. I think he was nineteen for
part of this season. Yeah, he is a little bit like more wiry.
I think they got him listed at six foot one seventy the way he
just kind of like catch the ball with the bat and I and the swing
decisions and stuff like. Yeah, I thought he was pretty good looking.
Hit her. That's it then, right? Were there any other bats from
the Red Sox that run your short list? Matt? I don't know,
Uh, I think what I kind of feel like, there's the Red Sox
are kind of chuck full of interesting bats at kind of all times. Even
though they were a popular organization. There there are bats that aren't rostered very
much that still interests me, like Brooks Brandon catcher, Corey Rozier, who's
yeah, yeah, it was that. I liked Johann from Garcia, who
I think did he did he get plucked in the minor league portion? Or
did John Frank Salazar one of those two? Okay, one of the Valas.
Salazar is on my list too, Yeah, Nathaniel u Ten, Tyler
Dearden, Tyler Esplin, Tyler Miller, this kid you Roberto Mahicano. Now,
but those are awesome guys that I had watched and considered. None of
them with like alarming strikeout strikeout rates. I don't think they all that kind
of slugged a little bit, But I honestly don't remember watching a lot of
them right now. I think watching I always would like to watch Salem in
Greenville. There's it seems like there's always some interesting both sides of the ball
pitchers and and hitters. One thing just to keep in mind and looking at
the Red Sox minor league system is that Salem is a pretty good hitters park,
Like it's it's fairly significantly above average, and then Greenville is plays a
little bit closer to average, and then Portland is well below average one of
the you know, it's not not like quite near the bottom, but it's
definitely the worst park to hit in in in the Red Sex system. So
when you see a guy that has success in double A and that's it's something
sort of to take notice, especially the hitters. And it's also I think
why you look at someone like Coffee who did so well at high A and
you might round up on that a little bit just because the park is a
little bit more friendly to hitters. All right, Matt, the Toronto Blue
Jays, dude, this system sucks. Ooh, I strong disagree, even
even like top and I know that we're we're digging around in the in the
mud in the system depth wondering if anyone might have a major league chance.
But the Blue Jays, even in even the top of the at least at
least that wise, who's who's an MLB every day or in this system,
I still think is okay, that's fair? Now him completely flapping in the
bigs, I think is on the table still, like I don't have the
utmost Yeah maybe, I mean, I get what you're saying, like he's
a pretty divisive prospect. I mean I was total, I was totally done.
But Jeff Pance right rightfully, so turn turned me around with his opinions
on that. I think. But yeah, and I'm on it. I
like, I have no shares because either whoever I play in the league's with
a bunch of huge Blue Jays fans, and any Blue Jays prospect of any
kind is just gone like that. So I've I've acquired a number of times
when Orelvos was on like the downturn, It's just been rebuffed every time,
like, yeah, you can send me your ace starting pitcher and I'll consider
selling or Elvis Martinez and Michael Hell that's too rich for me. But I
think the power is legit, and I think that just gives him such a
floor that I kind of don't care the knocks on his defense and I'm willing
to kind of live with the ups and downs of that because I think the
power is really okay. So I'll give I'll give him Martinez Hortz you don't.
You don't like Spencer Horwitz. I mean he's not exciting. I mean
it's like not a plus guy like as in Barger is still sort of interesting,
but I know what you mean, like it drops down after him,
I mean the guy. You know, I know they drafted Namala, but
even even him is kind of I mean, I'm no amateur high school especially
like expert or file. But here's some people talk about his ability to stay
up the middle and some questions about that, like point being he's still a
developmental you know guy, dude. Honestly, perhaps other than Martinez, my
favorite bat might be Leo. Him and az former B side selection from a
few years ago. Now, I don't have any huge expectations, but I
think could potentially be a solid utility type in the bigs. David Schneider.
I don't think he's an everyday player start to his career. I mean,
yeah, so hot, right, But and you know, you look at
their past drafts the bat. I know that they have gone pitcher heavy,
but a lot of the higher round bats that they've taken like not not looking
super great. I mean, if you're doing if you're doing a fantasy list,
a Dynasty list for the Blue Jays or Elvis Titaman. I love Ricky,
but a lot of people, I know a lot of people worried about
shoulder and injury and all that stuff. I'm I don't know. I try
not to just even worry about that stuff, so I get that. But
like, okay, so maybe those two And like, honestly, the third
guy that I would put is Connor Cook, who I think could very much
be a closer. I do think there's some some relief picture prospects that are
are kind of exciting, and they do have some exciting arms. But for
the amount of draft capital, high draft capital capital they've spent on pictures,
man, just I don't know this. This this organization felt felt rough to
me. When you get into you get into our mud in our area,
and I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm not picking a bat. I
can't. I can't. I'm just gonna take yours. I'm gonna take your
bat where. I'll just I'll just I'll just piggyback that. I mean,
what they get. I know, like Jace Bohofrian Boho, I don't know
how to say it. He sounds interesting. Who else was gonna take Nick
Nick Goodwin seventh round pick, did whatever for a little bit and a ball.
I was actually gonna go with Peyton Williams, my guy from Iowa.
Have you ever seen Peyton Williams. I don't think so. Peyton Williams is
a giant, large, not in a great way, lefty who has a
powerful bat and just beats the ball into the ground. I think I might
know who you're gonna pick because he's kind of the stature that you like.
Some Arius guy that was like two high games that I watched some and he
hit a single. You're Barrel. I don't know. Like Martin Kasovic even
I liked. I was like in the Tucker Towman the last draft, and
he had like a very unimpressive season. Yeah, the son freaking Brown was
one of the highest bats that they took, and like, oh cool,
he's fast. I mean this this bowfroun guy. If I had to make
a list, he might be like my number four guy. Yes, I
don't know who's your bat. Who's our bat, Matt, who's our bat?
Well, I guess our bat is Raphael. I knew it because he's
five to seven. He's five seven, he's tiny little Putian utility guy is
what I wrote to start my little bit year. But he's got so many
of the things that I like. He's got a robust played approach seventeen percent
walks this year, only struck out eighteen point five percent of the time,
both very comfortably plus hit for not much power but not nothing. Twelve homers
this year, three zho five four to twenty five four sixty nine on the
year with forty doubles and twenty eight bags. So I'm going to talk about
sort of across the board fantasy production. It's not half bad now the negatives.
He is small, five seven one point fifty something. I think he's
listed at but under looking yeah yeah maybe maybe you know, I might take
the over on the weight, but he's he's five to seven probably, and
he played a bunch of different positions. I don't think he's really a short
stop. He played a good number of innings there, but I don't think
he sticks as a shortstop, and obviously is block in Toronto there, but
he also played third base, second base, left field, center field,
right field, like plays all the positions and with the played approach as well
as you know, not a nothing power on the power side, even if
it's more doubles than Homer's. I was just like watching this guys like,
I think he's better than Cavin Bigio right now and plays more positions. Picked
him super early on and he was on my short list to be drafted in
our draft just because I was like, this guy's gonna play in the big
league somewhere and he's gonna be fine. But Steamer thinks he's going to be
even a little better than fine. Steamer projects him for this year at a
ninety eight WRC plus, which if he's playing second base and spelling, you
know, playing third base even you know, after Chapman leaves and they don't
think Irrelevans is ready or whatever. I mean. I think he plays this
year, is my point. I think he's going to get some run for
the Blue Jays and that's useful enough for us. You know, I'm not
this isn't He's not going to be a stud for sure. That's why I
ended up not taking him in our draft earlier. The evs aren't great,
and it's it's just a lot of line drives that he finds gaps and uses
his speed to stretch. But the flexibility in both position and the way his
plate approach. I like him. I like his I like how he plays
well. I like him too. Is my pick to Matta and little Lentigua.
We're going places, all right, let's move on to the arms here.
All right, Well you were poo pooing the arms too. Who are
you going for? Quickly? Last year went with Michael Dominguez. I don't
know if you've watched any domingas a little bit kind of interesting. He got
up to double a one hundred and two winnings, ten point five to five
kpro nine, but he walks a lot of dudes. But I still I
wonder if diminga is make for an interesting relief pitcher. Yep, moving forward,
but yeah, so this year again, man, I'm gonna go with
a guy that had one outing to watch, because again, Matt a huge
fan of the others. I had watched a little bit of Trenton Wallace in
double A lefty with a wide angle, low nineties. I don't think there
was much to watch where you got injured. And then there is this guy
Devereux Harrison that I think is hitting some list who was in high A.
I just didn't know if there was enough juice there. And I just found
Ryan Jennings, their fourth rounder from the twenty twenty two draft class out of
Louisiana, attack a bit more interesting, even though I only, like I
said, watched one game, because that's all there was. Ryan Jennings.
He's alrighty listed at six foot one hundred and ninety pounds, He's twenty four
years old now, like derailed by injury in June, I think too.
In college his last year of college, I don't recall exactly, but I
don't think he pitched very much. Yeah, so he was injured in June,
but he did get back for an unbroadcasted September start, so I don't
think the injury was too significant. None of Drenning's A ball appearances were broadcast,
and only one of his high A was that's the one I got to
watch. But I thought he showed a fairly polished fastball, mid nineties fastball,
knuckle curveball attack. He has the rest of the kitchen sink too,
But this is the main two offerings North South game, and I admit,
you know, this could very well be more of a bullpen looking future.
Like most of the arms in this system over the last few years, but
I don't think the book has closed on him. Starting three starts this year,
ten innings, two point seven, the ra struck out nine point nine
whatever. It's not enough to really get into too much, but he struck
out fifty five batters in forty three innings while walking seventeen. I think I
shared a gift in that little article that I did of him striking out Victor
Barracoto on some pretty nasty breaking balls. Yeah, Ryan Jennings, That's that's
what I'm going to saddle up with in this awesome system. I am pulling
a little bit of a page out of your book and taking a guy that
I have seen all of like two innings. Welcome to Welcome to the wild
irresponsible side. Man. Yeah, I don't love doing it. He did
throw a lot more innings in that this year, but of course it was
in the stupid Florida State League where there's just no video. Never pitched against
Bradenton, did he did he pitch against Saint Lucy? No? Nothing.
But I am going Lazaro Estrada on the small side five ten one A and
has actually been around for a really long time. You know he's Rule five
eligible and didn't get taken. I actually thought he had a chance to get
taken because for reasons I'll talk about here in a minute. But he didn't
get taken because he's still in a ball. He's been so what he was
a signee in I think twenty seventeen and he's now twenty four. So he's
been in the minors for what seems like forever, and he's spent three of
the past four years at a ball. So all that is like terrible,
right, like red flags everywhere, except that he just keeps striking everybody out
and he doesn't walk very many. He's like for a picture that hasn't advanced
past a ball. He actually got a really encouraging projection from Steamer. Again,
all this is contextual, but I like to use that as a flag
of like, oh am, I looking for things that showcase future potential,
and that's obviously what projection systems are all trying to do. And so it
was a nice little note in his favor that it's like, oh wow,
Like Steamer never projects pictures that are in a ball for low fives eras in
the Major League. They waits until they get into hy a double A and
then it starts to say, like, ah, this is a real arm.
So this year he started the year relieving, which is he's kind of
been doing this. He's like done some starting, done some relieving, and
then this year he was doing a lot of relieving early in the year,
and then they put him back on the starter's role, and so he ended
up starting nine games mostly to end the year. I think, I think
that's what all it starts were. But he had a fascinating year. He
struck out thirty three point three percent of batter city face only walked eight point
four percent, so that's, you know, just better than average, just
barely better than average on the walks, and way better than average on the
strikeouts. And yeah, seventy six and a third innings, one hundred and
three strikeouts, only fifty five hits two So his whip for the year was
one point six Pretty good, pretty good. The thing about Estrata that is
really interesting is that he has this bugs bunny lookin' fastball, like it just
it is one of I think one of the best fastballs that I've seen,
and not because he throws it really hard, although I think he can run
it up there decently fast. He gets it up to ninety five. I
think it's mostly in the ninety two to four range in there. But if
I had to guess, and I don't know if I looked at this or
saw anything about it, but I think he's got one of the highest spin
rates in the minors. So super high spin fastball. Even though it's only
quote ninety five, it kind of has some Bryce Miller traits to the fastball
in it. It just rises so much. You see these guys like so
again, I've only seen like four innings of him pitch, and they were
all in last year, maybe two years ago, twenty twenty one, when
he made it up to high A and he I think all the outings that
I saw him at Hillsborough, and you just watch these high hitters try and
hit his fastball at the top of the zone, and like you can tell
that they are trying, like they know he's going to throw it at the
top of the and they're trying so hard to stay on top of it,
and they still pop it up, just pop it right up in the infield
or with So it's this incredibly high spin fastball that he throws up to ninety
five at the top of the zone, and his curveball is wildly good,
I think. I mean, it just looks like this massive hammer that it
has none of the loop that you see in a lot of a lot of
curveballs. It just looks like it is spinning. It's like he's spinning that
as fast as he's spinning his fastball, Like he really seems to have a
feel for how to spin the ball. And then he also has a slider,
which I didn't think was very good in the looks that I saw two
years ago, but I'm guessing has taken some steps forward just because he's probably
been throwing it now for a couple of years. But for only seventy six
innings pitch this year, and again at a ball, this was a really
exciting arm. I've really really liked a few of the arms that I've seen
at a ball, which is unusual for me. I feel like that's not
usually where I'm looking for pitchers. Usually I wait until they're at high A
or double A and then they're showing out and then I'll snag some under the
radar guys there. But there's a good crop at a ball and Estrata's in
that mix. For me, he had a really really interesting year, And
some of the traits here are round way up on the velocity and round up
on the command, because this isn't a guy who's living on the edges.
This is a guy who his stuff can play in the zone. And I'm
so fascinated to see him go up to high again and double A maybe next
year. The reason I thought he might get popped in the rule five is
that he kind of looks like the guy that might be able to pay ch
out of a bullpend just because that fastball and curveball and slider, like you
can probably play that in middle or lower leverage innings for a year, especially
if you're not a contender and you're like twenty fourth and fifth spots on the
roster, like aren't that important. But he's still in low A, and
so I mean, it makes sense why he didn't get picked. But yeah,
Lazaro Estrada, I'm just fascinated by it. And maybe some of that's
because I've seen so little of him that I really want to see more.
So he was one of the guys that I'm actually most excited to watch next
year. Guys like that. I mean for our purposes, it's just let's
watch this guy. Let's keep an eye here, and if it's looking really
good, maybe we jump on him before all of our league mates do.
Yep, the Blue Jays, according to MLB Pipeline, the twenty fifth ranked
farm system. Well, the Astros are ranked thirtieth. That's what we like
the Astros. I don't mean to be offensive to it was like any Blue
Jays fans out there, you guys have a really good baseball team. You
don't have to have a great farm system. There are other ways to have
a great baseball team. The Baltimore Orioles last year went with for Bat.
I went with Creed Williams. There's some Creed Williams fans out there. Yeah.
We had a lot of fun, especially during his a ball run where
he was he was scorching, he was on a tear, and then you
know, things didn't go quite as well in Hi A still an interesting watch
for me, if I recall correctly. Didn't didn't Gunnar Henderson have some struggles
when he went when he moved up to Aberdeen? Did he? I don't
know, maybe it was just like a month or something, but AnyWho you
know. Back in twenty twenty one, we went with Ilio Prato. He
kind of had a sneaky good season between a ball and hi A. I
think he's I don't know how how old is he twenty one twenty two.
I'll just stick with my first year player, but we'll do that during the
first year Player Draft episode. Last year's pitcher was Juan de Los Santos,
who was a young guy who was cutting his teeth and a ball who I
thought showed some pretty good stuff but did not really back it up. This
year, he struck out eight point nine k per nine, walked almost five
per nine, ad era of four point six over ninety a ball innings,
big body guy, maybe still still a name to watch, but didn't quite
have the success I thought maybe he could. And so this year pitcher,
I mean, I don't know, I don't know what your thoughts were digging
in on the arms at this level, but I kind of thought there was
a good chunk of interesting ones. And I know the Orioles starting pitcher future
is a question that a lot of folks like to talk about, but I
kind of felt like they seemed to have a good bunch of interesting arms that
had like in history, like they've kind of went to like the injury the
injured college arm discount rack. A little bit later in draft came down to
four arms for me, Peter Van Loon, Ryan who was in the AFL,
I think Ryan Long, and Daniel Lloyd. But Cameron Weston, the
right hand pitcher who was in High A this year, was the most interesting
to me. And this could very well be end up a relief pitcher more
so than most. But he was a twenty twenty two eighth round pick out
of Michigan. I don't know, did you watch any of Weston? I
don't think I did. Right, So he's listed at six two, two
hundred and fifteen pounds. This is kind of shocking. I didn't think he
Yeah, maybe he's that big. He's twenty three years old right now.
His stat Ryan first caught my eye. He liked four point one innings.
He pitched three point four innings per outings. Only three of his twelve appearances
where technically starts like I said, you go three to four innings during some
stretches. I had a two point six eight ERA one point two four or
whip struck out forty nine walked only two point six eight per nine, didn't
give up hardly any home runs maybe a home run through strikes at sixty two
percent. You know, there wasn't not a whole lot of reports and stuff
on Weston that I found. I did find one draft scouting. The report
back in twenty twenty one said that he had a fringy breaking ball. But
now I'm you know, it's tricky, but I'm kind of wondering if maybe
Weston is a little bit of a spin doctor. Now pretty twenty some inning
pitch shutdown showing during the twenty twenty two Cape, and I want to feel
like I heard Jeff talking about him a little bit and his breaking ball.
He's got a three quarter arm slot fastballs mid nineties. Regularly think he throws
a two seamer. No, it's it's more of a two seam shape.
I think. I'm not totally sure the quality really is, Especially in some
outings or some stretches that I saw, he was pretty heavy on the breaking
ball, probably throwing the breaking ball more than the fastball. A change up
comes in at eighty three eighty four, I think looks pretty good. And
then that little report they kind of remarked that his change up may have been
the best pitch back in Michigan. There's like gyro like downward movement, Like
it's tricky, Like we've talked about this before, but I feel like sometimes
there's some different pace on the breaking ball. I don't know if that's intentional
or just inconsistencies sometimes, and you know, I don't know, maybe this
is just broadcast speed or something, but I feel like sometimes the breaking ball
seems to take there forever, but the velo on them it comes out firmer,
you know, than you might think. And I think it does have
some you know, hard to tell from our angles, but it seems to
break a little bit later than your sort of average or your average like gyro
slider is down here at high A just watching a little bit of him.
There's not a ton to watch. Is this guy's kind of like mastering this
break or is this like very much still like in a developmental phase and he's
learning how to spin it. I can't really say, but the outcomes look
really nice. I don't know, maybe more of like East West, But
like I said, there's there's more vertical break on the breaking balls. He
was much more effective versus right east and west east. Part of the reason
why I didn't watch that many innings is he came off the ale in June,
like I said, he was mostly like a piggybacker then, and then
they kind of throttled him down the last couple his last couple of outings,
he only went one. I am kind of wondering if maybe there's a maybe
there's a quota that he's supposed to be hitting with the with the breaking balls,
throwing them all the time, and kind of kind of like at times,
it just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. He had some
pretty impressive lines against Bowling Green, gave up two runs, didn't walk an
he struck out nine. I watched some of that. You know, his
strikeout his strike percentages range from like fifty nine to seventy two in games.
But again, if this is a guy that's really trying to work on spinning
it, I could get you know, I can accept some lack of lack
of efficiency. So I don't know. Cameron Wesson, like I said,
there were some interesting arms, but he just kind of caught me the most
and got me drawn in the most out of anyone. And like I said,
even if the future is reliever, he could maybe be a good one.
Interesting, I didn't watch any O Weston, so I'll have to throw
him on and check out the breaker. He does very much feel kind of
like in between to me as far as like is this a reliever or is
this a starter, because I think there's traits that go both ways that I
imagine the Orioles will continue to explore and see where he ends up. They
certainly need the pitching help, so hopefully some of these guys turn into something
because they seem allergic to actually spending money on pitching. And so there you
go. Baside, Jeff, there's a Michigan Wolverine for you. That might
be good. Well for my arm, I'm going to go back to the
SEC and take Trace Bright from Auburn. Bright had a little bit of helium.
I think, you know, maybe before his draft year he was getting
talked a little bit about and he had a really nice stretch of starts in
the middle to late ish this season I think, where he had something like
twenty seven strikeouts over three outings, So it was like twenty seven strikeouts in
like fifteen or fourteen innings or something, so pretty impressive. So he's sort
of like a more polished college arm who's moving relatively quickly through the system and
had a good year overall, especially you know, didn't quite throw one hundred
innings, but started twenty one games, struck out almost thirty four percent of
batters he faced. Spent most of the year at high A, but did
get what was this his last four he has last four games were in double
A in Buis, and he really did pretty well at both spots. Maybe
a few too many walks when he was at Hi A, you know,
certainly more than I like to see up around that twelve percent range that I've
said before is a bit of a danger zone, but dropped the walks a
little bit at double A, although he was getting a fair bit fewer swinging
strikes just ten percent swinging strikes at double A, which is again not great,
and I think that is partly where I watched most of his Double A
starts, and that's sort of where my tempering of my enthusiasm went. You
know, he was on my little longer list of guys to evaluate for our
picture draft, but I kind of ruled him out pretty early because after watching
him a bunch I just wanted to round down on everything that he had.
He's ninety to ninety five on the fastball, which I'd seen a report before
that it was like an interesting pitch or a plus pitch or something, but
I don't really think it is. He didn't seem like he was getting a
lot of whiffs with the fastball, and he seemed like he located it.
Okay, he was trying to pitch at the top of the zone, but
he still wasn't getting that many whiffs. Looked like a lot of his whiffs
were on a pretty big, breaking seventy five to seventy eight mile an hour
curveball. And then he throws a harder, kind of cuttery slider. I
couldn't tell whether it was a cutter or a slider, but it was a
kind of slider shape, but I think a little bit firmer, maybe not
quite as much movement or break. But I didn't love the command with that
one. He seemed to miss arm side on that a lot, which is
bad, Like you don't want to miss armside with a cutter. And then
an occasional change which he also would miss arm side some. It just seemed
like he didn't his command wasn't tight for those secondaries, and he was pretty
decent landing his curveball and his fastball for strikes. But since his curveball to
me was his best pitch, that gives me pause. You know how a
lot of people they see a change up first guy and they're worried about how
that plays. For me, I feel like that's a curveball if you're I
feel like a good curveball. A decent curveball can hide a lot of other
stuff in the minor leagues, but that seems to get hit quite a bit
more once you get to the big leagues, unless it's a real, like
sharp kind of hammer curveball. Bright gave me those kind of vibes. So
even though he struck out quite a lot of batters this year and the walks
seem to be trending in the right direction, I feel worried about how the
profile is going to play because all the things kind of put together command middling
round down on the fastball, round down on the cutter slider, and then
the only plus pitch here is probably the curveball. I don't know. I
wasn't blown away, and I think that he's a guy that might struggle a
bit more as he goes up the ladder and then he gets to the big
lee level and all that said, I still like him. He was definitely
a guy that interested in for our picture draft, and some of the projection
system seems to like him okay as well, so it'll be interesting to see
if he sharpens some things up this year. But yeah, trace Bright interesting
without a ringing endorsement. I see him on some lists. I think only
one percent owned, so you know, yeah, squarely within our B side
Muddon territory. I felt there were a couple other interesting bats here, and
I'm not going to say this. Anita Mordan is a catcher first base who
got a little bit of a ball run like I don't know how many of
his aid home runs were in a ball were all of them? But just
he's just got kind of an interesting profile. I want to watch some more
of a short leverage swing. I liked him, Yeah, okay, right
on. I kind of thought you would go with Billy Cook, to be
honest, but maybe maybe it don't walk enough for you or something. But
Cook going Billy Cook. I'm going Billy Cook. Oh yeah, yeah,
okay, all right, did you watch any Maxwell Costas. Yeah, yeah,
he's kind of interesting, undrafted guy from Maryland. It's tough though.
Maybe this is silly of me, but if if we are playing sort of
the game within the game here, it's kind of tough for me to get
on board with some of the guys in the uppers here, just because there's
so much talent at the top here. Yeah, that, even though I
may really like Billy Cook or a hitter in the uppers, for them,
it's like other dynasty owner is going to be into it when playing time seems
very dicey, you know, No, agreed, And they're major league team,
very very good for not a hundred win team like they were this year
and they way overperformed on their pipeg and everything, but still a very very
good team, very young. And then the top of their like their pretty
boys are awesome, like definitely and maybe the lowest person on Jackson Holiday.
And I still think that guy's going to be a star. I just don't
think he's like the next coming of you know, Fantasy Superstar greatness. I
think he's gonna be a very very good major league player, you know,
all star multiple time. I feel pretty confident about that. I just worry
about his you know, sort of top three round fantasy impact that some folks
seem to think is just an absolute lock. But yeah, Kobe Mayo,
Samuel Bissalo, like those guys can absolutely rake and are gonna be phenomenal big
leaders as well. I mean when you're talking about like Connor Norby, Hessen
Kirstad, Joey Ortiz, Colton Kowser as like the guys on the outside looking
in on their starting rotation are starting lineup, like especially their hitters are just
man, there are interesting guys up and down this system, and that did
make it a little bit hard to pick a B sider because all those guys
are popular and worthily, so you know they definitely deserve it. But going
Billy Cook here, and you know, I'll talk about Billy Cook, but
there's also like five other names that I also like in other organizations would be
my no doubt best side picks. John Rhodes. I think he's a guy
we've talked about once or twice before. I've been interested in him for a
couple of years, and he had a solid year this year, just like
slowly sort of progressing to the ORG and pretty solid. Her Naves was a
guy who like just couldn't even Yeah, I know, these solid potential,
everyday big leader, I think, yeah, yeah, and then guys like
Max Wagner had a solid year, Frederick ben Cosmy like super interesting, just
a weird kind of profile guy, super skinny, makes a lot of contact,
feels bags, but doesn't do anything else. You know. Yeah,
they're almost like a lot of Dynasty owners that I play with, Like,
cool man, you're loaded up with all these bats, but like, uh,
what are you going to do on the other hand, Yeah, yeah,
a little bit tough for going on the other side, I thought,
But just so many interesting games. And then there's maybe the FYPD guy that
you're referencing. They have like three that I'm really into, which again is
like they're doing something pretty impressive on the hitting side of things with their minor
league system. It's just like, I'm honestly baffled why they haven't traded for
more of this depth because they just have such a surplus and the logjam is
coming in the big league level. Oriol fans out there, if this turns
into some sort of Dynasty esque championship team, I will give it to you.
I will accept it. I just want like one huge, pinch hit
home run like Creed Willems in some playoff or something, because I think that
would be so much fun. I think we'll be waiting a long time for
that, and honestly for Billy Cook too. Like so Billy Cook is is
my b side guy here. He had a really solid year, not outstanding
by any means. One hundred and ten WRC plus on the year, five
hundred plate appearances, twenty four homers, thirty steals, walked eight point four
percent of the time, struck out twenty five percent of the time. Good
overall line. Good for a two fifty one three twenty four fifty six.
He's mostly an outfield. Everybody has played some second base, so I did
like the positional flexibility. I really liked his setup an approach to the plate.
He has really still quiet hands, which I like, and when there's
not a lot of moving parts, it seems like he's going to be fairly
consistent, even if the upside is certainly not close to a lot of the
other guys in this system. And then the thirty bags. Like, he's
an athlete, He's a really good athlete, has some power, has some
speed, and especially for you know, a categories focus league like this kind
of guy is the kind that I am often drawn to sort of across the
board category production like those kinds of guys I think are really interesting, and
then you have your smattering of specialists that you roll in there. But yeah,
Billy Cook, I just liked the overall shape of the production. This
isn't a star. He's really probably not going to ever get much playing time
with Baltimore, but there are lots of other ways that that can go,
whether it's Rule five, whether he gets traded out again. He's just sort
of an under the radar name to keep an eye on when he I think
inevitably makes the big leagues somewhere else. So, yeah, Billy Cook up
to Double A this year, spent the whole year actually in Double A.
So he'll be twenty four season yep. And it's on the back of fifteen
to twenty five season last year, so it's not out of the question.
And you know, Pat tipping again to him being a pretty good athlete.
This isn't just him being a smart based stealer, but thirty steels all only
three caught stealing this year. Last year was twenty five and four. That
kind of ratio says like he probably could steal even more. So again,
good athlete here, and a nice fine. And the other thing too,
was this year his strikeouts he cut by six percent and walked more than he
ever has in his career, so like it looks like he's optimizing his plate
approach to as he continues to do the things that he does well. So
yeah, Billy Cook is interesting guy. Yeah yeah, Yeah, Iso over
too, huh yeah. And the other reason that I liked him is his
babbeb was pretty low. So he was a two ninety eight babbit guy last
year and then a two ninety babbit guy this year. And some of that
is the shape of his swings, Like he hits a lot of fly balls,
so forty five forty seven percent fly ball rate, thirty two percent ground
ball rate, and that's a lower babeb kind of production. But it does
mean that if he spikes a year where he's hitting twenty four percent line drives
and forty percent fly balls like that, Babeb's going to tick up. And
I think that there's going to be a lot more doubles to go along with
a decent number of homers. So yeah, Billy Cook, interesting dude,
interesting, interesting guy to followup. He had a little AFL run as well.
I think I think he did some things down there. Tampa Bay Rays
always truck full of interesting players in my opinion, even down you know,
down here in the mud. Last season, pitching wise went with Ben People's
Now, I had expressed that I like in a long term, real serious
sense. I didn't think I was too too interested, but I felt that
he kind of had the sort of one loud weapon that the Rays like to,
you know, get the most out out of them, move along,
and he had a I think he had a pretty decent season. Twenty two
starts in High A as a twenty two year old eighty four and a third
inning four point zero six ERA a whip that was a little a little high
at one point four to three, but he did strike out ten for nine
walks for not the greatest at four point eight, but he did have some
really nice outings, some really big lines. You put up some numbers in
the Rays system as a pitcher, you're going to get some attention. So
maybe a guy who's still a little sneaky under the radar some extent We've had
some success with the bats too here in the past. Oslaves Psave was our
original B side selection, and he made the major leagues this year. I'm
not expecting any sort of like or a lot of impact with the bat,
but I do think he's a good hitter. There's probably a lot of ways
that the Rays can go, and I don't know where he fits in with
all of it, but I think he's got a chance that if he produces,
he could stick around. We went with Brett Wisely in the past,
who was obviously traded to the Giants, but he made the big leagues as
well. Not that I believe he's going to be some huge star, but
I do think that he's better than his major league performance last year. Be
better. Just a guy who good athlete who can kind of do it all.
He just has to stop striking out all the time. I don't know
if he was really ready, to be honest, went from a two way
player to exclusively a hitter, and in what and then two and a half
seasons went got all the way up to the big leagues like and then this
season for the bat, I took I took Ryan Sermac number one overall on
our in our hitter drafts. Yeah, what do you got for a bat
this year, Matt? There are a lot of good B side options here,
I do believe. I looked at Drew Baker a bit. I liked
the light power, but some power, batch of deals with a decent played
approach outfielder made it up to double A this year. Even liked a little
bit of what Ronnie Simon did this year at triple A kind of utility infielder
that you know, ninety five wrsc pluses but thirty one steals playing all around
the feel like again, there's some utility in keeping tabs on those kinds of
guys. Tristan Peters had an interesting season where he ended up in Double A.
Another outfielder, a little bit of power, a little bit of speed.
Yeah that's who they That's who they got in the Wisely trade. Oh
that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah Peters. I liked him, But
I'm going with someone that it sort of fits what you were saying of like
a one tool guy. Do you know, do you know who it is?
One tool guy? This one sackisaki no no similar though, so it's
stolen bases is a stolen basis or walking a bunch. Chandler Simpson second in
the minors in steals this year, just behind Victor Scott. Wait wait wait,
how tall is he? He's tall. He's he's a like tall skinny
guy. Okay, all right, yeah, six two six two, one
seventy and I kind of believe that, like he's he's skinny, six seventy,
ninety four steals this year, no homers, so unlike Victor Scott,
who you know, is a top one hundred prospect I think a lot of
places, and rightfully so, especially for fantasy, who had ninety five steals
and like ten or twelve homers or something. So he has, you know,
some power. Chandler Simpson. No power, There's there's none here.
The ISO on the year was point five to oh or something five to two.
It's I mean, he has just no pop at all. It is
a really goofy swing. You watch him and you're like, what are you
doing? But he's so fast, dude. I just like watching him is
really fun. He's just a totally different kind of player than lots of other
guys. Does he bunt? He bunts, He like shoots balls in the
gap and and just runs and runs, and runs. The reason you probably
don't have him on your list is he was at three three percent when I
pulled this, and and so it was like a little a little high,
and so a lot of the other guys that we talked about were lower than
that. But Chandler Simpson, I just couldn't pass up the like the one
tool star who just I think just isn't getting love anywhere else because the swing
is so goofy and there's he is never going to hit home runs, like
he might not hit two in a season ever, but the speed is absolutely
real. And so you know, focusing on a category, its like like
this is a guy who I'm never interested in in any of like my power
focused points leagues, but I couldn't help but pick him just because he is
so fast. I got him eleven one on a triple O this year for
context, the fastest in the major leagues and a triple this year, I
think was was like Ellie at eleven oh five and Corbyn Carroll was right behind
him at eleven oh six. Something that you know, again, I'm not
stat casting this. I was like me timing on my phone watchson, but
it was like eleven one eleven two like it right in there. That is
lightning fast around around the bases. And the other fun thing about him is
he's got no power, but he doesn't k He like eight point seven percent
strikeout right on the year, which I think is really important for a guy
like this because if he just puts the ball in play, it puts so
much pressure on the defense. And when he does find holes, that's a
double, that's a triple. So it's I normally really right off guys whose
ISO is is below one hundred, and his is way below one hundred,
and it's deserved. It's not like he was getting unlucky. It's just like
this is his swing. But the speed is truly a top of the scale
tool. And then the contact skills are good good to very good. So
Jaylor Simpson, I think that this is one of the more interesting one tool
players in the minor leagues. And and you may you might even call it
two tools because like I said, the contact skills are are solid, and
you know, he hit two ninety three this year and seems reasonable for him
to keep doing it, especially in the minor league. So he's just going
to keep hitting the ball in the ground, finding holes and running. I
mean, I kind of decided that I was going to go with Cermak pretty
early on. But I have here too as far as upper miners, Blake
Hunt, Bob Seymour, Kenny, Piper Tanner, Murray thought, we're all
very viable B side selections, and then in the Lowers Blake Robertson and then
at the time was Shane's Sasaki, But I think he's gone up. He
was at two percent. Then I'm sure he's gone up now after the AFL,
but when I pulled in, I think he was. He was still
at three percent or something. But again, like and honestly, I probably
wasn't as interested in him as as those other guys. I have a feeling
this season, Matt, that we will be talking to about a good slew
of Tampa Bay ray Bats when we're looking at guys who are not rostered at
a high rate and doing some things offensively arms, I think, again,
there were some good options. I was I was probably gonna go with Logan
Workmen. He kind of you kind of got buzz in the a f L,
and I don't know if he's really B side esque, But I watched
this Roel Garcia, who was in hi Ah Duncan David a little bit who
was in High A two felt a little too raised plastically for me. And
they're older in High A. Not that that's a huge deal now. I
know Trevor Martin is on some lists. Drake Christiansen, He's not on the
list. But here's another interesting guy in a ball. And then Anthony Molina,
who I think the Rockies just picked in the Rule five draft if I'm
not mistaken, Yeah, yeah, he was in Triple A. I kind
of decided against him because I feel like he was probably a relief pitcher and
I think that's probably the plan for the Rockies here. Yep. So I
actually ended up going. And this is very very much because of the system
that he is in. But Gary gil Hill, who was a sixth round
twenty twenty two selection of Theirs out of New York Prep selection. He's only
nineteen years old, and there was again this is another very small sample size
for me. He logged three and two thirds A ball innings after a late
August move off the complex, and all of those reviewable. He's listed at
six y two one sixty. He is lean, you know, hard to
tell, but I was kind of surprised that they had him listed at six
' two. I didn't think he was that tall. Maybe he is,
but the innings is a it's a sharp fastball slider combination. Fastball I think
was getting up to ninety six and the slider looks like yes, sorry,
So fastball was like ninety four ninety five I think maybe ticked up to ninety
six. But the slider I feel like could maybe turn into a special pitch,
especially with the Rays, who are going to get this probably two pitch
attack, probably as sharp as it possibly can be get it in the lab
and tuned up. And not that I have like real true dynasty interest in
Hill, but I do feel like this is a guy who is going to
rack up a bunch of k's be in the Rays system and get a lot
of attention. I know that might be a silly bet to put on a
nineteen year old that you've barely seen any of You're nothing if not bold made.
I love it. It feels like this feels like prime Rays clay to
me that they're going to sharpen into their one of their like little plastic pieces
here with a big weapon. Maybe I mean power to you for getting excited
about a nineteen year old in a ball with the twenty k RA and five
to five e RA. Well, Gary Gil Hill. I always like learning
about new players, so that is always fun, you know. I mean,
what what was the sign what was his signing bonus? It was fairly
high in the sixth round. Oh really, I just yeah, I just
feel like they well, you know, he's you know, maybe he maybe
he could fill out, get a little stronger. I don't know all that
stuff, but I don't know. I'm gonna make I'm making a wild bet
that Hill racks up a bunch of k's in a ball next year and gets
gets noise. But again, not a guy that I would like seriously be,
you know, wanting to roster right now. But maybe just a little
watch put a tab on Hill and see how his k's looking a ball next
year. I was drawn to their A ball arms as well. I watched
a bit of Trevor Martin and Marcus Johnson. I think both sort of interesting
for different reasons, but they're like this is you know how I was saying
about Logan Henderson the other week and talking earlier today about Trace Bright like guys
and lazarro astrata like guys that are at a ball low a they're so far
away, so unless they're just absolutely dominating, it's really hard to be like
it's super excited about what they're gonna do. And so that's why Martin and
Johnson for me, I both were sort of interesting, but after watching him,
I was like, I need to see this work at higher levels.
And none of the other kind of b side esques starting pitchers really jumped out
to me. Again, I'm very sure that some of the guys that I
passed over the Rays are somehow we're going to turn into a good one hundred
inning pitch starter. They're gonna find someone. I'm just not I couldn't figure
out which one it is. And actually Logan Workmen might be the pick.
Like I did watch a little bit of him, but didn't come back to
it, and maybe that was a mistake because he did some things that I
liked and what you were saying, yeah, yeah, he's got some plus
weapons and just generically speaking, it's an okay picture uses them all right,
I think. Yeah, Santiago Suarez was like that too, you know,
he's again member that a ball rotation, and I did end up watching quite
a few of those games, just because I was like, oh, well,
this guy's interesting, and this guy's interesting another super low walk okay,
strikeout kind of guy. So I think that trio is of interest for me.
As they rise in Trevor Martin, Marcus Johnson, and Santiago Suarez,
and then again Logan Workman, I might dive into him a bit more.
I do think Workman's got like I think they say, he's got a pretty
like kind of highbrow designer fastball if you will, Okay, okay, Yeah,
the guy that I wanted to which he kind of really checks out with
the race. Yeah, totally the guy that I wanted to pick and talk
about for my official piece. I'd here is another reliever. So I'm not
super excited about it. But as you were describing Gil Hill, mister Gilhill,
which I can't believe that's his name, Gil Hill. What we need
to discover the story behind it's Gary gil Hill. So is it Gary gil
It's last name Hill or Gary Gary, Gary gil Hill, no hyphen nothing,
just Gary gil Hill. I don't know Gary gil all right. I
still want to know the story behind that name. But I'm going to go
with Keishan Askew rostered had a really good year, but is a reliever.
I mean, he started nine games this year, but and through almost one
hundred innings ninety seven innings this year. But I just feel pretty sure he's
going to be a reliever. And maybe in sort of that like Jalen Beaks
mold that the Rays have done before, of like a guy who can go
multiple innings, they might use as an opener, they might use as a
follower, maybe with a little bit of volume behind it because they have let
him stretch out a little bit. Mister Askew has a wicked slider, and
you want to talk about movement profile, like this thing from the left side,
it just dives across the plate, and I think he gets a decent
amount of depth for being a sweeper. For like being a sweeper esque slider.
I think it also crosses the zone a lot, but I think it
also has a little bit of bite to it at times. And whether that's
him manipulating it or he just has a little more depth to his sweeper,
I'm not sure. But it is a very very good pitch. He struck
out thirty one percent of batters face this year and walked eleven percent, a
little high for me, and I think it's largely because his slider moves a
ton and his other secondary is a changeup that it really doesn't seem like he
knows where it's going. Like I saw a smattering of strikes with it,
but I wouldn't be surprised if his strike percentage with his changeup is below fifty
percent. Again, anecdotally from the starts that I watched, it was the
he missed with that one a lot. But his fastball is good, you
know, it's a ninety one to three with sync and from a kind of
low short arm action slot. He seems again to me, like a pretty
high probability big leaguer and just maybe in that swingman role that they've relied on
from a lot of their a lot of their starters, and with the way
that the Rays chew through their starting pitchers, end up needing this kind of
guy a lot, And so that's why I kind of went with him.
He made it up to double A this year and was pretty good there as
well, so he's not far away. That's sort of what broke the tie
for me between a skew and trying to decide between Martin and Johnson and Suarez.
So Kishanasku super interesting guy. Think he's going to be a reliever,
but maybe more interesting than most relievers, just because of the way that rais.
The Rays tend to deploy this kind of arm. I like when you
talk about some pictures I haven't watched, so I'm always always down for some
new arms to watch. That's the Al East, that's the al least,
don't you think though, it's a You get out to these Eastern divisions and
I like just the prospects are more popular. Yeah, but we had lots
of guys to talk about in Baltimore. I mean, their hitters there was
deep and I am really excited about the two guys that I talked about in
Toronto. I know that I tend to agree with you. The rest of
that system is a little bit shallower. You know, a couple of decent
guys up top, a couple of interesting names, and then it's not a
lot there. Next week it will be our last division installment, right,
we got the n Allis. It's been a few months of this. Huh
Yeah, so many names, so many names. We're probably gonna have like
at least mentioned five hundred names, four hundred. Yeah, we've got to
We've got to hit on one of them. Matt. I know, I'm
kind of feeling down today just with the Rule five and not none of our
none of our guys got popped, you know. Yeah, it's not everything
right, you know, like, but it is a nice little feather in
your cap if you get one Rule five guy, you think, uh,
Devis Davison, Dela Santos will uh, I think I'll do anything this year.
I don't know. Our buddy Don really likes him, and he sounds
really in the losers. I know he does like Luis Matos, so I've
heard. I've heard that. Yeah, I'm just giving down hard the time.
I really don't have a problem with those players did less. You know
what, he missed a little bit of time this year, and I think
some of that that it was hypothesized that it was for developmental reasons, like
they wanted him to work on a swing, and then he came back after
that and was better and hit better and the power is legit. I just
think his swing decisions are so bad, like he chases so much, and
while he's got power, it's almost like he's giving away so many at bats
that he can't let the power flourish. So while I like him and Jock
Hessey, Noel too very similar in a lot of ways, like young a
ton of power, have yet to really put it all together. And it's
interesting they're both in the same organization. Now they might, you know,
compete with each other for spots, but Cleveland's they're not dumb, and I
think they know that they need more power in their organization. Like they've got
three hitters on their Major League forty man they have any power at all,
that's it. And and like even they're good prospects, they've got two that
might have average power, which in Cleveland system looks like wow, those are
the big homer bats and Manzarto and the latter. But other than that,
like they've got no thump in that lineup, other than Jose Ramirez and the
Naylor brothers. So that's why, Like, if I'm a Guardians fan,
I'm sitting here and like, why do we have why do we have Juan
Brido sitting in a j Well Nolan Jones is I don't know, Yeah,
that is an interesting one. And I like Juan Brido and I like a
lot of them guys. But I wonder if getting ddls and seeing if he
can be a low OBP, high slug kind of first base DH right handed
power bat you know, might be in the mix. What do you think
his major league strikeout percentages this season next year? Yeah, above thirty percent
for sure. I'm gonna go thirty second because he Yeah, I'm not going
to disagree with you. I mean, he was like above thirty even after
he improved and had a little time off. Like that's and a lot of
that I think is from the chase in zone contact numbers off the top of
my head for him. But I remember looking into him after talking about him
with Don one time, and I was like, yeah, that power seems
interesting. He does seem like some things have changed, quieted up his stance
a little bit, and I thought it looked better. But he still is
just swinging at everything out of the zone, especially breaking balls, Like he
just whiffs at so many sliders. That's a hard thing to change. So
if he can get a little bit more selective and actually hunt those pitches like
he he's got a ton of pop and it's young enough that maybe he can
still make that change. All right, So that'll do it for episode fifteen
of the Prospect. Besides, we'll let Chicago Farmer take us out. D
Well, we'll talk to you next time. Adios for miles an hour.
Riding to his head, he hopped down first with the lumpbon in his face,
and on the very next pitch he up and stole second face with greatst
speed. He wasn't born, but he had the dirdy Yes uniform.