Speaker 1: Ninety five miles.
Speaker 2: An hour, riding too his head. He hop it down
Speaker 2: first with the lumpbonius face, and on the very next
Speaker 2: pitch he up and stole second phase.
Speaker 3: With gradest be he wasn't born, he had the yes univonn.
Speaker 4: Well, thanks for joining us Prospect B Sides Podcast. This
Speaker 4: is episode forty three where Matt and I will continue
Speaker 4: our what six part series, going division by division, picking
Speaker 4: out some of our favorite zero to one maybe two
Speaker 4: percent rostered and fan tracks prospects we maybe like as
Speaker 4: gaining some more Dynasty utility in twenty twenty five. Tonight
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about aos selections and I'm looking
Speaker 4: forward to it because it's been a week man, and
Speaker 4: I'm just looking forward to talking some ball. Rook. How
Speaker 4: are you.
Speaker 1: I'm great, Nate. You know, it's always a good time
Speaker 1: to talk baseball. I feel like none better than today.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is what everybody's waiting for, is
Speaker 1: this analysis about als B side prospects.
Speaker 4: Probably I can't think of.
Speaker 1: Anything else happening in the world. Frankly, that's more important
Speaker 1: than this on November sixth, So you know, we're just
Speaker 1: giving the people what they need, what they want so,
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to be here and always bumped to talk
Speaker 1: to you, buddy.
Speaker 4: It was a day. I'm getting pounded with snow. As
Speaker 4: I told you before, I ate shit the other day
Speaker 4: on my driveway twice. I am feeling very beat up,
Speaker 4: but I'm going to power through here.
Speaker 1: Any housekeeping stuff, I mean, I know you've been watching
Speaker 1: some AFL, any any like things at the at the
Speaker 1: top you want to hit on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been watching some AFL, but I don't know
Speaker 4: if there's anything like super outstanding noteworthy. Catching My attention
Speaker 4: was almost over right. It's like, yeah, there after tonight,
Speaker 4: there are five games left. I'm just trying to hang
Speaker 4: on to my lead in the AFL. Rodo.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you your Caleb Durbin number
Speaker 1: two overall pick is paying massive dividends. Are you going
Speaker 1: to win the whole thing?
Speaker 4: It is? Going into tonight, I had a ten point
Speaker 4: lead a lse it can change quickly though.
Speaker 1: A month one is just like three starters, right.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, one of your bats has a monster night
Speaker 4: that can bump you up quite a bit. But I
Speaker 4: think my bats did well tonight, so I may have
Speaker 4: found my most successful format the AFL road a line,
Speaker 4: big Bucks, who do you want to talk about first?
Speaker 1: Here, you know, in the interest of dealing with fandom
Speaker 1: and kind of getting the shitty stuff out of the
Speaker 1: way first, Like, let's start with Houston. Let's start the
Speaker 1: Houston trash can bang and astros.
Speaker 4: All right, Well, my arm, I don't think it's going
Speaker 4: to be any surprise to you at least or anyone
Speaker 4: in the dynasty dugout discord, But I.
Speaker 1: Think I wrote this one down like months ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is Houston.
Speaker 4: Arm, no brainer for me. But I'm going with Ryan Gusto. Gusto.
Speaker 4: I've heard it pronounce both ways on broadcasts as members
Speaker 4: of that chat. Well know, I'm quite fond of him,
Speaker 4: and maybe kind of lucked out because I wasn't going
Speaker 4: to pick anyone who had debuted already in the majors,
Speaker 4: and he was actually scheduled to make his debut their
Speaker 4: last game of the season, which got canceled. Maybe a
Speaker 4: bit of a technicality there, but he was still in
Speaker 4: September only rostered in one percent of fan tracks leads,
Speaker 4: so still within our constraints. Here's a twenty five year
Speaker 4: old right hander listed at six ' four. He was
Speaker 4: an eleventh round pick in twenty nineteen out of a
Speaker 4: junior college in Florida, And Matt, you read that little
Speaker 4: piece that that was shared right on him. Yep, it's
Speaker 4: kind of a fun story. He didn't make his high
Speaker 4: school team, tried out for like this juco school and
Speaker 4: they want him and didn't realize. I don't think that
Speaker 4: he didn't wasn't on his high school team. And the
Speaker 4: gist of the story, in my take a way of
Speaker 4: that piece, which was awesome, is that this is a.
Speaker 1: Guy seriously, we should we should find that and share
Speaker 1: that because that piece was so cool. Honestly, one of
Speaker 1: the coolest stories of the year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, this is a guy who just I don't know,
Speaker 4: just that's not himself and tells coaches what he's gonna
Speaker 4: do and hops along and makes them take them and
Speaker 4: he has had success and this season was phenomenal in
Speaker 4: a few different aspects. I think, Matt, like, I don't
Speaker 4: know if I've seen a player have quite a turnaround
Speaker 4: at least production wise, as Gusto did in the PCL
Speaker 4: like Man his first eleven starts, he went forty in
Speaker 4: a thirty had era over eight, a whip over two,
Speaker 4: striking out twenty one percent, walking thirteen percent, throwing strikes
Speaker 4: sixty one and a half percent of the time, and
Speaker 4: then his last eighteen starts he goes one hundred and
Speaker 4: eight innings with a two point zero eight eer, a
Speaker 4: point nine to five whip, a twenty three k percentage,
Speaker 4: and cut his walks in over half at six point
Speaker 4: four percent, throwing strikes at almost seventy percent. What he
Speaker 4: finished the season with six fqos in his last eighteen
Speaker 4: starts at a run, Yeah, mind you again in the PCL.
Speaker 4: So I didn't really start paying attention to him until
Speaker 4: I don't maybe one or two starts into that run,
Speaker 4: and then I kind of watched him pretty religiously because
Speaker 4: I was just kind of hooked on what was going
Speaker 4: on here, and I just generically said, he's turned himself
Speaker 4: into a pretty good picture, the type that I think
Speaker 4: you and I like just kind of a lot of
Speaker 4: offerings mixes it up well, all that sort of thing, right.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's any offering that is off the
Speaker 4: charts stuff wise. He's got a fastball that's like ninety
Speaker 4: one ninety two, a curveball that comes in like the
Speaker 4: high seventies. Velocity wise, he's got a slider, a cutter,
Speaker 4: and a splitter. I think attack is maybe a bit
Speaker 4: more north south than east west. He's got some interesting splits.
Speaker 4: He's a little tougher on righties as a right hander,
Speaker 4: and he was lefties. But I was curious that, like
Speaker 4: what may have changed from it. It was literally the
Speaker 4: cand turned to June and then he was just like
Speaker 4: kind of a completely different pitcher, you know, production wise,
Speaker 4: and so you know, him being in Triple A all year,
Speaker 4: you get you know, all the Savant stuff. So I
Speaker 4: was just curious what is usage and offerings might have
Speaker 4: kind of looked like. And the last eighteen starts, he
Speaker 4: actually his fastball was like a tick slower. The biggest
Speaker 4: change that I can see, just like usage wise, as
Speaker 4: he threw his cutter a lot when those first eleven
Speaker 4: starts and then started throwing the slider a lot more
Speaker 4: during his hot stretch. Like as far as spin rates
Speaker 4: and velocity and like the kind of shape stuff that
Speaker 4: you can look at on Savant, I don't think anything
Speaker 4: really changed with his arsenal. Maybe a little bit of
Speaker 4: different usage obviously probably had a role in some of
Speaker 4: his success. The main thing was he just started pounding
Speaker 4: the strike zone more and then that worked. You know,
Speaker 4: he turned into a little bit more of a bowl
Speaker 4: than a matador. And you know, anyone who's gonna get
Speaker 4: starting pitching chance with the Astros will just like kind
Speaker 4: of automatic get my attention. And I don't know how
Speaker 4: good he might be in the majors, but at this
Speaker 4: raster percentage in a deeper league or what have you,
Speaker 4: I think it's a no brainer that you raster this guy.
Speaker 4: If you got a spot, I think you could do
Speaker 4: much worse with a roster spot than Ryan Gustau.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if for the story alone, and we'll find that
Speaker 1: and I'll make Nate share it on the Twitter verse.
Speaker 1: Gusto definitely is that kind of some of all of
Speaker 1: the parts kind of pitcher. I don't really feel like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of latent upside. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: like we're going to see we should expect a tick
Speaker 1: or two of velocity. It's not like there's one pitch
Speaker 1: that he needs to feature more. He knows how to pitch.
Speaker 1: He knows how to do his thing, and his success
Speaker 1: this year was super cool, especially that run to end
Speaker 1: the year. We were both pretty excited about that possible
Speaker 1: debut in the last day of the season.
Speaker 4: Reading that article. The intangible stuff like just having some
Speaker 4: stones and having confidence, and I think he's got all
Speaker 4: that sort of stuff in spades, and I'm always on
Speaker 4: board with guys like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, definitely. Okay, Well, my guy, you know, doesn't
Speaker 1: have quite as cool as story my arm here, I'm
Speaker 1: going with Ethan Peco. Ethan Pecko. Did you get you
Speaker 1: get a chance to watch Peco much?
Speaker 4: Yep?
Speaker 1: Mister Pecko is a college writing. It's a bit of
Speaker 1: a theme for me. It seems to be the demographic
Speaker 1: I leaned towards in this exercise a bit more. He
Speaker 1: was out of Towson, kind of smaller school, didn't pitch
Speaker 1: a ton his first couple of seasons, think due to
Speaker 1: injury and ineffectiveness, but was their best starter down the
Speaker 1: stretch in his draft season in twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 1: Astros drafted him kind of late. I think, oh, no,
Speaker 1: six rounds, so you know, mid rounds. Like, still got
Speaker 1: a decent, decent signing bonus, and pitched a little bit
Speaker 1: last year in pro ball, but it was, you know,
Speaker 1: small samples, just fifteen innings, after the draft of solid
Speaker 1: work but nothing calcular, and this year he showed kind
Speaker 1: of what you expect a college arm with some pitch
Speaker 1: ability to do. He really dominated a ball and punched
Speaker 1: out a bunch of guys, kept the walks in check,
Speaker 1: kept the homers in check, kept the babbitb in check.
Speaker 1: Across forty six and two thirds innings in a ball
Speaker 1: he ran a two seventy nine fifth with almost forty
Speaker 1: six percent ground ball rate and a really healthy thirty
Speaker 1: three percent strikeout rate to ten percent walk rate, so
Speaker 1: you know, really good came iOS BB and was obviously
Speaker 1: more talented than the pitcher than the hitters early in
Speaker 1: the season. He got bumped mid season up to High
Speaker 1: A and things on the surface didn't go as well,
Speaker 1: but the strikeouts continued to be strong. He actually walked
Speaker 1: fewer batters and so his k iOS BB actually went up,
Speaker 1: which you always liked to see. He got hit a
Speaker 1: little bit harder. The babbit was almost four hundred, so,
Speaker 1: like his era, was really bad seven point one point
Speaker 1: five in twenty two and two thirds innings at HIGA,
Speaker 1: and he gave up some home runs, which again in
Speaker 1: that kind of a sample, I'm inclined to say, like,
Speaker 1: that's kind of unfortunate. It's probably just a luck thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think anything about his arsenal has suggested that
Speaker 1: he is definitely more homer prone or not. So to me,
Speaker 1: that was a blip that makes him a buying opportunity
Speaker 1: because then he got promoted again to double A and
Speaker 1: closed the year out really strong, twenty six and two
Speaker 1: thirds innings, doing the thing that the Astros tend to do.
Speaker 1: He did some piggybacking. His outings were a little bit
Speaker 1: shorter again because I think they were trying to manage
Speaker 1: his innings, but he still struck out twenty seven percent
Speaker 1: of batters, only walked eight percent of batters, and that's
Speaker 1: really solid. Like, that's a very very good double A line,
Speaker 1: even if the talent level might have been a little
Speaker 1: bit down at the end of the season when he
Speaker 1: was there and the outings were shorter. I really like
Speaker 1: what Piccos got again part of this Astro pitching development,
Speaker 1: which really do a good job getting a lot out
Speaker 1: of their pitchers, even there unheralded mid major types. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I like him is kind of
Speaker 1: like Gusto, he has a ton of pitches in various outings.
Speaker 1: I counted six different pitches, a four seamer, a two seamer,
Speaker 1: a slider, a cutter, a change, and a curve. Now
Speaker 1: he'll dial them up and down depending on the handedness
Speaker 1: of the batter or even the outing. Like some outings,
Speaker 1: I didn't really see that many two seams at all.
Speaker 1: Others I saw quite a few. Again, his slider and
Speaker 1: his cutter. I think maybe those blend at times, but
Speaker 1: I saw enough that I thought there was a distinction there,
Speaker 1: and I'm interested to see if he keeps the command
Speaker 1: tight with like that many pitches at deep of a repertoire.
Speaker 1: Sometimes what happens is they're all kind of fringy, and
Speaker 1: or he loses command of some, and then he might
Speaker 1: be prone to some blow ups. I saw enough that
Speaker 1: I thought his command was gonna or at least the
Speaker 1: control was going to be good enough to help him
Speaker 1: not get into too many of those tough spots. And
Speaker 1: maybe that's what he showed at Hia a bit, was
Speaker 1: that those kind of blow ups can happen to him.
Speaker 1: So maybe that's the downside version. But you can do
Speaker 1: worse than kind of prototypical six to two hundred pounds
Speaker 1: starter who's twenty three next year and going to probably
Speaker 1: start the year in a double a rotation for Astros
Speaker 1: rotation that I think they're going to have some open slots.
Speaker 1: So I like Ethan Peco for a deeply target here,
Speaker 1: and I really do think that he's a pitch ability
Speaker 1: guy in not a derogatory sense, right, Like there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of clay to mold here.
Speaker 4: No, I think that's a great B side choice here.
Speaker 4: I think the Astros are always chuck full with solid,
Speaker 4: unpopular pitching prospects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I had like four that I liked
Speaker 1: last year, and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, even right now, when I looked in September,
Speaker 4: their most rastern pitching prospect was only at eight percent.
Speaker 1: Aj Bluebell that blue Blah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And then then three percent, three percent, two percent, two percent,
Speaker 4: two percent. When Guso was gonna start, I was like,
Speaker 4: all right, well, I'll go with Jackson Nazu like no brainer.
Speaker 4: Kind of another similar type is Gusto. I think, just
Speaker 4: like you know, some of all parts, lots of pitches,
Speaker 4: good picture, but he's only one percent. Paco was zero percent.
Speaker 4: Jose Flurry is still only one percent. I think is
Speaker 4: one one percent. Yeah, Hicks, James Hicks, who I like
Speaker 4: to zero percent, Like, I don't know, just it's just
Speaker 4: that Astros thing.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: They're always I feel, very underrated as a system, and
Speaker 4: so are a lot of their prospects.
Speaker 1: And yeah, produce Miguel Yola, he I think is like
Speaker 1: low right, I think in mind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's their second most roster three percent.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I thought, yeah, and he's he's another good
Speaker 1: one that I think is under roster. The command is
Speaker 1: a little shaky for me there, but this stuff was fun.
Speaker 1: I ended up watching quite a bit of him this year.
Speaker 4: Astros pitching farm always good, b side hunting grounds all right,
Speaker 4: Astros on the side, Matt. I don't know how you
Speaker 4: felt as a whole, but when you got down to
Speaker 4: zero one, maybe two percent, it was tricky. It was
Speaker 4: tough because I felt like most of those guys had
Speaker 4: like a really big potential whammy.
Speaker 1: Like some big negative yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, something that I was just like, eh, I don't
Speaker 4: know if this is playable. There's you know, they tend
Speaker 4: they like data, right, they like athletes, and I think
Speaker 4: they take a lot of those hitters and try to
Speaker 4: hope for the best right, and I think they've done
Speaker 4: really well, like developing some some bats and some you know,
Speaker 4: in the past, I think we've had some pretty good
Speaker 4: B side astros bats, and you know they'll have pop
Speaker 4: up guys like a lot Perfito or whatever. This particular
Speaker 4: crop was tough for me, so I don't particularly love
Speaker 4: my choice here. He wouldn't. He's not a guy I'm
Speaker 4: like looking to roster unnecessarily. It's probably in my bottom third.
Speaker 4: But I went with Jerron Williams. He was their ninth
Speaker 4: round pick in twenty twenty three out of Toledo. He's
Speaker 4: a middle infielder and play some third base. I think
Speaker 4: he's got a real good arm. I've seen them just
Speaker 4: just make some cannon throws. These good size listened at
Speaker 4: like six one, twenty three years old. Right now, he's
Speaker 4: split the season. He had one hundred and thirty one
Speaker 4: played appearances in High A, then one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: four played appearances in Double A, and no doubt that
Speaker 4: the double A run was not very impressive production wise.
Speaker 4: It wasn't hi a double A. Not so much what
Speaker 4: he slashed two oh four two sixty six three point
Speaker 4: fifty two. He had three home runs, stole fourteen bases
Speaker 4: in forty games. You know, not super impressive, but I
Speaker 4: really like the athleticism. I think there is a little
Speaker 4: bit of a power speed blend here, as we've seen
Speaker 4: with astros hitting. I think part of the reason why
Speaker 4: they get like ranks so lowly often as a system
Speaker 4: is because I think it is tough to tell where
Speaker 4: that you know who the pop up guy is, who's
Speaker 4: going to blow up here, but they always seem to
Speaker 4: have somebody, So I don't know. I don't know if
Speaker 4: it will be Williams this year, but considering all my
Speaker 4: my options, I kind of thought I just kind of, hey,
Speaker 4: let's let's watch out. Athletic guy who can potentially do
Speaker 4: a lot of things and play up the middle. Seems
Speaker 4: to have a decent bat ball profile. Strikeouts on a
Speaker 4: big issue. He only struck out what eighteen point two
Speaker 4: percent of the time on the season. It was actually
Speaker 4: less in double A than Hi A. He ran a
Speaker 4: two thirty two babbit in double A. So maybe there
Speaker 4: was just like some bad luck there. I don't know,
Speaker 4: but just turning on the film, what both defense and
Speaker 4: at the plate, like, I thought I could do a
Speaker 4: lot worse and you know, maybe this year that double
Speaker 4: A production kind of catches up to the talent a
Speaker 4: little bit more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it. Did he miss some time this year?
Speaker 1: Did he have an injury?
Speaker 4: He might? He only played seventy one games on the year,
Speaker 4: so he had Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting. I watched a little bit of Williams, and
Speaker 1: I think I caught some of his Double A games
Speaker 1: where he wasn't as impressive, But considering how short the
Speaker 1: season was, I like a lot about this guy. He
Speaker 1: was one of my kind of further down picks in
Speaker 1: this that maybe I should give another look, especially if
Speaker 1: you like him a bit. I think there might be
Speaker 1: a little more here now that I'm hearing to talk about.
Speaker 4: Him and hi a Offensively, he's pretty dang good. Three ten,
Speaker 4: three sixty six sledged five point fifty two. I know
Speaker 4: that's Ashville and that Yeah right. Like I said, I
Speaker 4: think he's just a better player than the surface numbers
Speaker 4: show for Yeah, run.
Speaker 1: With decent contact skills and a willingness to steal bases
Speaker 1: like that gives you a decent floor and doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like the powers are zero. So yeah, that's an interesting one.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm definitely gonna keep an eye on him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and who knows what the Astros what opportunity might
Speaker 4: be on the left side of that infield coming up here,
Speaker 4: because Bregman's like, gone, right, Yeah, I'm not expecting or
Speaker 4: thinking Williams here is going to take over some sort
Speaker 4: of every day role here, but maybe there'll be an
Speaker 4: opportunity to get to the bigs.
Speaker 1: Definitely. I had a couple guys that I wanted to
Speaker 1: at least note. Kenny Gomez is one who I looked
Speaker 1: at a bit. He's a young outfielder, played all over
Speaker 1: the outfield up at Hi a steal some bags. I
Speaker 1: think has a little more power in there than the
Speaker 1: surface numbers might show. But I liked a little bit
Speaker 1: about his game, So he's one that I want to
Speaker 1: I want to agree.
Speaker 4: I think he's like a real center field there too.
Speaker 1: I think so too. I know they played him around
Speaker 1: a bit, but he got most of this run in center,
Speaker 1: and I thought he looked good out there, at least
Speaker 1: in my limited looks. And then Tommy Sacho Junior, he
Speaker 1: made it up to Triple A this year. He's a
Speaker 1: little older but has that combination of things that I
Speaker 1: really like in that he has solid contact skills, he
Speaker 1: walks inn above average amount, he is athletic enough to
Speaker 1: steal a few bases with not and not be a
Speaker 1: zero in the power department. So Saco Junior, I liked
Speaker 1: him a fair amount and is one I could see
Speaker 1: being more of a utility guy for them. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's like a full time regular there and
Speaker 1: the impact I think held me back from making him
Speaker 1: my official B side. But Tommy Sacho Junior is another
Speaker 1: one to keep an eye on if there's an injury opening,
Speaker 1: maybe he gets some run. But the guy I wanted
Speaker 1: to pick here is I don't know, maybe a little
Speaker 1: unusual for the kind of hitter that I pick, but
Speaker 1: I'm going with Austin deming Mate.
Speaker 4: Ye.
Speaker 1: Like he's an older college bat out a BYU right
Speaker 1: handed hitter, maybe a touch undersize, you know, like considering
Speaker 1: he's probably got to be a third baseman and you know,
Speaker 1: I think he's probably under six foot was my guest.
Speaker 1: But he's pretty well built and I think very athletic.
Speaker 1: Like I saw him make some decent plays at third
Speaker 1: and think he could stick there. Don't necessarily think he
Speaker 1: needs to shift somewhere else, though they have played him
Speaker 1: at second, and I think the bat might play even
Speaker 1: better at second. Got almost no money. I was a
Speaker 1: tenth rounder and may even have been a senior sign
Speaker 1: or something. So he yeah, because I think he's a
Speaker 1: little bit older for the draft, and that's why nobody
Speaker 1: cares about him. Nobody likes him. He's I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: zero percent what I like about him. His swing is
Speaker 1: really really short to the ball. That is some in
Speaker 1: common to like a chase the latter in like the
Speaker 1: abbreviated finish piece obviously from the right side, with the
Speaker 1: latter from the left, but there's some similar he's there,
Speaker 1: but he still swings pretty hard, like I don't know
Speaker 1: if I ever got any exit veulos on him, but
Speaker 1: to me, he hits the ball pretty hard, and especially
Speaker 1: the way he looked at Corpus Christie. He struck out
Speaker 1: quite a bit in Asheville, which was odd and didn't
Speaker 1: quite put up the numbers that you might expect, but
Speaker 1: upon promotion to Corpus Christie, he kind of raked, you know,
Speaker 1: two fifty five whatever, but eleven point six percent walk
Speaker 1: rate good for a three fifty seven OBP and an
Speaker 1: even five hundred slug as he socked seven homers across
Speaker 1: one hundred and twelve plate appearances. That's pretty darn good.
Speaker 1: And now some of this I think is like a
Speaker 1: little bit of homer to fly ball luck. He's not
Speaker 1: going to be this good. But I saw him hit
Speaker 1: some nukes, you know, like he stays so short to
Speaker 1: the ball, Guys try and beat him inside and he
Speaker 1: just turns on it and ropes, ropes the ball out.
Speaker 1: So I thought Austin Deming really had one of those
Speaker 1: kind of underrated bats, Like I could see him being
Speaker 1: a a major league regular, especially if he ends up
Speaker 1: staying at second base for somewhere. Third base offensive bar
Speaker 1: is a little bit higher, and he's shown, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: a propensity to strike out that might hamper him at
Speaker 1: the upper levels, especially at the major leagues. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. I thought that maybe some of that was
Speaker 1: just he was trying to take advantage of the good
Speaker 1: offensive environment and like or a expanded his own or something,
Speaker 1: because once he was up at Corpus Christy, the strikeout
Speaker 1: rate came down. The swinging strike rate is, you know,
Speaker 1: a tick above average maybe, but isn't bad. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I like him as a really polished college hitter who
Speaker 1: maybe can play enough defense to be a major leaguer.
Speaker 1: But I liked the bat a lot. He was one
Speaker 1: that I came away surprised at how much I liked him.
Speaker 1: And just as another note for our fantasy focus, he
Speaker 1: steals bags too, and it's pretty good at it. He's
Speaker 1: wiped thirteen this year and only was caught three times,
Speaker 1: and I watched most of these. A lot of it
Speaker 1: was it's not like he's got blazing speed, but he's
Speaker 1: a good base dealer, and I think that's underrated and
Speaker 1: is something that means it gives you confidence that he'll
Speaker 1: keep getting the green light or at least the yellow
Speaker 1: light to go sometimes.
Speaker 4: Nice. Yeah, he was definitely on my short list here.
Speaker 4: He's getting some run in the AFL right now, and
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure
Speaker 4: he kind of got Beck's attention a bit, and I
Speaker 4: think Beck was, oh nice asking and talking about him
Speaker 4: a little bit. I think he's had a couple of
Speaker 4: loud games down there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a good player.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The Astros just they get MLB worth from a
Speaker 4: lot of guys that feel like deming.
Speaker 1: They're and everybody else right, Like, That's one of the
Speaker 1: things I think either either BA or BP did some
Speaker 1: study and it was just like astros far and away
Speaker 1: got the most value out of this type of guy,
Speaker 1: like the unheralded, never made a top prospect list, never
Speaker 1: made a top hundred list, and then return positive war
Speaker 1: value for them.
Speaker 4: And they're also good at at shipping them elsewhere, you know,
Speaker 4: like right Canada, and then they started producing in the
Speaker 4: major league level there, you know. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 4: failed to note, but you can follow me on Twitter
Speaker 4: at Pitching Specs. I'll be dropping some videos of my
Speaker 4: picks here, Matt. I didn't get around to it yet,
Speaker 4: but I do plan on making some videos of your
Speaker 4: guys and dropping those two at some point.
Speaker 1: Here, sweet, let's go to the city of Angels, which
Speaker 1: I believe resides just to the north of a Wales
Speaker 1: vagina or sorry, that's an old old wooden ship I think. No,
Speaker 1: we're in the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of California,
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, I believe, And I wanted to go
Speaker 1: to LA because you just mentioned that Beck has been
Speaker 1: sniping some of my guys down in the AFL. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to lead off with another one that he
Speaker 1: mentioned just the other day in Sammy Neta junior. And
Speaker 1: this is a very like he has to be zero
Speaker 1: percent owned, right I didn't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was zero percent in September.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because nobody cares about him because he's got like
Speaker 1: very few innings this year, very few innings for his career,
Speaker 1: Like there's almost no video to go on. But I
Speaker 1: was kind of intrigued in a way that, like a
Speaker 1: lot of the Angels pitching, they have some guys that
Speaker 1: are pretty interesting but that mostly got them in trade. Right,
Speaker 1: Dana is obviously a success story, and Nate's guy for
Speaker 1: a while, Aldegary another in nates guys but got in trade.
Speaker 1: George Klassen, who lit up the world last year. Like
Speaker 1: those guys are all good and I think exciting, Like
Speaker 1: those those are obviously way too owned for our purposes.
Speaker 1: But I was kind of scrolling through the other guys
Speaker 1: and I didn't like a lot of what I saw, Like,
Speaker 1: like you said, there were flaws with each of them,
Speaker 1: or something just wasn't quite right about them. Another guy
Speaker 1: that we had almost no look at, And I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's your guy or not. But Derek Clark
Speaker 1: is another one of theirs to who we saw very
Speaker 1: few innings, but I liked what I saw of him.
Speaker 1: He's Derek Clark is like a super short arm action
Speaker 1: and just nasty stuff. Like the stuff just moves all
Speaker 1: over the place. Someone I want to monitor. Probably more
Speaker 1: like relievery to me than starter traits. But he punched
Speaker 1: out thirty four percent of batters in his eight innings
Speaker 1: and didn't walk anybody, which I always like in his
Speaker 1: short sample, and so he's a fun one too. But
Speaker 1: Natara Junior just liked the way his pitches looked. His
Speaker 1: fastball to me, looks a little erratic, and I think
Speaker 1: that's something worth monitoring. The walk rate as a touch high,
Speaker 1: and it seemed like it wasn't a consistent miss. You know.
Speaker 1: His arm action is a little bit long, like he
Speaker 1: kind of hides it back behind his hip and then
Speaker 1: it maybe takes a little long to catch up, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if that contributes to some of the command issues.
Speaker 1: But the fastball was tough to hit. It seemed like
Speaker 1: both kind of looked like he had a four seam
Speaker 1: and I saw him run some that at least had
Speaker 1: some armside. I don't know whether that was specifically different pitch,
Speaker 1: but definitely a different shape. And the slider was absolute
Speaker 1: murder on lefties. You just see him. And again some
Speaker 1: of this might be camera angle and just at the
Speaker 1: lower miners, you know, this was like at high A.
Speaker 1: I think, hard to tell for sure, but these lefties
Speaker 1: were just bailing out on this pitch and missing it
Speaker 1: by like, I don't know, a foot off the end
Speaker 1: of their bats because it was just moving so much
Speaker 1: away from them. And I liked the change up to
Speaker 1: righties too. He threw it a couple of times, and
Speaker 1: I remember one in bat in particular that it was
Speaker 1: like a three to two change up down and in
Speaker 1: to a righty and they just like swung over the
Speaker 1: top of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just love that left on right change up that
Speaker 1: you kind of need as a lefty without being pigeonholed.
Speaker 1: He's old for the level, so he's twenty four and
Speaker 1: only just now was getting up to HIA, so that's
Speaker 1: a bit of a ding. There are definitely some things
Speaker 1: about him that look more relievery long term, but they're
Speaker 1: still letting him start and there aren't as many innings
Speaker 1: on him, So I think there's still viability here as
Speaker 1: a starter. I'm not saying, like, rush out and go
Speaker 1: get him unlike some of the other people that we'll
Speaker 1: talk about this week. But he's definitely the most interesting
Speaker 1: to me. These little scene B Side esque arms for La.
Speaker 4: That you and Beck have both kind of zeroed in here.
Speaker 4: I had a hard time picking an angel arm here
Speaker 4: because there were four that I that I really did like,
Speaker 4: Oh interesting, who else? Yeah, it's tough because it's the
Speaker 4: first year player. But we're definitely going to talk about
Speaker 4: Trey Gregory Alford during our first year player draft stuff. Now.
Speaker 4: It's a little tricky because they signed him for two
Speaker 4: million dollars, you know. Twitch to me isn't really like
Speaker 4: B Side right, you know, but yet because he was
Speaker 4: the eleventh round pick, if Dynasty owners are going to treat
Speaker 4: him like Dana, he's not going to be rostered, He's
Speaker 4: not going to be getting drafted. But I don't know,
Speaker 4: I felt like that was maybe a little, i don't know,
Speaker 4: just a little weird for our constraints here, So I
Speaker 4: decided against that. Natara was one of my four that
Speaker 4: I was really interested in for a lot of the
Speaker 4: reasons that you listen. I know that the walks have
Speaker 4: been high, but watching him, like, I don't know, I
Speaker 4: just like didn't really want to believe the walk rates
Speaker 4: because it didn't feel like that. To me. It didn't
Speaker 4: felt like there was much better execution going on and
Speaker 4: my looks than those walk rates might suggest. So I
Speaker 4: don't know, maybe the lively slider, you know, it could
Speaker 4: be tougher to throw for strikes and what the.
Speaker 1: Movement, the movement on it, like it was so big
Speaker 1: that I felt like, yeah, lost that sometimes. But to me,
Speaker 1: it was the inconsistency with the fastball that I wondered
Speaker 1: if that was something with the longer arm action. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, we'll see, yeah.
Speaker 4: And then I almost just like did a part two
Speaker 4: with my twenty twenty three arm with them Ryan Cousteau,
Speaker 4: who had Tommy John and came back and stuff. I
Speaker 4: still am pretty interested in him, But long story short,
Speaker 4: I ended up going with a twenty year old at
Speaker 4: least twenty at the time, who was pitching in high
Speaker 4: a Keith ol Key.
Speaker 1: I don't think I watched it.
Speaker 4: Probably at the bottom of my list of my thirty
Speaker 4: arms here. I mean definitely riskier than those other three arms.
Speaker 4: I mean, who knows what the prep guy, but we'll
Speaker 4: talk about that later. Zero percent of ROSTERD. He was
Speaker 4: an international free agent back in twenty twenty one out
Speaker 4: of Venezuela. Technically four levels complex A ball High A
Speaker 4: in double A Double A was just like this little
Speaker 4: spot help relief thing. But I think we got a
Speaker 4: couple of decent looks of him in Hi A. He
Speaker 4: had six starts there, twenty nine innings, three point four
Speaker 4: to one, ERA, one point three four whip struck out
Speaker 4: twenty nine point eight percent, walked almost sixteen percent. Right,
Speaker 4: not great there. This is like just some young arm
Speaker 4: talent that I don't think is hopeless to get harnessed
Speaker 4: a bit more here. It feels a little bit like
Speaker 4: some of my more successful smaller pick or smaller look
Speaker 4: picks from the past. With his walks, you gotta like
Speaker 4: look at the mode and not the mean this is
Speaker 4: a lean body. Maybe there's some violence in the delivery.
Speaker 1: That little head whack, Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 4: Not the most balanced look in the delivery, right, But
Speaker 4: he's got some armside run to a big like ninety
Speaker 4: six mile per hour fastball likes the back door to Righty's.
Speaker 4: I think there's a pretty good slider. There's a change
Speaker 4: up that he throws against lefties. I don't think I
Speaker 4: saw him throw any right on right change ups, but
Speaker 4: I'm not one hundred percent on that. But I think
Speaker 4: it's just some young arm talent that you know, the
Speaker 4: Angels are probably gonna push and maybe a little bit
Speaker 4: too much. But as far as just like a little
Speaker 4: bit more electricity then you know, at least three of
Speaker 4: those other guys, I think he's a little bit more
Speaker 4: electric potential than the Naturo. So I'm glad that you
Speaker 4: went with him and I went with Keeks. I wanted
Speaker 4: to highlight both those guys. Again, Key is not a
Speaker 4: guy that I'm going to be rostering or drafting, but
Speaker 4: would not be shocked if he kind of pops up
Speaker 4: a little bit this year.
Speaker 1: Interesting, all right, one to watch? Who's your bat here?
Speaker 1: I thought there were a couple that were kind of fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. I had a hard time. I
Speaker 4: think there are some decent options. I kind of wanted
Speaker 4: to go with Cole Fontinelli, but I feel like we
Speaker 4: kind of talked about him enough already, and m what
Speaker 4: have you he was still only one percent, but I
Speaker 4: landed on and ended up maybe a bit reluctantly so
Speaker 4: on Tucker Flint. I don't know if you paid any
Speaker 4: attention to him. I sure did, but yeah, Flint so
Speaker 4: well zero percent of rosteries. Was twenty three years old,
Speaker 4: played outfield in a little bit of first base. I
Speaker 4: think he played all three outfield spots. I'm guessing was
Speaker 4: probably more corner outfield. Listed at six ' to two,
Speaker 4: good sized guy. He was a thirteenth round pick out
Speaker 4: of Florida Junior College in twenty twenty two. Most of
Speaker 4: the year in Double A, got a couple of weeks
Speaker 4: in Triple A at the end where there was some
Speaker 4: stat cast stuff to glean on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you liked that oppo homer off of your boy Trevor.
Speaker 4: McDonald, Yeah, in the video there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't look at the video. I saw that
Speaker 1: live because this is ye. I looked at a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's nothing like two outstanding hit, a couple
Speaker 4: of home runs. Maybe only one home run over one
Speaker 4: hundred miles per hour in those thirteen games, but one
Speaker 4: hundred and four point seven or something like that. So
Speaker 4: there wasn't a time to look at there necessarily, but
Speaker 4: I like the look of his left handed stroke. On
Speaker 4: the season, he had seventeen home runs, He stole fifteen bags,
Speaker 4: walked fourteen percent of the time sixteen percent of the
Speaker 4: time during the small triple A run he did strike
Speaker 4: out almost thirty percent of the time. Though, you know,
Speaker 4: line nothing too crazy, you know, two forty six, three,
Speaker 4: sixty four, four, nineteen and double A. But I will say, Matt,
Speaker 4: I don't know what you thought about the Southern League
Speaker 4: this year, but I thought it was and I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't have Actually I did look at these numbers,
Speaker 4: but I don't remember, but I think it was kind
Speaker 4: of a worse run environment than it had been in
Speaker 4: the past. And I don't know if that was because
Speaker 4: of the level of pitching and what have you. Thought.
Speaker 4: I thought the Southern League was kind of chuck full
Speaker 4: with some good pitchers this year. But yeah, I mean Flint,
Speaker 4: He's the bottom third of my thirty bats here for sure.
Speaker 4: Not anyone that I'm drafting or rostering right now, but
Speaker 4: the guy that I'm going to be watching, I think
Speaker 4: because but as bad ball profile looks pretty decent right
Speaker 4: puts the ball in the air, pulls it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was actually my one note about him, because
Speaker 1: I really liked Flint as well. I looked at him
Speaker 1: long and hard for my B side, and another guy
Speaker 1: just barely beat him out. But I would have been
Speaker 1: happy to take Flint. My issue with him, I think,
Speaker 1: other than the case which are a little higher than
Speaker 1: I generally like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and got to hit more home runs going to
Speaker 4: strike out that much.
Speaker 1: But the reason I think he's not is he's putting
Speaker 1: the ball in the ground a bit too much. At
Speaker 1: double A he didn't. He had just like a thirty
Speaker 1: eight percent ground ball rate, but all his other stops
Speaker 1: were over fifty percent. And I think he's got enough
Speaker 1: juice in there, you know, small sample at triple A,
Speaker 1: and so maybe we'll see if the eggsyblows are actually there.
Speaker 1: But like you, I really liked his left handed stroke.
Speaker 1: I think he's short to the ball, but it's not
Speaker 1: without some power. And I think maybe if he does
Speaker 1: a little bit better job in the air, kind of
Speaker 1: like he did in Corpus CHRISTI or sorry, in Rocket
Speaker 1: City Rocket City, then he'll be He looks like a
Speaker 1: major league regular to me if he can do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I liked. I liked Flint a fair amount.
Speaker 1: I think he's a good a good deep league call.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I kind of like b side and
Speaker 4: around in these day three Juco guys. I feel like
Speaker 4: there might be a little bit developmental meat on the
Speaker 4: on the bone there. I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I did really like Flynt. I'm going
Speaker 1: a different direction with a guy who has a really
Speaker 1: long minor league track record. He got Rule five last
Speaker 1: year from the Yankees, Eric Wagaman. Wagman was eligible in
Speaker 1: the Rule five. Los Angeles took him. He'd been Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd been with the Yankees for obviously six years and
Speaker 1: had been mostly below average, but had kind of figured
Speaker 1: something out in Double A the last couple of the
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three, small samples both,
Speaker 1: but the k rate was down, the power was up.
Speaker 1: He was hitting the ball harder, and when Los Angeles
Speaker 1: picked it, he wasn't really on my radar coming into
Speaker 1: this offseason.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We looked at a bunch of like Rule five guys
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 4: Was talking like minor league portion Rule five right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So I was like not
Speaker 1: on him, because it had been kind of just a
Speaker 1: short sample over you know, call it two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty played appearances spread across twenty twenty two and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three of him like looking like a dude, and
Speaker 1: then you and you watch him and he a man.
Speaker 1: I had somebody in mind when I was watching his stroke.
Speaker 1: He has that like really quiet, small leg raise, but
Speaker 1: he kind of like leans on it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So it's not like a big leg kick.
Speaker 1: It's not a stride. It's almost like a quiet lifted up.
Speaker 1: But he's really spread, you know. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm doing a good job describing that. And the swing
Speaker 1: is a little long, like he's a big dude six
Speaker 1: four two ten third baseman. I think he played some
Speaker 1: first maybe two, but and the swing looks a little
Speaker 1: long at times, and I wonder if that is people
Speaker 1: look at it like, oh man, how is he? How
Speaker 1: is this guy really gonna hit? But he doesn't strike
Speaker 1: out very much, struck out only thirteen percent of the
Speaker 1: time in triple A this year, walked just a hair
Speaker 1: under an average amount. But I think it's because he's
Speaker 1: got pretty good contact skills. But he also has power.
Speaker 1: I mean, he launched twenty some homers this year across
Speaker 1: the four levels. He did debut, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I haven't used that as a hard and fast rule.
Speaker 1: So he did get a few plays appearances with the
Speaker 1: big club at the end of the year and kind
Speaker 1: of looks like he belonged. You know, he plays third
Speaker 1: base primarily. They're paying Anthony Rendon just an ungodly amount
Speaker 1: of money, but Rendon never seems to want to actually
Speaker 1: play baseball. So I don't know, maybe when Rendon inevitably
Speaker 1: gets hurt, Wagman steps in and actually just looks like
Speaker 1: the better hitter for what it's worth. The Steamer projections
Speaker 1: just came out and they think that Wagaman's going to
Speaker 1: be a league average hitter next year playing third base.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you can do worse than that. The
Speaker 1: other thing to note about him he has a pretty
Speaker 1: even batted ball distribution, and not in a bad way,
Speaker 1: Like when the ball's on the outer half, he smokes
Speaker 1: it the other way. I saw him hit a couple
Speaker 1: of triples like that thought last year. When it's to
Speaker 1: the middle, he drives it to the middle. When it's inside,
Speaker 1: he's happy to lift and pull. He's sort of those
Speaker 1: one of those like you watch him and you're not
Speaker 1: going to be wowed by your look. Maybe you watch
Speaker 1: him enough times and you appreciate that this is what
Speaker 1: a professional hitter kind of looks like in a way
Speaker 1: that I think you'd appreciate, nate this, especially with the
Speaker 1: driving it to all fields. He's a little more aggressive
Speaker 1: than some guys that we disagree on. But yeah, Wagman
Speaker 1: by Eric Wagman. I think it's somebody who he could
Speaker 1: be a real contributor to the major leagues next year.
Speaker 4: Nice. And I don't have him on my list here
Speaker 4: because I think I just deleted anyone who had any
Speaker 4: major league running Yeah, yeah, probably, But do you know
Speaker 4: what his rastered percentage was when I looked?
Speaker 1: But my numbers aren't as good as yours.
Speaker 4: Sweet right on? Yeah, that I wasn't even on my radar.
Speaker 4: But I think that's a good a good call. All right, Matt,
Speaker 4: I'm pumped for this. I'm pumped for this guy here.
Speaker 4: I don't I don't even know if you're ready for this, Matt.
Speaker 1: I'm ready.
Speaker 4: Let's talk Rangers. Rangers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Rangers were tough.
Speaker 4: I agree on both sides, batside, armside. I think there
Speaker 4: was a lot of a lot of decent choices, a
Speaker 4: lot of different directions, which I kind of feel like
Speaker 4: is always the case with the Rangers both sides, I think,
Speaker 4: especially on the pitching side, like stuff just kind of
Speaker 4: tends to fizzle out once they get to the uppers,
Speaker 4: unfortunately for a lot of their guys. But I will
Speaker 4: admit that I let my fandom of my choice here
Speaker 4: to kind of break the tie. I think. Do I
Speaker 4: think my guy here is a future big leaguer. I
Speaker 4: think it's a long shot, but I love him. And
Speaker 4: I'm talking about Arturo the Diesel Diesla Nice you watch
Speaker 4: him at all? Matt, Yeah, we're talking big boy. Yeah.
Speaker 4: This was shared with me and I was told I
Speaker 4: could share this. The story of how they landed on
Speaker 4: Diesela here is pretty interesting. He was an NAI guy
Speaker 4: down in Texas and the Rangers international guy saw Diesela
Speaker 4: saw excuse me, saw the Diesel on Twitter and then
Speaker 4: had their like Ohio guy or Midwest guy go and
Speaker 4: watch him during the summer league that he was in,
Speaker 4: and then they signed him as an undrafted free agent
Speaker 4: to some twenty three drafts right, and then he went
Speaker 4: to the DSL because he's Dominican and then came over
Speaker 4: his state side. This was his first year playing state side.
Speaker 1: That's an old guy, right, like he was the oldest
Speaker 1: player in the DSL or.
Speaker 4: Something might might have been. I don't know. There's always
Speaker 4: like a couple I don't know, twenty three twenty four
Speaker 4: year olds that usually they come from like Mexico and
Speaker 4: then they go to the l to start something like that.
Speaker 4: But the Diesel here eighty seven games in a ball
Speaker 4: and then moved up to High A for thirty four games,
Speaker 4: and now the Rangers Lowers is tough, Matt, because Downy's
Speaker 4: doesn't broadcast right. Actually, I think they have broadcast a
Speaker 4: few games, don't quote me on that, but mostly you
Speaker 4: can't watch any games in Downeast. And then Hickory just
Speaker 4: started broadcasting, but it's a crappy press box view and
Speaker 4: often they don't even update the what inning it is
Speaker 4: on the graphic and stuff, so trying to hunt around
Speaker 4: and find stuff is a nightmare. Yeah, but I cut up.
Speaker 4: I'll share on Twitter at pitching specs. I caught up
Speaker 4: his all of his broadcast home runs, believe, and we're talking.
Speaker 4: I mean there are some bombs Mat, like the guy
Speaker 4: in the booth will even on a few occages like
Speaker 4: I've never seen somebody hit a ball out there before,
Speaker 4: Like there's some wooded area out there and he is
Speaker 4: just sending them. Dude. There's a nice look on the
Speaker 4: video of his swings slowed down. It's like yermin Mercedes type,
Speaker 4: just back of minor league pons.
Speaker 1: Right, he's so fun.
Speaker 4: But what is so great about the diesel Mat is
Speaker 4: that he is way more athletic than you might think.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know what he's listed at six
Speaker 4: ' two. How much do you think he weighs?
Speaker 1: Oh two sixty?
Speaker 4: Yeah? That the baseball guys just hate us so much. Right,
Speaker 4: he stole what? He stole four bases this year?
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: None of them were broadcast, and he was caught stealing
Speaker 4: three times, and all of those were broadcasts. But but
Speaker 4: one of them, I'll say was a legit steal. It
Speaker 4: was close, but it was a legit throwout. One of
Speaker 4: the videos lags of him stealing. That wasn't my fault.
Speaker 4: That was the broadcast. So he looks a little slow there,
Speaker 4: But watch the other ones. One of them was a
Speaker 4: delayed steal. Attempt, which is something that I think he
Speaker 4: does that didn't work out. And then the other one
Speaker 4: was a double steal where he basically gave himself up
Speaker 4: so the run could score.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that one was nice.
Speaker 4: But you can see him run on the video like
Speaker 4: my man can move, big boy can hit bombs, you
Speaker 4: can move some. And what I noticed watching him was,
Speaker 4: and you know, maybe given his NAIA history and what
Speaker 4: I wonder about his ability to catch up to like
Speaker 4: professional velocity, I don't think he has like an opposite
Speaker 4: field approach that you see as bad at ball apposo
Speaker 4: field bad ball stuff is what it was, a thirty
Speaker 4: eight percent or something like that. You throw the Diesel
Speaker 4: a crappy breaking ball and it is gone. He will
Speaker 4: destroy it. I mean, he's just like maybe a bit
Speaker 4: coldish to me, Like I just I want to see
Speaker 4: him succeed. I want to see a full season or
Speaker 4: I want to see it know his second year state side.
Speaker 4: You know, a right handed first base type is odds
Speaker 4: are long. I get all that, but yeah, if the
Speaker 4: Diesels mashing the shit ton of home runs next year,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to be surprised, and that would gain
Speaker 4: Dynasty attention, no doubt, totally.
Speaker 1: He was fun. I he was one that I was
Speaker 1: close to picking up for a bat too, So I
Speaker 1: watched a good bit of him and loved to swing.
Speaker 1: Frank like the swing it the finish reminds me a
Speaker 1: little bit of Marcelo Zuna, you know, just like the
Speaker 1: he's swinging so hard that the bat just whips around
Speaker 1: all the way behind him. Yeah, big right handed hacks
Speaker 1: And yeah, and I had and like you said, the
Speaker 1: twenty seven or twenty six percent k rate in hi
Speaker 1: a as a twenty four year old or whatever he
Speaker 1: is now, It's like, yeah, that's a big red flag
Speaker 1: for a right handed hitting first place and only sure,
Speaker 1: but he I agree, there's some real power here. And
Speaker 1: he's a sneaky, decent athlete.
Speaker 4: Let's let's see if maybe just you know, some more
Speaker 4: mental you know, library like you say, maybe he can
Speaker 4: give give him a little bit more time and let's
Speaker 4: see what kind of home run production he does. But
Speaker 4: these videos too that I share, I pick out what
Speaker 4: I'm sharing for a reason because I think they highlight well,
Speaker 4: if you're just going to look at a little bit
Speaker 4: of a guy, just kind of the summary of my
Speaker 4: thoughts on him. But his video was so hard to
Speaker 4: cut down within the minute and a half time frame
Speaker 4: that I have met, because there were so many good
Speaker 4: pimp home runs and bat flips and stuff like that
Speaker 4: that I wanted to include in there, but I also
Speaker 4: wanted to get all the home runs in so nice.
Speaker 1: Well, I did like him, but ended up moving off
Speaker 1: because of the k rate, and I don't love the
Speaker 1: guy that I'm picking here. I think there's a chance
Speaker 1: he's a real like a big leaguer, but there are
Speaker 1: some definite flaws to the profile that give me pause.
Speaker 1: I'm going with Cody Freeman. Do you watch much of Freeman?
Speaker 4: I'm familiar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, he's been around a while. Was like
Speaker 1: a fourth round or third round pick. He got almost
Speaker 1: a million bucks five years ago. He's Rule five eligible
Speaker 1: this offseason, and so it'll be interesting if somebody snaps
Speaker 1: him up. This was his best year for sure as
Speaker 1: a pro. Twenty three year olds old spent the whole
Speaker 1: year in double a slash two sixty four three twenty
Speaker 1: four thirty two, good for one o nine WRC plus
Speaker 1: And as you said, like that league was pretty good
Speaker 1: this year. He swiped fifteen bags, which is one caught stealing,
Speaker 1: and I thought he was pretty good at that. I
Speaker 1: would like to see him steal a little bit more.
Speaker 1: He's not a burner, but a good athlete for sure.
Speaker 1: Popped fourteen homers, that's kind of been his mo is
Speaker 1: like at the kind of fifteen to twenty homer power
Speaker 1: at like major League peak. You know, he's popped thirteen,
Speaker 1: twelve and then fourteen in the last three years, so
Speaker 1: I think there's some power there. It's not elite. Do
Speaker 1: have concerns about the ground ball rate, like he does
Speaker 1: put it on the ground a bit too much and
Speaker 1: with not elite power, that's I think could be a
Speaker 1: tough look. But what I do think he adjusted to
Speaker 1: this year, and the reason I ended up choosing him
Speaker 1: is it looked to me like he had an approach
Speaker 1: where he was trying to pull the ball more, which
Speaker 1: is the kind of approach that I think he'll need
Speaker 1: to do to succeed with. And he has good enough
Speaker 1: contact skills that this seems like he was able to
Speaker 1: execute and get a little more power to the pull
Speaker 1: side without really giving up much in terms of contact
Speaker 1: or hits the other way. Roped thirty three doubles. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of doubles to go along with two triples
Speaker 1: and fourteen homers. That's pretty good some other of these
Speaker 1: kinds of guys, He's one that maybe he needs a
Speaker 1: position change to really be valuable for fantasy to get
Speaker 1: a shot, because I don't know if that's going to
Speaker 1: play at third. But the lucky thing is he's played
Speaker 1: all over the place. They had him as a catcher
Speaker 1: as recently as last year, so maybe he can catch
Speaker 1: the innings and be a super utility. I don't think
Speaker 1: he was great back there because they moved him off
Speaker 1: this year and he primarily played third base, with a
Speaker 1: sprinkling of second base in there too. So Freeman, though,
Speaker 1: I think there's a He's a solid ballplayer all around
Speaker 1: and had some good swag too. I saw him get
Speaker 1: some big hits that he was pretty pumped about, and
Speaker 1: seems like the team liked him. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: you do worse than Cody Freeman. Not one of my
Speaker 1: must go get guys, but he's my favorite in the
Speaker 1: B side range for the Rangers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a solid call. You know who
Speaker 4: really is still probably the best B side bat in
Speaker 4: their system is your boy from last year.
Speaker 1: Blaying Krim one hundred percent is and I was going
Speaker 1: to talk about him too.
Speaker 4: He was still only one percent rostered on September twenty seven.
Speaker 1: So Krim had the misfortune of bad timing with his
Speaker 1: production last year because he started the year pretty cold.
Speaker 1: I think it was, like I looked this up, like
Speaker 1: an eighty WRC plus through the first two months. Maybe
Speaker 1: it wasn't good. He wasn't hitting homers, he was striking
Speaker 1: out a bit more. He just didn't look right, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately they had openings like he might have gotten to play.
Speaker 1: And like I think, like I said, last aast season,
Speaker 1: I think he could have taken a job and run
Speaker 1: with it if he had a season different because from
Speaker 1: what I did, the splits from the second half on,
Speaker 1: I think maybe from June on, or maybe even inclusive
Speaker 1: of June. I forget, dude ran a one fifty two
Speaker 1: WRC plus. He had like a thousand ops over that stretch,
Speaker 1: and of course this is the PCL, so you got
Speaker 1: to do some adjustment for that. But he did that
Speaker 1: with a seventeen percent krate, twelve percent walk rate, twenty bombs,
Speaker 1: thirty three doubles, Like dud, Dude is good he is
Speaker 1: just such a good hitter. I'm so bummed. If he
Speaker 1: had flipped that production and had that production in the
Speaker 1: first half, I think he would have been the first
Speaker 1: baseman for the Rangers all year. So yeah, blame crim
Speaker 1: Still by far the best in the system, and I
Speaker 1: would double tap him in a heartbeat, But I felt
Speaker 1: like we should talk about somebody new.
Speaker 4: He's like still eligible for Rule five, right, someone can
Speaker 4: pop him.
Speaker 1: Oh I think he was right, right, Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4: So we'll see there. The deadline is coming up here.
Speaker 4: November nineteenth is the deadline to be on the forty
Speaker 4: and not be Rule five eligible for those and I
Speaker 4: don't know if they're.
Speaker 1: Gonna I don't know if they're gonna do it, but
Speaker 1: somebody should let this guy play in the major leagues
Speaker 1: because I really think the bat's gonna play.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I won't lie Matt. I am so hoping
Speaker 4: Durban ends up wearing some purple pin stripes this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm getting sidetracked. But he is everything that Bud
Speaker 4: Black bitches about and wants more of in their lineup.
Speaker 4: He is all of that, and if the Yankees do
Speaker 4: not protect him, I don't know what the Rockies are doing.
Speaker 4: If they don't take him in the Rule five.
Speaker 1: I gotta believe they're gonna with the holes they've got,
Speaker 1: you know, glabor walking, and I don't know if they're
Speaker 1: gonna slot him right into the infield there, but I
Speaker 1: can't imagine they don't protect Durban.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe work a trade, yeah maybe AnyWho. Rangers arms
Speaker 4: I found significantly more interesting than their bats this.
Speaker 1: Year on this, totally agree.
Speaker 4: I think lots of ways that you could go. You
Speaker 4: look at, and I know Matt like, they are thirsty
Speaker 4: to develop some of their own and have some controllable starters.
Speaker 4: So Kumar, Rocker, Lighter Back Porter, the three most popular,
Speaker 4: Ali Jandro Rosario seventeen percent, Toyoto is fifteen percent, Own
Speaker 4: White is still twelve percent, Winston Santos, Jose Corneille, Cole Drake.
Speaker 4: Cole Drake's only four percent. That's that's a banger deal.
Speaker 4: I think if he's still available in your leagues. Josh Steven,
Speaker 4: who's having a really good AFL for whatever, that's worth
Speaker 4: three percent, Mitch Bratt three percent, Aiden Curry three percent.
Speaker 4: Everybody else in their system was I think one percent
Speaker 4: or less, maybe two percent.
Speaker 1: Or less gois that's a deep system, like with some
Speaker 1: bangers at the top. Yeah, those guys I'm lukewarmon, but
Speaker 1: that is a really good top of the system. And
Speaker 1: they're even mentioned, yes, guys that we're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: which I know I have three that I could have
Speaker 1: picked and been thrilled with.
Speaker 4: So yeah, you know, but again, like I mentioned before,
Speaker 4: their bug boos, just like when they get to the uppers,
Speaker 4: a lot of them, a lot of these guys just
Speaker 4: don't don't could pass, that don't progress beyond their like
Speaker 4: high success. But AnyWho you want to go first, who'd
Speaker 4: you go with?
Speaker 1: I won't bury the lead here. I went with Jose Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: This is not a knock on like the other three
Speaker 1: or four guys that I think we'll end up touching on.
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure my number two was the guy
Speaker 1: you're gonna pick, so because we've talked about it before,
Speaker 1: but I went with Jose Gonzalez. Dude is a little
Speaker 1: old for the level, so he was like twenty two
Speaker 1: or I think he ended the year twenty as a
Speaker 1: twenty three year old and spent most of the year
Speaker 1: in a ball so like a little old. As we've
Speaker 1: talked about before. I care about that a lot less
Speaker 1: for pictures because pictures can come from anywhere and blow
Speaker 1: up and be good. The reason I went, and you can.
Speaker 4: Go like like think about like Estrata, Right, he was
Speaker 4: just kind of like this middling guy and abel at
Speaker 4: twenty four or whatever, and now like he's legit, probably
Speaker 4: on the precipice of getting a big lead shot a
Speaker 4: year later. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jose Gonzalez to me, at worst is gonna be
Speaker 1: an elite reliever. At worst. That's not to like damn
Speaker 1: anything else about him, but his stuff is disgusting.
Speaker 4: Sorry, remind me. He's like a he's like a three
Speaker 4: fastball guy with like a skitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like primary pitch is like this cutter slider thing.
Speaker 1: It's the thing he throws most often. And he'll just
Speaker 1: throw cutter after cutter after cutter, and these dudes in
Speaker 1: a ball looked atrocious against it. It was hilarious. He
Speaker 1: would just throw like nine in a row and none
Speaker 1: of them would get anywhere near it, like he wouldn't.
Speaker 1: It would just be like you know, a ball mixed
Speaker 1: in here and there, and then with ball with it
Speaker 1: was like wild. And then you would see I think
Speaker 1: there was this one outing against Red Sox, maybe might
Speaker 1: have been the Red Sox is what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1: And he threw for the first like three innings it
Speaker 1: was like ninety percent cutters and these guys weren't touching shit.
Speaker 1: Then he switches up his approach and he starts throwing
Speaker 1: this four seam fastball at the top of the zone
Speaker 1: and these guys looked like it was one hundred and
Speaker 1: five every time because they were all looking for this
Speaker 1: like big moving cutter and it was this exploding fastball
Speaker 1: at the top of the zone. These guys were getting
Speaker 1: blown away, but it was hilarious. But he also he
Speaker 1: also has a bigger slider curvebally thing too, and as
Speaker 1: you said, a split change that he uses as a
Speaker 1: change of pitch, which is also a good pitch. I
Speaker 1: don't know, man like he was second in came minus
Speaker 1: BB over the last ten years in a ball. The
Speaker 1: only one better was Travis Dakora also this year, So
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of historically good how good he was
Speaker 1: at a ball. Now caveats aside, this was like eighty
Speaker 1: sun the innings there, and he's old for the level,
Speaker 1: and I think we've talked maybe about that the Carolina
Speaker 1: League like wasn't the best this year, especially on the
Speaker 1: hitting side. I think some of those teams were a
Speaker 1: little bit weaker than they've been in years past.
Speaker 4: It's not all that most impressive league in my opinion.
Speaker 1: I agree this year and looking at some of the
Speaker 1: lineups that he was chopping up, like, not a lot
Speaker 1: of guys I'm excited about in those lineups. Yet he
Speaker 1: punched out thirty three percent of batters, walked six percent,
Speaker 1: and I'm telling you, these pitches are nothing short of electric.
Speaker 1: What gives me pause is he's not the biggest guy,
Speaker 1: and so that might be like why they don't have
Speaker 1: him on the like fast track to start kind of thing. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess he's listed at six three. I always thought
Speaker 1: he was more like six foot, but maybe he's a
Speaker 1: little bit taller. Just now is sniffing hi A. And
Speaker 1: so he got one start at HIGA to end the
Speaker 1: year and it was bade whatever. It's one start. So
Speaker 1: he's been you know, DSL complex for two years, a
Speaker 1: ball for two years and then now just now is
Speaker 1: getting up to HIA. I think he's Rule five eligible
Speaker 1: this year. It says he has on fangrafts, which if
Speaker 1: he is boy, I would this is one of those
Speaker 1: guys like I think we might have talked about this before.
Speaker 1: International guys like this pop up and a rule five eligible.
Speaker 1: Some teams might try and look at a guy like this,
Speaker 1: pen him for a year and then now he's theirs
Speaker 1: for another three years or whatever it is, then keep
Speaker 1: developing him as as a starter. So I thought Hose
Speaker 1: Gonzalez was wildly impressive. I want to see it at
Speaker 1: higher levels. I'm not sure that the approach is going
Speaker 1: to hold up how he kind of goes after guys,
Speaker 1: But there was basically no one more exciting in a
Speaker 1: ball for me this year.
Speaker 4: Like we've talked about in the past, I think the
Speaker 4: Rangers do a pretty good job of like seeking out
Speaker 4: guys that are just like unique or have some a
Speaker 4: unique trait or pitch or something like that. And that's
Speaker 4: why I think you start to see, you know, like
Speaker 4: with my guy DJ McCarty last year, or maybe even
Speaker 4: like Ryan Lobis this year, like maybe the outcome is
Speaker 4: a reliever, a major league reliever banking on like a
Speaker 4: really good slider or whatever. Right, And maybe that's part
Speaker 4: of why they haven't developed some of you know, more
Speaker 4: major league starters, but they got a slew of guys
Speaker 4: man like Bradon Mendoza. I liked a good bit too,
Speaker 4: as a twenty old who was an AIA. Yeah. I
Speaker 4: think Paul Benzogni is interesting. He was in Hi An.
Speaker 4: This guy Josh Trinidou who was in Single Way, Isaac Tiger,
Speaker 4: I think is really good. But did Tiger go down
Speaker 4: with Tommy John or an elbow or something.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I think he's a legit starting pitching prospect. So again,
Speaker 4: kind of with the Rangers here to break my tie,
Speaker 4: I kind of just went with the guy gave him
Speaker 4: tiebreak because I'm just like a big fan and I
Speaker 4: want to see this guy succeed. But I went with
Speaker 4: David Devleo. Yeah, twenty one his last start. I think
Speaker 4: he'll be twenty two this year. In high A. Stuff wise,
Speaker 4: probably nothing that's going to like super jump out off
Speaker 4: the page. The fastball is like eighty nine to ninety three,
Speaker 4: sliders like eighty. There's a curve ball, there's a splitter
Speaker 4: that's like high seventies. But this guy can really pitch
Speaker 4: man like you talk about at least in stretches, maybe
Speaker 4: probably not as consistent, but just talking about all four offerings,
Speaker 4: just like dotted where he wants. And he has such
Speaker 4: like a great presence in command of everything going on
Speaker 4: on the mound, Like the dude is just in control
Speaker 4: out there. He's running the show, and he's doing what
Speaker 4: he wants to. Hitters at a pretty high clip, a
Speaker 4: lot higher clip than you usually see in High A.
Speaker 4: Sixteen starts, eighty innings in a ball, thirty innings in
Speaker 4: High A to close out the year, and I know
Speaker 4: there's like there's good competition for innings in this system.
Speaker 4: Three of his last six games starts for FQOS. Two
Speaker 4: of those were during his High A run. Probably not
Speaker 4: the biggest guy in the world. And I don't know
Speaker 4: what the story was. He was an international free agent
Speaker 4: signing of the Mets and they let him go for
Speaker 4: some reason and I don't know why, and I tried
Speaker 4: to ask, and they didn't really know why. But the
Speaker 4: Rangers picked him up I think two years ago. But
Speaker 4: let's see on the season his well, we're talking a
Speaker 4: twenty five point four strikeout percentage to a seven point
Speaker 4: two walk percent. I don't know it doesn't really get
Speaker 4: hit up very much. I just I kind of feel
Speaker 4: like maybe something in the arsenal is going to have
Speaker 4: to tick up to feel better about his major league prospects.
Speaker 4: But I don't know, man, We see that kind of
Speaker 4: stuff happen all the time. Like I'm willing to take
Speaker 4: a gamble on a guy who has this sort of
Speaker 4: pitchability and advanced like sequencing and stuff, and you could
Speaker 4: show up next year and he's throwing three clicks harder,
Speaker 4: like I'll ave Zebbie Matthews or something with that and
Speaker 4: totally take off now right now as things sit, is
Speaker 4: he like at the top of my B side armless
Speaker 4: for this year? No, probably bottom third to maybe middle,
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think you could do a lot worse.
Speaker 4: Like davl Leo is a good picture, man.
Speaker 1: I can see this being a mid to even pushing
Speaker 1: top ten arm for me in this kind of exercise.
Speaker 1: I love the worm burning ways and it's it's in
Speaker 1: a predictable fashion, right sinker that really dives down, He'll
Speaker 1: get gifts on it, ball guys swinging over it, and
Speaker 1: a ton of grounders. I wonder if he might benefit
Speaker 1: from a curveball to offset because the slider. I think
Speaker 1: he gets some soft contact with it and definitely some whiffs,
Speaker 1: but it's more of a bullet slider, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if another kind of downer pitch might.
Speaker 4: He throws a curveball from time to time. I just
Speaker 4: don't think he has as much feel for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he throws a slider way more.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Right, And you can put those pitches where he wants.
Speaker 4: It's such a high clip, like you can get away.
Speaker 4: You know, he doesn't need the curveball right now. But
Speaker 4: I hear what you're saying, maybe down the road.
Speaker 1: And he really just limits hard contact. Like it seems
Speaker 1: like that's a skill for him that he's so far
Speaker 1: in his significant outings. The highest homer to fly ball
Speaker 1: or highest home runs per nine rate he had was
Speaker 1: point five and that was seventeen innings on the complex
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. Like he in eighty innings this
Speaker 1: year at a ball, what do you give it? One homer,
Speaker 1: two two home runs in eighty innings. That's really good.
Speaker 4: Yep A one point seventy nine ERA A whip just
Speaker 4: over one and a ball is innings in high A
Speaker 4: two point one e ra X FIP three point zero five. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Man, I think he's a guy the x FIP is
Speaker 1: going to underrate because I do think it's a skill
Speaker 1: based on how he pitches that he is going to
Speaker 1: limit home runs. So I mean, I I think that
Speaker 1: this is a guy who I might buy that era
Speaker 1: more than I buy the x FIP, but normally you should.
Speaker 4: Not do that.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm a big wo fan too. I think
Speaker 1: he's really good. I love watching a pitch co sign.
Speaker 1: Everything you said about his presence and demeanor on the mound.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see what the Rangers are going to
Speaker 1: do with him this year. Like I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if they challenge him pretty aggressively.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll see. Like I like I said, I know,
Speaker 4: there's just a lot of guys that they want to
Speaker 4: get innings too. And you look at the list and
Speaker 4: the names is like you get it, Like, yeah, I understand.
Speaker 4: I understand why you want to maybe keep trying Lobis
Speaker 4: as a as a starter, because that dude could be nasty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lobis is awesome too. I mean, we don't need
Speaker 1: to labor it anymore, but this is a great pitching system.
Speaker 4: Maybe this was still only one percent rastered in September,
Speaker 4: but I felt like we talked about him this season enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean like early leader in the clubhouse
Speaker 1: for me for best pitching system in the miners.
Speaker 4: But twenty twenty three choice my Ryan Garcia was even
Speaker 4: like kind of had some sort of renaissance or something
Speaker 4: to put some stuff together in trip Away this year
Speaker 4: and wasn't walking to Brazilian guys and having a lot
Speaker 4: of success like well.
Speaker 1: We'd even mentioned Mitch Bratt too, who also think is
Speaker 1: has been in other systems. I would be happy to
Speaker 1: take him as a shirt arm.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, this is wildly deep and talented bunch.
Speaker 4: So a lot of good buds, yeah, a lot of
Speaker 4: good mud, all right, Matt the Oakland, well, what are
Speaker 4: they going by now?
Speaker 1: Oh shit, they're just the athletics.
Speaker 4: The Athletics and.
Speaker 1: West sacramentod fuck you, John Fisher, absolutely atrocious horseshit.
Speaker 4: Anyway, I really like my two picks for the A's
Speaker 4: this year. I think they're both at the top of
Speaker 4: my This might not be a surprise, but I'm going
Speaker 4: with my guy Will Simpson. Yep, still only one percent
Speaker 4: rostered as of September twenty seventh. I think he did
Speaker 4: hit pipelines top thirty at number twenty nine. When I
Speaker 4: looked twenty two, I guess maybe he'll be twenty three
Speaker 4: this year. Right handed first base type, so we know
Speaker 4: that profile can be tough. But they did have him
Speaker 4: playing some third base. I know he has played some
Speaker 4: outfield in college. Good size, six ' three strong. I
Speaker 4: love a lot of his mechanics and things that he
Speaker 4: does in his swing, real balance, see a Washington boy, right.
Speaker 4: We talked about him with Connor a little bit. Connor
Speaker 4: didn't know him, wasn't there. We talked a little bit
Speaker 4: about him. Spent most of the year in the Midwest
Speaker 4: League High A. I was just like, just kept waiting
Speaker 4: and waiting for him to get promoted to Double A.
Speaker 4: He finally did for the last eighteen games. I think
Speaker 4: he fared pretty well there. I hit a couple of
Speaker 4: home runs. He hit eighteen home runs on the season.
Speaker 4: Still a couple of bags. I don't think that's going
Speaker 4: to be like a huge part of his game. Strikeouts.
Speaker 4: I think, like we were talking about with Connor, or
Speaker 4: maybe a little bit on the higher side, but I
Speaker 4: mean not bad. Well. He was twenty four point five
Speaker 4: percent on the year with enough you know, maybe he's
Speaker 4: got can slug hit enough home runs. You know, that's
Speaker 4: not that's not too bad. Two ten ISO one two
Speaker 4: WRC plus one fifty five in his little double a span.
Speaker 4: What I like about Simpson two I watched a lot
Speaker 4: of them this year, is like, I feel like there's
Speaker 4: sort of different periods of him as a hitter. You
Speaker 4: can see him, you know, it was like line opposite field,
Speaker 4: line drives going over second basement's head, like, seemed to
Speaker 4: be hitting a lot of those. And then there was
Speaker 4: times where it was like, all right, he's definitely trying
Speaker 4: to hit the ball out in front and pull it
Speaker 4: more and you know, and then home runs will pop
Speaker 4: up a little bit more. I just kind of like
Speaker 4: that versatility. I don't know what he's going to sort
Speaker 4: of end up looking like in the end, but I
Speaker 4: think he's got like kind of all of that again
Speaker 4: in his good mechanics, can hit the ball hard when
Speaker 4: he gets deep on him. I know, like I said,
Speaker 4: right handed first base, that could be a long shot.
Speaker 4: But for a B side type here one percent, I
Speaker 4: kind of like my man Simpson here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, Simpson's a great pick, and he would
Speaker 1: have been mine that I knew that you liked him.
Speaker 1: Still can't bring myself to pick a husky that wasn't
Speaker 1: coached by Connor. You know, now they're going to be
Speaker 1: my guys. But everyone that went before you're all dead
Speaker 1: to me. Tim linscome included. Anyway. I liked a few
Speaker 1: guys in the system, Simpson and then the two guys
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, Brendan Malone and Nate Nankeel.
Speaker 1: I think both are They're all have some things in common.
Speaker 4: Well, you went with Malone last year, right.
Speaker 1: I did you know? I'm highlighting him again. I think
Speaker 1: he's he did a lot of the things that I
Speaker 1: expected him to do. I think he would be my
Speaker 1: pick again here in a vacuum. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk up nan Keel as well, but just briefly on Malone.
Speaker 1: He still has the same kind of funky up. He's
Speaker 1: still a pretty skinny looking guy that you think maybe
Speaker 1: there's more meat on the bones there.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's ever going to really come
Speaker 1: together in the power department. But his plate discipline, his
Speaker 1: contact skills remain good. He's getting I think close to
Speaker 1: his most the most you can get out of his
Speaker 1: battle ball profile because he is hitting flyballs and does
Speaker 1: have some power there, and he had a really good year.
Speaker 1: So I think, you know, in a vacuum for me,
Speaker 1: I would take Malone again. And that's no shade on
Speaker 1: Simpson too. I actually liked him quite a bit. I
Speaker 1: saw him live this year, one of the few.
Speaker 4: Malone was still I got to Malone was still just
Speaker 4: one percent in September. Yep.
Speaker 1: And I think both have both have some merit. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to give a hat tip to Nate nan Kill,
Speaker 1: who's college drafty out of cal State Fullerton last year.
Speaker 1: Was not good in his very brief debut last year,
Speaker 1: sort of a weird profile for thirty two WRC plus
Speaker 1: like definitely didn't set the w on fire. But as
Speaker 1: we've seen, we've been fooled by debuts on both the
Speaker 1: positive and the negative end coming out of the draft,
Speaker 1: and he was good at Fullerton, got a three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand bonus out of like the seventh round. I think
Speaker 1: he was a seventh rounder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Sure that he's going to have enough juice to be
Speaker 1: a regular, and I think he's just a corner outfielder.
Speaker 1: It looked okay in my looks like his his outfield play,
Speaker 1: the little bit that I saw. I just don't know
Speaker 1: if he's going to have the power that you kind
Speaker 1: of need to be a regular in right field. He
Speaker 1: does hit doubles, so he's got some doubles power. He
Speaker 1: popped eleven homers between A and Hi A this year
Speaker 1: and showed pretty good plate discipline for most of that
Speaker 1: time too, So I think there's a good hitter here
Speaker 1: without elite power, and I wanted to highlight that. I also,
Speaker 1: he seems reasonably fast to me, but he doesn't steal
Speaker 1: a lot of bases, so that might not ever be
Speaker 1: a part of his game. So to me, he's not
Speaker 1: like super exciting. I would prefer Malone or Simpson if
Speaker 1: you're looking for something. I think both those guys have
Speaker 1: a little more upside. But nan kill is the kind
Speaker 1: of guy that I think could end up with a
Speaker 1: decent career in his like twenty six to twenty eight
Speaker 1: seasons in the major leagues for a team, perhaps after
Speaker 1: free agency, after minor league free agency. So anyway, Nate
Speaker 1: nan Keel, you could do worse. Not super excited about it.
Speaker 1: But he's he's my pick this year.
Speaker 4: I think two. And we talked about Jared Dickey during
Speaker 4: the season, and that would be a decent B side
Speaker 4: choice too. Came over in a trade from the Royals,
Speaker 4: but I kind of like some of the things that
Speaker 4: he does and his kind of different, funky wide setup
Speaker 4: from the left side. I think surprisingly hits more home
Speaker 4: runs than you might think. And then Matt.
Speaker 1: Arms arms for fun.
Speaker 4: Here they were and I think you could I think
Speaker 4: there's a several decent options here. I mean I definitely
Speaker 4: picked the best one, though, but just looking at the system,
Speaker 4: you got like Luis Morales is eighteen percent. I took
Speaker 4: this into Tember and Brady Basso was at fifteen percent,
Speaker 4: but mind you, he was like getting some run yeah big,
Speaker 4: So that was probably you know, spiked a little bit.
Speaker 4: But what jt Gin is still thirteen percent? Gunner Hoglin
Speaker 4: ten percent. Nason Barnett, was that your choice lest year?
Speaker 1: I think I went with.
Speaker 4: For the Royals and then he came over in the trade.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, even like Ekavria is still just three percent.
Speaker 4: That's kind of surprising to me. But after that, I
Speaker 4: think you could have could have done well with a
Speaker 4: few calls, but I'm going with Will Johnston yep.
Speaker 1: Same, Yeah, dudetle Co sign here. Yeah, he's this is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite arms. Yes here for sure.
Speaker 4: I agree, he's probably one of my He's probably like
Speaker 4: top five for me. Yeah, we might have a battle
Speaker 4: during the draft to get John Man. We'll see what.
Speaker 4: He was a thirteenth round pick out of Texas A
Speaker 4: and M twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Right, yep, one of these relievers turned starters. I've had
Speaker 1: a bit of a thing with these guys in the past,
Speaker 1: but recently there's been a little more success with pro
Speaker 1: teams doing this, so I'm less morally opposed to it,
Speaker 1: if you will.
Speaker 4: Yeah, good size, listed at six ' three, but he
Speaker 4: went three levels last year, right, abel high double A,
Speaker 4: just two starts in double A.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's six three. But like those limbs make
Speaker 1: it look longer. I think the extension is better, and
Speaker 1: his arm slot is like damn near right over the top,
Speaker 1: and I think that's interesting in one of those fun ways.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely over the top, so you know, it's more
Speaker 4: probably more north south attack, although I do find that
Speaker 4: you know obviously that your hand orientation coming over the
Speaker 4: top like that, You're not. Nobody really throws like these
Speaker 4: wicked ass sliders from from that slot, but he does,
Speaker 4: like yeah, yeah, yeah, he throws one that's like, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not I don't know how many inches of break
Speaker 4: you might get or whatever, but it seems pretty effective
Speaker 4: and it's got some like decent movement on it. So
Speaker 4: that's an interesting pitch to me. And of course over
Speaker 4: the top left you like him. He's you look at
Speaker 4: his splits. He's tougher against righty's then he is. Lefties
Speaker 4: don't hate to see that. Now. Man, I don't know
Speaker 4: if you saw this, but he was so he was
Speaker 4: only INAA for two starts, and I don't know if
Speaker 4: that includes his playoff appearance or not, but he was
Speaker 4: pretty dang good. But his last ten year, ten games
Speaker 4: on the season, forty three and two thirds innings, an
Speaker 4: e area of one point eight eight, a whip of
Speaker 4: point eight eight. Strikeout percent is just under thirty four percent,
Speaker 4: what seven point seventy five percent through strikes at a
Speaker 4: sixty six percent clip. Gave up one home run nine
Speaker 4: earned runs. Not a bad stretch, especially considering that was
Speaker 4: also an intro to the upper levels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's awesome. I'm such a huge fan. I love
Speaker 1: the way he attacks guys too, really gets down the
Speaker 1: mound and is I'm a huge fan this. This definitely
Speaker 1: is one of the most exciting arms I've found this year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, his artist fastball, it was probably like ninety one
Speaker 4: ninety two, but it's a lefty I don't mind that. Plus,
Speaker 4: you're talking about like some extension and a different name
Speaker 4: curveball in the highest seventies, this slider cutter thing, and
Speaker 4: then he throws a splitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I liked the slider or sorry that we
Speaker 1: talked about the slider, but I like the curveball too.
Speaker 1: That was his sort of primary off speed and I look,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and it's not a hammer, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like a big loopy one. But the way that
Speaker 1: it plays off of his fastball, it gives such a
Speaker 1: tough look to hitters. I think that's the reason for
Speaker 1: it's a big part of his success. It's like the
Speaker 1: way that both of those pitches come out, hitters can't
Speaker 1: tell what's coming and it really separates. So that tunnel,
Speaker 1: to me, I think is one that makes both pitches
Speaker 1: really effective.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree, righties hit one to eighty one
Speaker 4: against him last year. But yeah, I agree, I think
Speaker 4: this is a pretty I think he's kind of a dude,
Speaker 4: and that's appreciated in the Dynasty world at least right
Speaker 4: now hundred percent. Yep, Now, Matt, you're second team, right,
Speaker 4: your local team. Yeah, that ends the Semen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Mariners, who are definitely going to sign one
Speaker 1: Soda this offseason and speak it into existence and battle
Speaker 1: one hundred percent happen.
Speaker 4: I'm sure I'm really curious to a bat that you
Speaker 4: picked out here, because I won't lie, I struggle.
Speaker 1: I tend to agree, Like the bats either are really
Speaker 1: well regarded, Like the top of their system has quite
Speaker 1: a few well regarded bats in you know, Harry Ford,
Speaker 1: Cold Young, Colt Emerson, Lazara Montes, Michael Royo. Like that
Speaker 1: group is good. I think there's gonna be some good
Speaker 1: major leaguers out of there, but they're also way too
Speaker 1: owned for our purposes. You know, our guy Ben Williamson,
Speaker 1: We've talked about him a bit. Legit might be the
Speaker 1: best defensive player, best third baseman in the minor leagues.
Speaker 1: Like he makes ridiculous play after ridiculous play, And you know,
Speaker 1: I liked his bat a bit, another of those abbreviated
Speaker 1: swing arieties. Not a ton of power, a lot of doubles,
Speaker 1: some speed, Like I like Ben Williamson.
Speaker 4: I think he was. He was rastered a little bit
Speaker 4: more than our constraints here, though. I think, let see,
Speaker 4: he's at the series like three four percent. I think
Speaker 4: he's at zero now on fan trash.
Speaker 1: That's why he made my filter, and I figured that's
Speaker 1: who you would go with. But if he's outside your
Speaker 1: parameters from September, I think that's probably right. You know,
Speaker 1: he had a nice run there in in Everett, and
Speaker 1: he was good ballplayer overall, good ballplayer.
Speaker 4: M ilb gave Caros the gold Glove at third base.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know.
Speaker 4: I feel that's good. I feel like that's a tough debate. Caros, yeah, Williamson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Charris is good too. But I you know, I
Speaker 1: maybe watched a little more. I guess I watched quite
Speaker 1: a bit of both, but I I probably would have
Speaker 1: given it to Williamson's. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think I think I would have too. I think
Speaker 4: I would have too.
Speaker 1: Not a knock on Carros, because I do think he's
Speaker 1: really like it too. Okay, but the guy. I'm actually
Speaker 1: quite excited about this guy, and I'm interested if you
Speaker 1: if you watch him, did you watch much Victor Lebrata
Speaker 1: a little bit?
Speaker 4: But I actually wrote him up back in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: one when he was tearing it up. The Kell League
Speaker 4: had a bunch of these years that would just sound
Speaker 4: a crazy hot run, and he was one of them.
Speaker 1: Lobrota is really fun for a few reasons. Again, we're
Speaker 1: caveating this a little bit because it's not like gonna
Speaker 1: wow you with the tools. He's not gonna He's small,
Speaker 1: like he's five eight, you know, undersized spark plug that
Speaker 1: no one else really thinks is good. Fined as a
Speaker 1: twenty year old, I think the international free agency, and
Speaker 1: then the pandemic happened, so he didn't play. He debuted
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one as a twenty one year old
Speaker 1: in a ball He has spent eleven hundred played appearances
Speaker 1: in the cow League over the last four years or
Speaker 1: the last four seasons. Got promoted a couple of times
Speaker 1: to the Northwest League to hi A, but only for
Speaker 1: kind of short stints and was never like great, wasn't
Speaker 1: lighting the world on fire. And he made one Fangrafts
Speaker 1: list as like a footnote that the basically the whole
Speaker 1: footnote was nobody else thinks this guy's any good, but
Speaker 1: maybe he can play the outfield. I love this guy.
Speaker 1: He's he's best. I had gold Man like Cuban defectee
Speaker 1: to the Dominican, like I said, underside, but he is
Speaker 1: so fast, legit, seventy grade speed caught it. I got
Speaker 1: him on a bunt at three five down the line,
Speaker 1: but bunted for a hit three five down the line
Speaker 1: and then swiped, second, swipe third. Love that shit so good.
Speaker 1: His swing is pretty fun. The knock on him at
Speaker 1: this point is that, like he might in the past,
Speaker 1: I would say, like the power has been bad. He
Speaker 1: had one pretty good season in twenty twenty two, where
Speaker 1: he popped ten homers in four hundred and fifty played appearances,
Speaker 1: but that was at Everett. He's a lefty. He put
Speaker 1: a bunch over the short porch there and like nobody
Speaker 1: thought that power was real. And then last year he
Speaker 1: hit zero home run or maybe one home run in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, I think, but that was it. This year
Speaker 1: he hit ten homers and swiped forty nine bases. Do
Speaker 1: you know how many people swiped more than forty nine
Speaker 1: bases this year, be three little more than that, you know,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's quite a few in like the forty
Speaker 1: nine to fifty five range. Like there's there's like ten
Speaker 1: guys that are all right in that range, and then
Speaker 1: there's like four guys that were at the top of
Speaker 1: the leaderboard. So he was like, I think nineteenth or
Speaker 1: twentieth in the minors in this year. Do you know
Speaker 1: how many ahead of him hit more home runs than
Speaker 1: his ten?
Speaker 4: None?
Speaker 1: Just two one of them. You should know as a
Speaker 1: Colorado Rockies stand a guy. Maybe we'll we'll talk about
Speaker 1: who's still a ton of bases Kerrig?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He stole a ton of bases, like you know, top
Speaker 1: ninety fifth percentile in the minor leagues, and of that
Speaker 1: group was the top ten percentile in home runs, so
Speaker 1: not zero power. I also saw in a Baseball America
Speaker 1: article that they posted he was one of the top
Speaker 1: exit velocity gainers this year. Now he is ninetieth percent exile.
Speaker 1: Exit velocity is just shy of major league gaverage. That's
Speaker 1: I think they listed to him at like ninety three
Speaker 1: point one and major league average is like ninety three
Speaker 1: point five something like that for ninetieth So that's pretty
Speaker 1: darn good. I might have the number strong. It might
Speaker 1: be one o three. I think that's what. He's one
Speaker 1: oh three point one and major league average is one
Speaker 1: of three point five. I think that's right. Anyway, he's
Speaker 1: like just a hair shy of major league gaverage as
Speaker 1: far as power goes, which I think kind of matters.
Speaker 1: Like that means that you look at this underside guy,
Speaker 1: everyone's like, you're gonna hit for power.
Speaker 4: Buh b.
Speaker 1: I think that's not really true. He's stinging the ball
Speaker 1: now and he's swinging and missing a little bit he
Speaker 1: has in the past as well. But with the speed
Speaker 1: and the ability to run the outfield, like, he's a
Speaker 1: pretty good outfielder in my looks too. I can see
Speaker 1: him getting some run in major league outfield, and you know,
Speaker 1: small or no. The if the power is just shy
Speaker 1: of average, like why the hell do we care? The
Speaker 1: knock on him is the contact ability. He's mostly run
Speaker 1: higher ground ball rates in the past, so like, even
Speaker 1: though the power is maybe approaching major league average, with
Speaker 1: the ground ball rate, he's probably always going to be
Speaker 1: a little bit under that as far as like production
Speaker 1: in the home run category for Rodo, but with the
Speaker 1: steals and the speed and the willingness to bunt for hit,
Speaker 1: he's just a super fun guy. Hit. I think it
Speaker 1: was the playoffs last year he hit a grand Slam
Speaker 1: for Everett and again they were already up a bunch,
Speaker 1: but it was it was dope. He pimped it and
Speaker 1: it was it was super cool. So Victor Lebrato for me,
Speaker 1: super fun, not like top tier guy, just because I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that with the ground ball rate, the power
Speaker 1: is going to play, but the speed, the defense and
Speaker 1: the story give me. Give me lebron as my Mariners
Speaker 1: b side. The other the other issue with him is
Speaker 1: that there are two other guys on the Mariners forty
Speaker 1: man that are exactly like him, Ryan Bliss and Samad Taylor,
Speaker 1: And so that's like, you know, I mean Bliss infield
Speaker 1: or Taylor outfield, but still really similar kinds of production,
Speaker 1: really similar players. But Lobratto, you know, he's fun.
Speaker 4: No, I agree, there was, Like Sunstrom was a little
Speaker 4: interesting to me. Brack Rodin rotten Rodin, like he won
Speaker 4: the second base gold Glove, they gave it to him.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised at that, but all right.
Speaker 4: Nice, Yeah, honestly, dude, I this is like number twenty
Speaker 4: nine or number thirty on my bat's list, my choice here.
Speaker 4: But there was just a first first year player, guy
Speaker 4: Austin Saint Laurent, who played three games. Dude, we're talking
Speaker 4: eleven did not three games, eleven played appearances. He was
Speaker 4: their fourteenth round pick out of Appalachian State. By no
Speaker 4: means do I really like get this guy or nothing,
Speaker 4: But he was just a guy out of all those
Speaker 4: I wanted to see more of him than anybody else.
Speaker 4: Twenty one middle infielder played second base and choice stop.
Speaker 4: I think both in college and his three games stint here.
Speaker 4: It's probably about six foot. I like to like his
Speaker 4: kind of like his build and his swing, Like I
Speaker 4: think he's got a big swing, yet like still controlled.
Speaker 4: He walked the same amount of times that he struck
Speaker 4: out in his three games here, but I think that
Speaker 4: was also kind of the case in college. I think
Speaker 4: he was a walk more than strikeout strikeout kind of guy.
Speaker 4: Cut up some video of some of his that bats.
Speaker 4: Obviously there's not a lot to look at, but like
Speaker 4: I said, he was just a guy that I wanted
Speaker 4: to watch more. I was bummed that there wasn't more
Speaker 4: video to see it because I was kind of getting interested.
Speaker 4: That's it, that's it, all right, Mariners at this roster percentage,
Speaker 4: I just had a hard time, I don't know, getting down,
Speaker 4: but I liked I liked you shouting out Lebrato. I
Speaker 4: think that's a good call. I didn't realize that stuff
Speaker 4: about the exit velocities, and you had told me that information,
Speaker 4: I probably would have, you know, picked.
Speaker 1: Him as well, nice, nice, well, excited to watch.
Speaker 4: Well, who knows. I mean, it could be a total.
Speaker 1: Dud, as most of your picks are.
Speaker 4: So all right, let's wrap it up with the Mariners arms, Matt,
Speaker 4: you look at their system logan evans twenty percent, and
Speaker 4: if you were listening to us last year, you would
Speaker 4: have been a little bit ahead of the curve there.
Speaker 4: Cheter Martinez is seven, Walter Ford's five percent, their new
Speaker 4: draft choice, the ambidextrious guy, was already at three percent.
Speaker 4: Then you got like Cole Phillips, Brandon Garcia, Taylor Dollard.
Speaker 4: Their three percent morales is still only two percent, which
Speaker 4: I was kind of surprised. Ryan Sloan's the first year player.
Speaker 4: He's already at two percent. Revan Scooter, who we were
Speaker 4: gushing about are fans of last year, He's at one percent.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't know, Matt, who'd you go with
Speaker 4: after that? Well?
Speaker 1: RVs my guy last year. As I said in our
Speaker 1: initial pick, I thought the stuff was going to back up,
Speaker 1: Like the results weren't going to be quite as good
Speaker 1: at double A, but I still really believed in him.
Speaker 1: The strikeout rate dig tick back a little bit more
Speaker 1: than I thought at double A, but overall he still
Speaker 1: had a really good year. He really just had one
Speaker 1: outing where he gave up like seven runs in a
Speaker 1: third of an inning. If you remove that outing, his
Speaker 1: year looks remarkably similar to his year last year. A
Speaker 1: couple of fewer innings, I think he might have dealt
Speaker 1: with some Yeah, he was out for a little while
Speaker 1: injury stuff. Yeah, so that held him back a little
Speaker 1: bit too. But I'm still a big fan of Van
Speaker 1: Scooter and think that he is a you know, number
Speaker 1: five starter waiting in the wings that isn't going to
Speaker 1: be a strikeout king, but gonna get a ton of
Speaker 1: ground balls. And still love him as a pitcher. He's
Speaker 1: super fun to watch. Like him a lot, and as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, a couple of other guys in the system
Speaker 1: that I think are still really good. Your Logan Evans
Speaker 1: pick last year was awesome. Michael Morales is someone that
Speaker 1: I have flirted with in the past of like, he's
Speaker 1: had runs where he was really good, but his year
Speaker 1: this year was very good. I liked what I saw there,
Speaker 1: thinking him stepping taking a step forward, making it up
Speaker 1: to double A and pitching decently. Definitely a fan. There's
Speaker 1: a couple other arms I like here too. Luis Cravello
Speaker 1: I think is going to be a big league reliever
Speaker 1: probably next year. Great slider and the mold of the
Speaker 1: Mariner's middle relief kind of pitchers. So I liked him
Speaker 1: the fair amount. But I'm going with Brandon Garcia is
Speaker 1: my pick. You watch much of Garcia this year.
Speaker 4: A little bit? Yeah, I think I kind of excluded
Speaker 4: him from my search here because he was at three
Speaker 4: percent then.
Speaker 1: But blast blast, so mine should have a zero percent
Speaker 1: when I look, But I'm not surprised that he's kind
Speaker 1: of at that three percent range. Another guy who was
Speaker 1: a college reliever, and again like this is you know,
Speaker 1: trade on Browski last year, Tyler Guilfoyle, Michael Prosecci. These
Speaker 1: guys last year that I was really intrigued by that
Speaker 1: were college relievers turned starters and having some success. And
Speaker 1: those guys I'm usually skeptical about the durability. Can they
Speaker 1: hold a starteris workload and the command because there's usually
Speaker 1: a reason that they're in the pen in college and
Speaker 1: it's usually one of those two things. Well, Brandon Garcia
Speaker 1: hasn't necessarily answered both of those questions yet, but you
Speaker 1: have to say that twenty twenty four was a huge
Speaker 1: breakout for the eleventh rounder. Yeah, at a a M.
Speaker 1: He had kind of a bad walk rate last year
Speaker 1: only through fifty three and two thirds innings pitch last year,
Speaker 1: but this year across the levels through one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixteen innings, which I love to see, twenty seven percent
Speaker 1: strikeout rate and the walk rate was a lot on
Speaker 1: the year at nine point five percent, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: a hair higher than you would like. That's probably a
Speaker 1: touch above average. Still pretty darn good and didn't tick
Speaker 1: up too much even as he got promoted for forty
Speaker 1: seven and two thirds innings at double A this year.
Speaker 1: So Arkansas for the Mariners is a pretty good place
Speaker 1: to pitch Texas League. I don't know, like you're more
Speaker 1: plugged into this than I am, but I feel like
Speaker 1: most of the other places to pitch are lean a
Speaker 1: little more hitter friendly. But then there's a couple of
Speaker 1: parks like Arkansas, it's a little more pitcher friendly.
Speaker 4: Is what you say?
Speaker 1: That's true?
Speaker 4: I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Garcia dominated in ever Itt and Everett is a hitters park,
Speaker 1: and then was pretty against better competition in Double A
Speaker 1: for his second half of the year. So I think
Speaker 1: both of those things show that he can pitch pretty
Speaker 1: well irrespective of the environment. He's a funky, low slot lefty,
Speaker 1: pretty athletic looking, but he has a weird mix and
Speaker 1: I love that. Just love guys that come at the
Speaker 1: hitters in a really weird way. He throws a cutter,
Speaker 1: a lot, a four steamer, a sinker, a sweeper, and
Speaker 1: a change. All the pitches can get it. And I
Speaker 1: think that one thing I really appreciated about Brandon Garcia
Speaker 1: is that he is unpredictable in his attack. He'll come
Speaker 1: at a two to zero count and it's a change
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the plate. It's two strikes
Speaker 1: and he's nibbled to get it to like three to
Speaker 1: two or something, and then it's just fastball out our
Speaker 1: half and he dots it in the corner. Again. The
Speaker 1: command is the thing that's holding me back from like
Speaker 1: this is a no doubt top five B side arm
Speaker 1: for me. But I wouldn't be surprised if he's the
Speaker 1: one of the best of my B side arms this
Speaker 1: time next week year, because the stuff to me looks
Speaker 1: like major league play and he just needs to make
Speaker 1: sure that the control is good enough and that he
Speaker 1: commands the wide repertoire in order to be like setting
Speaker 1: himself up for success in the major leagues. But overall, boy,
Speaker 1: Brandon Garcia just looks like the real deal to me
Speaker 1: and looks like a really really good pitcher.
Speaker 4: And I think that's real solid call. But he had
Speaker 4: a teammate in Arkansas who I think is better, yeah,
Speaker 4: and was rastered at zero percent, and this is a
Speaker 4: blast from the past. I'm going I'm bringing one out
Speaker 4: of the archives here and I'm I'm my twenty twenty
Speaker 4: three Mariner's arm was one Mercedes and I'm going back
Speaker 4: there because I think, all, well, I think my guy
Speaker 4: has kind of arrived. Now he's twenty four. He's twenty
Speaker 4: four this year twenty three twenty four, spent the whole
Speaker 4: season in Double A in Arkansas. Like you said, good
Speaker 4: place to pitch, twenty seven starts, one hundred and forty
Speaker 4: four innings. You like to see that sort of horsepower, right, Matt, Yep? Yep.
Speaker 4: He had a two eight seven ERA, A one point
Speaker 4: zero nine whip, four point zero three x fit. Strikeout
Speaker 4: percentage on the season was twenty one point three. But
Speaker 4: put a pin in that for right now, Walkery was
Speaker 4: four point four percent. Not too shabby, Mercedes. Back in
Speaker 4: what would that been like twenty twenty two, he was
Speaker 4: a young guy in Medesta or not in Modesto, And yeah,
Speaker 4: in Modesto, basically a fastball slider, right, and he still
Speaker 4: is basically a fastball slider guy, although you can spot
Speaker 4: him throwing some change ups from time to time, and
Speaker 4: he will throw change ups to righties from time to top.
Speaker 1: That love that, right, right.
Speaker 4: It has been a pretty middling prospect, I think, right
Speaker 4: the last couple of seasons. But something happened this year, Matt,
Speaker 4: and I can't say that I really know what it is.
Speaker 4: He's throwing his fastball. I don't know. I mean at
Speaker 4: the mercy of the broadcast guns in booth right ninety
Speaker 4: five up to ninety six. Sometimes I don't remember him
Speaker 4: throwing quite that hard in the past. But his last
Speaker 4: thirteen games he went sixty six innings with a three
Speaker 4: ERA one point one four whip. The strikeout percentage jumped
Speaker 4: to twenty eight point sixty two percent. Mind you, this
Speaker 4: is you know, pitching in the same league all year,
Speaker 4: whereas before that he was sub twenties twenty percent. So
Speaker 4: I can't say I totally know. Did something did the
Speaker 4: slider get nastier? Was there more velo? I don't know.
Speaker 4: He threw strikes at a seventy one percent clip over
Speaker 4: those last thirteen starts. A couple of those were in
Speaker 4: the playoffs, where I think he fared pretty well. Seven
Speaker 4: home runs over the those sixty six innings. After you're
Speaker 4: finding this sort of success at double A like with
Speaker 4: the Mariners, like, what's the next step?
Speaker 1: It's the Biggs. But the issue with the Mariners is
Speaker 1: that their five top five starters at least are way
Speaker 1: better than any of these guys in the minor leagues,
Speaker 1: and so the concern with a guy like Mercedes or
Speaker 1: Garcia or some of these other logan Eppens for example,
Speaker 1: is that they get popped in the pen, right, that
Speaker 1: turn into the kind of middle or high leverage relievers,
Speaker 1: and that's what the Mariners are going to do with him.
Speaker 1: Then need a few of them for depth starters. And
Speaker 1: I think that certainly two or three of these guys
Speaker 1: in the Manner system are better than Emerson Hancock. They
Speaker 1: gave the most of their major league kind of six
Speaker 1: starter slots too. But again, you know, maybe the Manners
Speaker 1: don't have the same health luck that they've had with
Speaker 1: their with their starting pitching, so maybe there's more innings
Speaker 1: to eat here.
Speaker 4: Mercedes is rule five eligible. Seems like you might be
Speaker 4: an arm that someone might have some interest in and
Speaker 4: would pen. Like you say, I don't know, he's not
Speaker 4: on the forty man at this juncture, right, No, I
Speaker 4: don't think so. No, he jumped up the back half
Speaker 4: of the year.
Speaker 1: Did you see any reason why. I mean, I've always
Speaker 1: liked his command, but the strikeout rate has always like
Speaker 1: kept held me back being really in you know.
Speaker 4: So I'd love to like look at some you know,
Speaker 4: geeky nerdy data stuff because I think something that I
Speaker 4: don't know if he was really pitching any differently. I
Speaker 4: think something just got tougher on hitters, something was missing
Speaker 4: more bats. Like watching him down the stretch, I couldn't
Speaker 4: really I can't say, oh, it's definitely the fastball, or
Speaker 4: oh it was definitely the slider, like maybe it was both.
Speaker 4: I don't know. It didn't really seem like he was
Speaker 4: pitching all that different to me, but he was just
Speaker 4: getting more whiffs.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. But Mercedes, Mercedes versus gotta see
Speaker 4: you this year. Let's let's look at that battle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it should be a good one. They're
Speaker 1: both good, good arms. I like them both.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I think that does it for the Al West.
Speaker 1: Huh Yeah, Al West strong and more on the arm side,
Speaker 1: I'd say than the bats, although definitely a couple of
Speaker 1: good bats mixed in there. But the arms. Here we
Speaker 1: listed what nine because we both picked will Johnston, But
Speaker 1: I think even the next nine, which we mentioned, most
Speaker 1: of them would be pretty good in the other divisions.
Speaker 1: I'd say, like, yeah, there's some quality and depth here
Speaker 1: in the al Wes.
Speaker 4: I agree, And even though I might not prioritize half
Speaker 4: the guys of my guys that we talked about in
Speaker 4: like our draft per se, there's still guys that I
Speaker 4: find a lot of fun. Yeah, and exciting too and
Speaker 4: with some hope.
Speaker 1: I looked it up on Mercedes. He had like the
Speaker 1: fifteenth most innings pitch this year in all the minor leagues.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the worth horsepower.
Speaker 4: We shall find out. But I appreciate you guys joining us.
Speaker 4: I know it's getting money, but this is fun for us.
Speaker 4: In the off season. Some of these guys will pop,
Speaker 4: some of them will not, and it'll be fun to
Speaker 4: watch and see who does. Absolutely, we'll do another division
Speaker 4: next week or whenever we record next probably next week.
Speaker 4: I don't know what division we're gonna do. We'll find
Speaker 4: out again. I'm on Twitter at Pitching Specs. I'll be
Speaker 4: dropping videos of these guys right when the episode comes out.
Speaker 4: That good stuff, man, it was nice to chat with buddy.
Speaker 4: All Right, you guys be well and we'll let Chicago
Speaker 4: Farmer take us out later.
Speaker 2: Miles an hour riding to his head, you have them
Speaker 2: down for with the lumpbon in his face, and on
Speaker 2: the very next pitch he up and stole second face.
Speaker 3: With gradest speed. He wasn't born. He had the dirty
Speaker 3: Yes uniform