Speaker 1: Ninety five miles an hour riding to his head.
Speaker 2: You hop it down.
Speaker 1: First with the lump bonius face, and on the very
Speaker 1: next pitch he up and stole second phase.
Speaker 3: With gretest be he wasn't born, he had they.
Speaker 4: Yes, Uniforn, Welcome to episode Johnny Quato forty seven, the
Speaker 4: Prospect B set of the podcast.
Speaker 2: Maybe your best pick yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, another notable forty seven's satral page, Tom Glavin. Mm hm,
Speaker 4: there was one more I was gonna say, but I
Speaker 4: don't remember it, but welcome back. It's it's been a
Speaker 4: minute now, It's nice to see you. I hope your
Speaker 4: holidays were.
Speaker 2: Great, yes, intb.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's almost like the Cosmos didn't want us to
Speaker 4: record this final divisional installment here.
Speaker 2: We had to get the people waiting, you know, they
Speaker 2: the holidays, sickness, technical challenges, it all came for us.
Speaker 2: But you know what, we're here. We're here and we're
Speaker 2: going to power through the ale central bring us home.
Speaker 4: That's right. We are not using our usual recording equipment
Speaker 4: tonight because we couldn't get it to work right, but
Speaker 4: hopefully it all turns out. We've been going division by division,
Speaker 4: picking out our favorite hitters and pitchers that are that
Speaker 4: were rostered back in September, like zero to one percent,
Speaker 4: some guys that the rook and I like to perhaps
Speaker 4: gain some Dynasty utility in twenty twenty five. So the
Speaker 4: last division we started, what Matt did, we started at
Speaker 4: the end of October. Sounds right, we were saying off
Speaker 4: air here, and it's been a minute since I've watched
Speaker 4: a few of these guys, So draw the memory here
Speaker 4: and got some video.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And you know, I don't know about you,
Speaker 2: but the Dynasty off season is in full swing for me.
Speaker 2: I think I've made more trades this week than I
Speaker 2: had in the previous like three months combined. So it's
Speaker 2: pretty fun to get.
Speaker 4: Back in there, moving and shaking.
Speaker 2: Huh, dude, I had some bangers this week. It's been
Speaker 2: pretty fun.
Speaker 4: I've made a few, nothing too crazy so far, I
Speaker 4: don't think. Well, let's get into it, man, Let's.
Speaker 2: Start with your Chicago White Sox. I don't see why not.
Speaker 4: Not got the White Sox. Admittedly probably not super excited
Speaker 4: about my two White Sox choices here, but let's go
Speaker 4: arm first, and let's do I don't know if you've
Speaker 4: watched Riley Gowins very much at all. Indeed, that's that's
Speaker 4: who I'm going to go with mine too.
Speaker 2: The way to start with the co sign.
Speaker 4: Oh really yekay, maybe you're more excited than I. I
Speaker 4: don't know, but what he's uh oh he came from
Speaker 4: the Braves.
Speaker 2: And some trade in the Aaron Bummer trade.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. He was the ninth round pick out
Speaker 4: of Illinois in twenty twenty three. Right hander. He was
Speaker 4: twenty four his last start, it'll be twenty five this season,
Speaker 4: listed at six ' four spent in twenty four what
Speaker 4: in high and then double A pretty much split his
Speaker 4: season in half between those two levels. On the season,
Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty two innings and twenty five starts,
Speaker 4: three point eight four ERA one point one seven whip
Speaker 4: three sixty six x FIP, twenty eight point seven K percentage,
Speaker 4: a nine point one walk percentage. The production took a
Speaker 4: little bit of a dip when he moved up to
Speaker 4: double A right but I don't know if you noticed,
Speaker 4: his last nine starts were pretty good though he seemed
Speaker 4: to adjust to double A.
Speaker 2: I was going to highlight that even his last six
Speaker 2: that he seemed like he had figured some stuff out
Speaker 2: and ran a two seven fit over that last six
Speaker 2: starts and again at double A like maybe he'd adjusted. Actually,
Speaker 2: was really encouraged by how he ended the year in Binghamton.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like what his last pen starts he only gave
Speaker 4: up what nine runs and four of those were in
Speaker 4: one outing? Yeah, yeah, mad, And he seems to have
Speaker 4: a you know, full starter's arsenal. The little East West
Speaker 4: game that he's got with the fastball that kind of
Speaker 4: runs arm side. He's got a good snider. I think
Speaker 4: that the curveball looks pretty decent, the changeup looks nice.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just kind of a just all around
Speaker 4: looking prospect. One thing that gives me a bit hesitation
Speaker 4: with him is just like the stack pile of arms
Speaker 4: now that the white Sacks have gotten I can't imagine
Speaker 4: he's too high on the pecking order, but yeah, he'll
Speaker 4: be in the uppers. It's not that far away. Maybe
Speaker 4: in the middle third of the B side arms that
Speaker 4: I went with this year. That's fun.
Speaker 2: I think that's fair.
Speaker 4: I'm prioritize them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's fair. You know, I like somebody
Speaker 2: that has the volume that he put up this year, right,
Speaker 2: you know, one hundred and twenty two innings is really good.
Speaker 2: That's near the top. Well, it's probably ninetieth percentile or
Speaker 2: something of arms in the minor league, So that's good.
Speaker 2: While there are a lot of arms in Chicago, I
Speaker 2: think a lot of them are of questionable quality, and
Speaker 2: a lot of them like probably aren't gonna be huge
Speaker 2: blockers in the rotation. If he takes a small step forward,
Speaker 2: I kind of agree with you. I think that the
Speaker 2: arsenal is more good than great currently. That isn't to
Speaker 2: say with a little bit tighter execution, you know, nine
Speaker 2: percent walk rate given the good not great, strick hit
Speaker 2: red that he's got is like a little bit of
Speaker 2: a flag for me for his arsenal, I think it
Speaker 2: would be better if he was I would be more excited.
Speaker 2: I'd say, if he was under eight percent kind of
Speaker 2: walk rate, I could see that happening. Him tightening the
Speaker 2: command a bit, working on the execution like he kind
Speaker 2: of did to end the year. And if that's the
Speaker 2: guy that we see, then maybe he's one of the
Speaker 2: ones that's really in the mix. And while look at
Speaker 2: him and see a front end starter mix here, he
Speaker 2: could develop into a number four And I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: shocked right like, and that's a useful fantasy starter kind
Speaker 2: of no matter the league depth, then I can't say
Speaker 2: that about a lot of the guys in kind of
Speaker 2: the middle tier for me. So he might be like
Speaker 2: close to top ten arm for me, maybe maybe around
Speaker 2: that tenth slot. So I could see that kind of
Speaker 2: middle third to nearing the top ten for my B
Speaker 2: set arms anyway.
Speaker 4: September zero zero percent roster. One thing about Gawans too
Speaker 4: is that it's kind of a little tougher un lefties.
Speaker 4: That's the right handed picture. Don't hate to see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his change I thought was good. I didn't see
Speaker 2: I would have liked to see him usic more, but
Speaker 2: I thought it was really good when he used it.
Speaker 4: Riley gotwins. I don't know. I think a solid B
Speaker 4: side arm. I'm not rastering him anywhere.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you are, but not currently No
Speaker 2: get in the southern lead this year. Yeah, and for
Speaker 2: what it's worth, like.
Speaker 4: Well, they're done and just pop them up to Charlotte.
Speaker 2: Who knows, and who knows they might I haven't looked
Speaker 2: at their depth chart in a minute. I know they've
Speaker 2: Like you said, They've got quite a few arms they've
Speaker 2: gotten in various trades, and some of them I think
Speaker 2: they're going to park in the bigs and see what
Speaker 2: they can do next year. And some of them I
Speaker 2: think are bound for the pen. Like you know, Herberd
Speaker 2: loves to erie arte, but I just don't see him
Speaker 2: working as a starter. I think he's he's pen bound,
Speaker 2: So you know, that's kind of what I'm saying. With Like,
Speaker 2: even the volume of arms that they've gotten in trades
Speaker 2: over the past eighteen months or so, I still think
Speaker 2: there are lots of rotation slots to be had in Chicago,
Speaker 2: and has a puncher shot at them, and I think
Speaker 2: that's worth a flyer for a zero percent guy, especially
Speaker 2: in your deeper leagues or your leagues where pitching really matters,
Speaker 2: like your points leagues. I would prefer Gowons to after
Speaker 2: doing my deep dive this offseason, I prefer him to
Speaker 2: some arms that I have across a couple of thirty teamers,
Speaker 2: and so he's going to be a late target for
Speaker 2: me and along with some of the other B side
Speaker 2: arms that I've mentioned in some of my FYPD and
Speaker 2: Unowned Prospect drafts this offseason, yeah right.
Speaker 4: I don't know if we mentioned fastball velocity is probably
Speaker 4: like ninety three, ninety four something like. Yeah. Well, like
Speaker 4: I said, I think it's got some in my looks,
Speaker 4: it's got some nice armside run to it. I think.
Speaker 4: On Twitter on x at Pitching Specs, I got a
Speaker 4: video of him and the other guys I'll talk about
Speaker 4: tonight and I'll share those after this episode of Drafts.
Speaker 2: Let me talk about my bat here for Chicago, and
Speaker 2: then I'll pass it over to you. Partly because this
Speaker 2: is going to be a bit of a theme of
Speaker 2: the episode for me, and partly because I just really
Speaker 2: like this particular player I'm going with, Riku Nishida. Are
Speaker 2: you familiar with mister Nishida.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the noodleist of noodle Dants.
Speaker 2: Yes. He may have the single worst power projections in
Speaker 2: professional baseball. He did hit one homer this year that
Speaker 2: did leave the park. Got a slider down and in
Speaker 2: and golfed it out and it just barely cleared. You
Speaker 2: saw his whole dugout went nuts for him. Because it's
Speaker 2: his first professional homer. I don't think he hit one
Speaker 2: in college either. I'll have to check that he went
Speaker 2: to university of Oregon. I've got some love there. I
Speaker 2: also spent some time in Eugene, so pumped for Rika Nishida.
Speaker 2: The reason I picked him is one I love these
Speaker 2: underdog type stories where people write him off because he's
Speaker 2: a zero in the power department. He's short, he's skinny,
Speaker 2: he's like doesn't look like a big leaguer at all.
Speaker 2: But while it's not Stephen Kwan esque, he does have
Speaker 2: incredibly good contact skills. I continuously think in this dynasty
Speaker 2: world people really underrate the contact skill ability and especially
Speaker 2: depending on your format, that that can really really play.
Speaker 2: And Nishidah is like the er example of this, right,
Speaker 2: like not going to hit for any power in the
Speaker 2: big leagues, like the as you said, noodle Bat, I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't have his exsiblos or anything, but this is
Speaker 2: bottom of a scale power. He's not even trying to
Speaker 2: hit for power. But he's really good at manipulating the barrel.
Speaker 2: He doesn't get beat often. His hands stay in the
Speaker 2: zone a long time, so if it's a breaking ball
Speaker 2: or an off speed pitch he's fulled on. He'll just
Speaker 2: slap it the other way or pull it through a hole.
Speaker 2: If it's a fastball, like, he just doesn't get beat
Speaker 2: by heat very often. I love his style, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's very you know, he's Japanese and ancestry, and
Speaker 2: it's very evocative of the MPB style of play, which
Speaker 2: I enjoy stylistically, like, I don't think those make for
Speaker 2: the very best and most valuable baseball players often, but
Speaker 2: I think aesthetically it's super fun to watch him hit.
Speaker 2: And this is another shout to really really understand your format.
Speaker 2: I play in a couple of funny points leagues that
Speaker 2: have really varying rules around contact skills versus power, and
Speaker 2: in a couple of my super deep like thirty team
Speaker 2: plus dynasty leagues, Nishida is never going to be interesting
Speaker 2: to me, even if he makes the BIGS and it's
Speaker 2: like a starting outfielder, I'm never going to roster him
Speaker 2: because those formats really reward power and it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if you strike out. So my team is like every
Speaker 2: power hitter I can get at every position. So nashidah
Speaker 2: not a fit for that roster. But I play in
Speaker 2: a couple of other points leagues where power is useful,
Speaker 2: but if it comes at that like strikeout costs hurts
Speaker 2: you a lot so guys like Ellie de la Cruz,
Speaker 2: who people put in the top five dynasty assets. He
Speaker 2: was like the twenty fifth overall rated hitter in that
Speaker 2: format last year. So like really good, but way off
Speaker 2: off of his kind of call it chalk dynasty ceiling.
Speaker 2: And in a league like that, I'm super interested in
Speaker 2: Nishida and he's somebody that I might snag it with
Speaker 2: a late pick in our upcoming draft this offseason. You'd
Speaker 2: like this league too, Nate, because we can't do prospect
Speaker 2: pickups in season, and so you kind of have to
Speaker 2: like put your stake in the ground. We don't have
Speaker 2: many prospects slots either. I had a lot of success
Speaker 2: in that league last year, zagging when other people were
Speaker 2: zigging for like the big prospect or this particular eye.
Speaker 2: And I ended up with a couple of guys super
Speaker 2: late in the FYPD draft that other people that overlooked
Speaker 2: because they weren't dynasty assets. But I was like, in
Speaker 2: this contact oriented format that really penalized a strikeouts. Give
Speaker 2: me the Javier Soinoyas, give me Xavier Edwards. And Edwards
Speaker 2: was a league winner. I kid you not. He was
Speaker 2: my starting shortstop through the playoffs and I won that
Speaker 2: league even though Corey Seger, my best hitter, was hurt
Speaker 2: for that whole run. And it's because of a guy
Speaker 2: like Xavier Edwards. And now I'm not saying Riku Nishida
Speaker 2: is quite on Xavier Edwards level yet, but of anyone
Speaker 2: in the minor leagues, like, he's somebody that could put
Speaker 2: up that kind of a super contact heavy very few homers,
Speaker 2: but swipe a bunch of bags and be a pretty
Speaker 2: useful guy. So while this is a bit of a bit,
Speaker 2: I don't really think for a lot of leagues Nashida's
Speaker 2: going to hold interest. I do think that it's worth
Speaker 2: scouting for those kinds of prof files that really fit
Speaker 2: your league well. And Nishida has one that is going
Speaker 2: to be super overlooked and you'll be able to get him.
Speaker 2: He's going to be zero percent at the end of
Speaker 2: next year. This is like a terrible B side game
Speaker 2: pick because I just no one's going to pick him up.
Speaker 2: But I'm putting a flag that this kind of profile
Speaker 2: is useful depending on your leak.
Speaker 4: If you've never seen and you have some like prejudiced
Speaker 4: and preconceived notions of what a Japanese hitter looks like
Speaker 4: because of like Major League two, Like that's Nashida.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 4: We've talked before when you look at his spray chart
Speaker 4: and like other than like that free comb run and
Speaker 4: maybe one or two other batted balls, like everything else
Speaker 4: doesn't go like past regular depth. You know, outfielders are
Speaker 4: playing it regular depth. It is one of the wildest
Speaker 4: spray charts that I have seen in quite a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but dude got up to double A this year,
Speaker 2: so twenty three year old and put up a four
Speaker 2: seventeen four eighteen OBP swiped forty nine bags, yeah, one
Speaker 2: thirty seven WRT plus Like yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 4: True to you though, Like you know, I've heard you
Speaker 4: say before you have certain markers and certain things that
Speaker 4: you look for and hitters and then one thing that
Speaker 4: you like, the really sort of extreme guy and uh
Speaker 4: oh yeah, Sheeta is definitely extreme, definitely extreme.
Speaker 2: He's fun.
Speaker 4: I know that you're familiar with my pick here, Matt,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with tim Alco.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, I like tim Alco. That's funny, funny in
Speaker 2: comparison to my pick, like you didn't be more different.
Speaker 4: Different Elco was one percent rostered back in September. I
Speaker 4: know he was in AFL. I don't think he's like
Speaker 4: an absolute nothing name. Has hit a lot of home runs.
Speaker 4: He's an older prospect though, twenty five year old right
Speaker 4: handed first base profile listed at six to three. Who's
Speaker 4: a tenth round pick out Ole miss in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: three hundred and seventy one Double A plate appearances in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four, and then two hundred and nineteen Triple
Speaker 4: A played appearances, which is nice, right, we get some
Speaker 4: stat cast stuff on the season. He popped eighteen home runs.
Speaker 4: I think that into year prior his home run total
Speaker 4: was higher than that, wasn't it?
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 4: Put a level down. Strikeout percent twenty nine point three percent,
Speaker 4: he walked seven point one percent, solid, four thirty nine,
Speaker 4: seven eighty five ops, just a one to fifty ISO
Speaker 4: and a three ninety four babbit. It's kind of some
Speaker 4: underwhelming stuff, don't you think, Matt?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did he run a three seventy babe a
Speaker 2: triple A? I don't know.
Speaker 4: But what I like about Oko is that I think
Speaker 4: he's very much going to get a major league shot
Speaker 4: with that organization at some point in the relatively near future.
Speaker 4: Here did like his showing in the AFL. You know,
Speaker 4: it's kind of an interesting here. Like I wrote down here, Matt,
Speaker 4: when I was watching him this summer, it feels like
Speaker 4: he's a deadpool hitter in all field swing speed, Like
Speaker 4: when he does get out in front on the video,
Speaker 4: I think I have like one hundred and twelve mile
Speaker 4: per hour home run that he crushed, you know, I do.
Speaker 4: I wonder about him and how he does since velocity.
Speaker 4: I think he's late sometimes an opposite field percentage of
Speaker 4: thirty five point six percent, and I don't think all
Speaker 4: of that is from technique or plan up there. I
Speaker 4: think he's a good enough hitter that, like I said,
Speaker 4: get to the bigs maybe five some home runs. I
Speaker 4: didn't really love a lot else in this system at
Speaker 4: this roster percentage, So yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I tend to agree with you on that there.
Speaker 2: There wasn't a lot to pick from around this roster percentage. Elko,
Speaker 2: I think is one that is super interesting and has
Speaker 2: hit some fun homers. I remember watching quite a bit
Speaker 2: of him last year. I think he just needs to
Speaker 2: hit more fly balls, Like I don't understand why that
Speaker 2: big honkin dude is hitting so many ground balls and
Speaker 2: sprang them all over the place, Like somebody get him
Speaker 2: to a swing, change guy and get him to lift
Speaker 2: and pole. He's got the raw power for it. He's
Speaker 2: got a decent eye.
Speaker 4: I don't really know if it's necessarily like this swing.
Speaker 4: I think he's just like he's just late all the time. Like,
Speaker 4: why are you letting them bit of travel so deep
Speaker 4: all the time? Just get it out front, man, That's
Speaker 4: like what you're built for. That's what you're the only
Speaker 4: way you're going to have a major league job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's gonna have some swinging miss to it,
Speaker 2: but sure get him. Sure get him forty or fifty
Speaker 2: more fly balls and thirty homers in the bigs.
Speaker 4: I love I rostering him, but I think a highly
Speaker 4: likely leader, if maybe not for very long, at least
Speaker 4: at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that Elko and Nishida couldn't be
Speaker 2: more different.
Speaker 4: The Detroit Tigers, a lot of them. If you're a
Speaker 4: Tigers fan, you got to be pretty excited these days.
Speaker 4: I think huh definitely had a great season. Major league
Speaker 4: club looks good. I think their farm most awesome. A
Speaker 4: lot of interesting arms and some really good young bats
Speaker 4: and fire got a little jealous of Tigers fans these days.
Speaker 2: Don't sleep on how you lead to and Prosono and
Speaker 2: Justice big b Like, there's a lot to like in
Speaker 2: that system.
Speaker 4: You know, we were going on about the mud Hens
Speaker 4: last year and how we liked their Triple A squad.
Speaker 4: You know, some of those guys came up and helped
Speaker 4: them in the playoffs and what have you. But I
Speaker 4: really like my Tiger's arm this year, Matt, and I
Speaker 4: know I had mentioned it many months ago. Who it was.
Speaker 4: There's no surprise to anybody in the discord. But Jake
Speaker 4: miller Man good looking arm. Yeah, he's a lefty. Listed
Speaker 4: at six ' to two. He was the eighth round
Speaker 4: pick out of Vel Paraiso in twenty twenty two. Was
Speaker 4: in the AFL I don't know, twenty innings in there
Speaker 4: or something like that. So he had spent twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four kind of bouncing it around a ball and high
Speaker 4: a mostly just a ball. And then he didn't make
Speaker 4: his double A debut. Right at the end of the
Speaker 4: year for a playoff game one in which he was
Speaker 4: very very good too, went five thought out, gave up
Speaker 4: three hits, struck out three five shout out innings, and
Speaker 4: sixty pitches on like seventy four percent strikes or something
Speaker 4: like that. But I is a fan as well, and
Speaker 4: he just shared that he had spoken with somebody who
Speaker 4: thinks that, you know, they view him as a major
Speaker 4: league starter. You look at some of his numbers here
Speaker 4: in the season, like he only technically started three games,
Speaker 4: but he was starting to get longer innings, piggyback and
Speaker 4: that sort of thing, which might be why part of
Speaker 4: the reason at least why he's what he was zero
Speaker 4: percent rostered in September. But on the season split between
Speaker 4: the three levels, twenty four games, eighty seven and a
Speaker 4: third innings, pitched one eight five ERA point nine to
Speaker 4: four whip a two point five six x fit, struck
Speaker 4: out hitters over thirty percent clip walked hitters five percent,
Speaker 4: threw strikes total at a sixty nine percent clip. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's some good numbers. Granted, I do think maybe, you know,
Speaker 4: the competition level is maybe a little bit below him
Speaker 4: for you know, a lot of his innings. But talking
Speaker 4: about a guy who's got like having some pretty nasty
Speaker 4: secondaries curveball, he's got like a tighter slider, harder, a firmer,
Speaker 4: tighter slider. He's got like a slurf sweep. Change up
Speaker 4: looks really good.
Speaker 2: Change of looks phenomenal. I mean, I think that's like
Speaker 2: that you're you're bearing the lead there a bit like
Speaker 2: that's his best pitch. It looks like to me, and
Speaker 2: I loved watching that change up work, and I think
Speaker 2: that's the thing that gives me and maybe the Tiger's
Speaker 2: confidence that he can go a couple of times through
Speaker 2: the order and has the chops to be a midjor
Speaker 2: league quality starter.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The video that I'll share, particularly the last two
Speaker 4: changeups I think are a good look. One of them
Speaker 4: really really has like some like screwball notion to it,
Speaker 4: right Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he gets great fade on it, and
Speaker 2: I think he commands it really well, which I'm always
Speaker 2: impressed with with a changeup that has that kind of
Speaker 2: fade to it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Man, he's a lefty who is tougher on righties.
Speaker 4: Don't hate to see that. The fastball now, I think
Speaker 4: the fastball velocity was kind of ticking up and getting
Speaker 4: some more with life to it as the season progressed.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I think his a ball members you'll
Speaker 4: probably see an average velocity of like ninety two ninety three,
Speaker 4: but you can see him hit ninety four to ninety
Speaker 4: seven on the broadcast guns take that for what it's
Speaker 4: worth from time to time, So there might be a
Speaker 4: little bit more heat in there than average savant numbers
Speaker 4: might suggest if you're looking at those. I feel like
Speaker 4: Miller just kind of really came into his own this year,
Speaker 4: and it's like, I think a legit kind of dude. Now, yeah,
Speaker 4: under the radar.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, I'm a full full coatsign on Chick Miller here.
Speaker 2: He would have been my pick for sure, but I
Speaker 2: knew you were going him, so I wanted to, you know,
Speaker 2: like this is a full coast sign. But this I
Speaker 2: know you've been talking about him for months and I
Speaker 2: think he's a great shout.
Speaker 4: Well. I think there's a lot of good options in
Speaker 4: this system here. I think that I'm fond of the
Speaker 4: Tigers pitching fine right now. There's I think probably eight
Speaker 4: other arms that would have been like really good B
Speaker 4: side calls too, that were zero to one percent.
Speaker 2: Tiger's system is super fun. There were a lots that
Speaker 2: considered in thought were pretty interesting, and I feel like
Speaker 2: I had to keep the lefty thing going with Miller
Speaker 2: and Herder from last year. And I think the Tigers
Speaker 2: have something something cooking with these lefties here. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe Scooble the Scoobale magic is something they've got for
Speaker 2: all these dudes in the system. I consider Leel Lockhart.
Speaker 2: I thought I liked a lot of what he did
Speaker 2: this year as somebody that might be a kind of
Speaker 2: high probability back end starter. But I really did like
Speaker 2: Gabriel Reyis the looks that I got at him, another
Speaker 2: lefty in the system.
Speaker 4: That was my second choice, Matt was it was it nice?
Speaker 2: Nice? Yeah? I mean Reys, like he only was it
Speaker 2: low A this year and he's just twenty, so it's
Speaker 2: not like that's he's behind the developmental curve or anything.
Speaker 2: He wasn't outstanding, I'd say, I mean, he was really good.
Speaker 2: But we've talked about some other kind of a ball
Speaker 2: arms that were even even better than Rays Rangers arms
Speaker 2: that we talked about Andeo and a couple others that
Speaker 2: are now escaping me off the top of my head.
Speaker 2: And like we just saw Travis Acora put up an
Speaker 2: incredible run at low a, but Reys I kind of
Speaker 2: think is of that quality. You look at his approach
Speaker 2: and he's got this like really low slot slagh in
Speaker 2: lefty fastball. You know that it comes from pretty low.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly how high or what the exact
Speaker 2: vertical approach angle is, but to me, it looks really
Speaker 2: really tough to hit, and maybe this is just overpowering
Speaker 2: the low A hitters and we want to see it
Speaker 2: at higher levels. That pitch, just from what I saw
Speaker 2: it do that looked major league quality to me in
Speaker 2: that it's a little bit out of the ordinary from
Speaker 2: a location and velocity perspective. I've seen that the fastball
Speaker 2: up to like ninety five from that low angle with
Speaker 2: what looks like pretty decent backspin to it. That's a
Speaker 2: plus to double plus fastball in terms of its effectiveness.
Speaker 2: I think. So that's a great pitch to start from.
Speaker 2: His slider looked murder on lefties. I wasn't as convinced
Speaker 2: about it as how it's going to play against righties,
Speaker 2: mostly due to his kind of inability to command it consistently.
Speaker 2: I thought that that kind of came and went, and
Speaker 2: he missed a fair amount against righties with it. And
Speaker 2: maybe that led to the you know, not elevated, but
Speaker 2: a little bit higher kind of homer rate and walk
Speaker 2: rate than I would have expected just watching the shape
Speaker 2: of it, because it looks really nasty and reminds me
Speaker 2: a little bit of Brandon Garcia in that way, just
Speaker 2: like it really moves and think is pretty nasty. And
Speaker 2: then the change up showed a lot of promise. Again,
Speaker 2: it's probably a pitch he needs to work on a
Speaker 2: bit more. I'm not sure, you know, like maybe he
Speaker 2: can learn something from Miller this offseason, much like Brent
Speaker 2: Herder two years ago or last year. I really think
Speaker 2: that if he ups that usage into like the fifteen
Speaker 2: percent range, now we're really cooking. Like that's that's a
Speaker 2: guy that can turn over the lineup a few times.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if he leans a little bit too much
Speaker 2: on his excellent fastball and he's not developing the change
Speaker 2: up as much. And maybe they do know how to develop.
Speaker 2: But this is the one nit that I had with
Speaker 2: Herder last year too, that kind of stuck in my
Speaker 2: mind that I wish he would have continued to throw
Speaker 2: more and more changeups and he still kept it around
Speaker 2: the same kind of ten to twelve percent range, and
Speaker 2: I'd like to see Reyes throw his change up a
Speaker 2: bit more, but Giro Reys other than that, and wanting
Speaker 2: to see him do this at a little bit higher levels.
Speaker 2: I was really really impressed. I mean, thirty one point
Speaker 2: one percent strikeout rate, seven point two percent walk rate,
Speaker 2: like those are both really really good numbers at a
Speaker 2: ball or low. I knew he was coming back from
Speaker 2: an injury, so that's why his inning totals were down,
Speaker 2: but he started thirteen games, so they just plug and
Speaker 2: play to him at Starter and weren't really doing this
Speaker 2: kind of gaming the system thing that they did with
Speaker 2: Jake Miller and they've done with some of their other arms,
Speaker 2: so I think they might be developing him with that
Speaker 2: Starter in mind. So I'm really excited to see Gabriel
Speaker 2: Rayis at high next year. And I think, well, Miller
Speaker 2: is a higher probability bet and I am loving a
Speaker 2: lot about what he does. I think Rayis might even
Speaker 2: have a higher ceiling. So yeah, a lot to like
Speaker 2: about rays and he's He's firmly in my top ten
Speaker 2: B side arms too, and that's even with like Miller
Speaker 2: would be there too. But for there's a couple of
Speaker 2: these a ball arms that I've got in the back
Speaker 2: of my top ten that I really really like.
Speaker 4: Like I said, I'm glad you went with him. I
Speaker 4: think there's a twenty one years old last season.
Speaker 2: I think there's he was twenty and he turned twenty
Speaker 2: one maybe at the end of the year, but he's yeah,
Speaker 2: he'll be twenty one next year.
Speaker 4: And I actually, you know, I probably last watched him
Speaker 4: in September, so my mental images I did actually like
Speaker 4: take some notes here.
Speaker 2: Oh good, what what notes do you have on him?
Speaker 4: I jotted down there was some violence to his delivery,
Speaker 4: he falls off the third a little bit, and I
Speaker 4: think sometimes some inconsistencies with his front foot. But what
Speaker 4: was his walk rate on.
Speaker 2: The under eight percent? Seven point two percent?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just still not bad. This wrote ninety one
Speaker 4: ninety three with the fastball with some armside run eighty three,
Speaker 4: a slider with a strung drop firmer, a slider at
Speaker 4: eighty five. Is there inconsistencies than that or is one
Speaker 4: more like a cutter too? I don't know. Also too,
Speaker 4: I was wondering if there was some of the stack
Speaker 4: cast stuff that I saw. I was I wanted to
Speaker 4: take up argument with some of the pitch Labille, and
Speaker 4: then I broke down that there was like an eighty
Speaker 4: five mile per hour changeup that he throws left on left.
Speaker 2: Very yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: So there's system most popular arms obviously Joe at fifty
Speaker 4: eight percent. Sawyer gives the more than twenty eight percent
Speaker 4: time Matt in twenty seven. Herder was at twenty seven,
Speaker 4: Wilmer Flores at thirteen, Ham at twelve, to a mountain
Speaker 4: at five, like Rainer Castillo, Joseph Montalvo came over from
Speaker 4: the Rangers, like Andrew Sears, my young guy Pedro Garcia,
Speaker 4: like I don't know. I was digging watching these zero
Speaker 4: one percenters in this system. The Tiger's B side arms
Speaker 4: have been good to us. We keep the street going here, Gider,
Speaker 4: Montero Brand Herder, Jane Hamm. It's a good group, so
Speaker 4: Jake Miller and Gabriel Reyes's great.
Speaker 2: I feel good about those two picks too. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that Tigers are being good to us. This
Speaker 2: is good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, Matt. On the bat side, I can't
Speaker 4: say that I had as many guys as I was
Speaker 4: interested in down at this prosper percentage. But I decided
Speaker 4: to go with John Peck. I don't know if you
Speaker 4: are familiar or not, but I don't think I am speaking.
Speaker 4: I'd say he's a really good glove that I think
Speaker 4: could be hit enough. That was zero percent rostered. He
Speaker 4: was a seventh round pick out of Pepperdine in AY
Speaker 4: twenty three draft. He was twenty one years old, so
Speaker 4: he's pretty young young college pick for twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: He played forty nine games at Lakeland and then eighteen
Speaker 4: in the Midwest League, so you missed some time because
Speaker 4: of injury. Three hundred total played appearances. He hit three
Speaker 4: home runs, stole thirty three bases, was caught six times,
Speaker 4: walked almost ten percent of the time, struck out not
Speaker 4: just under twenty five percent of the time. Slug in
Speaker 4: the ISO isn't going to press you too much four
Speaker 4: or two and one twenty one Maybe kind of more
Speaker 4: of like an all fields line drive sort of hitter.
Speaker 4: But the glove, man like, I don't know, he's pretty
Speaker 4: pretty damn good shortstop, you know. I think the bat
Speaker 4: might have been coming around a little bit when he
Speaker 4: came back from injury. From July twenty six to eight
Speaker 4: thirty five, games, one hundred and fifty plate appearances. He
Speaker 4: went three thirty one, four oh seven four ninety six,
Speaker 4: hit all three of his home runs during that time span.
Speaker 4: Just maybe, you know, an abbreviated sort of first pro season.
Speaker 4: But not a guy that I'm going to draft a
Speaker 4: roster right now. But I gay that's kind of definitely
Speaker 4: a priority watch for me to start the year.
Speaker 2: Some notes to check up. But I can't say Peck
Speaker 2: is someone that I know anything about.
Speaker 4: A good size too, like a probably a solid six
Speaker 4: foot athletic. I think the do worst. I'll share in
Speaker 4: the video with pack couple of his hardest hit balls
Speaker 4: from his A ball run one hundred and ten, one
Speaker 4: hundred and seven got with some speed, thirty three bags
Speaker 4: and uh really good glove got a chance. I think.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm going for a guy who I'm not
Speaker 2: super excited about again, an undersized utility type bat, not
Speaker 2: a lot of power, some speed. This is my theme
Speaker 2: for the hitters in the central here. I'm going with
Speaker 2: Carlos Mendoza. Have you seen any Mendoza doesn't mean a bell? No, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can't really recommend him very strongly. You know, he
Speaker 2: ended the year at double a played some second base,
Speaker 2: some third base, some right field, So a little bit
Speaker 2: of utility action in there. Two sixty four, three eighty eight,
Speaker 2: three sixty three. So again, when your obp's higher than
Speaker 2: your slug he tells you a little something about the
Speaker 2: shape of the production. You know, he hits doubles and triples,
Speaker 2: only five homers on the year, but swipe thirty three bags.
Speaker 2: So he's got some speed and some ability on the bases.
Speaker 2: This is not a guy that I'm excited about. This
Speaker 2: is like in the bottom half for sure of my
Speaker 2: b side bats. It's more like there's a utility profile here.
Speaker 2: Maybe he gets a run at some point, and again
Speaker 2: in more contact rewarding leagues, is a name to remember
Speaker 2: if he gets gets a shot. But again, he's got
Speaker 2: some defensive utility and versatility, but it's not good enough
Speaker 2: that it's going to keep his bat in the lineup
Speaker 2: in the bigs. I don't think, and I just think
Speaker 2: that there's really limited power. He just like he has
Speaker 2: really slow hands, and I mean that in a mostly
Speaker 2: complimentary but it just means like he makes a lot
Speaker 2: of contact at the expense of some explosivity in his swing.
Speaker 2: So Mendoza is good and sort of a fun all
Speaker 2: round player, plays the game pretty hard, but I don't
Speaker 2: see there's nothing exceptional about him in the way that
Speaker 2: there is with Nashidah and so I think it's a
Speaker 2: little bit less likely that he cements himself as a
Speaker 2: big league regular.
Speaker 4: So Pack and Mendoza are Tiger's bats.
Speaker 2: Cleveland's a nice segue here because it's the third of
Speaker 2: my trio of light hitting kind of utility types. I'm
Speaker 2: going with guy Lipscomb, you know, lipskimb and all. You
Speaker 2: watch any of him? Yes, yeah, So he's a was
Speaker 2: twenty three last year, made it up to double a
Speaker 2: college bat, drafted a couple of years ago out of
Speaker 2: Belmont University. Very low power plus contact plus speed. Again
Speaker 2: like rip and replace a lot of the things that
Speaker 2: I said about Mendoza with Lipscumb. They have a lot
Speaker 2: of things in common, even down to the fact that
Speaker 2: they both I had like more triples than you would expect,
Speaker 2: almost the same number, sixteen doubles versus seventeen doubles, four
Speaker 2: homers to five homers, thirty four bags to thirty three bags.
Speaker 2: Like on the surface, their numbers are super super similar
Speaker 2: and overall shape or production really really similar Lipskin, though
Speaker 2: I'm maybe slightly more intrigued by partly because he did
Speaker 2: that in a lot fewer play appearances, so I think
Speaker 2: there might be a little bit more juice under the
Speaker 2: hood there. And he has even slightly better contact skills,
Speaker 2: again not quite to the n Sheeta level, but a
Speaker 2: fifteen percent strikeout rate is really really good, especially in
Speaker 2: the mid to uppers. He's a guy that I find
Speaker 2: a little more interesting from a visual scouting perspective because
Speaker 2: you look at him and he's like not small. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure he's listed at six foot maybe, but
Speaker 2: it's a pretty well built six foot yeah, six two,
Speaker 2: I mean like six two one ninety five is what
Speaker 2: fangrafts listen at and watching his games, like, I buy
Speaker 2: that he's a big athletic guy. So it's a little
Speaker 2: weird that he really isn't getting to the power there.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if Cleveland is the right org
Speaker 2: for this, but I do think that they're there's some
Speaker 2: swing change potential here. There's while you've heard me talk
Speaker 2: about how I'm a little skeptical of guys changing their stripes,
Speaker 2: and it's pretty hard, especially coming out of college, to
Speaker 2: change who you are, to add exit velocity, to add
Speaker 2: something different about your swing, you just kind of are
Speaker 2: the guy who you are. I don't think, but.
Speaker 4: It's very much since noar is.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I know, I think it's a hard
Speaker 2: thing to do, and I'm not betting that Lipscomb's going
Speaker 2: to do it, but I think that if he does,
Speaker 2: there is a starter, a big league starter capability in here.
Speaker 2: Because of just the overall shape of his production. He's
Speaker 2: done nothing but hit since he's been in Pro ball.
Speaker 2: WRC plus of one eighteen at a ball last year
Speaker 2: and then this year it was one sixteen at high
Speaker 2: A and one thirty at in a small seventy nine
Speaker 2: plate appearance sample at double A. I think he plays
Speaker 2: pretty good defense. He has some nice highlights on MiLB
Speaker 2: dot com if you want to check some of them out.
Speaker 2: Some good plays. His bat a ball profile is fine
Speaker 2: at thirty five percent ground balls, forty two percent fly
Speaker 2: ball twenty three percent line drives, you know, like a
Speaker 2: fairly MLB quality battered ball profile. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I like Lipscum the most of this trio, even though
Speaker 2: he doesn't have the extreme contact skill of Nishida, but
Speaker 2: they're to me like there's at least some possibility that
Speaker 2: he turns into a major league quality outfielder and hitter.
Speaker 2: So lipscum. Of these three, while they're all have a
Speaker 2: lot of similarities in them, I think Lipscomb is the
Speaker 2: one that I would actually recommend you take a look at.
Speaker 2: And as far as I know, he's really traveled under
Speaker 2: the raider. I don't recall ever hearing anybody else talk
Speaker 2: about him. Kind of my my one diamond in the
Speaker 2: ref of this this trio here, And yeah, I actually
Speaker 2: would recommend people give him give him a look again,
Speaker 2: especially in the contact type leagues, in your deeper leagues,
Speaker 2: or at least put him on a watch list, because
Speaker 2: if he comes out and has actualized some power, this
Speaker 2: is a really really good player overall, and he's still
Speaker 2: young enough that maybe we see some some of those
Speaker 2: development games happen. Guy Lipscomb, I actually think it's quite
Speaker 2: interesting here.
Speaker 4: This seems like the mots of Guardians type two, right.
Speaker 5: I mean the list of bats that I had watched
Speaker 5: for this process, and it's like to steal twenty to
Speaker 5: thirty bags and walked over ten percent of the time
Speaker 5: and strike out less than twenty percent of the time
Speaker 5: and hit like two or some home runs.
Speaker 2: You know, yep is Yeah, I mean it's good stuff,
Speaker 2: right like, that's that is the that's the bones of
Speaker 2: what makes good players. And yeah, it's clearly something that
Speaker 2: their model values and they go after. And I like
Speaker 2: a lot of that profile, and it's one of those
Speaker 2: ones that like, you get that kind of a guy
Speaker 2: and then they can up level just a little bit
Speaker 2: and they turn into Jose Ramirez, right Like, that's you know,
Speaker 2: that doesn't happen very often, but it's certainly what they're
Speaker 2: hoping for. I think with a lot of these this
Speaker 2: kind of this quality or caliber of player.
Speaker 4: Man I was like pretty certain for most of the
Speaker 4: season or back half of the season that I was
Speaker 4: going to go with p. D. Helpin as my guy
Speaker 4: m with the Guardians. Yeah. I've always has kind of
Speaker 4: been a little bit of a fan. Plays a really
Speaker 4: good center field. I thought he had a pretty good season,
Speaker 4: twelve home runs, a twelve stolen bases. I think the
Speaker 4: twelve home runs is by far his biggest home run output.
Speaker 4: If I'm not mistaken, then man I turned on a
Speaker 4: first year player who got in a whopping thirteen games
Speaker 4: in a ball and I chased him wine, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: google with Ryan Cesserini. I don't know if you were familiar.
Speaker 4: He was a Day three college fourteenth round round.
Speaker 2: I think I know him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, lefty. Obviously it was zero percent rosters listed at
Speaker 4: five times. That might be a little generous. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I was just like, who is this guy who's got
Speaker 4: just like this really simple swing. He just like kind
Speaker 4: of turns his foot sends it back to his own
Speaker 4: And this dude have four triples in thirteen games. That's why.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if I turned him on probably, Like I don't know,
Speaker 4: I just like the look of him at the play
Speaker 4: the like I said, it's just so simple and easy,
Speaker 4: kind of hitting gap to gap, running a little bit. Well,
Speaker 4: he's thirteen games and I struck out eighteen and a
Speaker 4: half percent of time, walk thirteen percent of the times.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're talking about fifty four played appearances here,
Speaker 4: So nothing to get too crazy about or feel too
Speaker 4: confident about either. Video wise, eyeballs just like this. I
Speaker 4: don't know if you've seen the video at all, but
Speaker 4: there is a side view of him hitting a double
Speaker 4: off the wall where you can kind of maybe get
Speaker 4: the best of his swing. But Ryan Cecerini didn't really
Speaker 4: love a lot of my other options, and I just
Speaker 4: kept one to watch him, and I'm curious to see
Speaker 4: how his twenty twenty five goes.
Speaker 2: Funny little setup and I know, right, yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of waste in movement in any
Speaker 2: of that. Definitely not Yeah, no interesting.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I'll just like the guy because I like to
Speaker 4: look at this technique and see how it goes. Times
Speaker 4: that's been all you needed. Other times it didn't turn
Speaker 4: into too much armside Matt, the Guardians, their prospects. Joey
Speaker 4: Cantillo is thirty two percent of spein you know twenty
Speaker 4: six percent, Matt Wilkinson Wilkinson, Tugbloll seventeen boat, Parker Messi
Speaker 4: twelve percent. Near guy from last year, Will dim was
Speaker 4: at five, Tanner Burns at five, Doug mcczy at four,
Speaker 4: Justin Campbell, Ethan Hankins, Austin Peterson at four percent. And
Speaker 4: then there could you take last year Jackson Humphries did
Speaker 4: not have the year that I was hoping for. He
Speaker 4: was still at one percent a year before I went
Speaker 4: with Aaron Davenport, who was at one percent and I
Speaker 4: thought had a great year, like really took a jump.
Speaker 4: I think, I know he's like repeating a love one whatever,
Speaker 4: but I think he just got a lot cleaner with
Speaker 4: all of it, the motion and the execution. I think
Speaker 4: he's kind of back on the map as a guy
Speaker 4: who has a shot.
Speaker 2: And that's who I picked. You know, I had forgotten
Speaker 2: you had picked him a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 2: for all of those reasons, I actually watched a fair
Speaker 2: amount of him, and I think I picked him up.
Speaker 2: He had a good run in the middle of the
Speaker 2: year at one point, and I picked him up in
Speaker 2: a couple of leagues as somebody that I thought was
Speaker 2: like a kind of high floor arm that maybe there's
Speaker 2: a chance for more.
Speaker 4: He was like my one kind of like later round
Speaker 4: his first year player draft year that I was like, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna take a step on this guy out of Hawaii.
Speaker 4: But it hadn't really totally all come together.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, and last year was pretty disappointing for him, right,
Speaker 2: Like he repeated a level and was just way worse
Speaker 2: than he was the first time through. So like last
Speaker 2: year was a big step back. This year, he was
Speaker 2: really good and he was at double A like for
Speaker 2: the whole year. One of the things that I love volume.
Speaker 2: Dude put up one hundred and forty two innings on
Speaker 2: the back of one hundred and seven two years ago
Speaker 2: and one hundred and fourteen last year, So that's like
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty plus innings over the past three years.
Speaker 2: That's got to be near the top of the minor league.
Speaker 2: So the volume I really like, and he showed some
Speaker 2: of the skills that I think you were identifying out
Speaker 2: of the draft. Like it's a bit of a kitchen
Speaker 2: sink mix. He's not a power guy. He's not None
Speaker 2: of these pitches are going to overwhelm, but it's the
Speaker 2: curve ball is good. I liked the cutter too. I
Speaker 2: thought he used it well against lefties and a change
Speaker 2: up rounded it out. Yeah, I mean it's like ninety
Speaker 2: two on the heater, and there are definitely some worts
Speaker 2: with this, Like he still probably walks a few too many,
Speaker 2: and he's done that really his whole career. You know,
Speaker 2: his walk he did. This is his best year and
Speaker 2: it was eight point nine percent, so like step forward
Speaker 2: for him, and you know he punched out twenty three
Speaker 2: percent of batters. That's okay, but for the kind of
Speaker 2: picture he is, I'm a little worried that the walks
Speaker 2: are gonna like he needs to be even more precise
Speaker 2: with the execution and get a trim a little bit
Speaker 2: more off the walks because the striker, he's not going
Speaker 2: to keep striking guys out over twenty percent of the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a guy who's going to run
Speaker 2: like a sixteen percent walk rate or something in the bigs.
Speaker 2: I think, oh yeah, and that's what Steamer projects for
Speaker 2: him this year. So you know, I really like him.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot about him that is an
Speaker 2: interesting kind of back end starter projection. I'm not really excited,
Speaker 2: but he also looks to me like somebody who is
Speaker 2: almost certainly going to make the majors and be a
Speaker 2: starting picture. So that is definitely worth something in your
Speaker 2: deeper points leagues for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was nice to see him have kind of
Speaker 4: a resurgence. Yeah. I wasn't even sure if he was
Speaker 4: going to be starting anymore heading into twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: I kind of think after twenty three.
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, stick him in triple A
Speaker 2: and see how he does in the International League. So
Speaker 2: I'm I'm interested to see how that plays. And it
Speaker 2: will be fun getting some stat cast data on the
Speaker 2: depth of the repertoire too. And he's a guy that
Speaker 2: seems like he tinkers a bit, and so maybe he
Speaker 2: adds another pitch or adds a sinker to the repertoire
Speaker 2: to go along with the four seamer.
Speaker 4: His whole like mound presence too, Like just the whole
Speaker 4: energy of him is like it was so much better,
Speaker 4: just way more relaxed, which I think was good for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, Aaron Davenport, not a glowing recommendation,
Speaker 2: but somebody that should absolutely be on your radar as
Speaker 2: like this guy might get some innings or some starts
Speaker 2: in Cleveland as soon as this year. You know, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be surprised at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, man, this is our sixth episode of the year,
Speaker 4: and we I don't think maybe maybe we did talk
Speaker 4: about one, but we were like, so Miami Hurricane heavy
Speaker 4: last year.
Speaker 2: If we hurry, Yeah, we talked about it.
Speaker 4: I don't think we've talked about anything, but I have
Speaker 4: to go the first year player.
Speaker 6: We're oute here with the Guardians, and I'm going with
Speaker 6: their fourth round pick out of Miami rape Schlessinger. Mmm, okay, well,
Speaker 6: I can't imagine it's going to be drafted all that much, right,
Speaker 6: I think it's safe to say he'll be zero one
Speaker 6: percent one years old.
Speaker 4: What his debut he got three or post draft you
Speaker 4: got three starts in seven point one innings, So you
Speaker 4: know very little to see here. Obviously, you can go
Speaker 4: back and watch some stuff on YouTube from Miami and whatever.
Speaker 4: What I liked, Sollo, Hurricane Lum, I'll cart some pump quest.
Speaker 4: I think there's a little bit of that sort of
Speaker 4: funky lefty in Schlessinger. I feel like this is almost
Speaker 4: like a classic Guardian sort of picture in that I
Speaker 4: think there's like some I think the secondary game is
Speaker 4: really good, and maybe the hope is to help the
Speaker 4: fast ball. I think we've seen them do that with
Speaker 4: several pitchers in their history. Definitely, you know what I
Speaker 4: think the fastball is like probably was in these three outings.
Speaker 4: Probably I guess would average like eighty nine to ninety
Speaker 4: but you do see him get up to ninety three
Speaker 4: ninety four at a time. Like I said, there's real
Speaker 4: I don't know if you're looking at the video at all,
Speaker 4: but you agree that's a funky low armslaught, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know. The thing that's standing out to me is
Speaker 2: I think he changes his release point pretty significantly for
Speaker 2: his off speed pitches, and I don't like that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't like that, but I also think that that's
Speaker 2: like something that they can fix. But his change up
Speaker 2: and slider are coming way lower than his fastball.
Speaker 4: YEP, for sure. Definitely when he throws that the firmer
Speaker 4: slider cutter thing or whatever, it's like up by his ear. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like it's very different. But yeah, so I mean that's
Speaker 4: just had to finished project here, I don't think at all,
Speaker 4: but some funk in this system. I kind of like
Speaker 4: to see where it goes. And I've seen a couple
Speaker 4: of just like interviews and stuff with him, like just
Speaker 4: kind of like the character. It's gone through some things
Speaker 4: in his life, and it just seems kind of like
Speaker 4: a fun guy, has a good attitude. I think my
Speaker 4: hurricanes on the pitching side at least there. I don't
Speaker 4: know how true it is. I don't necessarily hold it,
Speaker 4: but a reputation of their pictures maybe not having a
Speaker 4: ton of instruction when they're in college. So let's me
Speaker 4: with some professional coaches and things the program might might
Speaker 4: do for Rafe here. I like them a decent enough amount, right,
Speaker 4: Like they are kind of different, funky lefties, so I
Speaker 4: want to Yeah, RAF's.
Speaker 2: Lester, I like it, good, good shout. He's an interesting one.
Speaker 4: I don't think there was a ton of other guys.
Speaker 4: I mean, you going with Davenport. I went with Humphreys
Speaker 4: last year. I do kind of like Trenton Denholm a
Speaker 4: little bit, but yeah, that was like really it for
Speaker 4: my short list here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we were the Guardians. The Guardians have
Speaker 2: a ton of talent in their system that I really like,
Speaker 2: but generally it's at a higher roster percentage and a
Speaker 2: little less on the arm side this year than on
Speaker 2: the bat side. I think.
Speaker 4: I do think their arm farm is ha stinned out.
Speaker 4: So you go back a few years, I felt like
Speaker 4: it was just loaded with yeah, interesting guys, maybe not
Speaker 4: quite as much these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Austin Peterson and Parker Messik are still
Speaker 2: pretty interesting. Michael Kennedy continues to be maybe interesting. I
Speaker 2: know other people like him more than I do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I forgot he came over.
Speaker 2: Yeah great, Yeah, yeah, Doug, Doug Nakazzi. I like Doug
Speaker 2: Nakazzi and will Dionne as well. You know, there's still
Speaker 2: some interesting guys here, but yeah, not quite the upside.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the Bibees and Williams's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when was around, he was so good, dude, he.
Speaker 2: Was incredible to watch. It's literally appointment viewing in the
Speaker 2: minor leagues. Like that's more excited for him than it
Speaker 2: was for Skeens.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like Mike Painter, like the two
Speaker 4: most exciting, best looking my League pictures. I've yep, the
Speaker 4: last four or five years for me. But AnyWho, let's
Speaker 4: talk about some home runs. Man, you got any home
Speaker 4: runs juice and two remaining? That's yere? Are we gonna
Speaker 4: go sleep?
Speaker 2: I mean both of these guys have more juice than
Speaker 2: the ones that I've talked about so.
Speaker 4: Far, So yeah, I think God yeah.
Speaker 2: So either way, either way, we'll talk about a little
Speaker 2: bit of home runs. Anyway you got, let's go with
Speaker 2: the twins.
Speaker 4: Does the Twins bat happen to be six ' eight?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: Okay, so we went different.
Speaker 2: No, my Twins bat, it's Ricardo Olivar this year, and
Speaker 2: I really I was pretty excited about Olivar, Like, this
Speaker 2: is a one that I actually think has a pretty
Speaker 2: good shot at being consistent multi year major leaguer with
Speaker 2: it has holds fantasy appeal. I'm pretty into Olivar after
Speaker 2: diving in. I had a good year, man, you had
Speaker 2: a really good year. Did so in a way that
Speaker 2: I find believable, right, Like twenty percent strikeout rate as
Speaker 2: a twenty two year old, ended up in double A
Speaker 2: when two seventy five three point eighty one four forty
Speaker 2: one triple slash on the year in four hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty three plate appearances, nineteen doubles, three triples, twelve homers,
Speaker 2: and tossed in a couple of bags six bags, and
Speaker 2: I don't think was caught. He's not super fast. He's
Speaker 2: played catcher and outfield. I'm not sure he's great at either.
Speaker 2: But I think there's real thump in this bat. Like
Speaker 2: I watch him swing, and there's a couple of things
Speaker 2: about it that I don't love, Like he really clears
Speaker 2: his hips out pretty early and then has like a
Speaker 2: lot of batlag that comes with that. But he's got
Speaker 2: the contact skills to make it work. And I think
Speaker 2: he's got a pretty good eye up there at the plate.
Speaker 2: You know, he had a fourteen percent walk rate this year.
Speaker 2: That combination means that even if like maybe because to me,
Speaker 2: that combination looks like he's selling out a little bit
Speaker 2: for some power at times. If he's if it's not
Speaker 2: coming with the strikeouts and he's making really good swing decisions,
Speaker 2: like it seems like he is. I think he's going
Speaker 2: to get to even more power than he showed this year.
Speaker 2: So are I actually think is like an underrated bat
Speaker 2: and is one that I think should be rostered in
Speaker 2: most dynasty leagues at this point. I mean again, maybe
Speaker 2: not like your shallower leagues where you're only rostering one
Speaker 2: hundred or fifty prospects, but your deeper dynasty leagues like
Speaker 2: Olivar absolutely should be rostered. And I think is I
Speaker 2: haven't seen him get a lot of love, but I
Speaker 2: really really like him.
Speaker 4: This must have been September or October, but Pipeline had
Speaker 4: him sixteenth in the organization at that time.
Speaker 2: Oh really, Oh wow, good good for Pipeline. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: feel like Pipeline is sometimes a little behind the ball,
Speaker 2: and these kinds of guys.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's yeah, that's only a one percent roster percent.
Speaker 4: On September twenty seventh, Sonatt getting the Dynasty.
Speaker 2: Love Ricardo Olivar, though, you know, go jump on that
Speaker 2: one thirty eight WRC plus this year and I think
Speaker 2: you might you might like it. He obviously wasn't quite
Speaker 2: as good in double A after he was promoted. I
Speaker 2: still think that it was small enough sample and he
Speaker 2: just had to face the really tough Arkansas Travelers, so
Speaker 2: it depressed his offensive stats.
Speaker 4: And still just at the age of you know, a
Speaker 4: first year player.
Speaker 2: Rights Yeah, I mean that's that's the point that I
Speaker 2: was going to make. I think all of our is
Speaker 2: more interesting than most of like the pretty boy college
Speaker 2: guys coming out of this year, like, you know, outside
Speaker 2: of the very tippy top, like what he's done. Like
Speaker 2: I think we could be thrilled if Carson Bene did
Speaker 2: that this year. You know, I don't know, and people
Speaker 2: love Carson Benj. I think BENJ is going to be
Speaker 2: an interesting guy to watch, but like Ricardo Olivar just
Speaker 2: did what you hope BENJ does and nobody's really interested
Speaker 2: in him. And Benj is like a top twenty FYPD guy.
Speaker 4: First episode, I brought up that I felt there was
Speaker 4: a little bit of a scene going on with a
Speaker 4: lot of my bats this.
Speaker 2: Year, but they're bad, got them.
Speaker 4: I love like a lot of big guys, way more
Speaker 4: of the last year. Last year, I felt like last short,
Speaker 4: a lot of guys are six or four taller and
Speaker 4: this is the biggest dude here. I'm going with Carson McCusker.
Speaker 4: My Twins this year, noted in the discord, is like
Speaker 4: a fantastic Civil War era and the sure yeah, definitely
Speaker 4: led some troops over Summery River to kick some Red
Speaker 4: coats ass right, but oh wait, I guess that would
Speaker 4: be the Revolutionarya.
Speaker 2: I was like, you're you're mixing up your American wars there,
Speaker 2: my friend.
Speaker 4: But Clyde did that too, really well. McCusker man talking
Speaker 4: about like top of the scale, just like kind of
Speaker 4: raw power, right. Undrafted out of Oklahoma State, he played
Speaker 4: two years of independent ball and then the Twins brought
Speaker 4: him in to the full ninety eight games in Double
Speaker 4: A and then twenty four in Triple A. Gets some
Speaker 4: stat cast stuff and yes he hits the ball hard,
Speaker 4: like one hundred and fourteen miles per hour and stuff
Speaker 4: like that. Right strikeout percentage of twenty nine percent on
Speaker 4: the season. It was thirty three point seven percent in
Speaker 4: his one hundred plate appearances at Triple A, what's seven
Speaker 4: point one percent of the time there nine percent on
Speaker 4: the season with Saint Paul, he went two eighty six,
Speaker 4: three point thirty seven, four eighty four one ninety eight.
Speaker 4: I tho, and that was on the back of a
Speaker 4: four oh seven babbit. Ground Balls are just thirty six
Speaker 4: excuse me, thirty nine percent another time. The season fly
Speaker 4: ball rate at thirty one point six percent, so a
Speaker 4: lot of line drives, a lot of really hard line drives.
Speaker 4: Pull the ball forty four percent of the time. Swinging
Speaker 4: strike rate of fourteen point two percent. Watching some of
Speaker 4: his defense, he's a corner outfielder, but like outsair in
Speaker 4: the video, there's horrible camera work and we kind of
Speaker 4: catch it late, unfortunately. But Rob's a home run. You know,
Speaker 4: the most guys over the wall for that one, he
Speaker 4: just had the right stand there and reach up like
Speaker 4: I like to look at the rity. He's twenty six,
Speaker 4: but I think he's got I think he's got a chance.
Speaker 4: I don't know how much, how much run he'll get
Speaker 4: or but I think we're gonna see Carson mc custer
Speaker 4: in the Bigs at some point. Twins love their home
Speaker 4: run guys.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think it's kind of a fun story. And I
Speaker 4: know he's big and he's long.
Speaker 2: He's huge.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's not struggling up there. It's not total struggle.
Speaker 4: Bus City seven fourteen stealing bats as well. I think
Speaker 4: you can kind of move pretty well, especially for a
Speaker 4: guy that size. Did you watch him? Did you? Did
Speaker 4: you hate this? Like? Uh, I don't know. Multiplicity version
Speaker 4: nine of Aaron Judge.
Speaker 2: I watched a little bit of McCusker. I do again,
Speaker 2: depending on your format, Like he's a power bat that
Speaker 2: should be rostered. And worry again at that kind of
Speaker 2: strikeout rate, like that's danger zone. If you're running a
Speaker 2: you know, thirty percent strikeout rate at triple A, it's
Speaker 2: going to be in the low thirties and the Bigs
Speaker 2: almost certainly, and you really really got to get to
Speaker 2: all your power to make that work. And even then
Speaker 2: it's a tough line to walk, right, there are very
Speaker 2: few people that can do it.
Speaker 4: If he's not like a double A like twenty seven
Speaker 4: eight percent. That's uh, that's palatable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if he can keep that. But that's the thing
Speaker 2: is like for hitters, your strikeout rate generally goes up
Speaker 2: a couple points every level, and right.
Speaker 4: But ninety eight plate appearances your first try to pla Like,
Speaker 4: I don't know who's sticky that is.
Speaker 2: Kriet is pretty sticky and stabilizes pretty fast. So like
Speaker 2: that's one of the ones that I would look to
Speaker 2: and be like, okay, even in smaller samples, how fast. Oh,
Speaker 2: I don't have it off the top of my head,
Speaker 2: but it's like one hundred plate appearances or something like, it's.
Speaker 4: Well, he had two more tries before you could start
Speaker 4: calling that sticky, my friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not really how that works. Right, Like at
Speaker 2: ninety eight, you're like ninety percent of the way there
Speaker 2: and it's sticky or whatever, you know, like it's it's
Speaker 2: it's probably not too far off what you would expect
Speaker 2: it to level out at triple A and again tack
Speaker 2: on a couple of percent at stabilization in major leagues
Speaker 2: as well. But I do like guys with big loud
Speaker 2: tools like that, and he definitely can hit some homers
Speaker 2: and for a six eight guy he moves it pretty well.
Speaker 2: Like that's the one thing. Watching the video and watching
Speaker 2: him a bit in Saint Paul, I thought that he
Speaker 2: did move the outfield better than I thought he was
Speaker 2: going to. So that's something. That's something as well.
Speaker 4: So in those ninety eight plate appearances, my man here
Speaker 4: had eight balls struck over one hundred and ten miles
Speaker 4: per hour and got the power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he hits the ball, hits the ball hard. I
Speaker 2: actually wanted to highlight one other guy from the Saints
Speaker 2: this year. He didn't play a full year, which is
Speaker 2: a bummer because he was lights out to start the
Speaker 2: year after a thoroughly underwhelming minor league career before that.
Speaker 2: Will Holland is an outfielder's drafted out of Auburn in
Speaker 2: the fifth round in twenty nineteen, so he's been kicking
Speaker 2: around the miners for a while and has been mostly
Speaker 2: not very good, like slightly below average hitter at like
Speaker 2: every level, really good defender though, played shortstop for a
Speaker 2: lot of his minor league career, and then they've recently
Speaker 2: had him playing a lot more outfield, a lot of
Speaker 2: center fields and right field. Has an electric arm, He's
Speaker 2: really fast, plays good defense, so I think they've been
Speaker 2: trying to like, oh, is this a utility guy or whatever,
Speaker 2: and so they keep promoting him even though he isn't
Speaker 2: really hitting and isn't lighting the world on fire. And
Speaker 2: then this year swing change, almost certain of it that
Speaker 2: he did a total swing change. He was pulling the ball,
Speaker 2: he was hitting fly balls, and he went from or
Speaker 2: three hundred and forty one played appearances in double A
Speaker 2: last year to the tune of a sixty five WRC plus.
Speaker 2: Like he was poo in Double A as a twenty
Speaker 2: five year old, right, Like, that's a nobody, that's org depth,
Speaker 2: that's nothing, like maybe he's a defense first guy. This
Speaker 2: year they promote him and he starts the year for
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty five played appearances the one fifty
Speaker 2: seven WRC plus legit almost triples his WRC plus at
Speaker 2: a higher level. And it's totally because the battle ball
Speaker 2: profile completely changed. He stopped hitting it on the ground,
Speaker 2: he was pulling the ball. He's pulling in the air,
Speaker 2: and good things were happening. He doesn't hit the ball
Speaker 2: super hard, he does make decent contact, made better contact
Speaker 2: this year than he had in previous years. I don't
Speaker 2: think all of this was sustainable per se. But Will
Speaker 2: Holland really really intrigued me early this year, and I
Speaker 2: had one league where I had a couple of outfield
Speaker 2: injuries and I was like very tempted to pick him up,
Speaker 2: thinking like he might go the Deshaun Cursey route, where Cursey,
Speaker 2: also in the Twins organization, kind of floundered in the
Speaker 2: minor leagues for a long time and then finally put
Speaker 2: it together and got some big league run. I kind
Speaker 2: of think Holland is on that same track this year,
Speaker 2: and he might have gotten some run if he hadn't
Speaker 2: gotten hurt. And they said it was like a leg injury,
Speaker 2: like a hamstring, but a really bad one because he's
Speaker 2: been out for They put him on sixty day al
Speaker 2: and he didn't play after like June something, I think.
Speaker 2: So I was super interested in Will Holland, and if
Speaker 2: he'd been healthy and kept this up all year, I'm
Speaker 2: very sure I would have taken him over Olivar. But
Speaker 2: I had to shout him out anyway because Will will
Speaker 2: Holland was doing some really cool stuff and I love
Speaker 2: a developmental story like that where he just changed out
Speaker 2: of nowhere and might be a late blooming like actual
Speaker 2: big league outfielder, because yeah, he's he's a super good
Speaker 2: defender and athlete as well.
Speaker 4: On sorry, Matt, I did a lot of good choices
Speaker 4: he could have went with. Here. Let's see, we're talking
Speaker 4: about Sebbie Matthew's forty one percent, Charlie Soto twelve percent,
Speaker 4: Mirco Raya ten percent, kind of prile Up ten percent,
Speaker 4: Andrew Morris eight percent, Corey Lewis four percent. My guy
Speaker 4: from last year's the Colepepper, was at two percent. And
Speaker 4: then I think everybody else is here to one unless
Speaker 4: they might have traded somebody here or whatever. But what
Speaker 4: did you find this to be kind of a fun
Speaker 4: deciding hunting ground for arms or not so much?
Speaker 2: Not as much for me? This year I looked at
Speaker 2: a couple guys that just really I couldn't get too
Speaker 2: excited about. Like I think Andrew Morris, right, he was
Speaker 2: blow the threshold. Oh he was about the threshold. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I like, he's one that I had liked but hadn't
Speaker 2: loved in the past. Just looking at my list, you know,
Speaker 2: Darren Bowen is one that I've been interested in, but
Speaker 2: he was hurt most of the year. Who else do
Speaker 2: I look at. Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's been some
Speaker 2: others that I've been interested in in the past, like
Speaker 2: Matt Cantino I was super interested in a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, and he just has totally flamed out and
Speaker 2: is I think toast he's a reliever only, and not
Speaker 2: even a good one at that these days. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: I wasn't overwhelmed by the options at this roster percentage level,
Speaker 2: and the guy I picked, I'm not super into either.
Speaker 2: With Ty Langenberg. We watched Langenberg, Yeah, he was on
Speaker 2: my shortlist. My notes on him were that is a
Speaker 2: bit of a Johnny right hander to me at like
Speaker 2: really long arm action. He's pretty tall, and I think
Speaker 2: he gets down the mound okay, but it's like he
Speaker 2: just stretches his lanky arm all the way back and
Speaker 2: seems to me that impacts execution sometimes, Like he's more
Speaker 2: of a control over command guy. In my looks, I thought,
Speaker 2: if you.
Speaker 4: Are a Johnny right hander, though, or you're an agent
Speaker 4: of a Johnny right hander, like being with the Twins
Speaker 4: is a pretty good place to be, I think, because
Speaker 4: I feel like they've kind of taken some Johnny right
Speaker 4: handers in terms of much more interesting.
Speaker 2: That is true, and that's kind of what I said,
Speaker 2: is that the overall package here, it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: ninety two ish righty with four steamer slider, change curve,
Speaker 2: maybe two I couldn't tell. I thought he maybe had
Speaker 2: a slower, sweepery curry breaking ball, and then maybe a
Speaker 2: tighter one as well, and then a change up in
Speaker 2: the load of mid eighties as well. It's like, that's
Speaker 2: the kind of prototypical clay that you start with as
Speaker 2: a right hander. That's why I kind of say Johnny
Speaker 2: right hander to me, does a good job with hitting
Speaker 2: the zone. You know, doesn't walk a ton of guys,
Speaker 2: not a lot of free passes. You know, most of
Speaker 2: his work this year was at low A, and you know,
Speaker 2: he threw a lot of innings, but it was more
Speaker 2: good than great, and I kind of wanted to see more.
Speaker 2: I wonder if he's going to struggle a bit if
Speaker 2: he goes up the ladder, if something doesn't take a
Speaker 2: big step forward. And I didn't quite see what that
Speaker 2: might be, like the slider. I was not overwhelmed by
Speaker 2: change up. Maybe there's something there, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: I was not overwhelmed by Langenberg, but he's my pick.
Speaker 4: Here, Matt, I am going to go to the guy
Speaker 4: who's maybe a bit opposite there and that I think
Speaker 4: the arsenal is really exciting looking. Well, we got to
Speaker 4: clean some things up here, right, but we're only at teenager.
Speaker 4: I'm going with Adrian Bejortez. No, you're familiar. It's nineteen
Speaker 4: years old to see her. Listen. At six ' one
Speaker 4: strong kid out of Venezuela. He pitched thirty six Complex
Speaker 4: League innings and then just sixteen third in able six
Speaker 4: games five starts on the season three twenty three ERA
Speaker 4: at one point zero nine, went four point one two
Speaker 4: x fit, struck out hitters twenty eight point three percent
Speaker 4: of the time and walked them twelve point three percent
Speaker 4: of the time, which is not great. And that what
Speaker 4: we like Mac in the arsenal man I have a
Speaker 4: pretty good straight on angel of him. I believe that's
Speaker 4: from Lakeland basketball. That's sixth ninety three to ninety five
Speaker 4: can get up there. More than that, I really like
Speaker 4: the look of his firm eighty six to eighty seven
Speaker 4: mile for our slider thingy cutter slider thing that just
Speaker 4: seems to drop off the table. He's got a high
Speaker 4: eighties curve of ball as well. I know, the walk
Speaker 4: rate doesn't look so great and the video you can
Speaker 4: see how he's loose and stuff can get away from him,
Speaker 4: you know at times. But like that particular outing wasn't
Speaker 4: so bad and it was what his but like his
Speaker 4: strike percent is just matt and is out in sixty
Speaker 4: seven percent, seventy two percent, sixty percent, sixty four, thirty
Speaker 4: two percent, sixty six. Right, so you've got a real
Speaker 4: inconsistent teenager here. Click on other side. I trust the
Speaker 4: Twins organization. I liked them with their pitching, and I
Speaker 4: think this is a pretty electric teenager that.
Speaker 2: Beforecas interesting Arsenal and I see what you mean about
Speaker 2: being pretty loose with everything, but some of the shapes
Speaker 2: and velocities and the way that it comes together, like
Speaker 2: when he locates those pitches that look pretty pretty impressive.
Speaker 4: So interesting what I liked about him to grant that
Speaker 4: these are like really small looks. But you're you know,
Speaker 4: he wasn't just like throwing fastball fastball, throwing a slider. Yeah,
Speaker 4: he's mixing the level of difficulty, right. The picture is
Speaker 4: and the sequencing that he was trying to that's cute
Speaker 4: I think it is is tough, and I've give him
Speaker 4: some points for that definitely, basically how lively some of
Speaker 4: that stuff is.
Speaker 2: Let's close it out with the Royals.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Royals do my Royals arm just quick. Because
Speaker 4: it's a repeat from last year, I'm going it looks
Speaker 4: Aronde again.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: I thought he had a really nice season. Man, he
Speaker 4: just I was kind of waiting for him to get
Speaker 4: promoted and it never really happened. He's still pretty young,
Speaker 4: twenty one years old. Talking about a riety who's listed
Speaker 4: at six to three from Cuba. One hundred and ten
Speaker 4: innings last year all with Columbia two point nine four
Speaker 4: ERA one point zero two whip a three point four
Speaker 4: to nine X fit, struck out hitters twenty three point
Speaker 4: five percent of the time, wat them seven percent of
Speaker 4: the time. You know. I like the arsenal with that
Speaker 4: splitter that he has in there, the fastball velocity, and
Speaker 4: I think just characteristics and qualities from I think what
Speaker 4: Cleig was talking about the other day, like we're all
Speaker 4: kind of ticking up and moving in the right direction.
Speaker 4: I think he's just like ready for the next challenge.
Speaker 4: You know, it maybe wasn't like a huge leap in development,
Speaker 4: but I think he did develop some this year, and
Speaker 4: zero percent rosters still, and I didn't really love a
Speaker 4: lot of their zero to one percenters. So if he
Speaker 4: looks Aronde round two.
Speaker 2: Nice, we'll repeat there love little Felix action. I'm going
Speaker 2: with mine's going to super short too. I'm going with
Speaker 2: Evan Sisk. He's a reliever. I think, no doubt big
Speaker 2: league reliever, possible high leverage guy. You know, he hasn't
Speaker 2: gotten any of the pub of like a Yoho or
Speaker 2: somebody like that, but he punched out over thirty five
Speaker 2: percent of batters at Triple A this year. His stuff
Speaker 2: isn't like leap off the page electric, but you watch
Speaker 2: him pitch and it's ridiculous crossbody, low slot, lefty angle.
Speaker 2: I just think he's going to crush lefties in the bigs,
Speaker 2: and even righty's like it looks like he's got the
Speaker 2: stuff to get right. He's out as well. So I think,
Speaker 2: no doubt big league reliever, probable high leverage reliever, maybe
Speaker 2: a closer. If he tightens up the walks a little
Speaker 2: bit and things play like I think they're going to
Speaker 2: in the majors, roles put him on the forty, So
Speaker 2: he's going to be in the mix next year. Again,
Speaker 2: not hard to get super excited about relievers, but I
Speaker 2: think this is a name to file away for if
Speaker 2: you're you know, streaming relievers to help your ratios or
Speaker 2: pick up holds and stuff in leagues where that mattersw
Speaker 2: Cisk is going to be one of those guys. So
Speaker 2: cisc should be on your radar.
Speaker 4: I like that cool. I like that you went with
Speaker 4: a reliever. Won't you go to the bath side back?
Speaker 2: We're going party in Marroll's bat. We're going John Rave.
Speaker 2: We're gonna drop some ecstasy and get the deep house
Speaker 2: music going and pump up the lights and where we're
Speaker 2: going with John Raved? Is that m m eedm em?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Thank you John Rave? Is you know, not super exciting
Speaker 2: for Dynasty folks because he's going to be twenty seven
Speaker 2: or maybe already his twenty seven Happy birthday. John Rave
Speaker 2: looks like he turned twenty seven at the end of
Speaker 2: last year. Has been kind of an up and down
Speaker 2: performer in his long minor league career. This will be
Speaker 2: a sixth season, maybe also on the forty, oh maybe not.
Speaker 2: So he he isn't on the forty and nobody picked
Speaker 2: him in the Rule five. He's, like I said, going
Speaker 2: to be twenty seven this coming year. He just had
Speaker 2: a really good year in Triple A for Kansas City.
Speaker 2: Twenty one homers, seventeen bags went two fifty nine, three
Speaker 2: forty six, four seventy good for a one to eleven
Speaker 2: WRC plus. Hits the ball reasonably hard. You know, It's
Speaker 2: not like elite or anything, but it's above major league average.
Speaker 2: I think he plays good defense. He's a lefty, played
Speaker 2: all three outfield spots. Looks probably most comfortable as a
Speaker 2: left fielder to me, but he has definitely played some
Speaker 2: center and looks okay. And it just liked the kind
Speaker 2: of quality production across the board. He outproduced all of
Speaker 2: their other outfielders, you know, like Ty Gentry, Gavin Cross,
Speaker 2: Drew Waters, guys that have had much greater prospects Shine
Speaker 2: Rave outproduced all of them this year and did so
Speaker 2: pretty comfortably. So Rave is one that you know if
Speaker 2: you're relying on MJ. Melendez for a full year, or
Speaker 2: you know one of the other outfielders in Kansas City.
Speaker 2: I think Rave might be a guy who gets a
Speaker 2: shot if one of those guys get gets injured and
Speaker 2: is down for a significant time. Nothing elite across the board.
Speaker 2: Seems like just a bunch of fifties to me, like
Speaker 2: just major league gaverage across the board. But that's a
Speaker 2: decent player. So I think he's sort of a late
Speaker 2: bloomer that has a little bit of some some speed,
Speaker 2: can play the outfield. I think he's pretty good. John Rave, all.
Speaker 4: Right, Matt, this might be the wildest guy. But we
Speaker 4: talked about tonight. But my royal's bad. I'm going with
Speaker 4: Spencer Nivens. What the fuck happened to Spencer Nivens this year? Dude?
Speaker 4: Holy shit, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You tell me what happened.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know if there's been a
Speaker 4: more insane heater that like, has ever been this quiet before?
Speaker 4: He hit thirteen home runs in one month?
Speaker 2: Wow? Did he really?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Dude, check this out, man, this is great. I
Speaker 4: guess I'll give a little history here. He's one percent
Speaker 4: roster in September, twenty two year old corner outfielder. I
Speaker 4: think we did play a little bit of center field.
Speaker 4: He's a left delictit at five time. He's not real big.
Speaker 4: There's the fifth big out of Missouri State in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three. Good year from Missouri State, folks. Huh Baldwin, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: he spent yeah, all of this year was he was
Speaker 4: hurt a little bit at a couple of complex games,
Speaker 4: but ninety nine games in high A. All right, But
Speaker 4: dude checked this out, So Matt. From April fifth to
Speaker 4: July fifth, fifty one games, Nivens had three home runs.
Speaker 4: He was slashing one sixty one, two seventy nine, two
Speaker 4: fifty six.
Speaker 2: Right, that's not very good.
Speaker 4: Right. And then and then dude, July sixth to September twelfth,
Speaker 4: that's split in the season and a half, fifty three games,
Speaker 4: he hits eighteen home runs slashes three twenty two, three
Speaker 4: ninety two, six sixty eight. Wow. Like I said, Like
Speaker 4: I said, if you look at his monthly splits here,
Speaker 4: August he hit thirteen home runs three fifty two, four
Speaker 4: twenty seven, eight oh six. Log. Wow. This is not
Speaker 4: a guy who hit home runs in college. Kind of. Now,
Speaker 4: there was some injury stuff. I don't know how much
Speaker 4: that played into it, but I think we're talking about
Speaker 4: a guy who learned how to hit the ball out
Speaker 4: in the front and pull it and maybe get into
Speaker 4: the air somewhere. But in twenty twenty three he pulled
Speaker 4: the ball forty one point eight percent of the time.
Speaker 4: This season he was up to fifty two point eight
Speaker 4: percent of the time. And from watching him early in
Speaker 4: the season and later, I imagine that part of that increase
Speaker 4: was from the back half of the season. Didn't necessary
Speaker 4: really hit the ball like in the air more than
Speaker 4: than last season. I think it's just about hitting the
Speaker 4: ball out in front more and the dude's just kind
Speaker 4: of like learned how to hit some home runs now
Speaker 4: on the season. His whole line isn't like super impressive, right, Like,
Speaker 4: what the fuck was that?
Speaker 2: Man? Wow?
Speaker 4: Interesting in thirteen home runs in a month, and like
Speaker 4: nobody's talking about them. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 4: if he's what he's going to look like, what he's
Speaker 4: going to be in twenty twenty five, how much of
Speaker 4: that is going to carry over it to double A
Speaker 4: and what have you. But I think a very interesting
Speaker 4: watch at the very least, here good shot. I wonder
Speaker 4: what the most home runs in a month in the
Speaker 4: minor leagues has been in recent history. Can't imagine a
Speaker 4: lot of dudes have gotten to thirteen.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine either. That's a lot of homers, especially
Speaker 2: when the only end of the year with like twenty something
Speaker 2: like thirteen is so many in one month, I know, like.
Speaker 4: The drastic first half second half splits there. All right, Matt,
Speaker 4: So I think that we did it. Huh, we got
Speaker 4: through six divisions. But let's go around. I'd say we
Speaker 4: drafted up, Matt. Some folks like, how would we prioritize
Speaker 4: some of these guys. Well, let's let's put it to
Speaker 4: the flame here and see how it takes out.
Speaker 2: All right, Tim's good, we'll do that next episode.
Speaker 4: You can. You can follow me on Twitter at Pitching Specks.
Speaker 4: Like I said, I'll share some of the videos Matt
Speaker 4: and I were we're looking at and talking about. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm getting the itch Matt, like it's this is the
Speaker 4: time of year where I'm like, all right, it's good
Speaker 4: to base dude.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you that out of the park baseball sim
Speaker 2: is sick, and that scratched the itch for me over
Speaker 2: the Christmas break for sure.
Speaker 4: So how many hours you put in on that.
Speaker 2: Thing, I'm not gonna say it's way too many. I mean,
Speaker 2: some of it was just because it was like on
Speaker 2: my computer, you know, while I was doing other stuff,
Speaker 2: because you just leave it on in the background, but
Speaker 2: like a kind of obscene.
Speaker 4: Number of getting that what might happen to me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my wife. My wife definitely made some comments and
Speaker 2: they were they were deserved. You know. It was just
Speaker 2: maybe maybe playing a little too much. But now it's
Speaker 2: really fun.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty five is upon us, Matt. I'm looking forward
Speaker 4: to it should be a good year.
Speaker 2: Continue my race B side, pick dominance, and may we
Speaker 2: all win our dynasty leagues.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, except you can't win the ones I'm in
Speaker 4: with you. Yeah, we'll see, but be well, We'll let
Speaker 4: Chicago Farmer take this out and talk to you next time.
Speaker 2: Thadio's friends shining.
Speaker 1: Five miles an hour, riding to his head. He hop
Speaker 1: down first with the lumpbonius face, and on the very
Speaker 1: next pitch he up and stole second.
Speaker 3: Face with greatst be he wasn't born. He had dird
Speaker 3: yes uniform