Speaker 1: Ninety five miles an hour, riding to his head. He
Speaker 1: hopping down first with the lump bonius face, and on
Speaker 1: the very next pitch he up and stole second face
Speaker 1: with greatest speed. He wasn't born.
Speaker 2: He had the bad Yes.
Speaker 3: Uniforn, thank you for joining us. Episode forty four of
Speaker 3: The Prospect B Sides Podcast, Episode Darryl Strawberry, Hank Aaron,
Speaker 3: My friend, Hank Aaron, Even better episode Hank Aaron. As
Speaker 3: we continue our off season runnings through of each division,
Speaker 3: Matt and I the rook picking out our favorite zero
Speaker 3: to one percenters rostered on Fantracks leagues a bat in
Speaker 3: an arm from each team that we are wondering. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe they're a bit overlooked, maybe they are underrated. Maybe
Speaker 3: there's studs already and Fantasy World just hasn't caught up.
Speaker 3: Or probably more likely the case, somebody that we are
Speaker 3: wondering might gain some more Dynasty utility in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Or that's guys that we like. I mean sometimes it's
Speaker 2: that too. Yeah, we do play this game to win,
Speaker 2: but there are some guys that we end up just
Speaker 2: loving their aesthetic approach and we sometimes stick a flyer
Speaker 2: on those guys too.
Speaker 3: It's true, and sometimes those guys surprised, don't they Matt
Speaker 3: correct me if I'm wrong. But when you brought up
Speaker 3: Caleb Durban about a year ago from now, I don't
Speaker 3: know if you were totally sold that he was a
Speaker 3: major leader, but you were a big fan of his definitely.
Speaker 2: I think what I said was that I am not
Speaker 2: sure that the whole package comes together and he's a
Speaker 2: big league regular, but that his combination of contact skills
Speaker 2: and ability to manipulate the barrel gave him a real
Speaker 2: shot in a way that I think when I originally
Speaker 2: looked at this, he had one of the very best
Speaker 2: contact seasons at double A ever, at least that we
Speaker 2: have data for. He had ran a four point two
Speaker 2: percent strikeout rate at double A across a not insignificant sample,
Speaker 2: and it was backed up by a four percent swinging
Speaker 2: strike rate and a pretty good sense of base stealing.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's not the fastest guy, but he's speedy
Speaker 2: and can use his legs, and that combination to me
Speaker 2: said hey, this could be a utility player. And then
Speaker 2: we started to see the Yankees playing in the outfield
Speaker 2: and bring training, he got some run. He got some
Speaker 2: positive comments from Boone. It was like, hey, maybe he's
Speaker 2: gonna get a look this year. And we I know,
Speaker 2: we joked down the stretch while he was winning you
Speaker 2: in AFL Championship. Maybe the Yankees would have benefited from
Speaker 2: his defense and his skill on the bases after their
Speaker 2: shockingly poor performance in World Series with respect to some
Speaker 2: of the little stuff. And I see people still like
Speaker 2: saying this is an AFL driven, exciting guy. For me,
Speaker 2: this interest has been much longer than that. And I think,
Speaker 2: like you made this point in the Dynasty, I got
Speaker 2: discord that it's not about the steals. It's not about
Speaker 2: the like, oh, he popped ten homers in three hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy five played appearances this year, Like oh, maybe
Speaker 2: there's some latent power there. It's really that this guy
Speaker 2: has incredibly good contact skills. And you look at the
Speaker 2: list of guys who run a sub eight percent swinging
Speaker 2: strike rate in the major leagues, Every single one of
Speaker 2: those guys is useful. That list is like a who's
Speaker 2: who of underrated fantasy contributors to I think, if he
Speaker 2: gets some run, he might end up being an above
Speaker 2: average hitter up the middle. Chipping in steels, maybe some
Speaker 2: multi positional eligibility, so durban, definitely fun esthetics, definitely fun skills,
Speaker 2: and I think he's more than more than a flash
Speaker 2: of in the pan.
Speaker 3: I don't know what is necessarily driving this map, but
Speaker 3: you know that it's getting to be a little bit
Speaker 3: more mainstream popularity when you see an increase in his
Speaker 3: baseball cards, which is definitely all right. I shared this list,
Speaker 3: I don't know, three or four weeks ago my selections
Speaker 3: with a couple of people in baseball and started some
Speaker 3: conversation that, like you know, with some guys in some situations,
Speaker 3: it kind of feels like the public sphere is maybe
Speaker 3: a year behind on a lot of guys, right, And
Speaker 3: my hope is with this show and our work that
Speaker 3: like maybe we can get on board and in line
Speaker 3: with some major league clubs and get a year ahead. Right,
Speaker 3: That's the whole point of us trying to share. And
Speaker 3: will that happen with all of these guys. Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: Maybe we can't catch up, maybe we can't get ahead
Speaker 3: on some guys. And I'm excited We're going to be
Speaker 3: talking about the NL West tonight, and I'm kind of
Speaker 3: pumped that this might be. I don't know, the most
Speaker 3: exciting list of ten guys that we've touched on so
Speaker 3: far for me in a dynasty sense.
Speaker 2: Very interesting and we'll definitely dig into this, I think,
Speaker 2: But there were some that I kind of struggled to
Speaker 2: get excited about.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong, there are some dudes in hear,
Speaker 2: some guys that I really really like, But I don't
Speaker 2: know there was something I was like, I don't I
Speaker 2: don't really see it like, I don't. I don't know
Speaker 2: if this is if there's a good B side guy
Speaker 2: for me in a couple of these spots. But yeah,
Speaker 2: let's uh, let's dive in and see see who we
Speaker 2: disagree on. I mean, I feel like there's always some
Speaker 2: good fodder there for you making fun of my picks
Speaker 2: and and me you how inside.
Speaker 3: Was never I would never Matt. Well, let's start it
Speaker 3: off like this, and then, Matt, who is the guy
Speaker 3: that you like the most that you're going to talk
Speaker 3: about tonight?
Speaker 2: I like the most.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's unfair of me. Maybe I'm asking you to
Speaker 3: show your hand because we are going to have a
Speaker 3: little competitive draft.
Speaker 2: Okay, there are like three or four that I really
Speaker 2: like and then there's a bunch that I'm there's something
Speaker 2: wrong with them or there's something that like I'm unsure about.
Speaker 2: But I'll say the one that I'm most excited about
Speaker 2: is is my Arizona bat. And I don't know who
Speaker 2: you picked for a little bit, all right, who is it?
Speaker 2: My Arizona bat is Tim Tawa?
Speaker 3: No brainer. I'm with this years too. One of my
Speaker 3: favorite B siders of this off season for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, like there's so much to like about him.
Speaker 2: But I literally when I was making my notes, Nate,
Speaker 2: that is exactly what I said. One of my favorite
Speaker 2: B siders this year.
Speaker 3: And if it old's true, like last year the bats
Speaker 3: that we were both on the arms too didn't totally disappoint.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, it's a good sign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I mean the case for Taua is
Speaker 2: I thought pretty obvious, and I'm a little surprised I
Speaker 2: haven't heard more about him after digging in.
Speaker 3: No kidding, he's still zero percent on September twenty seventh.
Speaker 3: Zero percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm like, you know, we're pretty plugged in.
Speaker 2: It's not like we're pounds that are checking every single
Speaker 2: ranking or following every single content creator. So maybe there's
Speaker 2: some people out there and we're late to the party
Speaker 2: on this, But I don't know. The dude just ripped
Speaker 2: thirty doubles, thirty homers, and swipe fourteen bags, a full
Speaker 2: six hundred and thirteen played appearances in the upper miners.
Speaker 2: That's double A and triple A and like, okay, some
Speaker 2: of that is in the PCL, which sure we should
Speaker 2: take with a little bit of grain of salt. But
Speaker 2: he ran just a hair over a hair under a
Speaker 2: twenty one percent strikeout rate, comfortably better than average, especially
Speaker 2: if you're showing that kind of you know what, what
Speaker 2: did he have sixty seven extra base hits on the year?
Speaker 2: That's totally acceptable for a twenty one percent strikeout rate.
Speaker 2: Almost And I haven't even gotten to the best thing
Speaker 2: about him yet, mate, you know what, I'm gonna say what.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: He played literally every position this year except for catcher
Speaker 2: and pitcher, and like, I bet he could do both.
Speaker 3: Like I don't think he played any short step he did?
Speaker 3: Did he he did? Yeah?
Speaker 2: He played every single position this year. That kind of utility,
Speaker 2: it's like, sure, is he going to be great at
Speaker 2: all of them? No? But given that versatility, given that
Speaker 2: they're moving him around and he seemingly is holding his
Speaker 2: own I don't know, man, Like, how are you not
Speaker 2: kind of interested in this guy? Like I to me,
Speaker 2: this was like the easiest pick of the Vanel West.
Speaker 3: For Arizona's bats. I think Caleb roberts was also an
Speaker 3: interesting would have been good.
Speaker 2: I call it toe Robertson, but.
Speaker 3: Matt twoll So. As far as position, I haven't listened
Speaker 3: in order. He played first base, the most corner outfields,
Speaker 3: second most, and second base and third base. Struck up
Speaker 3: a little bit of a conversation about Tawa with a
Speaker 3: MLB front office person, and I was kind of the
Speaker 3: thinking because I took some time to watch his defense,
Speaker 3: but not a lot, and I was of the thinking that, like,
Speaker 3: maybe he doesn't really have a place to play. There's
Speaker 3: a difference between being able to play a bunch of
Speaker 3: positions and just being tried out at a bunch of
Speaker 3: different positions.
Speaker 2: That is true, That is absolutely true, for sure.
Speaker 3: But this person seemed to be a bit more optimistic
Speaker 3: in his defensive abilities than I thought he might be,
Speaker 3: So take that for whatever it's worth.
Speaker 2: He played two started two games at shortstop, in Double
Speaker 2: A this year, so he played shortstop too.
Speaker 3: Okay, right, talking about the off season, I'm like, how
Speaker 3: can you treat guys ranking in the offseason or how
Speaker 3: can you change an opinion? Man, I don't know. Just
Speaker 3: sometimes a guy can be like right in your face
Speaker 3: and you just don't realize how good he is. Like
Speaker 3: the last couple of seasons, Tala has been, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe on a short list of a B side selection.
Speaker 3: I've watched plenty of him and out on the West Coast,
Speaker 3: and he just kind of snuck up. And I think
Speaker 3: part of it too, is like his I think big
Speaker 3: come up was towards the back half of the season,
Speaker 3: so that might be part of the reason. But he
Speaker 3: was a twenty twenty one eleventh round pick out of Stanford.
Speaker 3: He is Rule five eligible and not yet on the forty.
Speaker 3: We'll find out in a week. I got to imagine
Speaker 3: he's probably gonna get added, but very viable Rule five
Speaker 3: draft candidate if they don't protect its twenty five years old.
Speaker 3: This last season, he's listed at six foot That might
Speaker 3: be a little bit generous on the height. But man,
Speaker 3: what I noticed about Tala just over the last the
Speaker 3: transformation of like his body over the last My man
Speaker 3: does not miss his lifting sessions. Like, he is strong
Speaker 3: and you note and you can see this too in
Speaker 3: his swing and like, so you know, we got some
Speaker 3: savant stuff from his What was he like in the
Speaker 3: PCL for about a month to end the year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little over. He got thirty seven games to
Speaker 2: end the year in the PCL.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so his hardest hit balls during that standard about
Speaker 3: one hundred and seven one hundred and eight, well, one
Speaker 3: hundred and seven point seven miles per hour. He hit
Speaker 3: about five six balls in that range, right, which obviously
Speaker 3: isn't elite max CV. But when you take into account
Speaker 3: that Taua is always an inch inch and a half
Speaker 3: choked up on the bat when he swings, like getting
Speaker 3: some more barrel control, I think that's just a testament
Speaker 3: to how strong he really is. So I think that's
Speaker 3: a bit unique. I don't know if you see a
Speaker 3: lot of guys that are choked up walking up there
Speaker 3: in loo counts. He's not selling out for max batspeed.
Speaker 2: No he's not. But I do think he does a
Speaker 2: pretty good job with his battle ball spray. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: pulls the ball pretty well. You know, he's not elite
Speaker 2: at it, but he's pulled it consistently more than forty
Speaker 2: six percent of time YEP, which is about of average.
Speaker 3: Fifty six percent of the time in double A.
Speaker 2: In double A, and that definitely helped. And he hits
Speaker 2: a decent number of flyballs. It's not like super dependent
Speaker 2: on flyballs. But his swing is really short and compact,
Speaker 2: and you can't compare everybody to an Alex Bregman, but
Speaker 2: he does some things that remind me a little bit
Speaker 2: of Bregman. Bregman is still a little better back to
Speaker 2: ball than Tawa, but Tawa I think it has some
Speaker 2: things in common there that are are worth noting. The
Speaker 2: ability to pull. He gets those pulled balls in the air,
Speaker 2: and when he gets into one is he said like
Speaker 2: it's they aren't cheapies that he's getting. So while he's not,
Speaker 2: I don't think he's going to be a thirty homer
Speaker 2: bat in the major leagues necessarily. I think it's very
Speaker 2: real that we could see some twenty to twenty five
Speaker 2: homer seasons out of Tawai if if he gets a
Speaker 2: good run.
Speaker 3: Now, I don't totally know what the story was here.
Speaker 3: He started twenty twenty four in Triple A. I think
Speaker 3: he was there for three series and then went to
Speaker 3: Amarillo Double A and then came back up on August twentieth.
Speaker 3: From August twentieth on Matt thirty games, one hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty two played appearances. He hit ten home runs, he
Speaker 3: stole a couple of bags, slash three twenty seven, four
Speaker 3: h nine, and slugged six point eighty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a pretty good end of the year for sure.
Speaker 3: And I get PC and all that stuff, but he
Speaker 3: was swinging the bat pretty damn well. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: major leagues right around the corner. Potential will play everywhere.
Speaker 3: I love that doesn't strike out too much. Good hit tool,
Speaker 3: he'll take some walks, he'll hit some home runs. Like
Speaker 3: I have a very interesting b sider here that nobody
Speaker 3: is rostering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And I don't know if we mentioned this
Speaker 2: last week, but you know, Steamer came out with their
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five projections and it's a nice sanity check
Speaker 2: that I like to see. What what is Steamer? What
Speaker 2: does this computer algorithm think of the line that these
Speaker 2: guys put up and projection systems are all a little
Speaker 2: bit different. I like Steamer because it comes out the
Speaker 2: earliest and it's been pretty consistent. It's not like they're
Speaker 2: tweaking the methodology there a lot. So you can kind
Speaker 2: of compare your over year and see some guys that
Speaker 2: are like, how does it project that particular line? And
Speaker 2: I like it because it does a better job than
Speaker 2: our eyes do at contextualizing performance and then projecting what's
Speaker 2: going to happen next. So I think it's a super
Speaker 2: useful tool. I was a little surprised that Steamer projected
Speaker 2: Tawa for just an eighty six WRC plus next year.
Speaker 2: Isn't really buying that he's going to have on base
Speaker 2: skills and is definitely bearish on the power production. Maybe
Speaker 2: maybe we're slightly overrating some of those things, so you know,
Speaker 2: it's worth noting that there is some It's not like
Speaker 2: this guy is a slam dunk star in the major
Speaker 2: leagues by any means. So and Steamer, you know, eighty
Speaker 2: six WRC plus for a corner bat primarily like, you're
Speaker 2: probably not excited about rostering that guy unless you're in
Speaker 2: the very deepest of leagues. But I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: I kind of think that Steamer might be missing on this,
Speaker 2: And there actually is a bit more power here.
Speaker 3: With that stuff. I just wonder, like the version of
Speaker 3: Taua that was the last couple months of the season, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't think we've ever seen him that prolific at
Speaker 3: the plate before.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that is definitely true.
Speaker 3: Does that stick? Was that just a blip on the radar?
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's kind of fun how a guy
Speaker 3: can be right in your view for years and then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden you're like, holy shit, he's I.
Speaker 2: Mean, he's he's probably not going to run a twenty
Speaker 2: eight point six percent homer to fly ball rate. I mean,
Speaker 2: that is like an elite level production. But he's been
Speaker 2: pretty consistently in the high teens before that, and that
Speaker 2: still at you know, the rate that he hits fly balls,
Speaker 2: like that's still a really good hitter and definitely poortend.
Speaker 2: So what I think is like twenty homer power. So
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think that Steamer might be under
Speaker 2: underrating him a little bit. But yeah, no, Tim Tawa,
Speaker 2: he was my the easiest pick for.
Speaker 3: I agree, who's a no brainer. I'll be sharing videos
Speaker 3: of these guys that we talked about tonight on Twitter
Speaker 3: at Pitching Specs just watching him right now. Take Randy Vasquez,
Speaker 3: you are dead center, one hundred and seven off the bat.
Speaker 3: His bad is not without without pop. At the Diamondbacks,
Speaker 3: Matt on the arm side, looking at their system, kind
Speaker 3: of feel like this the pictures here, this farm like
Speaker 3: has gotten a little thinned out. I feel like I
Speaker 3: feel like good part of the last three or four years.
Speaker 3: You're like, you know, I don't know how great a
Speaker 3: lot of them will be, but it seemed to have
Speaker 3: a lot of arms, and this year it seemed less
Speaker 3: the case to me. But as far as their prospects go,
Speaker 3: the ober Diez was their most popular, most rostered back
Speaker 3: in September at twenty percent. You min Lynn, it was
Speaker 3: fourteen percent, Blake Waltston, who was getting some MLB run right,
Speaker 3: was twelve percent, Mania who came over from the White Sox,
Speaker 3: was eight percent, and then after that it's all two
Speaker 3: percent or less. And the guy that I end up
Speaker 3: going with, Matt like you talk about like, I kind
Speaker 3: of hate the phrase like, oh, he came out of nowhere,
Speaker 3: because often he did not come out of nowhere. He'd
Speaker 3: probably been doing some things in the minor leagues for
Speaker 3: a little while. But I really feel like Jose Cabrera
Speaker 3: came out of nowhere and was like just kind of
Speaker 3: destroying the Northwest League down the stretch. Man. I don't
Speaker 3: know if you watched or got into any Jose Cabrera
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: I did watch a little bit of him both in
Speaker 2: like he popped in some of the other starts that
Speaker 2: I had watched and was like, Oh, that's an interesting gun.
Speaker 2: And then when I was doing a dive in the system,
Speaker 2: I watched the decent amount of him too.
Speaker 3: Nice. Yeah, he really wasn't on my radar until the
Speaker 3: Hillsborough and Spokane game on August twenty fourth, to watch
Speaker 3: a guy we're going to talk about tonight actually as well.
Speaker 3: But Cabrera almost threw a perfect game. He was perfect
Speaker 3: through eight and a third I believe it was, or
Speaker 3: maybe it was eight and two thirds. End up giving
Speaker 3: a hit and giving up a run and all that stuff,
Speaker 3: and struck out eleven and I'm like, who is this cat?
Speaker 3: But finished the year pretty nice. Three out of his
Speaker 3: last five starts he threw fqos also against Eugene and
Speaker 3: Tri City. And I'm not even sure, man, I don't
Speaker 3: even know if I looked at like his pro history.
Speaker 2: He didn't get his SEENI guy, I mean he was
Speaker 2: like a DSL guy, ye, a little older, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I just like looking at like innings and stuff
Speaker 3: in his past. I wasn't like this season didn't start
Speaker 3: for him until like June, I think, so, I don't
Speaker 3: know if he was doing.
Speaker 2: He threw one hundred and seven then a third last year.
Speaker 3: Did he okay? Cool? But he's twenty three years old,
Speaker 3: righty listed at six ' three. It's funny. He's got
Speaker 3: a little bit of h I don't know how do
Speaker 3: I say it? Like, you know how like Dontrell Willis
Speaker 3: was just kind of like herky jerky.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 3: Cabrera's kind of like that too. I think he's got
Speaker 3: this like funky hitch in his lead foot too. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you notice that. I can't say I
Speaker 3: know of any other pitchers that kind of stepped forward
Speaker 3: like he does. Throws a force three three fastballs, force
Speaker 3: Himer's sinker, a cutter. There's a change up. I believe
Speaker 3: there's two different breaking balls. I'm not sure necessarily which
Speaker 3: one he throws more, because they're kind of hard to
Speaker 3: identify and pick apart, especially in the Northwest League broadcast.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like you said, from the Dominicans in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, he got eleven starts in in high A
Speaker 3: sixty six innings, a two point three two era point
Speaker 3: nine to four whip, a three point nine four x
Speaker 3: fIF He struck out almost twenty four percent of hitters
Speaker 3: walk just shy of seven percent. They hit one eighty
Speaker 3: four against him, pretty low. Babbitt to twenty seven. Ground
Speaker 3: ball percentage was about forty four percent through strikes at
Speaker 3: a sixty six percent, Cliff, I wish there was more
Speaker 3: better angles to watch him from this last year. Vancouver's
Speaker 3: really kind of like the only decent angle you get.
Speaker 2: Depends on the game. You might get some good ones
Speaker 2: in Eugene two. I know, I've I've had some luck there.
Speaker 2: Like they just they moved their camera sometimes, so sometimes
Speaker 2: it's like a really nice view and sometimes it's a
Speaker 2: little more off center. But yeah, the Northwest League is
Speaker 2: not the best for Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering if there's something a little difficult going on
Speaker 3: for hitters with his kind of attack angle. When he
Speaker 3: seems to be like going really well, he's like burying
Speaker 3: just a lot of stuff down in the zone. And
Speaker 3: and I don't know, that just seems really tough on
Speaker 3: the hitters, more so than your usual guy fill in
Speaker 3: the bottom of the zone. But I don't know, I
Speaker 3: feel like he mixes it up, will execute fairly decently
Speaker 3: from what I can tell, and when he's like really
Speaker 3: feeling a pitch, I've noticed, like in that almost Perfect game,
Speaker 3: I think it was like the cutter and the slider
Speaker 3: that were really his main pitches, and he'll just hammer
Speaker 3: hitters with those if they if they're not touching it.
Speaker 3: Like it's just he's gonna make you the Knights that
Speaker 3: he against the Indians. He was not even created in
Speaker 3: fan tracks yet.
Speaker 2: Matt, So, oh wow, that's fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking about a guy who's who's really kind
Speaker 3: of new on the Dynasty scene here. But yeah, so
Speaker 3: I'm going with Jose Cabrera this year and let's uh,
Speaker 3: let's see some more of this guy and what might happen.
Speaker 3: And it was a fairly easy choice for me, giving
Speaker 3: the other guys in this system rostered at zero one percent.
Speaker 3: Cabrera his last seven starts, forty seven innings, one point
Speaker 3: one five ERA point sixty six with twenty seven percent
Speaker 3: k percentage five point seventy five walk percentage through strikes
Speaker 3: sixty six percent of the time. Not a bad finish.
Speaker 3: I got to imagine the upper levels are not far away.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, no, super nice at a Cabrera. He's an
Speaker 2: interesting one to watch, and I did watch a couple
Speaker 2: of his starts. I can't say he popped for me
Speaker 2: quite as much as he did for you, And I
Speaker 2: think for me maybe it was like the breaking ball
Speaker 2: execution that I was like, Ah, this bitch is okay,
Speaker 2: but it seems to me like this is one that
Speaker 2: guys might spit on a bit at upper levels and
Speaker 2: then he'd really be like fastball kind of cutter guy,
Speaker 2: which is still super useful and there's definitely some skills there,
Speaker 2: but it was for me like the finish, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like the ability to finish batters wasn't
Speaker 2: quite as good as I would have liked to see
Speaker 2: at high A. But I do like him a fair
Speaker 2: amount and I think he's got some real oomph behind him.
Speaker 2: He's a big boy too, which is.
Speaker 3: A big boy is a big boy.
Speaker 2: Can you remind me what was Spencer Geesing's roster percentage.
Speaker 3: In September on the second and the twenty second he
Speaker 3: was two percent rostered.
Speaker 2: I do like he's saying, I saw him a fair amount,
Speaker 2: and I think it's worth mentioning him. He's one that
Speaker 2: if you're getting to throw in in a trade, I
Speaker 2: would definitely roster him. I think there's some skills there.
Speaker 2: He's got some things in common.
Speaker 3: You're talking about him this year some I know.
Speaker 2: He hasn't put the like full but it hasn't put
Speaker 2: the full package together. But I think he's done enough
Speaker 2: showing and like he threw a lot of innings this year,
Speaker 2: which I also really like as y. I think he
Speaker 2: was in the top fifteen for minor league innings this year,
Speaker 2: and that does tell you something about the big guys workload.
Speaker 3: For me, the biggest thing with Geisting is like he
Speaker 3: kind of came into reach the whole new level of
Speaker 3: strike throwing this year when he was down in Hillsborough,
Speaker 3: and then I think that kind of kind of backed
Speaker 3: up a little bit when he moved up, So I'm
Speaker 3: a little bit skeptical on just how good the execution
Speaker 3: will ever get for him. So that totally fair. I'm
Speaker 3: a little bit less back up than I was maybe
Speaker 3: earlier in the season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't back up to the level that it
Speaker 2: was in years previous, so maybe he did unlock something
Speaker 2: mechanical and did a little bit of the you know,
Speaker 2: he walked what like nine percent, Yeah, eight point seven
Speaker 2: percent at double A and that's just you know, better
Speaker 2: competition and all of that.
Speaker 3: I just stick with his profile too. He's not going
Speaker 3: to be an overpowering guy.
Speaker 2: No, definitely not so.
Speaker 3: I think I think that is more important to him
Speaker 3: than maybe some.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but just a fun lefty that i'd keep
Speaker 2: an eye on for for those pars and you know,
Speaker 2: and if you're.
Speaker 3: A fan of Dylan Ray, like I've liked don right too,
Speaker 3: I know he's coming back from injury. He was still
Speaker 3: down at two percent. Ricardo jan was one percent, but yeah,
Speaker 3: and then everybody after that, Jacob Steinman's was one percent,
Speaker 3: Nate Savino one percent, then everybody else was was zero
Speaker 3: or not created yet.
Speaker 2: Well my pick here, I'm pretty sure was zero percent.
Speaker 2: A fun story guy Roman Angelo. Did you watch much
Speaker 2: of Angelo this year?
Speaker 3: He's on my list here, so I turned mom, but
Speaker 3: I did not make any notes Matt.
Speaker 2: So I got to see him in Hillsborough once this year.
Speaker 2: And came away the live look like, oh that was decent,
Speaker 2: Like yeah, pretty good, pretty good dude. But Okay, he's
Speaker 2: a college guy and a little old, you know, like
Speaker 2: old or at level for High A. So I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it's he had a good outing, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't like, oh my god, Wow, I gotta go write
Speaker 2: this guy up. But I followed him after that just
Speaker 2: because I was like, oh, this was an interesting arm
Speaker 2: and I hadn't dived into him before. Well, he was
Speaker 2: an undrafted free agent in twenty twenty three, fifth year
Speaker 2: guy out of Fresno, and you know, he'd been to
Speaker 2: a couple of other colleges I think, and wasn't that
Speaker 2: good honestly at any of them, Like didn't pop off
Speaker 2: the page. To no surprise, he wasn't drafted totally forgettable
Speaker 2: in his seven and two thirds innings to start or
Speaker 2: to end the year last year after he got signed,
Speaker 2: even to start the year this year when he was
Speaker 2: at High or he was at Low A. He was
Speaker 2: striking some guys out, but he was walking the house
Speaker 2: and he'd had some walk issues in in the past,
Speaker 2: but also wasn't striking a ton of guys out now
Speaker 2: he unlocked something I saw he popped on a Baseball
Speaker 2: America list of the biggest fastball velocity gainers. He's up
Speaker 2: almost three miles per hour on average on his fastball.
Speaker 2: A big guy, he's like six ' five, kind of
Speaker 2: horse looking. He's got a little bit of a short stride.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It feels like maybe he could get
Speaker 2: down the mound a bit better than he does. But
Speaker 2: something about what he unlocked mechanically, it seems between last
Speaker 2: year and this it has him throwing a lot harder.
Speaker 2: Has a two seam and a four seam, and it
Speaker 2: seems like he uses them both pretty well. Like he
Speaker 2: keeps the two seam down and gets ground balls as
Speaker 2: well as some whiffs, but he'll also throw the fastball
Speaker 2: up and get some whiffs up there. You know. He
Speaker 2: ran a fourteen point five percent strikeout rate, or a
Speaker 2: swinging strike rate in Hia. Struck out a healthy twenty
Speaker 2: seven point eight percent of batters, which is quite good,
Speaker 2: while limiting walks to just eight point three percent, so
Speaker 2: a hair better than average. And he can lose the
Speaker 2: zone a bit, especially with his breakers. I don't think
Speaker 2: they're sharp, and he'll miss high on the four scene.
Speaker 2: But I feel like those are decent misses. It's not
Speaker 2: like he's missing to the middle and he's going to
Speaker 2: give up loud contact. And that's one thing that he
Speaker 2: has not done so far in his short professional career.
Speaker 2: He is not giving up a lot of hard contact.
Speaker 2: But I think that his best secondary is his change up.
Speaker 2: And you'll you'll like this. There was a really nice outing.
Speaker 2: I wasn't at this one, but I watched it on video.
Speaker 2: In the first inning, is going up against your boy
Speaker 2: the Iowa meat truck and throws him this like really
Speaker 2: lovely right on left change up, bottom corner of the zone,
Speaker 2: swing and miss. Oh one second pitch change up spoted
Speaker 2: the exact same spot low and away from Iowa meat
Speaker 2: truck with again, oh two, what's he do? Same fucking pitch,
Speaker 2: same spot, And it was a swinging miss, like the
Speaker 2: exact same pitch three times over, but it had nice fade.
Speaker 2: He commanded it pretty well.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a really nice sequence. And I love guys
Speaker 2: double tripling up on pitches with conviction like that.
Speaker 3: Especially like a changeup. But that takes yep, it takes
Speaker 3: some stones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially against your boy meat truck. You know, if
Speaker 2: you hang that, that ball, that ball's gone.
Speaker 3: So Angelo versus Meat Truck is that's a lot of
Speaker 3: LB's and then that's.
Speaker 2: Definitely definitely you could you could see there's a combined
Speaker 2: they were, you know, five hundred pounds or something like.
Speaker 2: It's not a not a small man's matchup there. But
Speaker 2: Roman Angelo I think totally free because he has no
Speaker 2: pedigree and was bad in his pro debut, wasn't drafted.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. I think there's like a real
Speaker 2: pitcher here, Like there's multiple pitches. The fastball now seems
Speaker 2: to be playing better. I think that with the short
Speaker 2: stride sometimes that means that the ball has a little
Speaker 2: bit more run to it, like it has a little
Speaker 2: bit more distance against which the friction of the ball
Speaker 2: to cause it to move. You see that sometimes with
Speaker 2: these guys that are a little shorter striders, they want
Speaker 2: like there's sometimes more that sinker strider guy rather than
Speaker 2: that or sinker slider guy rather than like the I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get wiffs with my fastball kind of guy. And
Speaker 2: feels to me that Angelo's like that. But anyway, Roman Angelo,
Speaker 2: I think he's a real arm. He might be in
Speaker 2: my top ten B side arms, like I put serious
Speaker 2: consideration behind him. I'm not all in. I want to
Speaker 2: see how this stuff plays kind of more appropriate levels.
Speaker 2: So hopefully they start him at double A next year
Speaker 2: and give him a challenge, because I think he's up
Speaker 2: for it, and with a good kind of half season,
Speaker 2: I could see this guy going from nobody to hey,
Speaker 2: maybe this is a depth starter, a fourth or fifth
Speaker 2: guy at peak. So yeah, I like roman Angelo quite
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 3: Well, the Olberdiez has been the only Diamondback B side
Speaker 3: arm in the past, and so he's passing the torch
Speaker 3: to Jose Cabrera and roman Angelo this year. Matt. While
Speaker 3: you were talking, I was just looking up Diamondbacks roster resource.
Speaker 3: For whatever it's worth, they have Tintawa on the bench
Speaker 3: right now, that nice major league bench. Nice that matchup
Speaker 3: that Cabrera that I was tuning in to watch. This
Speaker 3: probably won't be much of a surprise to you, but
Speaker 3: the Rocky's arm for me this year is you Hani
Speaker 3: or Herrera. We've talked about several times, but that's who
Speaker 3: I was tuning in to watch that matchup against Cabrera,
Speaker 3: and Herrera was dealing that day as well. It was
Speaker 3: probably the best pitching matchup of the minor league season
Speaker 3: that I watched. Just a one game sample here, but
Speaker 3: remember at the time, Yeah, it was a good one.
Speaker 3: Herrera came over from Milwaukee in the Mirrors trade. One
Speaker 3: percent rostered in September. I think he was up at
Speaker 3: like two percent three percent at one point this year,
Speaker 3: but probably got traded to the Rockies and some folks
Speaker 3: just said no thank you, which I understand. I think
Speaker 3: he was on pipelines top thirty right at the back
Speaker 3: end last time I checked. Now he is Rule five
Speaker 3: eligible this year, but hasn't been added to the forty
Speaker 3: man yet. I'm sure that's coming in a week. Here,
Speaker 3: twenty one year old right hander, six to three, good size.
Speaker 3: I think the main attraction to Herreras. I think he's
Speaker 3: got a pretty good fastball. It's maybe not the hardest
Speaker 3: in the world, but ninety five ninety six and he's
Speaker 3: got some good life to it. And as we've talked
Speaker 3: about this season, the gains that he made on his
Speaker 3: breaking ball stuff, I think has been the big uptick
Speaker 3: in his outlook. Here twenty twenty three, he had no
Speaker 3: idea where the slider was going this year. I thought
Speaker 3: executed it pretty well in the good angle looks that
Speaker 3: we did get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: So he started off in Carolina, like four relief appearances there,
Speaker 3: moved up to Wisconsin, fifty one innings there, and then
Speaker 3: after the trade he got thirty two and two thirds
Speaker 3: with the Indians, three thirty one era there, one point
Speaker 3: one three whip had some pretty nice outings. I do,
Speaker 3: like I've said this before, I do think there's maybe
Speaker 3: a little bit of like Herman Marquez in him, just
Speaker 3: in the fastball slider game. I don't know how much
Speaker 3: you want to make of splits down in the lowers,
Speaker 3: but he's got kind of a reverse split guy. Lefties
Speaker 3: have a tougher time against him. The righties y. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't want to get too much into
Speaker 3: her Ara. I feel like we talked a lot about
Speaker 3: him this year, had a really nice outing his third
Speaker 3: to last. He went seven, gave up just two hits,
Speaker 3: struck out six, walked one against Hillsborough. That was probably
Speaker 3: the best version of him, and I don't mind seeing
Speaker 3: the best version of a pitcher. Right at the end
Speaker 3: of the season. I got to imagine he'll be in
Speaker 3: Hartford pretty dang soon. Here and still quite young at
Speaker 3: only twenty one.
Speaker 2: I like Herrara too. I know we talked about this
Speaker 2: a bit. I do think he's got a live arm
Speaker 2: and some sense about what to do with that, which
Speaker 2: I think is a fun thing. And I think you're
Speaker 2: right that he's probably outside of the top couple of
Speaker 2: arms in the Rocky System. He's probably the best bet.
Speaker 2: So I like your pick here better than mine. There's
Speaker 2: quite a few interesting guys in the Rocky System. It's
Speaker 2: really is a bummer that so many of them are
Speaker 2: going to have to contend with cores and that difficulty,
Speaker 2: just because you know, you look at Hughes and Dolander
Speaker 2: and Jordi Vargas like, you know, those guys are all
Speaker 2: super talented and interesting for one reason or another. And
Speaker 2: then the set of performers that they had this year.
Speaker 2: Sean Sullivan was so good, palm Quist so good.
Speaker 3: Gabriel's Hughes is back, looks like he's back. Is there
Speaker 3: after TJ he was at five percent Raster.
Speaker 2: All those guys I think are pretty interesting for one
Speaker 2: reason or another. You know what he'll be, Yeah, Breck
Speaker 2: fypd guy, huge stuff out of Iowa. He's He's going
Speaker 2: to be interesting to see how he plays. Feels like
Speaker 2: to me he might be more of a reliever type,
Speaker 2: but we'll see, you know, they'll definitely give him every
Speaker 2: opportunity to start. I had kind of two guys that
Speaker 2: I winnowed down to after figuring that Nate was going
Speaker 2: to take Herrera. Looked long and hard at Jase Kaminska. Actually,
Speaker 2: big dude out of out of what was he Kansas,
Speaker 2: Kansas State, Nebraska. It was one of those middle middle
Speaker 2: of America places. Yeah, Nebraska, big boy, like not overwhelming stuff,
Speaker 2: but he was really great this year.
Speaker 3: In a strike throwing. The strike throwing with him is
Speaker 3: like elite, like he is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like he just pounds the zone.
Speaker 3: Again, it's in single A and he's.
Speaker 2: Twenty two, you know exactly. And I don't think my
Speaker 2: notes on him were that it was really fun watching
Speaker 2: him pitch at single A because his fastball, curveball combo
Speaker 2: was just the way he used it just had the
Speaker 2: hitters baffled. And like you said, he's in the zone
Speaker 2: all the time and just getting soft contact or wifs
Speaker 2: all all over the place. I don't think that attack
Speaker 2: is going to play as he goes up like that
Speaker 2: was my assessment, but I wanted to just shout him
Speaker 2: out because that was a really impressive eighty seven and
Speaker 2: a third innings at low A for Jase Kaminska. A
Speaker 2: little more impressive to my eye was Blake Adams, and
Speaker 2: somewhat of a similar story. Like Adams, he was pretty
Speaker 2: bad in college for his first couple of years, like
Speaker 2: I think he was at Arkansas. He was a reliever
Speaker 2: in his like Era and Fipp were both like above
Speaker 2: ten for both of those. His freshman sophomore year he
Speaker 2: transferred to KSU Kansas State and was and was fine,
Speaker 2: like not great, but he was fine, and then the
Speaker 2: Rockies popped him late round, you know, thirteenth round. In
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, he's been pretty good in the miners.
Speaker 2: Had a little bit of a rough patch to end
Speaker 2: the year in high A last year in Spokan and
Speaker 2: I don't think like some of that might have been
Speaker 2: run environments, some of that might have been just tired
Speaker 2: after a couple of longish seasons. But this year he's
Speaker 2: been really, really good. He started the year in Spokane
Speaker 2: and was arguably their ace on a team that had
Speaker 2: really good pitching performances. Up and down that start of
Speaker 2: the year. I remember we talked about that early on
Speaker 2: that like he and Sullivan and who was the other
Speaker 2: there was someone else who was like Dolander. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're all really really good. And of those guys like
Speaker 2: Blake Adams did almost as well as any of them.
Speaker 2: The rest of the year. Wasn't missing bats quite at
Speaker 2: the level of a Dolander or some of the others,
Speaker 2: but his command I think is substantially more polished. It's
Speaker 2: a four pitch mix, but really good control over all
Speaker 2: the pitches. I think he is somebody who you can
Speaker 2: tell has an approach against righty's and an approach against lefties.
Speaker 2: The fastball curve is the primary attack, but he's not
Speaker 2: afraid to go change up right on right. He's not
Speaker 2: afraid to throw a slider down and into a lefty like.
Speaker 2: He'll definitely mix things up with his approach. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure that the stuff is gonna hang. But he ended
Speaker 2: the year really really well in Hartford, and that was like,
Speaker 2: you know, Hartford obviously warms up during the summer months,
Speaker 2: like sometimes early in Hartford it's kind of tough to hit,
Speaker 2: But towards the end of the year, it's a little
Speaker 2: bit warmer, and I feel like the run environment was
Speaker 2: a little more unfriendly. But he ran a two four
Speaker 2: nine FIP across his five starts there, largely on the
Speaker 2: back of not walking anybody. I mean he walked shoot,
Speaker 2: what like four percent of batters or something there, No,
Speaker 2: not even not even three percent, two point eight percent.
Speaker 2: So if that command sticks, and especially if the stuff
Speaker 2: ticks up just a hair, there might be somebody worthwhile here,
Speaker 2: like who you know. Again, this is cores and all
Speaker 2: those caveats apply. But if he can make that work,
Speaker 2: there's just a real starting pitcher here, like a major
Speaker 2: league quality one. Given the depth of stuff, I'm not
Speaker 2: totally convinced, And like I said, I think Herrare is
Speaker 2: probably a better bet to like really as a pitcher.
Speaker 2: But Blake Adams impressed me, and I think if he
Speaker 2: does what he did this year in Double A and
Speaker 2: then in Triple A next year, he's going to be
Speaker 2: a depth starter for the big club before too long.
Speaker 2: So Blake Adams is my b side here for Colorado.
Speaker 3: That's a good call. He was definitely one of my
Speaker 3: finalists here. Your boy, I mean, Prosecci came back from injury,
Speaker 3: he's still zero percent.
Speaker 2: I really he was solid when he came back.
Speaker 3: Yep, And I think asaayah, koop it is really interesting
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Agreed.
Speaker 3: I think my biggest thing is he just doesn't feel
Speaker 3: like I don't know about the horsepower there long term.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he threw eighty six innings this year,
Speaker 2: like that's not nothing. But I agree with you, like
Speaker 2: I saw a bet of that too, even within starts
Speaker 2: that sometimes he seemed to flag a little bit late
Speaker 2: and he gave up a lot more runs than I
Speaker 2: would have expected. But yeah, coope, he's coopit. He's he's
Speaker 2: a good one too.
Speaker 3: I mean, Victor Warrez has been around forever. It seems
Speaker 3: like he's still only twenty one years old. He still
Speaker 3: has moments where very much I him. But nobody wants
Speaker 3: to hear about how deep the Rockies pitching farm is,
Speaker 3: which is, you know, it might not be super elite talent,
Speaker 3: but they just they have a lot of solid arms
Speaker 3: in their system, I think. And yeah, hopefully the insect
Speaker 3: approach here will work and a couple will survive and
Speaker 3: maybe even survive the whole elevation sea level thing and
Speaker 3: at least be a good picture for the Rockies. And
Speaker 3: that's circumstance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think with those caveats, some of these guys
Speaker 2: they've got a chance to be good pictures for the Rockies.
Speaker 3: Right right, right, doesn't really equate with the fantasy rulers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, who did you go with? Bat wise? This
Speaker 2: was one I gotta say I struggled with a bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like there was a lot more interesting
Speaker 3: B side caliber Rockies bats the last several years. But
Speaker 3: I went with a guy. I'm not going to be
Speaker 3: laying down bets that this is a major leaguer, but
Speaker 3: I think there's a chance, and I think the transformation
Speaker 3: that has taken place here, and you know, Rocky is
Speaker 3: the same one the Rockies who can't develop any bats,
Speaker 3: took a bat from a different org and helped him
Speaker 3: with his biggest bugaboo. But I'm going with GJ.
Speaker 2: Hill Glenn Allen Hill Junior.
Speaker 3: Right, formerly known as Glen Allen Hill Junior. His dad
Speaker 3: played for the Cubs for a while. Maybe the Braves too.
Speaker 2: Right, No Mariners the Mariner a long.
Speaker 3: Time Okay, Okay, I did following the Cubs guys back
Speaker 3: in the day. Man, So Glen Allen Hill not a
Speaker 3: big guy. I think he's listed at five to nine
Speaker 3: and that might even be a little generous.
Speaker 2: I don't know, way smaller than his dad. His dad
Speaker 2: was a huge dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But back in twenty nineteen, the Diamondbacks picked him
Speaker 3: in the fourth round as a California prep and things
Speaker 3: did not go well. We're talking about forty percent strikeout
Speaker 3: rates for him in the lowers, right.
Speaker 2: And like no power like it was. It was that's
Speaker 2: a bad combo, yep.
Speaker 3: And they released him and then he went and played
Speaker 3: independent ball last year, and then the Rockies signed him
Speaker 3: back in like March or something like that, and much
Speaker 3: to my surprise, Bill had a good year. Man eighty
Speaker 3: one games, three hundred and thirty six played appearances between
Speaker 3: A ball and hi A. As a twenty three year old,
Speaker 3: he hit twenty home runs and sold sixteen bases. And
Speaker 3: that that strikeout rate, I figured it out independent ball.
Speaker 3: So we're talking, like I said, forty percent. Guy who
Speaker 3: went to independent ball and was striking about thirty two
Speaker 3: to thirty three percent of the time, and he dropped
Speaker 3: it twenty three point five percent in A ball and
Speaker 3: twenty six point seven percent in high a yeah.
Speaker 2: Good for twenty five point three percent on the year.
Speaker 3: That's a pretty remarkable shift. You don't see that every day.
Speaker 3: He did get called up to Hartford for their playoff run,
Speaker 3: but did not appear game. He's a switch hitter, plays
Speaker 3: outfield in second base and that. This is what is
Speaker 3: kind of interesting to me is the Rockies. You know
Speaker 3: they made that trade Joe rack I don't another guy
Speaker 3: who struck out a bazillion time. But point being is
Speaker 3: they're kind of after this little profile. They want like
Speaker 3: a guy who can play in the dirt and play
Speaker 3: center field. For some reason, I don't know, they want
Speaker 3: a guy who can play up the middle like that.
Speaker 3: I feel like he'll maybe hits that bill a little bit.
Speaker 3: He's not. He's not really quite as fast, quite a burner.
Speaker 3: He stole twenty sixteen bags on the ear, but I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wouldn't call him like fast, would you. No?
Speaker 2: No, Nor would I say he is a great bass dealer.
Speaker 2: You know, you watch him and like his jumps are okay,
Speaker 2: and he's not as aggressive maybe as some guys in
Speaker 2: the sas. I mean, he's.
Speaker 3: Stealing well bases on pitchers who aren't paying attention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's not, you know, your braiden Wards. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that's one thing the Rocky system does pretty
Speaker 2: well is they give guys the green light. And so
Speaker 2: a lot of like your major or your minor league
Speaker 2: stolen base leaders or leaders in their league come from
Speaker 2: Rocky's orgs. Just going down the list here, Carrig had
Speaker 2: fifty three, Amador thirty five, Braylen Wimmer thirty four, Dian
Speaker 2: Jorge thirty six, Jake Snyder thirty, Braden Ward fifty, Caleb
Speaker 2: Hobson forty six, Greg Jones forty six. Like that that's
Speaker 2: they're running, you know. And so I mean I think
Speaker 2: all that to say that GJ. Hill he swiped just sixteen,
Speaker 2: Like he's not going to be a big burner. I
Speaker 2: don't think. I don't know if that's going to be a
Speaker 2: big part of his game.
Speaker 3: He ended the season. I mean, he might have been
Speaker 3: their the hottest hitter in their system the last thirty
Speaker 3: two games in high A one hundred and nineteen played
Speaker 3: appearances slash two eighty seven three thirty six with a
Speaker 3: six seven six slug twelve home runs over that span. Now,
Speaker 3: I will say about the home runs when you talk
Speaker 3: about park factor stuff, a lot of them are line drives,
Speaker 3: ekeing over the fence in small ballparks. So there's definitely
Speaker 3: that is definitely to be noted in my opinion. Like
Speaker 3: I said, I don't know major league outlook here, but
Speaker 3: just the sort of transformation that he took as a
Speaker 3: hitter and the production and what he was doing, like
Speaker 3: he's just kind of put himself back on the map.
Speaker 3: I think I couldn't believe they signed him. I was like,
Speaker 3: what are you doing another guy who strikes out a
Speaker 3: bazillion times? Blah blah, But uh, they helped him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said, you said it, well, man, I for
Speaker 2: many of the same reasons that you did. This was
Speaker 2: my pick. GJ. Hill super excited, especially compared to where
Speaker 2: he was as a diamondback prospect. This is a totally
Speaker 2: different looking guy, and if he'd been doing this as
Speaker 2: a nineteen year old, twenty year old, we'd be pretty excited.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, setting aside that he does still
Speaker 2: k a decent amount, the power is probably not quite
Speaker 2: as good as it showed this year, and he's not
Speaker 2: quite a burner. If he had done this two years ago,
Speaker 2: I think we both would have been like or I
Speaker 2: think everybody would have been like, there's pedigree, he's a
Speaker 2: spark plug. He's doing lots of different things, so super
Speaker 2: cool to see him turn things around like that. And
Speaker 2: partly as an old Mariner fan, you know, I wanted
Speaker 2: to get behind old Glenn Allen Hill junior, so hej
Speaker 2: Hill for us. I think that's both of ours beside that.
Speaker 2: But I will say that one of the things that
Speaker 2: made this tough for me was that I didn't like
Speaker 2: a lot of the other Rockies hitters, and I feel
Speaker 2: like normally they've been a pretty fun b siding ground,
Speaker 2: and they've usually had some more mixed league relevant guys
Speaker 2: that other people are excited about. But Cole Carrig, obviously
Speaker 2: he's way more exciting to like. Lots of folks are
Speaker 2: already on him for the kind of well rounded production,
Speaker 2: and you know, setting aside his potential maturity issues, he's
Speaker 2: a fun one that I'm excited to watch. I'm still
Speaker 2: into Adil Amador. I think Ammidor is going to be
Speaker 2: really good, and I feel like last year was just
Speaker 2: a bit of a blip that he's gonna come back from.
Speaker 2: He's up there on that list of who was better?
Speaker 2: How do I say that whose second half was so
Speaker 2: much better than their first? Like Amador is one of
Speaker 2: those guys, He's up there for that. Who else is
Speaker 2: on your list? Who else we're even looking at here?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like I wasn't pumped about a lot
Speaker 2: of these other hitters.
Speaker 3: I think part of it is, I mean, they sucked
Speaker 3: up some of the young talent, and in the major leagues,
Speaker 3: right the bigger names were rostered more. But down at
Speaker 3: this level. Like you you mentioned Brandon Ward, I think
Speaker 3: he's interesting as a potential major leader. I don't think
Speaker 3: he's like every day or anything like that, but a
Speaker 3: guy that we could see on the bench. Perhaps last year,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember, I almost went with
Speaker 3: Zach Kokoska, and yeah, I think he had some injury stuff.
Speaker 3: This year, I admit it wasn't quite as good and
Speaker 3: hard ford as I hope, but he still hit twenty
Speaker 3: home runs, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah strikeout. I just picked up a bit high for
Speaker 2: cor Costco.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and they've also just been a nice swing.
Speaker 2: I will say co Costka. I watched a fair amount
Speaker 2: of him this year, and I did come around on
Speaker 2: his swing. I think that there's some real power there.
Speaker 3: And I think you got to note too that they're
Speaker 3: throwing more draft capital at arms the last several years,
Speaker 3: which I think you got some of that. But I
Speaker 3: did like the look of Jared Thomas this year, their
Speaker 3: second round pick from Texas. I think he's pretty interesting
Speaker 3: and I don't know, I might be a little bit
Speaker 3: more excited for him than I am Condon, to be honest.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know what, that's actually a good call out.
Speaker 2: I did watch a decent amount of Jared Thomas. There
Speaker 2: wasn't a lot, obviously, but I agree I liked what
Speaker 2: I saw, and Condon obviously has been among the most
Speaker 2: disappointing guys to start considering the draft hype.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, this was a the bats are thinner
Speaker 3: here at this raster percentage for the Rockets. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: was surprised you landed on hill as well. That's all right, Matt.
Speaker 3: The San Francisco Giants is always kind of a fun
Speaker 3: b side hunting ground because I think they give a
Speaker 3: lot of opportunity to guys really like their platoons and
Speaker 3: give some different guys run and stuff like that. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's worked out so well for them.
Speaker 3: Their lineups have been shuffled through a lot of bats
Speaker 3: the last few years and haven't really found all that
Speaker 3: great of an offense, I don't think, but.
Speaker 2: And it's going to be interesting to see how that changes,
Speaker 2: because they've definitely been a pretty platoon heavy, data forward
Speaker 2: thinking organization and man, if you read Buster Posey's lines
Speaker 2: so far about the direction of the organization is like
Speaker 2: RBI is king kind of stuff, which is like wild.
Speaker 2: So it'll be interesting to see what direction the big
Speaker 2: league club goes now.
Speaker 3: The bat that I ended up with, I was surprised
Speaker 3: to see the roster percentage and is one of my
Speaker 3: favorite B side bats for this year. I'm going with
Speaker 3: young lizbel Diez, who is only one percent rostered in September, which,
Speaker 3: like I said, kind of surprised me because he's I
Speaker 3: think some chatter about him. Yeah, but he was an
Speaker 3: international free agent Siney out of Cuba just in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three and at eighteen years old ninety played appearances
Speaker 3: on the Complex two hundred and fifty five in a
Speaker 3: ball outfielder, corner outfielder. I think I don't I don't
Speaker 3: even know if he played at any center. But he's a
Speaker 3: corner all field. Yeah. Now, his overall production on the
Speaker 3: season isn't super noteworthy. I don't think he popped six
Speaker 3: home runs. He stole eight bases, walked five point five
Speaker 3: percent of the time, struck out eighteen point eight percent
Speaker 3: eight percent of the time, which you know, that's pretty
Speaker 3: good for an eighteen year old. I think his first
Speaker 3: taste full season two seventy nine, three thirty three, slugged
Speaker 3: four thirty three actually better than I than I had
Speaker 3: thought it was, to be honest, but not too shabby
Speaker 3: and not super eye popping a one five five ISO
Speaker 3: on a three twenty six babbit, which was good for
Speaker 3: a one oh three w RC plus ground ball rate
Speaker 3: it was about forty nine percent, pulls the ball fifty
Speaker 3: two percent of the time, swinging strike rate of twelve
Speaker 3: point two percent of the time. But to me and Matt,
Speaker 3: I mean, I like the look of this guy's stroke,
Speaker 3: and the finish of his season I think was pretty encouraging.
Speaker 3: His last about month twenty six games, one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty eight played appearances three forty two three ninety eight
Speaker 3: five thirty nine, with four of his six home runs
Speaker 3: just coming at the end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he I caught a decent amount of him and
Speaker 2: a ball and San Jose, and I think he's good.
Speaker 2: Like you said, the line's probably not gonna leap off
Speaker 2: the page, but remembering that he's eighteen in full season ball,
Speaker 2: more than holding his own, I do think that there's
Speaker 2: a real, some real potential here. I think the thing
Speaker 2: to watch with him is is the is the power
Speaker 2: gonna explode? Is he going to get the ball in
Speaker 2: the air a bit more? I think if he, if
Speaker 2: he does that, this might be a guy that really
Speaker 2: really pops. So I like this pick for you. It's
Speaker 2: a good one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what his fly ball percentage on the year was
Speaker 3: thirty point five percent, And for.
Speaker 2: Someone who's gonna play a corner like that, probably got
Speaker 2: a has to come up. And I think he's got
Speaker 2: the power to make it work or will. I always
Speaker 2: thought he was like a pretty strapping young fellow, you know,
Speaker 2: at six two to two oh one. But I thought
Speaker 2: he had a good look to him, right.
Speaker 3: And I think there's like some good energy transfer in
Speaker 3: the swing. I don't I've never caught any like ev
Speaker 3: stuff or anything like that on DS have you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not off the top of my head.
Speaker 3: No, My thought is it's probably nothing too loud, because
Speaker 3: if it was, we probably would be hearing about it
Speaker 3: from folks who have that probably, But nonetheless, so there's
Speaker 3: a very young, very young teenager who howld his own
Speaker 3: and looked a part down the stretch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he'll be a fun one to follow. You said
Speaker 2: that this was sort of a disappointing group or you
Speaker 2: in in San Francisco and as a whole there that's fair.
Speaker 2: You know. Bryce Eldridge I think is the real deal.
Speaker 2: Like that dude's got massive power and is showing a
Speaker 2: totally acceptable k rate for a young guy. So, I mean,
Speaker 2: he's super exciting. I think that he's going to be
Speaker 2: a stud big leaguer pretty soon. And they've hit some
Speaker 2: B side types like Luis Matos is a big success
Speaker 2: story for them. Even some of their guys that kind
Speaker 2: of were post type sleeper type guys I think have
Speaker 2: started to pan out a bit. I kind of hear
Speaker 2: you that further down a lot of the guys that
Speaker 2: we might normally go hunting him. There were some flaws
Speaker 2: like Quinn McDaniel struck out way too much this year
Speaker 2: and just hasn't put it all together. Grant McRae, who
Speaker 2: showed some flashes in the last couple of years, like
Speaker 2: that's not going to play with what he put together
Speaker 2: this year. You know, I watched a fair amount of
Speaker 2: Justin Wishkowski. You know, they were playing him all over.
Speaker 2: I saw him at shortstop a bunch. I never thought
Speaker 2: he was like a very good short stop there, but
Speaker 2: it was interesting that they were letting him play there,
Speaker 2: so wiping some bags. But I don't think the power
Speaker 2: is there. Victor Barracotto never really put the power together
Speaker 2: that we've seen and that was probably a bit of
Speaker 2: a miss for us last year being so on him.
Speaker 2: So anyway, a lot of these guys I was just like,
Speaker 2: I don't know about you know, Bo Davidson exciting, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And Bo Davidson, I think is another one that you
Speaker 2: know hasn't been fully healthy, but when he has been,
Speaker 2: nothing short of electric. So like that exciding guy.
Speaker 3: It was a bummer. He got a little buzz and
Speaker 3: popularity at the end of the season there because he
Speaker 3: was probably.
Speaker 2: Would have been a slam dunk. But yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah for sure. And you know another guy that I
Speaker 2: think people have talked about, I don't know if we've
Speaker 2: talked about him much, but Diego Velasquez, like he's been
Speaker 2: young for the level, been pretty aggressively pushed. I considered
Speaker 2: him pretty heavily here because I think he can play
Speaker 2: up the middle and yeah, yeah, and I think that
Speaker 2: you know, he's got some steals. I just don't. I
Speaker 2: shied away because I just don't think the power is
Speaker 2: really going to play. And so now you're talking like
Speaker 2: a backup infielder guy, maybe a utility type. I couldn't
Speaker 2: really give it a full throat and endorsement considering he
Speaker 2: was this was his age twenty season and we're still
Speaker 2: not seeing much, if any power. So wasn't super in
Speaker 2: on that, and I would say the guy that I'm
Speaker 2: gonna pick, I also wasn't super in on I saw
Speaker 2: him in college. He got drafted by my favorite team,
Speaker 2: and I was never like, oh, yeah, this guy is
Speaker 2: a note out major leaguer. But Sibn Sabaios, I am
Speaker 2: pretty intrigued by the changes that he made after he
Speaker 2: came over in the trade for Solaire this year. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you followed this, but he got drafted
Speaker 2: by the Braves in like the third round I think,
Speaker 2: and you know, got underslot. It was like the book
Speaker 2: on him was he was probably a plus defensive guy,
Speaker 2: had some decent raw power, but maybe wasn't going to
Speaker 2: get to it, and maybe the contact skills weren't gonna
Speaker 2: quite play out after he was drafted, Like his his
Speaker 2: you know, first run with the Braves, a lot of
Speaker 2: that I think showed up. Like he played pretty good defense.
Speaker 2: The power wasn't anything to write home about, and he was,
Speaker 2: you know, making a decent amount of context. It was
Speaker 2: like sort of a weird mix, like he kind of
Speaker 2: turned into this slap hitting kind of guy. And I
Speaker 2: don't know whether he was like trying to follow like
Speaker 2: the Nacho Alvarez path or something, but he anyway gets traded.
Speaker 2: He's the main piece going back in the Solaire deal.
Speaker 2: And man when he and then just starts a murdering
Speaker 2: the ball, raise his launch angle, hit way more fly balls,
Speaker 2: seem to be hitting the ball a lot harder because
Speaker 2: the swinging strike rate and the strikeout rate itself went
Speaker 2: up a bit. But that trade seems to work for him,
Speaker 2: and he's got good rod juice. Like I would see
Speaker 2: him leave the yard in Eugene with ease back in
Speaker 2: college at University of Oregon. I don't know whether the
Speaker 2: giants just like said, do you big boy, and like
Speaker 2: elevate and celebrate, but whatever it was, it worked. He
Speaker 2: ended the year on quite a run. And I don't
Speaker 2: think it's going to be elite power, but I think
Speaker 2: we're looking at average for third base kind of power,
Speaker 2: which which will play and he's never gonna swipe bags
Speaker 2: or anything, so this is really like a hit and
Speaker 2: power and defense kind of play. But I don't know
Speaker 2: what I saw this year. Sabios looks to me like
Speaker 2: a full time regular if he can keep up what
Speaker 2: he did after the trade. If he's somewhere in between,
Speaker 2: now you're looking at probably a second division regular if
Speaker 2: the glove stays as good as it has been. You know,
Speaker 2: he was like a first team Gold Glover in college,
Speaker 2: and I think the reports have remained pretty bullish on
Speaker 2: his glove as well. Yeah, Sam and Sebios, I think
Speaker 2: he looks like a big leader to me. So of
Speaker 2: the guys we've talked about so far this year, he
Speaker 2: is up there in terms of I am sure he's
Speaker 2: going to play in the major leagues and for a
Speaker 2: decent stretch, So you know, take that for what you will.
Speaker 3: For a third round pick who was fairly young for
Speaker 3: a college that in the draft, right, like, yep, not
Speaker 3: a lot of buzz, not a lot of popularity. He
Speaker 3: was still zero percent rostered in September. All right, man,
Speaker 3: I'm curious who you landed on on the that side
Speaker 3: here for the Giants, because I had a tough time.
Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, there are arms. I don't know. They weren't
Speaker 2: quite as exciting. Again, They've had some interesting ones in
Speaker 2: years past. Although I will say my guy last year
Speaker 2: for them, Kuy Waitang, maybe my biggest miss of any
Speaker 2: take that I had in the last year. He was
Speaker 2: just atrocious last year, both in the miners in the majors.
Speaker 2: And I'm still hopeful he figures it out because I
Speaker 2: still believe in what we saw the previous couple of years.
Speaker 2: But it just was super bad this year. But I
Speaker 2: don't know, there aren't as like slam Dunk, a guy
Speaker 2: that jumped out to me here even.
Speaker 3: On the top net like Carson wizen Hunt twenty nine percent,
Speaker 3: Mason Black eighteen percent, Joe Whitman seven percent, like those
Speaker 3: are their top three at least popularity wise. Like the
Speaker 3: most not the most exciting in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. I did like two arms
Speaker 2: of theirs after diving in a bit. I think you
Speaker 2: shared your list, and one of them is the guy
Speaker 2: that you picked that I kind of co signed. But
Speaker 2: I'll let you talk about him and I'll just talk
Speaker 2: about Jack Choate.
Speaker 3: He was one percent in September.
Speaker 2: Got a really fortunate name. I don't know. He does
Speaker 2: a lot of things that I really like. For a
Speaker 2: picture one, he works really fast, which makes him fun
Speaker 2: to watch. You're not sitting there a lot of dead time,
Speaker 2: you know, when we're chopping up hundreds of hours of
Speaker 2: film and trying to smash it in as much as
Speaker 2: in as little time as possible. Really appreciate when I
Speaker 2: can hit that fast forward button and the next pitch
Speaker 2: immediately shows up. That's this kind of guy. And you
Speaker 2: know hat tipp to Choate for working as fast as
Speaker 2: he does. He's got a lower slot arm from the
Speaker 2: left side, but he makes it work at the top
Speaker 2: of the zone. There's something about his hand angle that
Speaker 2: makes me think that there's good vertical approach angle and
Speaker 2: decent ride. The fact that he keeps throwing it at
Speaker 2: the top of his zone and not getting hurt up
Speaker 2: there that it's like it's gonna play even if the
Speaker 2: velocity doesn't tick up, and I think I heard some
Speaker 2: readings that he's, you know, eighty nine to ninety one consistently.
Speaker 2: Maybe he gets up to ninety two, but it's not
Speaker 2: elite or even average velocity for a lefty. But with
Speaker 2: the funk and the low arm angle and the way
Speaker 2: that the fastball rides, I think all of those things
Speaker 2: round it up to like maybe an average fastball, and
Speaker 2: then the rest of his pitches are pretty good. The
Speaker 2: change when it's on is dirty. I have seen him
Speaker 2: get pretty loose with it at times, but when it's working,
Speaker 2: he'll throw that anytime, any count, and it seems to
Speaker 2: work quite well. He can lose it a little bit
Speaker 2: arm side at times and down, but most of the
Speaker 2: time it seemed like that was his most trusted secondary.
Speaker 2: He knows how to get lefties out. Again, the arm
Speaker 2: angle I think helps it play, and his breaking ball
Speaker 2: seems to work pretty well. More of a sweepy. I
Speaker 2: couldn't tell necessarily whether it was a curveball that's like
Speaker 2: more sweepery or a slider, but a little bit of
Speaker 2: a slower breaker that was good without being exceptional, and
Speaker 2: the execution for me is what separated him from your guy.
Speaker 2: I just thought he attacked the zone a touch better
Speaker 2: and still had had decent innings on the year. You know,
Speaker 2: he threw one hundred and eleven and two thirds innings,
Speaker 2: which tells me that, like, while he's not going three
Speaker 2: times to the order every time, it's still a fairly
Speaker 2: hefty workload. And maybe there's more here and then a
Speaker 2: depth like sixth starter or seventh starter or a long reliever,
Speaker 2: but that's probably his meat outcome is long reliever type.
Speaker 2: So you know, not a full third endorsement, but I
Speaker 2: liked enough about what I saw that you know, he
Speaker 2: might throw some innings in the back of a pen
Speaker 2: if the velocity ticks up in shorter stints or if
Speaker 2: the slider tightens up and maybe he gains a tick,
Speaker 2: maybe he can be a back of the rotation guy.
Speaker 2: But I liked. I think he had a really good
Speaker 2: year and end of the year on a solid run
Speaker 2: in double A two. So it's not like we're picking
Speaker 2: guys in a ball either. He's he's in the uppers now,
Speaker 2: and I think jock joke. He's pretty good.
Speaker 3: But halfway through the season, I know we had talked
Speaker 3: about Dylan Cumming and I was kind of starting to
Speaker 3: get a little excited for him. About him, I was
Speaker 3: kind of thinking, Okay, this would be my no doubt
Speaker 3: choice here for this. But man, the second half of
Speaker 3: the year, he just really was unimpressive to me. The
Speaker 3: execution just was not nearly as good and reliever they
Speaker 3: were trying as a starter, and I think it just
Speaker 3: kind of cemented more of like, all right, coming if
Speaker 3: he makes it as probably a reliever. I think I
Speaker 3: was trying to, you know, search more for starters, but
Speaker 3: I end up playing with Dylan Carmacchi And you mentioned
Speaker 3: that you were a bit of a co sign here,
Speaker 3: so I'm going to ask you for a little bit
Speaker 3: of help as well selling me because I was not, like,
Speaker 3: I am not super excited about this pick. I just
Speaker 3: kind of felt like it was the best of what
Speaker 3: was available to me. Carmachi went ninety two innings in
Speaker 3: a ball and then a little over thirty innings in
Speaker 3: hi A as a twenty three year old who was
Speaker 3: a fifteenth round draft pick twenty twenty three out of
Speaker 3: Tulane he's a big lefty at six six, kind of
Speaker 3: like a I don't know, three quarter, maybe a little
Speaker 3: bit more towards the quarter. I thought zero percent rostered
Speaker 3: in September, which I think is understandable. He was pretty
Speaker 3: good in a ball, just production wise, not nearly as good.
Speaker 3: In his seven starts in a ball he ran a
Speaker 3: five three four era, a one point five to five whip.
Speaker 2: There, that's that's in Hi A, when yeah, that's in
Speaker 2: High A.
Speaker 3: But he did cut the walks quite a bit. He
Speaker 3: was at eleven percent and then was down to six
Speaker 3: point eight percent in High A. And those strikeouts ticked
Speaker 3: up as well. Matt he was almost thirty percent in
Speaker 3: his seven High A starts. He was twenty four in
Speaker 3: a ball.
Speaker 2: But he was giving up homers like that was the
Speaker 2: issue for me. And my notes on him were that
Speaker 2: I really liked his funk, like he's a lefty with
Speaker 2: some deception, and I thought that that played pretty well.
Speaker 2: The part that I was concerned about was the execution
Speaker 2: and putting guys away. I tend to think that's something
Speaker 2: that can be learned, though, so it might just be
Speaker 2: some more reps for him because he's still pretty new
Speaker 2: I mean, what was he twenty three.
Speaker 3: The video that I'll share, it's far from far from
Speaker 3: like a great pitch execution guy. I mean, things can
Speaker 3: get pretty loose on him at times, but yet over
Speaker 3: the course of the year, like pretty good strike throwing percentage,
Speaker 3: at least the back half of the year, it really
Speaker 3: jumped up from his a ball run. Now to me,
Speaker 3: the biggest thing with him, like you said, funky, bigger lefty,
Speaker 3: that all played into me going with him here, but
Speaker 3: his arsenals. I think he's mostly like a aass ball
Speaker 3: change up guy. And I think the breaking ball stuff,
Speaker 3: the curveball, like I don't, it's not major league quality
Speaker 3: at this juncture, so that that puts a big damper
Speaker 3: on things for me here. But you know, pitchers, they
Speaker 3: can develop, they can change rather quickly. But he was
Speaker 3: also a lefty with somewhat of reverse splits. He was
Speaker 3: tougher on righties than he was lefties. That's always kind
Speaker 3: of interesting to me. So yeah, I don't know, just
Speaker 3: kind of He's definitely probably like my bottom five B
Speaker 3: side arms for this year. But don't I think was
Speaker 3: without you know, some some interest to watch to see
Speaker 3: what kind of development developments may take place here, and
Speaker 3: if you can get a decent breaking ball going, like uh,
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe you could be a guy of notes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's room to improve in a couple of ways.
Speaker 2: You know. Even his change up, which I think is
Speaker 2: his best pitch, it's still he loses it at times.
Speaker 2: And I think when he misses with his pitches that's
Speaker 2: when they get punished. So you know, he could I
Speaker 2: could see him taking a step forward. But neither of
Speaker 2: these guys screamed like, must must get for me.
Speaker 3: No, But you know, Carmachri, there's just a bit of
Speaker 3: a different watch than the other guys in the system
Speaker 3: here and cut me tuned in longer, all right. The champs,
Speaker 3: the Los Angeles Dodgers can make for interesting B siding
Speaker 3: because they are so popular. Every every guy they signed
Speaker 3: their draft is a future Hall of Famer because they're
Speaker 3: just such amazing developers of talent, you know, so it
Speaker 3: can be really tough. They're just truck full of Hall
Speaker 3: of famers. I do really really like the bat that
Speaker 3: I'm going with here, Matt, and it's Logan Wagner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, co sign this is mine too?
Speaker 3: Nice? Nice? The problem I had.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like you're still in my thunder
Speaker 2: here because I talked about him earlier this year.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I if you can't beat him, you
Speaker 3: join them, Matt right.
Speaker 2: Well plan Logan Wagner. He's really good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one percent rostered in September. He was a twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two prep selection out of South Carolina. They took
Speaker 3: him in the sixth round or six hundred. He is
Speaker 3: a switch hitting corner outfielder, first base, third base, listed
Speaker 3: at six ' to one. The biggest problem that is
Speaker 3: staying on the field, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what's up with this?
Speaker 3: Like, I don't got to say, I don't know what
Speaker 3: all the injuries are and stuff, but we're talking about
Speaker 3: as a pro two years plus the post draft only
Speaker 3: two hundred and thirty seven played appearances. Yeah this year.
Speaker 3: His season ended in the end of June. This is
Speaker 3: just a really good looking switch hitting bat. Dude. I
Speaker 3: love absolutely the mechanics here.
Speaker 2: I mean, the knock on him other than staying on
Speaker 2: the field is the strikeouts have thus far been relatively high,
Speaker 2: and this is like, go out and try and get
Speaker 2: this guy. Kind of an alarm because I don't think
Speaker 2: they're gonna stay that way or if they do, it's
Speaker 2: gonna be because he's hitting absolute tanks and walking a lot.
Speaker 2: So he's he's pretty patient. Like you watch him and
Speaker 2: he's like he'll take borderline pitches and he at all.
Speaker 2: Then the guy makes a mistake because he nibbled, nibbled,
Speaker 2: and now it's three to two and he'll just smash
Speaker 2: one into the gap and love his simple swing from
Speaker 2: both sides. He think I have seen some ev stuff
Speaker 2: on him and he's one of those like Exiblocity darlings.
Speaker 2: So like, yeah, Logan Wagner, this guy can really really hit,
Speaker 2: and yeah, because of the strikeouts, he's not yet like
Speaker 2: Dodgers level popular for some reason, but he should be,
Speaker 2: he says.
Speaker 3: Healthy. Man, he's he's gonna. I feel like he could Mash.
Speaker 3: I shared this in the video, Matt, but you see
Speaker 3: him just destroy Herman Marquez just dead center home run
Speaker 3: when Marquez was rehabbing sick. I love the look at him, man.
Speaker 3: I just want to see him play more. I don't
Speaker 3: know what else there is to say. The it walks
Speaker 3: a ton, his his OBP was over four this year.
Speaker 3: There's nothing to like nitpick to me. I know, the strikeouts,
Speaker 3: like let the man barely into his pro career here, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's when he's out there, like he's a dude on
Speaker 3: that Rancho team. Man some clutch home runs. I think
Speaker 3: he had a game winner that I shared in the
Speaker 3: in the video. But uh yeah, Logan Wagner definitely one
Speaker 3: of my favorite B side selections this year.
Speaker 2: Totally co signed like this. He is a he's going
Speaker 2: to be a very very good hitter, and like we've
Speaker 2: like to talk about before too, he pulls the ball
Speaker 2: and does so in the air and does it from
Speaker 2: both sides of the plate like he has an approach
Speaker 2: up there and it's I'm gonna get my pitch and
Speaker 2: then I'm gonna absolutely tattoo it. So yeah, this was
Speaker 2: a bit of a no brainer for me. There's some
Speaker 2: other bats in Dodger system that I think are interesting ish,
Speaker 2: but Wagner is the one that's like I could see
Speaker 2: him absolutely exploding.
Speaker 3: It's popped from both sides of the plate, like I
Speaker 3: don't know, yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: I have him in a couple of places. I think
Speaker 2: they're a couple of deep leagues. I grabbed him when
Speaker 2: I was starting to talk about a mid season Then
Speaker 2: he got hurt and didn't play much after that, and
Speaker 2: so I was like, I can't profit off it at all.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he's one I'm happy to hold because I
Speaker 2: do think there's some real, real talent there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Just thirty eight games this year, bummer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy, and that's that's his high water mark. That's
Speaker 2: like the most he's done in the season. Dylan Campbell,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you watched much of Dylan Campbell. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's a little bit younger. He was a younger college
Speaker 2: bat that got drafted out of Texas if I remember right,
Speaker 2: and was I don't know, like fine in the short
Speaker 2: stint after his draft year and was fine in college.
Speaker 2: You know, he was a fifth rounder like that's or
Speaker 2: maybe comp round something like that. You know, he was
Speaker 2: a decently high pick but went under the radar a
Speaker 2: little bit. I think he had a solid year this year.
Speaker 2: Hit ten homers, stole forty two bases, struck out twenty
Speaker 2: two percent of the time, walked ten percent of the
Speaker 2: time all together. I mean that's just like a one
Speaker 2: or four WRC plus. And I think the impact in
Speaker 2: the bat is probably what's going to hold him back,
Speaker 2: and certainly why I would take Wagner over him. I
Speaker 2: thought he was a pretty good base dealer in my looks,
Speaker 2: and I wondered if there might be a little bit
Speaker 2: more power if he matures. He was just twenty one
Speaker 2: this year. I think he turned twenty two at the
Speaker 2: very end of the season, and that's you know. So
Speaker 2: he's going into his third pro season just as a
Speaker 2: twenty two year old, and he's likely to be in
Speaker 2: Double A, and I could see him putting together a
Speaker 2: solid year now what I've seen so far, probably not
Speaker 2: a big league regular. So we're looking at like a
Speaker 2: fourth outfielder skill set, but some decent speed, some decent
Speaker 2: contact ability gives him a little bit of a floor.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to shout out that I liked a
Speaker 2: fair amount of Dylan Campbell this year, and if the
Speaker 2: power does take a step forward, hey, maybe there's something
Speaker 2: more here.
Speaker 3: So I watched a decent amount of like Chris Newell too. Yeah. Shit,
Speaker 3: twenty five home runs, thirty one stolen bases this year
Speaker 3: between high and Double A. Shoot, if Gotthier can't get
Speaker 3: major league run with these guys, somebody who strikes out
Speaker 3: thirty three percent of the time ain't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Gotthier wasn't quite as good this year as
Speaker 2: he was last, but still held his own, as you know,
Speaker 2: triple A in triple A and I still think he's
Speaker 2: going to be a big leaguer for somebody, but probably
Speaker 2: not for the Dodgers.
Speaker 3: Tough place to bust through here, same story on the
Speaker 3: on the arm side for the Dodgers. Tough to be
Speaker 3: a good Dodgers prospect in raster zero one percent to go.
Speaker 2: With here because I actually think there are some fun
Speaker 2: ones in here.
Speaker 3: There were River Rhines at the top of their popularity list,
Speaker 3: Jackson Ferris, Nick Frosso, Roubleski, Kyle Hurt, Maddox Bronze is
Speaker 3: ten percent, Peyton Martin eight percent. I thought there were
Speaker 3: a few guys. I know you were talking about Chris
Speaker 3: Compost a little bit this year. The guy Okay, sorry,
Speaker 3: I'll say that Jared Carros was still only one percent.
Speaker 3: I'm not huge. I'm not a huge fan. Though I
Speaker 3: did like Wyatt Crowell. I don't know if you watched
Speaker 3: any of him.
Speaker 2: Only a little bit, what'd you like about him?
Speaker 3: Productive? I thought execution was pretty good. I just don't
Speaker 3: know if the whole arsenal just seems a little flat
Speaker 3: to me major league wise, and evidently when he was
Speaker 3: like a reliever in college at Florida State, he was
Speaker 3: hitting like ninety eight as his fastball is like ninety
Speaker 3: ninety one this year, So I don't know. Maybe there's
Speaker 3: some velocity to come or something. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure. He was also a guy that just first
Speaker 3: year player draft wise, I was a little interested in,
Speaker 3: but I ended up going with teenager. Well, at least
Speaker 3: he was during the season. I think he's now twenty
Speaker 3: years old. They acquired him in a trade from the
Speaker 3: Yankees last offseason, but I went with Christians Azuweta.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't think I watched him.
Speaker 3: Ooh that bottom half of my B side list here
Speaker 3: someone I'm going out and getting right away here. But
Speaker 3: you know that I love young Mexican pitchers coming out
Speaker 3: of the box because I think they just like know
Speaker 3: how to pitch as teenagers more so than Americans. Frand
Speaker 3: of Max vill Velo and spin rates and all that, right,
Speaker 3: So I think there's some of that here was Azueta.
Speaker 3: He's good, size, six ' three, righty. Like I said,
Speaker 3: he came from the Yankees signed him in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two from Mexico. He was zero percent rostered in September.
Speaker 3: This year he got just so a brief stint in
Speaker 3: the complex and then fifty two and a third innings
Speaker 3: in Hia or excuse me, in a a ball rancho
Speaker 3: fifty two and a third surface level numbers not real impressive, right,
Speaker 3: six point three six ERA one point four to one,
Speaker 3: whip four one five x fit. But he did strike
Speaker 3: out twenty seven point two percent of hitters while walking
Speaker 3: eight point six percent. But he too, had a pretty
Speaker 3: nice finish to the year, Matt, I think he started
Speaker 3: putting some things together his last eight game starts, which
Speaker 3: was thirty three and a third innings two point seven
Speaker 3: ERA a point nine to nine whip, struck out thirty
Speaker 3: one and a half percent of hitters walk great. Was
Speaker 3: about the same on the year as the year eight percent.
Speaker 3: Throwing strikes at a higher clip sixty three percent, gave
Speaker 3: up three home runs. But you're talking about, like I said,
Speaker 3: a good sized riiety who's probably throwing ninety two ninety three.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, from my takeaways from the broadcast, there's a
Speaker 3: good looking breaking ball. Well, I'm not really quite sure
Speaker 3: how you would categorize it didn't get a lot of
Speaker 3: vlos on the breaking ball, so that made it a
Speaker 3: little tougher. And then there's a change up. It splits.
Speaker 3: Look fine, neither side hit him up. More like just
Speaker 3: some of the intangible, intangible stuff Matt like Connor would
Speaker 3: talk about, Like, I think there's just like a high
Speaker 3: level of compete here, a lot of fiery, a lot
Speaker 3: of Like in my watches, I probably watched I don't know,
Speaker 3: six or seven outings of his like when he really
Speaker 3: needed to make a big pitch in a jam or
Speaker 3: something like, he'd rise to that occasion, he'd dot something.
Speaker 3: You know, don't hate seeing that from a young guy.
Speaker 3: But I think there's a blend, a blend of arsenal
Speaker 3: and the kind of execution that we like. I could
Speaker 3: see him taking off. The Dodgers know how to make
Speaker 3: amazing pictures, right, It's all they do. I think there's
Speaker 3: a nice piece of clay here for the Dodgers and Zazuweta.
Speaker 2: The thing I like the most about him, just in
Speaker 2: that short video you're shared, is I love his efficient
Speaker 2: kinetic chain. Like you see just how the trunk really
Speaker 2: whips and then the arm follows like that that's a
Speaker 2: really nice version of kinetic transfer. You know, it's really
Speaker 2: pretty Yeah, well you you know who I landed on, yeah,
Speaker 2: oh yeah. And this is the guy I was trying
Speaker 2: to sound the alarm on a bit early earlier in
Speaker 2: the year. Chris Campos is my guy here for the Dodgers.
Speaker 2: Can't remember when I was first on him. He you know,
Speaker 2: he's from the the West Coast Conference. He went to
Speaker 2: Saint Mary's and they've had a pretty good pipeline of
Speaker 2: solid arm talent. But interestingly, he was a two way guy.
Speaker 2: He played shortstop for them and was pretty light hitting,
Speaker 2: like I think he hit two homers in his whole
Speaker 2: college career. The Dodgers, being the geniuses that they are,
Speaker 2: said put away that batsn you need to step on
Speaker 2: the mound and let that shortstop arm play. And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying it's a direct comp And I remain still
Speaker 2: a little bit skeptical of these guys long term. I
Speaker 2: think more often these these shortstop conversions, like it takes
Speaker 2: a bit for them to figure it out. It's a
Speaker 2: bit more of a slow burn. But I think teams
Speaker 2: are getting a little bit better at identifying the guys
Speaker 2: for whom this makes sense. Two recent examples that have
Speaker 2: really kind of changed my mind about this. Lucas erseg
Speaker 2: for the then Oakland Athletics now fucking West Sacramento Athletics
Speaker 2: and then obviously traded to the Royals. But he was
Speaker 2: an infielder with a super lively arm, you know, shortstop
Speaker 2: third baseman. He could just rip it across the diamond.
Speaker 2: And now he's an elite back end reliever and maybe
Speaker 2: they're gonna give him a chance to start this offseason.
Speaker 2: I've heard some chatter about that. And then for my
Speaker 2: Braves Spencer Schwellenbach, he was a shortstop converted and I
Speaker 2: guess like a dis Ms Schoffer too, he has a
Speaker 2: similar story. He was like a football guy and infielder
Speaker 2: and then they made him a starter. You know. With
Speaker 2: Schwellenbach in particular, that's the kind of guy who I
Speaker 2: he Chris Campos reminds me of a bit. He's not
Speaker 2: quite as big, and I think that that maybe holds
Speaker 2: him back from getting quite into that swell territory. Who
Speaker 2: was honestly phenomenal this year. Like the National League Rookie
Speaker 2: of the Year race this year was absolutely stacked, But
Speaker 2: in other years Schwellenbach. I think should Get would have
Speaker 2: gotten a real look at it, neither here nor there.
Speaker 2: Campos reminds me of him a bit in the fastball.
Speaker 2: Is has that nice flat action like he's a lower slot,
Speaker 2: but I think he gets really good ride on it.
Speaker 2: And this is something that, to their credit, Baseball America
Speaker 2: has highlighted a bit. I think that that must have
Speaker 2: been where I first saw Campos's name is on one
Speaker 2: of the Dylan White's robo scout lists, and then I
Speaker 2: watched a couple of his starts and I was like, yes,
Speaker 2: I'm so into this. He gets way down the mound too.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's listed like five ten, but he has
Speaker 2: above average extension from there and that's like I don't know. Again,
Speaker 2: I'm like, he's not fucking Pedro Martinez, but he reminds
Speaker 2: me a bit of that, and just like being a
Speaker 2: smaller guy getting way down the mound. Even though the
Speaker 2: fastball isn't elite in velocity, with the way that he
Speaker 2: places it at the top of the zone, the IVB
Speaker 2: that he generates, this is a plus pitch for me,
Speaker 2: maybe bordering on plus plus. Like I think that if
Speaker 2: this thing sits at ninety four. He's just going to
Speaker 2: destroy hitters with it consistently. His change up I really
Speaker 2: like as a secondary and so you know how I'm
Speaker 2: a sucker for that. And I think the thing for
Speaker 2: me that is holding him back from being like a
Speaker 2: thirty percent strikeout rate in the miners guy and like
Speaker 2: in consistent walk or low walk rates. The cut slider
Speaker 2: thing that he has. I kind of think he should
Speaker 2: turn that into two pitches. I think that if he
Speaker 2: made like with guys with this kind of ride, if
Speaker 2: they get a cutter too, that's just murder. Like that's
Speaker 2: just like soft contact for days, and then that fastball
Speaker 2: just explodes by guys. I mean, it's almost like a
Speaker 2: version of Jose Gonzalez who we talked about last week, right,
Speaker 2: Like he's like a cutter first guy, and then the
Speaker 2: four seam explodes out of it and they just can't
Speaker 2: touch it at the top of the zone. But I
Speaker 2: feel like if Composts had the cutter, like really tightened
Speaker 2: up what is currently his slider and then also had
Speaker 2: more of like a sweeper to go with it, I
Speaker 2: think he would just destroy No one would be able
Speaker 2: to know what was coming. He would raise his strike
Speaker 2: at rate from like the you know, twenty six, twenty
Speaker 2: seven percent that it's been sitting at pushing thirty. So
Speaker 2: to me, Compost is a really good pitcher with that sneaky,
Speaker 2: sneaky good stuff. Like it's not you know, Jacob Mazarowski
Speaker 2: one hundred miles an hour every time. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: Logan Henderson type of elite fastball with a great secondary
Speaker 2: and potential if he adds one pitch or keeps tightening
Speaker 2: up the execution. I believe in Chris Campos as much
Speaker 2: as any any starter that I saw this year, So
Speaker 2: I'm super excited about him. I feel very, very bullish
Speaker 2: about him, and I definitely hear you on the Dodger stuff,
Speaker 2: like they get overrated on some of the like everything
Speaker 2: they touch turns to magic kind of deal. But they
Speaker 2: they are smart and they're really good at a lot
Speaker 2: of parts of the game, and developing pictures does seem
Speaker 2: to be one of them. I mean a lot of
Speaker 2: times that just means the pitcher breaks really fast, and
Speaker 2: they just have so many of them that they can
Speaker 2: run out twenty guys that all could play in the
Speaker 2: major leagues. But Compost, to me, he's one of those guys.
Speaker 2: He's gonna pitch them innings for the major leagues and
Speaker 2: he could even break into a rotation like the Dodgers.
Speaker 2: I'm way in on Chris Campos, and I think he's
Speaker 2: poised to be a big gainer next year.
Speaker 3: Yeah you were. I mean, you definitely got my attention
Speaker 3: when you were talking about Campos this year. I was
Speaker 3: turning them on.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, just like with the Dodgers, it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: they developed so many good players, and it's like, I
Speaker 3: don't think the story really fits, like do they develop,
Speaker 3: Like they're very much and I'm not knacking them and
Speaker 3: I'm not knacking this process. But it's more about the
Speaker 3: talent that they decide to corral and bring in. To me,
Speaker 3: like they put a lot of resources into what they do.
Speaker 3: They're world class, no doubt that ipopping stuff on spreadsheets
Speaker 3: and let's get those guys in and hope for the best.
Speaker 3: And to me, that's kind of the opposite of development.
Speaker 3: Are they really helping those guys develop into good pitch
Speaker 3: execution guys? I wouldn't say so in my opinion. To me,
Speaker 3: pitching development would be more of the opposite. These days,
Speaker 3: you're taking guys and maybe have high pitchability, but maybe
Speaker 3: don't have the stuff and then you teach them the
Speaker 3: pitches or sharpen those tools. Right, I don't know, It's
Speaker 3: just a different approach. And I just feel like the
Speaker 3: accolades that they get for all of that is just
Speaker 3: a little bit backwards from my perspective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think to your point when they did
Speaker 2: the graph and the World Series of where how were
Speaker 2: these teams built? You know, how they do that? You know,
Speaker 2: international draft and free agent signings, Like the Dodgers had
Speaker 2: a huge amount from free agent signings.
Speaker 3: They had like three guys on the World Series team
Speaker 3: that were like Dodger picks or signees and developed by
Speaker 3: them or but came up with them.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, and some of those guys, you know, pitch
Speaker 2: super importantatings, like Walker Bueler closed it out and he's
Speaker 2: a he's a tricky and sure all that, but like
Speaker 2: also he was a stud in college and like I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know he was. He was super well regarded.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and huge kudos to them because they do
Speaker 3: have a wealth of good talent in their system because
Speaker 3: they put the time in, they put the work in,
Speaker 3: they do it and I think they do a great
Speaker 3: job of then flipping that into assets that they need.
Speaker 3: And that's that's not a knock on them, that's yea,
Speaker 3: quite the opposite. It's just not everything that they touch
Speaker 3: turns to gold.
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's let's go down to down I
Speaker 2: five a little bit further. And what do you got
Speaker 2: going on in San Diego? I mean, fucking aj Preller
Speaker 2: sells anything not nailed down. I don't know how many
Speaker 2: prospects he's traded in his tenure, but it's a lot.
Speaker 2: And oh no, there's still some interesting cats here. Who
Speaker 2: did you who were you intrigued by?
Speaker 3: I feel like they I think the Padres too do
Speaker 3: a really good job of identifying talent and bringing talent in.
Speaker 3: Like they're always selling their prospects, but yet there's always
Speaker 3: guys that are like showing up too and filling and
Speaker 3: they sold all their big names and then it's just
Speaker 3: a year later, B side type guys are now names
Speaker 3: and there's system. But I went my arm is really
Speaker 3: kind of go back and forth a lot if I
Speaker 3: how much I like him, If I like him, he
Speaker 3: was only one percent roster, but yet he's still like
Speaker 3: pipelines number seven on their list, Like, I know it's
Speaker 3: been thinned out. Young Henry Biaz, Yeah, twenty one years
Speaker 3: old this year, pitching what seventy six innings in High
Speaker 3: A and fifty innings in Double A. Righty six '
Speaker 3: three wiry, not real big guy at this point twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen siney from the Dominican. One of these guys who
Speaker 3: maybe you read just like velocity numbers or pitch grades,
Speaker 3: like on that sort of surface level, you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: this guy sounds pretty good, but then you like look
Speaker 3: at the strikeout numbers or kind of underwhelming, right, I
Speaker 3: mean struck out twenty four point eight percent in High A,
Speaker 3: only fifteen percent during his nine starts in Double A,
Speaker 3: walks are under eight percent. But it's this guy who's
Speaker 3: like velocity wise, can hit like ninety seven, right. I
Speaker 3: think he's a three fastball guy. He's got a breaker,
Speaker 3: he's got to change up. I think he does well
Speaker 3: keeping the four seamer up and the two seam are down.
Speaker 3: He might be one of these rare guys. As the
Speaker 3: outing progresses, his velocity increases. Notice that on several of
Speaker 3: his starts he start off ninety one ninety two and
Speaker 3: then we're hit talking ninety five inning three and four,
Speaker 3: you know, don't see that often. He's got a change
Speaker 3: up that I think has really good velocity separation.
Speaker 2: I thought it was more of a splitter, isn't it.
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 2: I thought it was more of like a split and
Speaker 2: he has splitter.
Speaker 3: Gay, Yeah, yeah, it's a split change I think.
Speaker 2: Change yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I feel like sometimes when I watch him, I feel
Speaker 3: like he's like really close to the type of guy
Speaker 3: that we like, you know, lots of offerings, mixes it
Speaker 3: up just ultimately just like it's it's not cleaned up
Speaker 3: real well. I don't think he's like the most efficient.
Speaker 3: I don't think he really knows how to pitch yet.
Speaker 3: Sequence well, maybe the offerings don't come out of the
Speaker 3: hand looking aler enough in the beginning. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but it's like there's ingredients herely like this guy should
Speaker 3: be better than at least producing better than I think
Speaker 3: he is. And I'm not saying that he was bad.
Speaker 3: I think he was very impressive for a young arm
Speaker 3: I guess he did have a double digit strikeout performance,
Speaker 3: but only one on the season, like a lot strikeouts
Speaker 3: in six innings four two four did have one at seven,
Speaker 3: a seven inning outing where he struck out four. Like,
Speaker 3: the strikeouts just aren't there. I don't know what you
Speaker 3: want to make of that, but I know the Padres
Speaker 3: might be a little bit more tough, loving on their
Speaker 3: pitchers and kind of figure it out, you know. But
Speaker 3: you know, this thinned out system, they're already pushing some
Speaker 3: young guys up and that's just kind of how the
Speaker 3: Padres do it. But I wouldn't be surprised if Henry
Speaker 3: Biaz put it together in twenty twenty five, had a
Speaker 3: big year, big numbers, being young in the uppers and
Speaker 3: gets a lot more popular. I'm kind of surprised he's
Speaker 3: not rostered more than he is right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's probably the strikeouts, And to me,
Speaker 2: it's his secondaries don't really get the whiffs. Like his
Speaker 2: fastball I think might not be quite the prettiest in
Speaker 2: terms of shape, and so even though the velocity is there,
Speaker 2: it's more like generates foul balls and some weaker contact
Speaker 2: rather than being a whiff pitch. And so then you
Speaker 2: really got to lean on the off speed. And I
Speaker 2: think his curveball is not good and the splitter, to me,
Speaker 2: split change I think it's pretty good, but it's not
Speaker 2: quite as nasty as some and so like he can't
Speaker 2: finish guys, and he's a good pitcher.
Speaker 3: I like him the time of a guy who might
Speaker 3: not have the greatest tools or ability to use the
Speaker 3: tools right now. And you're still talking about a twenty
Speaker 3: one year old who had a er just over three
Speaker 3: in Double A and a one point one four whip
Speaker 3: in Double A. It's not like he isn't getting results,
Speaker 3: just maybe not the results that fantasy owners are after.
Speaker 2: No, I like him a decent amount, and find something
Speaker 2: that whiffs just a few more bats than he'd be
Speaker 2: really interesting for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he is a rule flave eligible. I don't
Speaker 3: think he's been added to the forty man yet. I
Speaker 3: imagine he's going to be, though, right I would think.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Maybe I think they've got some room.
Speaker 2: I don't know what their plan is. I mean, the
Speaker 2: thing about the Padres is that their major league rotation
Speaker 2: and pitching staff is pretty good, but it's like super shallow,
Speaker 2: and when those guys get hurt, there's not a lot
Speaker 2: of depth behind it, and so maybe they at him
Speaker 2: for that reason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's kind of frustrating to watch, frustrating to sort
Speaker 3: of analyze too.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I get what you're saying. My guy
Speaker 2: has some things in common. I feel like he's kind
Speaker 2: of Henry Bias. Well, you know, he's different in lots
Speaker 2: of ways. I'm going with Omar Cruz, who the Padres
Speaker 2: got from the Yankees, oh, Pittsburgh. They drafted him, then
Speaker 2: traded him in the Joe musker of deal to Pittsburgh,
Speaker 2: and then rule fived him back last year, and he's
Speaker 2: had an interesting route. I would be so all in
Speaker 2: on Omar Cruz if I wasn't pretty sure they're just
Speaker 2: going to stick him in the pen next year. They're
Speaker 2: really kind of telegraphing that they want to use him
Speaker 2: as a maybe two inning reliever rather than start him.
Speaker 2: And I'm not so sure that's the right move. Like,
Speaker 2: I think this guy can be a starter. But like
Speaker 2: I said, maybe they're full up in the rotation and
Speaker 2: they want another pretty good arm in the pen. So
Speaker 2: Omar Cruz, left handed, you know, six foot two ten,
Speaker 2: athletic looking guy on the mound, has I think pretty
Speaker 2: good shape to his fastball. It's for seem it's a
Speaker 2: little bit lower slot, not like exceptionally low, but from
Speaker 2: where it is, I think that it gets more ride
Speaker 2: than hitters expect. So even when he's sitting ninety two
Speaker 2: to four, which is kind of what he is when
Speaker 2: he's starting, the fastball gets fouled off or get he
Speaker 2: gets whiffs at the top of the zone with it.
Speaker 2: I think that that fastball can play at that velocity.
Speaker 2: But when he's in relief, the thing is is that
Speaker 2: ticks up to like ninety s and then it's a
Speaker 2: real weapon. And I feel like that's what the Padres
Speaker 2: are going to do with him, because I also really
Speaker 2: like his change up in his curveball. His curveball not
Speaker 2: a huge WI pitch, but gets a lot of ground
Speaker 2: balls out of it, and I really like his change up.
Speaker 2: I think that that's a solid pitch that can get out.
Speaker 2: We'll have innings where he just loses his command and
Speaker 2: walks a couple of guys. And the walk rate wasn't
Speaker 2: good unfortunately this year at triple A for about half
Speaker 2: his season, terrible walk rate of thirteen point eight percent,
Speaker 2: Like that's untenable for a starter. And even though he
Speaker 2: was striking out twenty eight point seven percent of batters,
Speaker 2: that kind of walk rate like has me really really
Speaker 2: concerned that it's not going to play at the Biggs.
Speaker 2: And maybe some of that was you could chuck some
Speaker 2: of it up to the automated zone and whatever. But
Speaker 2: he's run walk rates like that before, so it's it's
Speaker 2: not out of the question for him. And I think
Speaker 2: it's the other reason that's kind of holding him back
Speaker 2: from starting. But we've seen stretches of him when he
Speaker 2: is commanding his pitch as well. His run at Double
Speaker 2: A this year was fantastic. He had a couple of
Speaker 2: starts in Triple A, not not even starts, but like
Speaker 2: piggyback three four innings at a time that were really
Speaker 2: really good. I still think that this guy could start
Speaker 2: for a major league team. Maybe another team wants to
Speaker 2: try and rule five him again because I think he's
Speaker 2: Rule five eligible again this year. But I also think
Speaker 2: that the Padres might very well pop him on the
Speaker 2: roster and use him out of the pen. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan. I feel like he's had kind
Speaker 2: of a roller coaster career.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Matt, I don't know if you've looked at this already,
Speaker 3: but if you haven't, I'd say there's no way that
Speaker 3: you can name the three most rastered pitching prospects from
Speaker 3: this organization and it's at five percent and two percent
Speaker 3: got to be the least owned, least rastered a pod
Speaker 3: system in the big.
Speaker 2: Because they traded so many of them. Right, Well, I'm
Speaker 2: going to say, is Johnny Brido on your list?
Speaker 3: He's not a prospect anymore?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess not.
Speaker 3: Jackson Wolf, Jackson Wolf is one of them, yes, at
Speaker 3: two percent.
Speaker 2: Jagger Haynes not one of them.
Speaker 3: No, No, And actually I'm not even sure if the
Speaker 3: five percenter is a prospect. I'm sure he is because
Speaker 3: I left him on the list. But Jay Groom.
Speaker 2: Room Yeah yeah, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 3: Even know if he pitched last year? Did he didn't?
Speaker 3: Something happen to him? Yeah, yeah, what happened?
Speaker 2: I don't I forget the story. But it was another
Speaker 2: like he's had a fairly long line of incidents.
Speaker 3: Yeah that good.
Speaker 2: Another one yeah, not good.
Speaker 3: No, he's like he's behavioral something right, Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 3: take him off the list then maybe wow. But the
Speaker 3: the other one, the third one, is the guy that
Speaker 3: I really like a lot and could have picked here,
Speaker 3: but felt like that was cheating a little bit, but
Speaker 3: Victor Lizarraga.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other guy who I like that out of the
Speaker 3: box is a young Mexican arm, but.
Speaker 2: An Austin Krapp, my guy from last year. He wasn't
Speaker 2: quite as good at limiting walks this year as he
Speaker 2: was last, but he still had a decent year double
Speaker 2: a and I'm still I'm still interested in him as
Speaker 2: as a depth kind of maybe fifth starter upside, but
Speaker 2: we'll see.
Speaker 3: And my pick last year was Isaiah Weo. He hasn't
Speaker 3: quite put it together like I was hoping. It might
Speaker 3: be more relievery than I had hoped, but he's like
Speaker 3: at one percent.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, okay last year. Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Think it still hasn't it still hasn't loved a ton
Speaker 3: of pro innings yet, yeah, full season innings yet. So
Speaker 3: we shall see. But an interesting system in that there's
Speaker 3: no dynasty love here at the moment anyways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 3: What some of their first year player draft arms might too.
Speaker 3: But Matt the bat side, I don't think it'd be.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's going to be a huge surprise
Speaker 3: to you. It's also not a guy that I'm like
Speaker 3: super in love with or anything like that. He's on
Speaker 3: the bottom half of my list. But I'm going with
Speaker 3: Romeo Sanabria.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I figured.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was one percent rostered in September talking about
Speaker 3: a left handed first base type and not the most
Speaker 3: physically impressive guy on the planet either. Is not that
Speaker 3: he's like not in shape. I don't know if my
Speaker 3: man has been hitting any weights ever, but he can
Speaker 3: swing the bats. So twenty one year old who made
Speaker 3: it from Low A to Double A last year. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's in the AFL right now. I don't think he's
Speaker 3: doing anything too remarkable. Listed at six three, eighteenth round
Speaker 3: Juco pick in twenty twenty two. Doesn't slug a ton, Matt.
Speaker 3: I don't know about power and slug and that sort
Speaker 3: of thing. Eleven home runs on the whole season as
Speaker 3: a first base type, like, eh, not that much fun, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but does make a lot of contact and did go
Speaker 3: on a pretty dang good heater when he first got
Speaker 3: brought up to double A. Matt I cut up his
Speaker 3: first twenty two double A hits. That's what I shared
Speaker 3: in the video. Now, of course there's babbit love there
Speaker 3: and whatnot. I don't even know what it was. Twenty
Speaker 3: two he was like twenty two for thirty seven or
Speaker 3: something like that to start double A. But you know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't you know, it didn't strike out too too much.
Speaker 3: It jumps him when he got to double A, walked
Speaker 3: a lot. I don't know, Maybe he has a chance
Speaker 3: as a left handed platoon at some point. He's not
Speaker 3: very good against the lefties, so I don't know, very
Speaker 3: ho hum, don't super love it, but maybe Santa Bria's
Speaker 3: got a major league chance at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got a fun, a fun swing, and I
Speaker 2: definitely considered him. You know. The lack of impact in
Speaker 2: the bats probably the thing that holds him back. But
Speaker 2: he did rope thirty doubles and so maybe some of
Speaker 2: those turn into some homers at higher levels. But I
Speaker 2: mean a decent hitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred and thirty six played appearances in double
Speaker 3: A Slash two seventy with a three seventy five on
Speaker 3: base percentage, But that came with a three thirty three
Speaker 3: slug you know, point zero six three ISO for that stretch.
Speaker 3: So yep, you know, if Santa Bria shows up and
Speaker 3: there's the best shape of his life. Tweet at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the year I'll take a little note to
Speaker 3: that and be a little bit more excited about that
Speaker 3: than most other players.
Speaker 2: I can't fault you for taking Santa Bria. I think
Speaker 2: he's the smart money pick here. There's no tier so
Speaker 2: Ornellis this year, who was, like I thought, just the
Speaker 2: slam dunkiest of slam dunks. Last year. I went with
Speaker 2: a total shot in the dark, like I have no
Speaker 2: idea if this guy's actually any good at all. I'm
Speaker 2: going Brendan Durfy.
Speaker 3: You were talking about Deming last week and how I
Speaker 3: thought Beck was beck was actually talking about Brendan Durfy.
Speaker 3: Oh no way, Oh okay, he was talking about yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: well either way, so you guys both got there.
Speaker 2: That's funny. Yeah, you know. Durfy was like a fine
Speaker 2: college catcher. Ended up at UCSB. I think he was
Speaker 2: maybe at a JC before that, and he was okay,
Speaker 2: is a big dude catcher. Only I don't know if
Speaker 2: he was even drafted, like he might have been just
Speaker 2: under after free agent signed.
Speaker 3: Fourteenth round fourteenth, he got like no money, right, it's
Speaker 3: first year player.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and got like no money right, Like he's.
Speaker 3: Don't have the signing bonus in front of me.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's like no money at all to
Speaker 2: be had for they no prospect pedigree of note, I
Speaker 2: don't think. But he was really good to start his
Speaker 2: pro career hit. I think I was turned on him
Speaker 2: because I was watching somebody else, one of the other
Speaker 2: ALS team or NLS teams, and Durfy just hit a
Speaker 2: nuke in this like crazy inning. I think it was
Speaker 2: like eight runs in the inning. He let it off
Speaker 2: with a single, and then nine batters later he hit
Speaker 2: a three run homer to make it like thirteen to
Speaker 2: one or something like. It was just like everybody was scoring,
Speaker 2: but he hit this pitch and just like absolutely nuked it.
Speaker 2: But you know, he's like twenty two years old and
Speaker 2: or maybe twenty three now. It was a ball. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is not a ring endorsement, but he was.
Speaker 3: A big dude.
Speaker 2: He hit great, hit a bunch of doubles to a
Speaker 2: couple of homers in a short stint in a ball
Speaker 2: coming out of college, so one to watch, I mean,
Speaker 2: not quite as electric as like the Dalton rushing performance
Speaker 2: coming out of college. And obviously they're very different talents
Speaker 2: from college, but there was like some overla app and
Speaker 2: how that how that looked to me, just like maybe
Speaker 2: this guy has a good approach to the plate, doesn't
Speaker 2: swing and miss much, and maybe there's some power there.
Speaker 2: So Brendan Durfy.
Speaker 3: Two eighty eight, four thirteen OBP four seventy nine, struck
Speaker 3: out under twenty percent of the time, walked fourteen percent
Speaker 3: of the time. You might want to get with Beck,
Speaker 3: but I think Beck had gleaned some data. Maybe it
Speaker 3: was EV stuff or contact percent Andrews or something like that.
Speaker 2: But about it, that's funny. I know a couple of
Speaker 2: guys that that we both really liked, Like Nitara was
Speaker 2: the other one. He and I were talking about that
Speaker 2: the other day on who Samuel and Arror Junior. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: he was into him too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right on. So, yeah, Padres are a little tough
Speaker 3: system right now, but I imagine they'll, uh, I bet you
Speaker 3: there'll be some first year player draft guys that show
Speaker 3: up and do some things and they'll replenish. They always do.
Speaker 3: That wraps up the nl West for this year. We
Speaker 3: came together on on well how many guys? Three guys?
Speaker 3: Four guys?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you were saying you were super excited about
Speaker 2: it and I was like kind of down on this group,
Speaker 2: and we agreed on three guys. Four guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean the three bats
Speaker 3: in Tawa, Lizabel Diez, Wagner. I mean that's definitely B
Speaker 3: side draft range for me.
Speaker 2: Yes, guys, yeah, certain, certainly Wagner and Tower for me.
Speaker 2: I think those guys are great.
Speaker 3: But AnyWho, that will wrap it up again. You can
Speaker 3: follow me and check out the videos I'm gonna post
Speaker 3: right when this episode drops on Twitter at Pitching Specs.
Speaker 3: We will get together again next week, I think, and
Speaker 3: talk another division. I'm not sure which one yet, but
Speaker 3: we're halfway there through our selections and having some fun. Mudd,
Speaker 3: and thanks for joining us. Yeah, we'll let Chicago Farmer
Speaker 3: take us out and be well.
Speaker 2: All right later an hour riding too his head.
Speaker 3: You have them down.
Speaker 1: First with the lump bonus face, and on the very
Speaker 1: next pitch he up and stole second face with greatest
Speaker 1: He was is born. He had the dirty yes, uniforn,
Speaker 1: the