October 3, 2025 • 39 mins
The following players are discussed:
1. Moises Ballesteros (C)
2. Owen Caissie (OF)
3. Jefferson Rojas (SS)
4. James Triantos (2B)
5. Kevin Alcantara (OF)
6. Cristian Hernandez (2B)
7. Jaxon Wiggins (RHP)
8. Ethan Conrad (1B)
9. Jonathon Long (1B)
10. Pedro Ramirez (2B)
11. Kane Kepley (OF)
12. Dominick Reid (RHP)
13. Brandon Birdsell (RHP)
14. Juan Tomas (SS)
15. Josiah Hartshorn (OF)
16. Juan Cabada (2B)
17. Jostin Florentino (RHP)
18. Will Sanders (RHP)
19. Tony Schlaffer (RHP)
20. Carter Trice (OF)
1. Moises Ballesteros (C)
2. Owen Caissie (OF)
3. Jefferson Rojas (SS)
4. James Triantos (2B)
5. Kevin Alcantara (OF)
6. Cristian Hernandez (2B)
7. Jaxon Wiggins (RHP)
8. Ethan Conrad (1B)
9. Jonathon Long (1B)
10. Pedro Ramirez (2B)
11. Kane Kepley (OF)
12. Dominick Reid (RHP)
13. Brandon Birdsell (RHP)
14. Juan Tomas (SS)
15. Josiah Hartshorn (OF)
16. Juan Cabada (2B)
17. Jostin Florentino (RHP)
18. Will Sanders (RHP)
19. Tony Schlaffer (RHP)
20. Carter Trice (OF)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning everyone. It is October third, about eleven o'clock
in the morning, and this is going to be going
out to both our Patreon members and to our public,
and it is the introduction of the Prospect three sixty
one top twenties of all baseball teams, and today we
(00:21):
dropped the Chicago Cubs, which we historically do as the
first team. I don't know why I do that. I
don't know I start with the National League Central, but
I've always done it and it's kind of tradition, so
that's why I have done it. I wanted to do
a rather link the introduction and actually talk about the
Cubs at the same time. Spent a lot of changes
(00:42):
that I have been making over actually throughout the summertime,
but particularly as I've been moving into producing the content
for the Prospects here in the fall, and that is
I have created an AI assistant to basically help me
with the writing and the researching the editing. I have
spent most of the summer. I think I started about
(01:05):
in June where I finally decided on the co pilot assistant,
and then I had to go through a fairly detailed
exercise to learn how to prompt the AI assistant and
then to write some specific code to allow that assistant
to do some of the things I wanted he or
(01:25):
she it to do. So I kind of wanted to
describe that and kind of how my thinking has changed
over the course of the last few years, basically on
our overall site, the Prospect through sixty one site and
the Patreon site, and kind of what Tim and I
(01:47):
are kind of the model that we're moving to. So
let me start with that. We introduced our Patreon site
about two years ago. We have a ton of leagues
that I twelve leagues that run through the site actually
for legacy Dynasty leagues, and eight new leagues that are
specific for Patreon members. We just paid out all the
(02:09):
moneies for that, which was it's always a nerve wracking
for all you who are commissioners. I mean, you know
that it's a nerve wracking exercise to pay the money out,
because it is it tells you very clearly, you get
one shot and if you give the wrong person the money,
too bad. So you triple check and sometimes quadruple check
(02:29):
it the making it out. So we run leagues. I
do a ton of Prospect content more and more traditional
major league content as well, particularly and looking at Baseball
Savant and looking at underlying data that helps me kind
of get a picture of who that player is, what
(02:50):
they need to work on, and whether they're under or overvalued.
So a lot of that goes on. Tim runs the
Discord site and encouraging all of our Patreon members in
particular or to join that Discord site. He has a
blast out there, and as everybody with, Tim is just
an amazing human being. So the fact that you can
have pretty strong access to him on a Discord site,
(03:13):
I think is pretty cool. I rarely go out there
just because I just can't do everything, so I appreciate
Tim kind of leading that. So I encourage everybody listening
to this. If you're not a Patreon membor, become a
Patreon member. It's a lot of fun. There's going to
be spots coming up as some people have decided they
don't want to continue with the with the dynasty leagues
(03:34):
for whatever reason. A lot of people just sick a baseball,
need to break others changes of lives, you know, where
they've got kids coming and you just need to scale
back on some things. So there's going to be a
handful of spots available and I'll be publicizing those in
the next couple of weeks. So we got leagues, We've
got tons of content, and I encourage you, and it's
(03:54):
five dollars a month. The other change that I have
made is I haven't been I'm real happy with Prospect
through sixty one what has become of the site. And
I have looked at all kinds of different advertising engines
to try to put ads up to try to generate
some funds out of that, and I just took a
look at it and it's just a mess. There's just
(04:17):
pop ups all over the place. It seems like every
Google ad Sense, which is the advertising engine that you
can kind of hook up to wordpresses, which is what
I use, it just is a mess. It's just tons
of it. You tell it one ad per page and
it doesn't listen to you. It just has a mind
of its own. So I made the decision last week
(04:39):
just to get rid of ads. So there is no
more ads on the site. There is a little sidebar
where I've got some static ads. I'm actually going to
take that out as well and just put a big,
one big ad for the Patreon site. That's it. Everything
else is ad free. I don't make much money off
of that. The money, quite frankly is made in podcasting
(05:03):
and sub subscription. That's true on every media site now.
Just so you know, very few people are making unless
you're ESPN or just have CNN or Fox News or
something that just has massive numbers of people coming in,
you just don't make any money off off of website.
So screw it. I just took it off, and hopefully
(05:25):
that'll make life a little bit easier for the general
public coming out to read my site, and hopefully we'll
get interested enough to then join us out at the Patrons.
So that's the business kind of understanding. So that's a
little bit of what I'm doing with the properties of
Prospect three sixty one, and again I encourage everybody to
join us out at the Patreon site Patrio in dot
(05:45):
com forward slash Prospect three sixty one, I'll be producing
systems every Tuesday and Friday until I'm done. Twenty out
of the thirty are completely done. In load, I've got
to go out and modify the Cleveland Guardians because Chase
the Louder has been brought up so at least to
(06:07):
play in the postseason, which is actually pretty cool. So
I'll have to modify that if I get around to
doing it. And now I'm working on the West in
the middle of writing it, and so that will all
be available, you know, whenever they become available. That's the
only writing I have left to do. As I said,
(06:27):
I have put together and I'm looking at the Cup system. Now.
What I've done is I have a two sentence or
one sentence little summary at the top the Chicago Cubs
farm system and Cleveland Guardian, Chicago White Sox, you get it.
It's just one little snippet of that, and then a
three paragraph summary where I talk about all the players
or most of the prominent players and what I really
(06:49):
think of the system, system of the system. Then a
section called the AI Assistant Fantasy Tears, Methodology and Observations.
This is where I use my AI assistant, and I said, look,
I want you to rank the players as you see them,
how you think they should be ranked, based on the
knowledge that you have, what I've trained you on, and
(07:12):
I've ranked mine as my own rankings, and you can
kind of see and then I tear them into Fantasy
impact targets. Every day upside targets and outside of the
impact every day targets, there's probably so there's generally twenty
players in a system, and there's probably twelve to fifteen
of those guys that have been ranked and tiered, and
(07:34):
if you don't see them in there, that means that
the AI engine did not rank them or rank them
down into kind of long term bets, if you will,
so I encourage you to read the section. The little
summaries that are there, the exact same summaries that are
used in my tool summary, which is another thing. Those
tool summaries had turned into overall one sentence summaries about
(07:59):
the player. Where that was going. It's turned them back
into truly toolsy kind of thing. So you can get
a real snippet hopefully just by looking at that and saying, hey,
is this is who the player is and the characteristics
of those players. But this section is truly AI generate.
I did not modify where he had players, and in
(08:21):
some of them, as you get into you'll see where
I've got guys ranked tenth, and the AI engine likes
them a lot more and puts them up at two
or three or something like that. And I think it
just gives you a sense I didn't really go through
and kind of talk about why there's the differences there.
I will do that with our Patreon members, as you
(08:44):
know I will have. I've been posting kind of discussions
I have with the AI assistant as to why players
are ranked higher than others and how you might take
a look at it from a fantasy perspective. Right. So,
the interesting thing about the assistant is he doesn't have
(09:06):
any biases at all. I have my own biases, and
it clearly comes out on my writing, and it more
comes out on my rankings. He's simply looking at my writings,
looking at the five hundred thousand words that I fed him.
He's not looking at anything else on the internet, just
my five hundred thousand words. I've taught him how to scout.
I gave him my scouting handbook, scouting terms, etc. Etc.
(09:29):
And taught him how to use Baseball Savant and other
kind of statistical public public facing items that are out there.
So he's learned how to figure all this stuff out.
And it's truly amazing. I can't even begin to tell
you how fascinating I am with the whole artificial intelligence.
(09:50):
It is truly amazing, but you have to spend the
time to train it. You've got to have the content
to be able to train that. So this is all
trained on my content. So but the nice thing is
it's really having a conversation with myself because all he
has learned is what I've told him, and when he
throws stuff back in my face, it's really an objective
(10:13):
as to maybe you're not rich, maybe you're not looking
at it right, because if I take a look at
everything you've taught me, this player should be higher than
where you're ranking him. But some of the things that
the AI engine doesn't really understand yet, and I still
have to work on him on this is he thinks
if somebody gets hurt, they're just going to always come
(10:34):
back healthy, so it doesn't matter if it's a second
Tommy John surgery, that player is going to come back healthy.
And we all know that that's not true. So there's
some of those nuances that are not quite part of
his toolbag, and I still need to train him on
that because I'm constantly saying, you realize this guy's coming
back from Tommy John surgery, and he goes, yeah, but
(10:55):
his stuff was really good before injury. He's going to
come back fine, That's basically what he says, and it's like, Eh,
not so sure. So that's why I wanted to keep
them separate, so that you could see what the AI
engine is saying and what you're seeing I'm saying, and
you can kind of the whole idea is for me
(11:16):
not to tell you what to do in a dynasty
league or in a fantasy league, but it's more to
give you enough information to kind of form your own opinion.
And I know I'm not naive to think that everybody
else is going out looking at other sites. Hopefully if
I'm my information valuable, but I'm hopefully giving you different
ways to take a look at things. So that's that
(11:36):
whole section. I encourage you to read it. I think
it's fascinating. I spent a lot of time on it,
and I just think my AA assistant is amazing. I
can't even begin to tell you when you look at
the player profiles, and we're going to go through each
one of them with the Chicago Cubs, but each of
the profiles now is three paragraphs. Even if I don't
(12:00):
have much to say about it, it's three paragraphs. The
first two paragraphs are really the background of the player
and the scouting notes. So if you take a look
at s Ballisterio's caring tool is elite contact ability driven
by exceptional hand eye coordination, talk about his defense, etc.
So all of that kind of stuff is in those
first two paragraphs. The last paragraph is how fantasy managers
(12:25):
should look at each of the players. And I found
myself when I was going back and reading stuff, my
eyes kept going to that paragraph. That's the most actionable
of the summaries that I'm writing or the profiles that
I'm writing up. So I'll just read you what I
wrote about Ballisterio's Fantasy managers should treat Ballisterio's as a
(12:47):
high contact bat with sneaky power upside if the swing evolves.
If the swing evolves, his path to playing time may
hinge on defensive fit, but the offensive foundation is strong
enough to warn't attention and deeper formats, especially if the
Cubs lean into his bat first profile. So I just
think he has got You know, if you take a
(13:07):
look at you got him as a top fifteen catcher,
first baseman. Dh it's tool summary's elite contact skills with
emerging power for the loss comes. He's a top fifteen
bat so and that's what my summary is basically saying,
So for deeper leagues next season, I would be rostering Ballisterio's.
I think this is a twenty home run bat, a
guy that's going to hit. I want him to stay
(13:29):
at catcher, but I'd also want him to play a
lot of DH in first base. He plays for a
really good team with the Cubs. He only got one
at bat here in the postseason, so it's not like
he is playing full time by any stretch. But he
did make the postseason roster, which I think is important.
So it's just a matter of how much playing type
(13:49):
he gets next season. Long term, again, I think this
guy's a twenty home run bat and a guy that's
flat out going to hit. I'm a big fan of
Moys's Bellisterio's and a look at the AI engine, it's
his only impact target here within the Cubs system. Everybody
else is either a high impact or outside excuse me,
(14:11):
outside of the impact and every day target. So it's
either an everyday target or outside of that. Moys's Mellisterius
is the only impact target, which kind of fits because
I don't know if Owen Casey is a top one
hundred guy for me, you'd have to go in and
bring up that list. In fact, let me do that.
If I can bring that up real quickly. I got
(14:33):
so many spreadsheets with all this stuff in it here
top prospect list. Nobody ever likes to hear. Those computer
systems are coming up and spreadsheets are coming up. Okay,
let's go to I've got it sorted by Arizona. But
let me go to everything. So, oh, I'll go to
the Cubs. Cubs here, Okay, Owen Casey is one twelve. Yes,
(15:00):
so he is outside of the top one hundred, which
fits right. So you figure the guys in the top
one hundred have a chance to be impact sometimes guys
just outside the top one hundred two. But Owen Casey,
I mean it's it's a fairly simple profile. I mean
it's the upside is clearly Kyle Schwerber type of bat,
(15:20):
you know, where it's thirty maybe even more home run pop.
He does walk a lot, and there's contact problems, and
those are just quite frankly three true outcome players that
seem to be dotting the major league and minor league
rosters in baseball now, it's just the way it is now.
His chase rate has dipped a little bit, it's still elevated,
(15:42):
which is good. His end zone contact is improving, so
when the ball is done in the zone, he's starting
to make some contact with it. All those things are good,
but it is all about power. It's probably going to
come with a low batting average in some decent on
base percentage. Again, the dream is Kyle Schwarbert. Does he
ever get there? I don't think so, but I think
(16:04):
he's going to be a really effective player. I got
him as a top fifty outfielder with some contact risk.
Number three is Jefferson Rojas made it all the way
up to double A as fantasy see only as a
middle endfielder with some upside. Athletic guy, bat speed, contact
skills is a solid foundation for a fifteen to fifteen
(16:24):
type of upside. I think you can look at him
as kind of a a steady performer in deep deeper leagues. Again,
I don't think he's going to be a star by
any stretch. He should be able to stick at shortstop.
He just doesn't have really high, explosive kind of upside.
But I think he's going to help you an average
(16:44):
speed and potentially multi positional value, particularly if he plays
a little bit of second base at a little bit of
short stop. It's a good player, kind of a poor
mean's Jefferson Jackson Holiday kind of player. You kind of
see them. I think Jackson Holliday. I don't think Jackson
Holiday is going to turn out to be an elite player,
(17:04):
but I think he'll be a top fifteen second baseman.
I think Rojas is going to be kind of twelve
to eighteen, kind of in that range, so just slightly
less than a Jackson Holiday, but it's still pretty good
baseball player. James Trantos has fully moved over to second base.
It's a kid that can just flat out hit. His
(17:26):
end zone contact rate sits at ninety percent, you know.
And it's funny because you see guys that have an
end zone contact rate of eighty and you go, oh,
it's pretty good, right, eight out of ten times that
the balls thrown in the zone, they're making contact with it.
But statistically that's a bad hitter. You've got to be
up in that eighty seven eighty eight percent contact and
(17:48):
think of the number of pitches these guys see you
can see that a ten percent difference, that's hundreds of
pitches over the course of a season that they are
missing when the ball is so the ninety percent is
pretty impressive. He does have some high chase rates, and
you see that a lot with a guy that can
flat out hit, they have a tendency to not walk
(18:09):
as much. I think the big problem here is how
much power he's going to have, and I think that's
that's what we have to worry about ultimately with him.
You know, if he can get some more leverage in
a swing, I think there's a power uptick. So I
still like James Treentas. Kevin al Kintara comes at a
number five, and I think this is one of the
(18:31):
differences that we saw with with the AI Engine, has
him outside of the impact every day target. So I
think this is one of my bias biases here because
I'm I'm struggling to to push Kevin al Kintara or
al Contra down in the rankings more. I think I
(18:54):
put him down at around two hundred now. But the
AI Engine is basically saying, my assistant is Segon, I'm
a two to one from one oh three at the
end of the season and these aren't final, by the way,
but they're going to. But I'm pushing Kevin al Contra down.
What my assistant is saying objectively, Rich, it's time to
(19:15):
put the hammer on Kevin ol Contra. He might not
be that good. And I think that's totally fair. Uh,
the ceiling remains really high. But he just is not
making progress. I mean he's struck out over thirty percent
of the time, which was not good. Thirty two percent
to be exact. His O swing, which is his chase
rate as sky high. I just don't know if he's
(19:36):
going to hit. And it sometimes you know, you've got
to stick with with tools because that's what fantasy managers want.
But sometimes I just can't hit. And it's looking like
Kevin al Contred just can't hit. And that's what we
we just got to call a spade a space. So
I still as fantasy ceiling as a top fifty outfielder,
but my assistant is telling me and telling you, hey,
(19:58):
it might be time to give up on Kevin al Contra.
It's a real shame. I loved him. He was with
the Yankees and I saw playing in the Fall League
and a couple of years ago. I mean it just
huge strides. Look, he reminds me of Gregory Polanco, who
I loved coming through the Pirate system, and it looks
like he's following that career where this where the performance
(20:20):
in the stat line just never matched the raw skill,
the raw talent. And maybe that's the kind of career
that Kevin alcncer is going to have, where he's just
going to be a fringe player and never really establish
himself just because he can't hit. I'm assuming Gregory Planco
(20:41):
he's probably old dad. I can't even imagine because I've
been writing about prospects for so long, fifteen years. This
is my fifteenth year playing dining stee leagues. That's for sure,
sixteenth year. I think my first prospect prospect three sixty
one was kind of a pilot, was in twenty twelve.
(21:03):
That's when I did it. So that's thirteen years I've
been writing about prospects. I went into Scout School in
twenty fourteen, so i've been quote unquote professionally scouting for
this is my eleventh year. And it's funny when you
go through Scout school, they tell you how to do it,
but they once you go out and do it for real.
(21:24):
It's frightening because you don't really know what you're doing.
You have to do it. It's one of those things
that you know was the author that said ten thousand
hours of doing something, you become an expert at it.
I think once you have the training and scouting and
you do it hours and hours, I don't know if
I have ten thousand hours after I got a lot
of hours. I've counted it up. You do get good
(21:45):
at it, and you learn what you write about stuff.
And as you write about it and you see how
a player progresses and how they perform, then you go
back and take a look at what you wrote about
the scouting profiles, and then you realize and take a
look at the data. You know how to kind of
what's important with the player as they're going through development
(22:08):
as opposed to what's just kind of noise that's out there.
And hopefully you'll get that through my writings. And I
guess what my AI assistant is saying, Look, you're still
too in love with Evan Kevin Alcantra's tools, and it's
time to give it up. Number six is Christian Hernandez
kind of one of the bounce back players this season.
I saw him. He and my home down in North Carolina.
(22:30):
We are fifteen minutes or so from the South Carolina border,
so it's that southern North Carolina in Brunswick County. So
the nearest minor league town is Myrtle Beach, which is
about an hour just south of US, and so I
go to a lot of Myrtle Beach Publican games and
I saw Christian Hernandez there for three years, and it
(22:54):
looked like he was done. And when I saw him,
I think it was last season. The time kind of
gets a way for me. Whereas from the beginning of
the season he looked a little different. His bat looked
a little livelier. He's always been really fast, He's making
better contact. His brother was there. I knows his brother
gave him some motivation. Christian Hernandez had moved to second base.
(23:16):
I think he's playing a little bit of short stuff.
But anyway, finally got out of the low way. He
actually played well and did pretty well in High A
as well. So he is a guy that's definitely trending up.
And you know the speeds, there's defense, improved contact. I
don't know how much power he's going to have. But
this is this guy that I think potentially could be
(23:37):
a top fifteen second basement or at worse, a middle infielder.
Jackson Wiggins, right handed pitcher, made it all the way
up to Triple A this season. He was a first
round talent, but he slipped when the Cubs drafting because
he just had Tommy John surgery. Split between High A
and Double A and Triple A, pitched a one ninety
(23:58):
five ear a over eighteen game, seventeen starts, and then
he was shut down in July. Came back a little
bit at the end of the season, so they had
him pitching very heavily and very smart of the Cubs
to kind of slow him down. It's a good arsenal.
He could emerge as a high strikeout starter with potential
impact next season. So Jackson Wiggins is one of the
(24:22):
real pop up guys this season. Their first round draft
pick is Ethan Conrad. He did not play now the
Fall Instructs. He played in the Fall Instrucks, which a
lot of these young players that were taken as the
first round draft pick. So what happens is if you
don't get sent out to usually low A or high
(24:44):
a out to and affiliate it. You stay back at
the complex working on things. And now teams have started
to have kind of almost intramural leagues. They call him
Bridge leagues, where you know, you'll play games within the
players that are either rehabbing or just guys that have
(25:07):
come over from the the international season is over, they've
come and they play. And now teams that have kind
of expanded the and made it a little early for
some reason, the Fall and Struck now is starting earlier
and finishing earlier, and I think they want to not
have too much overlap with the Fall League. So but anyway,
so they're so this kind of since players are being
(25:31):
drafted so much later, so many of them are not
getting assigned to an affiliated field excuse me, an affiliated team.
They're now staying back and playing in the complex league.
Complex leagues then are having intramural games. They're calling them
Bridge that's unofficially called the Bridge League, and you can
actually go watch those games or using the backfield. And
(25:53):
then that kind of falls into the Fall and Strucks,
which is still kind of how it's always been, where
you're bringing in international players and anybody that you just
want to bring into the fall instructs to work on things,
and usually they're playing. Like if you go to Arizona,
you'll see at the Dodgers White Sox facility, you could see,
(26:16):
you know, three games going on with all kinds of
different The White Sox might be playing the you know,
the Dodgers, and you could have three different backfield games
that are going on between those different players that are playing.
It's usually group by age or by by level, but
it's it's a lot of fun and yeah, the publican go.
(26:36):
I've always been able to get in there as long
as you don't do crazy stuff and it's free and
it works out real well. So Ethan Conrad will be there.
It's a power first guy, middle of the order, upside potential,
you know, impact bat, but it's a lot of questions
on how much he is going to hit. Did obviously
have surgery and that kind of hurt him in his
(26:58):
draft protocol or his draft done not protocol draft where
he went in the draft. Jonathan Long's kind of a
guy that's been hanging around for a while, starting to
become a little bit older prospect climb steadily climbing through
the minor leagues. He was drafted into twenty twenty three
doesn't have huge exit velocities. I asked my AI engine
(27:21):
to go out and find out what his average ex
velocity is and he maxed out at one oh eight. Again,
he has the ability to go through and I don't
have to do that anymore. Just go through and tell
me what the average exit velocity of these players are,
and he's able to kind of go through. That take
some about five to ten minutes for each of the
different players to figure that stuff out. For me, it's
just fantastic. It's not a fast runner obviously, first base only,
(27:44):
and if you take a look, there are some platoons split.
So not too excited about this guy. And by the way,
the CUB system is pretty strong at the top and
really starts to fall off here as we get to
the middle to the middle of this, but he should
be just about ready. One of the things I talk
about a lot and I call out. I don't know
if I called it out with Jonathan Long. Sometimes guys
(28:05):
do get a little helium in my list because of
proximity to the major leagues and because again this I'm
trying to take a look holistically of the rankings, so
Jonathan Long does get a bit of a push because
he is very close and might not be on this
list come next season because I'll probably get a chance,
but it's probably a platoon corner infield kind of guy.
(28:27):
Number ten is Pedro Ramirez, high contact middle interfielders, some
speed and some sneaky power. This swing is pretty flat,
so there's not a lot of leverage. I'm not sure
how much power he's eventually going to have, but he
did steal twenty eight bases and thirty eight attempts. It's
a kind of a spectative of at in deeper formats,
(28:50):
deeper dynasty leagues, Dynasty league with maybe fifteen the twenty
minor league roster slots on a team twelve to probably
fifteen fifteen deep, so that would be kind of in
that three hundred minor league players roster. Pedro Ramira should
be in there. And let's see, he's actually ranked three
(29:12):
ninety eight, so he's kind of in that three eight
to three point fifty kind of range. Kin Kepley made
my Daily Notes multiple times, so he was one of
the breakaff guys this season from the twenty twenty five
draft class. Seventy speed, really good contact, a small guy,
(29:34):
no power whatsoever, So there's definitely fourth outfield risk. He's
only five foot eight, but it's a you know, you
got to have a couple of these guys on your team.
And Kepley is a kid that I might try to
grab in first year player drafts. Kind of in that
third or fourth round. Dominic red is writing a picture
that they took in the pick number nineties that was
(29:57):
a second or third of the third round. Plus change
up mid nineties fastball. If he can get a breaking ball,
he could be a number three starter, have him as
a top fifty starter or reliever. Again, change up fastball guys.
You know, there's a bunch of scouts that like a
fastball change up guy more than they do a curveball, slider,
(30:24):
change fastball guy. So more scouts believe that you need
a pitch that can actually move away from a glove
side batter than not. But then you get Cam Schlittler,
who doesn't have a change up at all, but has
just a you know, it's it's the Bryce Miller kind
of Joe Ryan. It's a fastball intense arsenal, but that
(30:48):
fastball has so much horizontal movement that it just is
it jams up against armside batter, so writing of batters
that you can't hit it. So a lot comes down
to the specific fix of a picture. But a lot
of scouts would prefer a change up fastball guy over
a a slider fastball guy, because if you don't have
(31:11):
anything that moves away or moves away from a glove
side batter, you're really setting yourself up for platoon splits.
So that's the one thing that we have to worry
about with Dominique Reid. Is he going to have some
reverse splits because he doesn't have that that change that
curveball or slider yet. Brandon bird Cell, right handed pitcher,
(31:35):
you know triple A spend a lot of time on
the I L It's above average fastball and curveball. It
doesn't have a great change up. So there's definitely reliever
risk here. In fact, I would almost guarantee he will
be a reliever at some point. Wan Thomas shortstop in
the DSL sign him for a million dollars and teasing
(31:58):
and tacing ENTI seemed physical presence there. So he was
one of the big international signed. Anybody who's a seven
digit signee is a big international guy. You know, it
didn't play all that well, but there's a lot of
tools struck at twenty nine percent of the time, I'm
not sure I'm ready to roster him. Did he make
my top five hundred four forty one, So he's just
(32:22):
on the cusp there. Joshua Hartshorn outfielder picked one eighty one,
signed for two million dollars and was the fourth round
so well overslot, six foot two, two hundred and twenty
guy posted one hundred and one point one mile mile
per hour average, one hundred and eighteen exit velocity, so
(32:45):
this is this is big exit velocities on the kid, right,
So this is all coming from Perfect Games. Their data
is out there and I do all that research for you.
Definitely a chance of the middle of the order guy.
It's very high variance profile guy that you really need
to monitor coming into next season because there could be
(33:05):
something here. Anybody that signs for two million dollars in
the fourth round, I believe that's where he was the
fourth round is a guy that you definitely want to
keep an eye on because that you know, two million
dollars is a high second round money. So that's what
the industry and that's what the demands of this kid
demanded in the Cubs were willing to give them that. So,
(33:28):
so he should really be thought of as a top
forty player coming out of the draft. So if you
wanted to take him mid rounds in a first year
player draft, not a horrible, horrible decision there. So you
can see there's a lot of draft picks here, a
lot of DSL guys want Cabata. Caba Da another DSL guy.
(33:49):
When I write fantasy ceiling is too soon to say,
is it's just a young kid that performed well. Another deep,
watchless guy from a fantasy standpoint, Joe sten Florentino, probably
a reliever, made my daily notes a couple of times.
Ten thousand dollars signed, which is, you know, pretty obviously
(34:10):
a very very cheap signing. We just talked about Kabata
and he signed for a lot more than that. Did
I write how much you got? He signed for? No?
But with Jan Tomas he signed for two million dollars
excuse me, a million a million dollars, So ten thousand
dollars is just not much. And I mean the Cups
have gotten a lot out of them already, so I
(34:31):
think He's ultimately a reliever. Will Sanders, we saw him
in TRIPAA, doesn't throw very hard. He's a big hit
at six foot six. Boys amazed me at a guy
that's six foot six can only get it up to
ninety four miles an hour, averaging ninety two. And then
you see guys that are five foot nine, you can
throw one hundred miles an hour. Just amazing. You know,
(34:53):
it's it's all about arm speed, and you get guys
that have really long wingspan and you think they're going
to have a quick arm, and many times they don't.
And that's what we see with Will Sanders, so more
of a back of the rotation guy, up and down
kind of guy. Tyler Scheffler up the double a two
(35:13):
years removed from Tommy John surgery. More of a depth arm,
maybe a starter upside, but more likely reliever. And then
Carter Trice. I've read about Carter Trice a lot this season.
Is pretty much an extra bat for me, but it's
a nice little depth piece. There is a chance that
he could make it. He needs to improve his contact.
So that is the top twenty kind of and again
(35:37):
I like to do the Cubs first. I don't know why.
It's a relatively weak system with some really good players
at the top. But Moys's, Bella STEREO's and Owen Casey
are definitely going to not be here next season, so
and I'm not sure if some of these new guys
will be able to jump up, but it could be
(35:58):
a really down system. Again. The Cubs have an excellent
major league team, and with Pca kind of being the
most recent graduate and performing as well as he is performing,
I mean, that's I mean, the Cubs have been able
to produce guys out of their minor league system, but
at the moment, the system's overall pretty weak. So that
(36:20):
is our Cubs. That is our intro. Come Tuesday, I
will be releasing the Cincinnati Reds. I will get back
to doing again two podcasts a week, and for Patreon
members you'll hear the whole thing like we're doing here,
and for everyone else you'll get the top ten and
probably an extra player and some of the systems I've
(36:42):
got more than twenty players. I believe the Brewers have
twenty four players, so I think the Orioles have twenty six,
the Rays have twenty six, and San Diego Padres haven't
done it. Yet, but there's probably going to be no
more than ten. It's just obviously a crummy system. But anyway,
(37:04):
so that's what you've looked forward to throughout the fall.
In the wintertime as we get prepared for our first
year player drafts, so we start to think about next
year's fantasy drafts. Again. I appreciate our Patreon members and
hopefully you get a lot of value out of your
five dollars a month. And for everybody else, I encourage
you to join us at the Patreon site, and if
(37:24):
you decide not to, there will be tons of content
that would be coming your way. And then again add
free stuff out on Prospect three sixty one. And I'm
doing it just because I hate what the ads have
done to that site. It's just they're just because I
have to go out to it, right because I could
go out and make sure everything is working after I
(37:44):
post it, and the ads are just crazy that they
were just out of control and I could not. It's
like it had a mind of its own and I
finally just had to take it all out. And so
that's what I've done, Tim, and I will be back
on Sunday doing a I'm not sure I haven't written
the note jet for that, but I'm sure it'll be
a lot of fun. We did a draft of the
first round last week. Maybe we'll do it. Maybe we'll
(38:06):
continue on to do maybe the second and third round.
So yeah, that's gone. I think I've already seen thinks.
Somebody posted out on Justin's baseball through sixty five. So
we started doing a draft and whole league, which is crazy.
The seasons he got got over. I can't even begin
to think about a draft, and we got other people
drafting for next season. I mean, God, love him. I'm
(38:28):
not smart enough to be able to do that. I'm
still reeling from last season, so which I did pretty well,
three three wins with two full wins and a tie.
So to tie with a guy who took over a
team and jumped up four points in the last weekend,
so what a what an accomplishment by him, but we
(38:50):
wound up tying. I looked good going to the Sunday morning,
and he had a great day and was able to
catch him. But anyway, so good fantasy season form. You're
looking forward to next season. Until next time, guys, be well,
Good morning everyone. It is October third, about eleven o'clock
in the morning, and this is going to be going
out to both our Patreon members and to our public,
and it is the introduction of the Prospect three sixty
one top twenties of all baseball teams, and today we
(00:21):
dropped the Chicago Cubs, which we historically do as the
first team. I don't know why I do that. I
don't know I start with the National League Central, but
I've always done it and it's kind of tradition, so
that's why I have done it. I wanted to do
a rather link the introduction and actually talk about the
Cubs at the same time. Spent a lot of changes
(00:42):
that I have been making over actually throughout the summertime,
but particularly as I've been moving into producing the content
for the Prospects here in the fall, and that is
I have created an AI assistant to basically help me
with the writing and the researching the editing. I have
spent most of the summer. I think I started about
(01:05):
in June where I finally decided on the co pilot assistant,
and then I had to go through a fairly detailed
exercise to learn how to prompt the AI assistant and
then to write some specific code to allow that assistant
to do some of the things I wanted he or
(01:25):
she it to do. So I kind of wanted to
describe that and kind of how my thinking has changed
over the course of the last few years, basically on
our overall site, the Prospect through sixty one site and
the Patreon site, and kind of what Tim and I
(01:47):
are kind of the model that we're moving to. So
let me start with that. We introduced our Patreon site
about two years ago. We have a ton of leagues
that I twelve leagues that run through the site actually
for legacy Dynasty leagues, and eight new leagues that are
specific for Patreon members. We just paid out all the
(02:09):
moneies for that, which was it's always a nerve wracking
for all you who are commissioners. I mean, you know
that it's a nerve wracking exercise to pay the money out,
because it is it tells you very clearly, you get
one shot and if you give the wrong person the money,
too bad. So you triple check and sometimes quadruple check
(02:29):
it the making it out. So we run leagues. I
do a ton of Prospect content more and more traditional
major league content as well, particularly and looking at Baseball
Savant and looking at underlying data that helps me kind
of get a picture of who that player is, what
(02:50):
they need to work on, and whether they're under or overvalued.
So a lot of that goes on. Tim runs the
Discord site and encouraging all of our Patreon members in
particular or to join that Discord site. He has a
blast out there, and as everybody with, Tim is just
an amazing human being. So the fact that you can
have pretty strong access to him on a Discord site,
(03:13):
I think is pretty cool. I rarely go out there
just because I just can't do everything, so I appreciate
Tim kind of leading that. So I encourage everybody listening
to this. If you're not a Patreon membor, become a
Patreon member. It's a lot of fun. There's going to
be spots coming up as some people have decided they
don't want to continue with the with the dynasty leagues
(03:34):
for whatever reason. A lot of people just sick a baseball,
need to break others changes of lives, you know, where
they've got kids coming and you just need to scale
back on some things. So there's going to be a
handful of spots available and I'll be publicizing those in
the next couple of weeks. So we got leagues, We've
got tons of content, and I encourage you, and it's
(03:54):
five dollars a month. The other change that I have
made is I haven't been I'm real happy with Prospect
through sixty one what has become of the site. And
I have looked at all kinds of different advertising engines
to try to put ads up to try to generate
some funds out of that, and I just took a
look at it and it's just a mess. There's just
(04:17):
pop ups all over the place. It seems like every
Google ad Sense, which is the advertising engine that you
can kind of hook up to wordpresses, which is what
I use, it just is a mess. It's just tons
of it. You tell it one ad per page and
it doesn't listen to you. It just has a mind
of its own. So I made the decision last week
(04:39):
just to get rid of ads. So there is no
more ads on the site. There is a little sidebar
where I've got some static ads. I'm actually going to
take that out as well and just put a big,
one big ad for the Patreon site. That's it. Everything
else is ad free. I don't make much money off
of that. The money, quite frankly is made in podcasting
(05:03):
and sub subscription. That's true on every media site now.
Just so you know, very few people are making unless
you're ESPN or just have CNN or Fox News or
something that just has massive numbers of people coming in,
you just don't make any money off off of website.
So screw it. I just took it off, and hopefully
(05:25):
that'll make life a little bit easier for the general
public coming out to read my site, and hopefully we'll
get interested enough to then join us out at the Patrons.
So that's the business kind of understanding. So that's a
little bit of what I'm doing with the properties of
Prospect three sixty one, and again I encourage everybody to
join us out at the Patreon site Patrio in dot
(05:45):
com forward slash Prospect three sixty one, I'll be producing
systems every Tuesday and Friday until I'm done. Twenty out
of the thirty are completely done. In load, I've got
to go out and modify the Cleveland Guardians because Chase
the Louder has been brought up so at least to
(06:07):
play in the postseason, which is actually pretty cool. So
I'll have to modify that if I get around to
doing it. And now I'm working on the West in
the middle of writing it, and so that will all
be available, you know, whenever they become available. That's the
only writing I have left to do. As I said,
(06:27):
I have put together and I'm looking at the Cup system. Now.
What I've done is I have a two sentence or
one sentence little summary at the top the Chicago Cubs
farm system and Cleveland Guardian, Chicago White Sox, you get it.
It's just one little snippet of that, and then a
three paragraph summary where I talk about all the players
or most of the prominent players and what I really
(06:49):
think of the system, system of the system. Then a
section called the AI Assistant Fantasy Tears, Methodology and Observations.
This is where I use my AI assistant, and I said, look,
I want you to rank the players as you see them,
how you think they should be ranked, based on the
knowledge that you have, what I've trained you on, and
(07:12):
I've ranked mine as my own rankings, and you can
kind of see and then I tear them into Fantasy
impact targets. Every day upside targets and outside of the
impact every day targets, there's probably so there's generally twenty
players in a system, and there's probably twelve to fifteen
of those guys that have been ranked and tiered, and
(07:34):
if you don't see them in there, that means that
the AI engine did not rank them or rank them
down into kind of long term bets, if you will,
so I encourage you to read the section. The little
summaries that are there, the exact same summaries that are
used in my tool summary, which is another thing. Those
tool summaries had turned into overall one sentence summaries about
(07:59):
the player. Where that was going. It's turned them back
into truly toolsy kind of thing. So you can get
a real snippet hopefully just by looking at that and saying, hey,
is this is who the player is and the characteristics
of those players. But this section is truly AI generate.
I did not modify where he had players, and in
(08:21):
some of them, as you get into you'll see where
I've got guys ranked tenth, and the AI engine likes
them a lot more and puts them up at two
or three or something like that. And I think it
just gives you a sense I didn't really go through
and kind of talk about why there's the differences there.
I will do that with our Patreon members, as you
(08:44):
know I will have. I've been posting kind of discussions
I have with the AI assistant as to why players
are ranked higher than others and how you might take
a look at it from a fantasy perspective. Right. So,
the interesting thing about the assistant is he doesn't have
(09:06):
any biases at all. I have my own biases, and
it clearly comes out on my writing, and it more
comes out on my rankings. He's simply looking at my writings,
looking at the five hundred thousand words that I fed him.
He's not looking at anything else on the internet, just
my five hundred thousand words. I've taught him how to scout.
I gave him my scouting handbook, scouting terms, etc. Etc.
(09:29):
And taught him how to use Baseball Savant and other
kind of statistical public public facing items that are out there.
So he's learned how to figure all this stuff out.
And it's truly amazing. I can't even begin to tell
you how fascinating I am with the whole artificial intelligence.
(09:50):
It is truly amazing, but you have to spend the
time to train it. You've got to have the content
to be able to train that. So this is all
trained on my content. So but the nice thing is
it's really having a conversation with myself because all he
has learned is what I've told him, and when he
throws stuff back in my face, it's really an objective
(10:13):
as to maybe you're not rich, maybe you're not looking
at it right, because if I take a look at
everything you've taught me, this player should be higher than
where you're ranking him. But some of the things that
the AI engine doesn't really understand yet, and I still
have to work on him on this is he thinks
if somebody gets hurt, they're just going to always come
(10:34):
back healthy, so it doesn't matter if it's a second
Tommy John surgery, that player is going to come back healthy.
And we all know that that's not true. So there's
some of those nuances that are not quite part of
his toolbag, and I still need to train him on
that because I'm constantly saying, you realize this guy's coming
back from Tommy John surgery, and he goes, yeah, but
(10:55):
his stuff was really good before injury. He's going to
come back fine, That's basically what he says, and it's like, Eh,
not so sure. So that's why I wanted to keep
them separate, so that you could see what the AI
engine is saying and what you're seeing I'm saying, and
you can kind of the whole idea is for me
(11:16):
not to tell you what to do in a dynasty
league or in a fantasy league, but it's more to
give you enough information to kind of form your own opinion.
And I know I'm not naive to think that everybody
else is going out looking at other sites. Hopefully if
I'm my information valuable, but I'm hopefully giving you different
ways to take a look at things. So that's that
(11:36):
whole section. I encourage you to read it. I think
it's fascinating. I spent a lot of time on it,
and I just think my AA assistant is amazing. I
can't even begin to tell you when you look at
the player profiles, and we're going to go through each
one of them with the Chicago Cubs, but each of
the profiles now is three paragraphs. Even if I don't
(12:00):
have much to say about it, it's three paragraphs. The
first two paragraphs are really the background of the player
and the scouting notes. So if you take a look
at s Ballisterio's caring tool is elite contact ability driven
by exceptional hand eye coordination, talk about his defense, etc.
So all of that kind of stuff is in those
first two paragraphs. The last paragraph is how fantasy managers
(12:25):
should look at each of the players. And I found
myself when I was going back and reading stuff, my
eyes kept going to that paragraph. That's the most actionable
of the summaries that I'm writing or the profiles that
I'm writing up. So I'll just read you what I
wrote about Ballisterio's Fantasy managers should treat Ballisterio's as a
(12:47):
high contact bat with sneaky power upside if the swing evolves.
If the swing evolves, his path to playing time may
hinge on defensive fit, but the offensive foundation is strong
enough to warn't attention and deeper formats, especially if the
Cubs lean into his bat first profile. So I just
think he has got You know, if you take a
(13:07):
look at you got him as a top fifteen catcher,
first baseman. Dh it's tool summary's elite contact skills with
emerging power for the loss comes. He's a top fifteen
bat so and that's what my summary is basically saying,
So for deeper leagues next season, I would be rostering Ballisterio's.
I think this is a twenty home run bat, a
guy that's going to hit. I want him to stay
(13:29):
at catcher, but I'd also want him to play a
lot of DH in first base. He plays for a
really good team with the Cubs. He only got one
at bat here in the postseason, so it's not like
he is playing full time by any stretch. But he
did make the postseason roster, which I think is important.
So it's just a matter of how much playing type
(13:49):
he gets next season. Long term, again, I think this
guy's a twenty home run bat and a guy that's
flat out going to hit. I'm a big fan of
Moys's Bellisterio's and a look at the AI engine, it's
his only impact target here within the Cubs system. Everybody
else is either a high impact or outside excuse me,
(14:11):
outside of the impact and every day target. So it's
either an everyday target or outside of that. Moys's Mellisterius
is the only impact target, which kind of fits because
I don't know if Owen Casey is a top one
hundred guy for me, you'd have to go in and
bring up that list. In fact, let me do that.
If I can bring that up real quickly. I got
(14:33):
so many spreadsheets with all this stuff in it here
top prospect list. Nobody ever likes to hear. Those computer
systems are coming up and spreadsheets are coming up. Okay,
let's go to I've got it sorted by Arizona. But
let me go to everything. So, oh, I'll go to
the Cubs. Cubs here, Okay, Owen Casey is one twelve. Yes,
(15:00):
so he is outside of the top one hundred, which
fits right. So you figure the guys in the top
one hundred have a chance to be impact sometimes guys
just outside the top one hundred two. But Owen Casey,
I mean it's it's a fairly simple profile. I mean
it's the upside is clearly Kyle Schwerber type of bat,
(15:20):
you know, where it's thirty maybe even more home run pop.
He does walk a lot, and there's contact problems, and
those are just quite frankly three true outcome players that
seem to be dotting the major league and minor league
rosters in baseball now, it's just the way it is now.
His chase rate has dipped a little bit, it's still elevated,
(15:42):
which is good. His end zone contact is improving, so
when the ball is done in the zone, he's starting
to make some contact with it. All those things are good,
but it is all about power. It's probably going to
come with a low batting average in some decent on
base percentage. Again, the dream is Kyle Schwarbert. Does he
ever get there? I don't think so, but I think
(16:04):
he's going to be a really effective player. I got
him as a top fifty outfielder with some contact risk.
Number three is Jefferson Rojas made it all the way
up to double A as fantasy see only as a
middle endfielder with some upside. Athletic guy, bat speed, contact
skills is a solid foundation for a fifteen to fifteen
(16:24):
type of upside. I think you can look at him
as kind of a a steady performer in deep deeper leagues. Again,
I don't think he's going to be a star by
any stretch. He should be able to stick at shortstop.
He just doesn't have really high, explosive kind of upside.
But I think he's going to help you an average
(16:44):
speed and potentially multi positional value, particularly if he plays
a little bit of second base at a little bit of
short stop. It's a good player, kind of a poor
mean's Jefferson Jackson Holiday kind of player. You kind of
see them. I think Jackson Holliday. I don't think Jackson
Holiday is going to turn out to be an elite player,
(17:04):
but I think he'll be a top fifteen second baseman.
I think Rojas is going to be kind of twelve
to eighteen, kind of in that range, so just slightly
less than a Jackson Holiday, but it's still pretty good
baseball player. James Trantos has fully moved over to second base.
It's a kid that can just flat out hit. His
(17:26):
end zone contact rate sits at ninety percent, you know.
And it's funny because you see guys that have an
end zone contact rate of eighty and you go, oh,
it's pretty good, right, eight out of ten times that
the balls thrown in the zone, they're making contact with it.
But statistically that's a bad hitter. You've got to be
up in that eighty seven eighty eight percent contact and
(17:48):
think of the number of pitches these guys see you
can see that a ten percent difference, that's hundreds of
pitches over the course of a season that they are
missing when the ball is so the ninety percent is
pretty impressive. He does have some high chase rates, and
you see that a lot with a guy that can
flat out hit, they have a tendency to not walk
(18:09):
as much. I think the big problem here is how
much power he's going to have, and I think that's
that's what we have to worry about ultimately with him.
You know, if he can get some more leverage in
a swing, I think there's a power uptick. So I
still like James Treentas. Kevin al Kintara comes at a
number five, and I think this is one of the
(18:31):
differences that we saw with with the AI Engine, has
him outside of the impact every day target. So I
think this is one of my bias biases here because
I'm I'm struggling to to push Kevin al Kintara or
al Contra down in the rankings more. I think I
(18:54):
put him down at around two hundred now. But the
AI Engine is basically saying, my assistant is Segon, I'm
a two to one from one oh three at the
end of the season and these aren't final, by the way,
but they're going to. But I'm pushing Kevin al Contra down.
What my assistant is saying objectively, Rich, it's time to
(19:15):
put the hammer on Kevin ol Contra. He might not
be that good. And I think that's totally fair. Uh,
the ceiling remains really high. But he just is not
making progress. I mean he's struck out over thirty percent
of the time, which was not good. Thirty two percent
to be exact. His O swing, which is his chase
rate as sky high. I just don't know if he's
(19:36):
going to hit. And it sometimes you know, you've got
to stick with with tools because that's what fantasy managers want.
But sometimes I just can't hit. And it's looking like
Kevin al Contred just can't hit. And that's what we
we just got to call a spade a space. So
I still as fantasy ceiling as a top fifty outfielder,
but my assistant is telling me and telling you, hey,
(19:58):
it might be time to give up on Kevin al Contra.
It's a real shame. I loved him. He was with
the Yankees and I saw playing in the Fall League
and a couple of years ago. I mean it just
huge strides. Look, he reminds me of Gregory Polanco, who
I loved coming through the Pirate system, and it looks
like he's following that career where this where the performance
(20:20):
in the stat line just never matched the raw skill,
the raw talent. And maybe that's the kind of career
that Kevin alcncer is going to have, where he's just
going to be a fringe player and never really establish
himself just because he can't hit. I'm assuming Gregory Planco
(20:41):
he's probably old dad. I can't even imagine because I've
been writing about prospects for so long, fifteen years. This
is my fifteenth year playing dining stee leagues. That's for sure,
sixteenth year. I think my first prospect prospect three sixty
one was kind of a pilot, was in twenty twelve.
(21:03):
That's when I did it. So that's thirteen years I've
been writing about prospects. I went into Scout School in
twenty fourteen, so i've been quote unquote professionally scouting for
this is my eleventh year. And it's funny when you
go through Scout school, they tell you how to do it,
but they once you go out and do it for real.
(21:24):
It's frightening because you don't really know what you're doing.
You have to do it. It's one of those things
that you know was the author that said ten thousand
hours of doing something, you become an expert at it.
I think once you have the training and scouting and
you do it hours and hours, I don't know if
I have ten thousand hours after I got a lot
of hours. I've counted it up. You do get good
(21:45):
at it, and you learn what you write about stuff.
And as you write about it and you see how
a player progresses and how they perform, then you go
back and take a look at what you wrote about
the scouting profiles, and then you realize and take a
look at the data. You know how to kind of
what's important with the player as they're going through development
(22:08):
as opposed to what's just kind of noise that's out there.
And hopefully you'll get that through my writings. And I
guess what my AI assistant is saying, Look, you're still
too in love with Evan Kevin Alcantra's tools, and it's
time to give it up. Number six is Christian Hernandez
kind of one of the bounce back players this season.
I saw him. He and my home down in North Carolina.
(22:30):
We are fifteen minutes or so from the South Carolina border,
so it's that southern North Carolina in Brunswick County. So
the nearest minor league town is Myrtle Beach, which is
about an hour just south of US, and so I
go to a lot of Myrtle Beach Publican games and
I saw Christian Hernandez there for three years, and it
(22:54):
looked like he was done. And when I saw him,
I think it was last season. The time kind of
gets a way for me. Whereas from the beginning of
the season he looked a little different. His bat looked
a little livelier. He's always been really fast, He's making
better contact. His brother was there. I knows his brother
gave him some motivation. Christian Hernandez had moved to second base.
(23:16):
I think he's playing a little bit of short stuff.
But anyway, finally got out of the low way. He
actually played well and did pretty well in High A
as well. So he is a guy that's definitely trending up.
And you know the speeds, there's defense, improved contact. I
don't know how much power he's going to have. But
this is this guy that I think potentially could be
(23:37):
a top fifteen second basement or at worse, a middle infielder.
Jackson Wiggins, right handed pitcher, made it all the way
up to Triple A this season. He was a first
round talent, but he slipped when the Cubs drafting because
he just had Tommy John surgery. Split between High A
and Double A and Triple A, pitched a one ninety
(23:58):
five ear a over eighteen game, seventeen starts, and then
he was shut down in July. Came back a little
bit at the end of the season, so they had
him pitching very heavily and very smart of the Cubs
to kind of slow him down. It's a good arsenal.
He could emerge as a high strikeout starter with potential
impact next season. So Jackson Wiggins is one of the
(24:22):
real pop up guys this season. Their first round draft
pick is Ethan Conrad. He did not play now the
Fall Instructs. He played in the Fall Instrucks, which a
lot of these young players that were taken as the
first round draft pick. So what happens is if you
don't get sent out to usually low A or high
(24:44):
a out to and affiliate it. You stay back at
the complex working on things. And now teams have started
to have kind of almost intramural leagues. They call him
Bridge leagues, where you know, you'll play games within the
players that are either rehabbing or just guys that have
(25:07):
come over from the the international season is over, they've
come and they play. And now teams that have kind
of expanded the and made it a little early for
some reason, the Fall and Struck now is starting earlier
and finishing earlier, and I think they want to not
have too much overlap with the Fall League. So but anyway,
so they're so this kind of since players are being
(25:31):
drafted so much later, so many of them are not
getting assigned to an affiliated field excuse me, an affiliated team.
They're now staying back and playing in the complex league.
Complex leagues then are having intramural games. They're calling them
Bridge that's unofficially called the Bridge League, and you can
actually go watch those games or using the backfield. And
(25:53):
then that kind of falls into the Fall and Strucks,
which is still kind of how it's always been, where
you're bringing in international players and anybody that you just
want to bring into the fall instructs to work on things,
and usually they're playing. Like if you go to Arizona,
you'll see at the Dodgers White Sox facility, you could see,
(26:16):
you know, three games going on with all kinds of
different The White Sox might be playing the you know,
the Dodgers, and you could have three different backfield games
that are going on between those different players that are playing.
It's usually group by age or by by level, but
it's it's a lot of fun and yeah, the publican go.
(26:36):
I've always been able to get in there as long
as you don't do crazy stuff and it's free and
it works out real well. So Ethan Conrad will be there.
It's a power first guy, middle of the order, upside potential,
you know, impact bat, but it's a lot of questions
on how much he is going to hit. Did obviously
have surgery and that kind of hurt him in his
(26:58):
draft protocol or his draft done not protocol draft where
he went in the draft. Jonathan Long's kind of a
guy that's been hanging around for a while, starting to
become a little bit older prospect climb steadily climbing through
the minor leagues. He was drafted into twenty twenty three
doesn't have huge exit velocities. I asked my AI engine
(27:21):
to go out and find out what his average ex
velocity is and he maxed out at one oh eight. Again,
he has the ability to go through and I don't
have to do that anymore. Just go through and tell
me what the average exit velocity of these players are,
and he's able to kind of go through. That take
some about five to ten minutes for each of the
different players to figure that stuff out. For me, it's
just fantastic. It's not a fast runner obviously, first base only,
(27:44):
and if you take a look, there are some platoons split.
So not too excited about this guy. And by the way,
the CUB system is pretty strong at the top and
really starts to fall off here as we get to
the middle to the middle of this, but he should
be just about ready. One of the things I talk
about a lot and I call out. I don't know
if I called it out with Jonathan Long. Sometimes guys
(28:05):
do get a little helium in my list because of
proximity to the major leagues and because again this I'm
trying to take a look holistically of the rankings, so
Jonathan Long does get a bit of a push because
he is very close and might not be on this
list come next season because I'll probably get a chance,
but it's probably a platoon corner infield kind of guy.
(28:27):
Number ten is Pedro Ramirez, high contact middle interfielders, some
speed and some sneaky power. This swing is pretty flat,
so there's not a lot of leverage. I'm not sure
how much power he's eventually going to have, but he
did steal twenty eight bases and thirty eight attempts. It's
a kind of a spectative of at in deeper formats,
(28:50):
deeper dynasty leagues, Dynasty league with maybe fifteen the twenty
minor league roster slots on a team twelve to probably
fifteen fifteen deep, so that would be kind of in
that three hundred minor league players roster. Pedro Ramira should
be in there. And let's see, he's actually ranked three
(29:12):
ninety eight, so he's kind of in that three eight
to three point fifty kind of range. Kin Kepley made
my Daily Notes multiple times, so he was one of
the breakaff guys this season from the twenty twenty five
draft class. Seventy speed, really good contact, a small guy,
(29:34):
no power whatsoever, So there's definitely fourth outfield risk. He's
only five foot eight, but it's a you know, you
got to have a couple of these guys on your team.
And Kepley is a kid that I might try to
grab in first year player drafts. Kind of in that
third or fourth round. Dominic red is writing a picture
that they took in the pick number nineties that was
(29:57):
a second or third of the third round. Plus change
up mid nineties fastball. If he can get a breaking ball,
he could be a number three starter, have him as
a top fifty starter or reliever. Again, change up fastball guys.
You know, there's a bunch of scouts that like a
fastball change up guy more than they do a curveball, slider,
(30:24):
change fastball guy. So more scouts believe that you need
a pitch that can actually move away from a glove
side batter than not. But then you get Cam Schlittler,
who doesn't have a change up at all, but has
just a you know, it's it's the Bryce Miller kind
of Joe Ryan. It's a fastball intense arsenal, but that
(30:48):
fastball has so much horizontal movement that it just is
it jams up against armside batter, so writing of batters
that you can't hit it. So a lot comes down
to the specific fix of a picture. But a lot
of scouts would prefer a change up fastball guy over
a a slider fastball guy, because if you don't have
(31:11):
anything that moves away or moves away from a glove
side batter, you're really setting yourself up for platoon splits.
So that's the one thing that we have to worry
about with Dominique Reid. Is he going to have some
reverse splits because he doesn't have that that change that
curveball or slider yet. Brandon bird Cell, right handed pitcher,
(31:35):
you know triple A spend a lot of time on
the I L It's above average fastball and curveball. It
doesn't have a great change up. So there's definitely reliever
risk here. In fact, I would almost guarantee he will
be a reliever at some point. Wan Thomas shortstop in
the DSL sign him for a million dollars and teasing
(31:58):
and tacing ENTI seemed physical presence there. So he was
one of the big international signed. Anybody who's a seven
digit signee is a big international guy. You know, it
didn't play all that well, but there's a lot of
tools struck at twenty nine percent of the time, I'm
not sure I'm ready to roster him. Did he make
my top five hundred four forty one, So he's just
(32:22):
on the cusp there. Joshua Hartshorn outfielder picked one eighty one,
signed for two million dollars and was the fourth round
so well overslot, six foot two, two hundred and twenty
guy posted one hundred and one point one mile mile
per hour average, one hundred and eighteen exit velocity, so
(32:45):
this is this is big exit velocities on the kid, right,
So this is all coming from Perfect Games. Their data
is out there and I do all that research for you.
Definitely a chance of the middle of the order guy.
It's very high variance profile guy that you really need
to monitor coming into next season because there could be
(33:05):
something here. Anybody that signs for two million dollars in
the fourth round, I believe that's where he was the
fourth round is a guy that you definitely want to
keep an eye on because that you know, two million
dollars is a high second round money. So that's what
the industry and that's what the demands of this kid
demanded in the Cubs were willing to give them that. So,
(33:28):
so he should really be thought of as a top
forty player coming out of the draft. So if you
wanted to take him mid rounds in a first year
player draft, not a horrible, horrible decision there. So you
can see there's a lot of draft picks here, a
lot of DSL guys want Cabata. Caba Da another DSL guy.
(33:49):
When I write fantasy ceiling is too soon to say,
is it's just a young kid that performed well. Another deep,
watchless guy from a fantasy standpoint, Joe sten Florentino, probably
a reliever, made my daily notes a couple of times.
Ten thousand dollars signed, which is, you know, pretty obviously
(34:10):
a very very cheap signing. We just talked about Kabata
and he signed for a lot more than that. Did
I write how much you got? He signed for? No?
But with Jan Tomas he signed for two million dollars
excuse me, a million a million dollars, So ten thousand
dollars is just not much. And I mean the Cups
have gotten a lot out of them already, so I
(34:31):
think He's ultimately a reliever. Will Sanders, we saw him
in TRIPAA, doesn't throw very hard. He's a big hit
at six foot six. Boys amazed me at a guy
that's six foot six can only get it up to
ninety four miles an hour, averaging ninety two. And then
you see guys that are five foot nine, you can
throw one hundred miles an hour. Just amazing. You know,
(34:53):
it's it's all about arm speed, and you get guys
that have really long wingspan and you think they're going
to have a quick arm, and many times they don't.
And that's what we see with Will Sanders, so more
of a back of the rotation guy, up and down
kind of guy. Tyler Scheffler up the double a two
(35:13):
years removed from Tommy John surgery. More of a depth arm,
maybe a starter upside, but more likely reliever. And then
Carter Trice. I've read about Carter Trice a lot this season.
Is pretty much an extra bat for me, but it's
a nice little depth piece. There is a chance that
he could make it. He needs to improve his contact.
So that is the top twenty kind of and again
(35:37):
I like to do the Cubs first. I don't know why.
It's a relatively weak system with some really good players
at the top. But Moys's, Bella STEREO's and Owen Casey
are definitely going to not be here next season, so
and I'm not sure if some of these new guys
will be able to jump up, but it could be
(35:58):
a really down system. Again. The Cubs have an excellent
major league team, and with Pca kind of being the
most recent graduate and performing as well as he is performing,
I mean, that's I mean, the Cubs have been able
to produce guys out of their minor league system, but
at the moment, the system's overall pretty weak. So that
(36:20):
is our Cubs. That is our intro. Come Tuesday, I
will be releasing the Cincinnati Reds. I will get back
to doing again two podcasts a week, and for Patreon
members you'll hear the whole thing like we're doing here,
and for everyone else you'll get the top ten and
probably an extra player and some of the systems I've
(36:42):
got more than twenty players. I believe the Brewers have
twenty four players, so I think the Orioles have twenty six,
the Rays have twenty six, and San Diego Padres haven't
done it. Yet, but there's probably going to be no
more than ten. It's just obviously a crummy system. But anyway,
(37:04):
so that's what you've looked forward to throughout the fall.
In the wintertime as we get prepared for our first
year player drafts, so we start to think about next
year's fantasy drafts. Again. I appreciate our Patreon members and
hopefully you get a lot of value out of your
five dollars a month. And for everybody else, I encourage
you to join us at the Patreon site, and if
(37:24):
you decide not to, there will be tons of content
that would be coming your way. And then again add
free stuff out on Prospect three sixty one. And I'm
doing it just because I hate what the ads have
done to that site. It's just they're just because I
have to go out to it, right because I could
go out and make sure everything is working after I
(37:44):
post it, and the ads are just crazy that they
were just out of control and I could not. It's
like it had a mind of its own and I
finally just had to take it all out. And so
that's what I've done, Tim, and I will be back
on Sunday doing a I'm not sure I haven't written
the note jet for that, but I'm sure it'll be
a lot of fun. We did a draft of the
first round last week. Maybe we'll do it. Maybe we'll
(38:06):
continue on to do maybe the second and third round.
So yeah, that's gone. I think I've already seen thinks.
Somebody posted out on Justin's baseball through sixty five. So
we started doing a draft and whole league, which is crazy.
The seasons he got got over. I can't even begin
to think about a draft, and we got other people
drafting for next season. I mean, God, love him. I'm
(38:28):
not smart enough to be able to do that. I'm
still reeling from last season, so which I did pretty well,
three three wins with two full wins and a tie.
So to tie with a guy who took over a
team and jumped up four points in the last weekend,
so what a what an accomplishment by him, but we
(38:50):
wound up tying. I looked good going to the Sunday morning,
and he had a great day and was able to
catch him. But anyway, so good fantasy season form. You're
looking forward to next season. Until next time, guys, be well,
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