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July 30, 2025 85 mins
New Prospect One Podcast

Prospect Risers at Every Level with 🎙️ Tim Kanak @fantasyaceball


➡️ Robby Snelling

➡️ Jefferson Rojas

➡️ Edward Florentino

➡️ Kendry Chourio

and more


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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
In this league podcast that work prevent Prospect one, So
Fantasy prospect Podcast Prospect one with your host Chris Welch.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is the Fantasy Baseball prospect podcast. This is Prospect one.
Hello friends and welcome in. I'm your host Chris Welsh,
who you can find on Twitter, Instagram, at is it
the Welsh and over at in this league dot Com.
In this league dot com the home of my Top
five hundred prospects, top four hundred, Dynasty, P one EIGHTYP
information and first year player Yes seventy five or eighty,

(00:38):
I don't even remember where I'm at right now, but
all all seventy five at least plus of the first
year player guys ranked on their own sheet which is
also designed to look like, you know, a first round
where they fit per round with their overall and they're
also inserted into my top five hundred prospect lists and
the dynasty so you can see where I have some

(00:59):
of the current valuation. You want access to that go
to end this league dot Com. You want to go
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and sign up today. You're supporting the podcast, You're supporting me,

(01:20):
and I appreciate it very much. In this League dot
Com Today. On the episode, Tim Kannap from Fantasy ase
Ball is back on the podcast to talk about some
interesting players at each level. So we're going triple a
double high low even into the Dominican Summer League. We're
not talking about rookie ball because it's done. The leagues

(01:40):
are over, it's all said and done. Complex rookie ball
is over, which I'm going to give a little bit
of a preview on the Bridge League and tell you
all about that. But we are going to do a
little dive into some players that have been catching our
eye at each level rank discussion around them.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
A bunch of guys.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I think there's like fifteen or so players that we're
going to be hitting, So Tim on the show to
talk about some of these high rising players. Right before
the deadline, as a matter of fact, we had a
trade just go down as we ended before I jumped
on the pod, which we would have talked about. This
one thousand percent is the Cincinnati Reds just acquired kee

(02:17):
Brian Hayes.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
But the Pirates got to do.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
They got Sammy Staffura back, and I saw Tim immediately
tweeting about it. I would not have expected that, though,
you know, like Hayes does deserve to get some stuff back.
But Staffer is kind of a dude. I think he
had maybe played some mountfield, but he's a shortstop, added
some significant muscle, especially rookie year over two sixty two,

(02:41):
four homers, twenty eight stolen bases, and almost four hundred OBP.
A lot of strikeouts though big strikeout problem, but he
has got he's got the build to be I think
a much higher home run guy. I got to see
him a ton when he was here in rookie ball,
and then the next season where he started a little

(03:03):
bit over that's where I talked to him. He had
added like twenty pounds of muscle, excited to be at shortstop.
His powers down a tiny bit this year with the
strikeouts up, yet you've got a higher OBP an almost
repeatable slug.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
This is just kind of a dude.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
But maybe he had been a little bit more expendable
if you do think about it, because they went out
and got Steel Hall in the draft. They've got Tyson Lewis,
who is an absolute dude, and they were able to
secure themselves an incredibly great defensive third baseman. And what
I also think is really really interesting is think about

(03:39):
him as this player. This is not for prospect talk,
but kee Brian Hayes and his ability, you know how
he hits the ball hard, get the ball in the air,
and all of a sudden you might start having some
big offensive output. Does put a question on Noelvie Marte
though long term a little bit more dynasty talk. But
Sammy Steffer, Taylor Rodgers was also involved it. But Sammy

(04:00):
Steffer a definite dude. This is one of the first
prospect the real dudes I think that we've seen in
this and there's some definite implications which also like here's
another one, Sal Stuart. If you've got him at third,
Sal Stuart, what maybe goes and becomes a first basement
you know, I don't know if that's something that they take.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
A look at.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
There's rumors that Sal Stuart might be available in a
trade if they just moved off. I kind of don't
think that's going to happen, but I wonder if maybe
they look at him long term going to first and
it's just a big overhaul maybe of the Reds organizationally.
You know, they've they've had all these young guys. You've
got Marte, You've got Cees, You've got a lot of
guys that haven't worked out. You wonder what is going

(04:44):
to move around for these And I guess I'd have
to look at Kei Brian Hayes's like contract. I'm not
immediately not thinking is it I'm not seeing anybody say
anything about it, like how many.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
More years does he have?

Speaker 2 (04:55):
But it's a great get and sammy' steffura is also
a good get. There are going to be some big
prospects that are moved. Trying to get this episode out
before so it has its own life, of course, but
just throwing it out that there are definitely going to
be some big prospects that are moved on how everything
is working out, and we will discuss that next week,
and we'll probably do it much earlier than usual on

(05:15):
the show, just so we can talk about the impact
of prospects since we're going to be doing a bunch
of you know, bigger named guys that are out here.
So a couple notes. The Arizona Complex League is done.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
It is over. The Angels ended up winning it.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
This is like a perennial Rangers thing. Rangers were in
the playoffs. It was oh man, it was the Giants, Angels,
Rangers and maybe Rockies, and the Angels ended up winning
it in two games.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
It's a best of three series. Lucas Ramirez kind of
bawled out a little bit. Again.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Funny enough, I think Manny his dad was having a
day next the day of the final, or no, it
was the day after it, because all of a sudden
he was back. I've told the story because it's super exciting,
you know, having Manny Ramirez follow you on any social
But he just came back to any video I had
of him and just made more comments on it. And
I thought it was I'm just sitting there and all

(06:09):
of a sudden, I'm getting these pings from Manny Ramirez
and it's about his son, and Lucas really showed out,
so the Angels win.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
They had some dudes.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Hayden Alvarez ranked higher than Lucas Ramirez in a lot
of spots. But I don't think we want to sleep
on Lucas at all, because let me pull up the
stat line. I mean, he played the whole time year
here as a nineteen year old. But two eighty two,
three homer, six dolen bases, three seventy four OVP wildly respectable,

(06:38):
like really really good time. And you saw that first
professional homer that I put out of him. Not a
big strikeout problem. Walk found himself later in the league,
like I think Lucas has moved himself up to be
a little bit closer to Hayden Alvarez, but he is
kind of the guy.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
So the big thing I'm telling you here is rookie
ball is officially done.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
It moves to the Bridge League. Now things have changed
because in years past, rookie ball started a month later
and ended a month later. So you know, this is
where you would get all of these rookies that just
got drafted. They'd start playing a complex ball and you
would get a look. Now, they're still going to play
in a complex level league, but it now moves to

(07:18):
the Bridge League, which is essentially an instructional league because
they will play full games. There's a full schedule, but
there's no public well I don't say there's no public access,
there's no public information on the games, and there's no
scoreboard tracking. These games do not count towards their professional career,

(07:39):
so that does make it difficult. So there are going
to be some Complex level prospects that are going to stay.
There's a litany of them that have moved up. But
you know, Tyson Lewis is talking about the Sammy Steffer thing, which,
by the way, Tyson Lewis went up to a ball
and I think that's where Stefer was made him expendable.
He moved up, co moved up, Ameil Morales moved up.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
One of the shocking ones. We're gonna talk about him later.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Freaking Kendrey Trio moved up. The Royals just going crazy
with him, seventeen year old moving a seventeen year old
pitcher who a month ago is in the Dominican Summer
League is playing h or low A right now.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Crazy.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
But not every player is going to move up. I
have not seen the subsequent move of Hayden or Lucas Ramirez.
So what I'm getting at is there will be players
that played in Complex that are going to stay and
play in the Bridge League, and that's going to hurt
some people.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
That are not.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Able to pay attention or there's no information given out
and hey, why do these prospects stop accumulating stats. The
other obvious piece of it are all of the drafted rookies.
Tuesday actually was the start of the league. I didn't
get out there, but great game Red's and White Sox.
Billy Carlson and Steel Hall both played.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
In that game.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Not a lot of information about it. I will be
out on Thursday. I'm going to hopefully see Ethan Holiday,
hopefully see Case and Cunningham. I'm looking to come and
see some of those guys, and I'm going to get
out to a few more so. I will be reporting
on any prospects I see in the Bridge League to
you guys, which hopefully is going to help on the class,
and make sure you're following me on Twitter or Instagram
because any noteworthy stuff I will obviously be putting there

(09:18):
for videos of the class that's out there.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
There are some.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
College base pitchers that I think will stay around, and
there are some college base hitters that are here now
that won't. So it's not uncommon that the college based
guys play two weeks maximum Jack did it, Cagle Owon
did it last year. I was on the opening day
Brewers and Royals and it was great. It was like
Brayln Payne and Blake Burke and CAGs was over there

(09:47):
as well as like the rest of the class. So
you know Ethan Conrad with the Cubs, Andrew Fisher with
the Brewers. Those guys might be here for a little bit,
but then they're going to go to a ball and
then that's the plus for everybody. We'll get like you know,
stats and we'll get all good stuff. The college pitchers,
there's a decent likelihood a lot are gonna stay here.

(10:07):
Here's a great example and a piece of news that
I'm pseudo giving you. On the A's broadcast two days ago,
Jamie Arnold was doing an interview with Dallas Braden and
whoever the hell the other person is, I don't remember.
Really articulate guy. Gotta love Jamie Arnold. Love listening to
him talk to about I think he was talking about
the development of the change up and how he manipulates

(10:29):
a sweep. Just I falling in love with the guy
hearing him talk. But here was the nugget I pulled
where I think he said it on the broadcast, He
goes because they said, hey, what's your plan, and he goes,
I'm gonna stay in Phoenix through September training, working myself
up to hopefully pitch.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
In the Fall.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Well, guys, that's the Fall League, and the A's did
have Nick Kurtz play in the second half of the
Fall League. So I tweeted out to me, that's that's
AFL bound. He's gonna work himself, not pitch in any games,
build up the arm do what they do, and then
maybe all or the second half of the Fall League
he will pitch in some Arizona Fall League games, which
is awesome. And then his mom liked the tweet and

(11:13):
I was like, all right, we might have a little
you know, it might just be anything about their son,
but a.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Little bit stoke in the fire there.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
So the reason I'm saying this is there's a I'm
not saying it's a one for one, but it's a
decent likelihood.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
That college based pitchers could a stay here the whole
time and not pitch at all.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
B could stay here for a while and then maybe
jump into a game at the end of August. I
want to say Hagen Smith did this exact same thing
or I could be wrong and they could just be aggressive.
But Kate Anderson, Tyler Bremner, obviously Jamie Arnold, those guys
are gonna be here. I just don't know the level

(11:51):
of how long outside of Arnold.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Who literally laid it out.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
So when I go to facilities, hopefully I can be
around them and also get some information.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
So the Bridgeley is gonna be tough.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
There's very few people that are out here. You're gonna
I will do this as much as on the podcast.
I don't know about the Florida coast and what we're
gonna get on that side, but I can give you
what I can out here with the high school based
players that should likely play here most if not all
of the time during the Bridge League that you won't
get information or stats on, and then the college based guys,

(12:22):
and I will report as much as I possibly can.
So just want you guys to make sure you're locked
into the podcast. Subscribe subscribe on Patreon. I will probably
share more videos even like like, I try to keep
the videos I share of noteworthy stuff because it is
very tiresome when you put out a video and someone's like,
would you put a walk and it's like all right,

(12:43):
you don't get it, So I will save some of
that stuff where even I'm just letting you guys see
in it bad, even if it's a strikeout or whatever.
I might put that on the Patreon. So sign up
in this league dot com in our prospect when group
me room. But I'll be sharing videos and stuff. But
this is where it's really gonna get tricky. You're gonna
need as much information flown out there because no stats
on the Bridge League. It officially has started and it's

(13:05):
going to go through September. So we are in a
fun time and a lot of the rookies are out here,
and hopefully I can give you guys as much info
as possible. Another guy I might see out here just
want to throw this out as well. There's lots of
information that's flown around. Trades are going to make everything.
But Noahs Schultz apparently has kind of been shut down.
The team is playing it safe with him as he's progressing.

(13:27):
They said he should work, he should work to return
later in August, but there's no timetable set on Noah Schultz,
who was kind of running into some stuff. They did
this with Hagen Smith, but the note is this does
feel like this might position him to pitch in the
airs on a fall league as well. We might have
a pretty killer pitching staff of the fall league is

(13:48):
I think the fall league is also transitioning itself into
being something new for baseball, you know, Like I think
it's always going to be what it's always been, but
I think you're going to see teams maybe a little
bit more aggressive on the college side, pressing players. I
think the work stoppage could be something like that. Any
guy that's a double or triple A, like, you might

(14:08):
want to get that player up as soon as possible,
get them working data, have a good plan in off
seasons if there's gonna be some major you know, time
off that I think this year's AFL could present. I
think guys like Ricky Tiedeman, Noah Schultz, Jamie Arnold, like
those are just some that could be out and what
is typically not a great pitcher league. Another thing that

(14:29):
I will obviously report a ton about. But you know,
in the prospect world, you know, there's stuff like this,
and then there's also probably the worst piece of news
we've had in a little while. I'm bummed about he
didn't see Travis Sakora Tommy John surgery and is out
for this year next year, that looks like the most
Obviously Tommy John is going to get him out for
the majority of next year. Maybe what that ends up

(14:51):
doing is putting him in the Fall League next season,
because that would be fourteen months removed. So I think
that is like highly likely the twenty twenty six Arizona
Fall League, which god, you know, as I'm thinking about
this out loud, I'm actually not one hundred percent sure
the ramifications of like I guess the playoffs are still going.

(15:13):
What I'm getting at is, would the Fall League be
canceled due to a work stoppage, but the work stavage
won't stop until the World Series is done? And the
World Series ends, like, you know, two weeks before the
Arizona Fall League does, so I don't know, maybe they
move it up to not have a you know, a
cross cancel thing, or it probably just goes as normal.

(15:34):
They do their winter meetings and stuff, and they don't
set you know, it signals some official lockout or anything
for a little bit.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
But just thinking out.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Loud here, but Travis Dekora out for the season, it
has to affect his value I don't think it has
to make him a nothing burger, but because he was
a young pitcher, phenomenal stuff. But I definitely moved him
down the reins, kind of similar to how like Ricky
Tiedeman was treated like I never bumped him out of
the top one hundred. But the Tommy John is there,
we just have to pretend like, oh, maybe this is

(16:01):
just slower development, but it is brutal if he was
going to get fast tracked, which looked like it was happening,
and not the news we want, not the news we want.
But at least no Schultz isn't there but two big
pitching pieces out there. Schultz, we may not see the
rest of the season.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Shakora.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
We will not see the rest of the season. And
we're going to see a ton of most likely prospect
changes that are going to be happening in the next
thirty six hours that we will be reporting on. So
make sure you're strapped in. You know, like some of
the things in fantasy and baseball, the trade deadlines can
taper down and people think, oh, okay, well I don't
have to care about baseball. It just doesn't I'm here

(16:37):
for you. Actually, in the time that you would think
it doesn't go away.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Bridge League.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
I got information AFL, I got live information. We're gonna
and we're gonna be doing p one ADPs here soon.
So we actually have a lot going on over the
next three months. So make sure you're locked in in
this league dot com, subscribe on the podcast wherever you
listen to podcasts, and follow me on the twitters. All right,
those are some news and notes. Let's stop there and
let's take a break getting to Tim Kanak. We're talking

(17:02):
about triple A, double A, Hi A Lowe, and even
Dominican Summer League, some standout prospects that are on both
of our minds.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
So we will do it right after this.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Shay, I like you.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
I like you so much. I'm gonna make you my partner.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
All he has to do is find the gold and
I'll share it with you.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Fifty to fifty prospect back.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
On the podcast.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
My old buddy, Tim Kannak Fantasy ace Ball on the
Twitter Fantasy ace Ball podcast. Make sure you check him
out there and you can also catch some of his
musings over on Fantasy Pros.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Mister Tim Kanak, how are you, buddy.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
I'm doing excellent. I'm gonna wear my hat. Would you
like this?

Speaker 5 (17:44):
Because I think ag was giving a Scottie Braun some
crap the other day on foul Territory for wearing his
hat like a like a middle school kid.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
So I'm gonna do it just just for fun.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
How what was the look like just wearing it normal?

Speaker 5 (18:00):
No, he was saying, when you wear a hat, you
have to make sure no hair is showing on the forehead.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
He's like, you can't have the hair on the front
side of the hat.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
My side like, yeah, you.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
Gotta make sure the hair is covered. You can't show that.
You can't show the front of the hair.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
So yeah, my hair.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
My my son has done that a little bit where
he'll wear like a half frontword and have the hair
sticking out.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
I'm like, no, dude, we don't. We're not doing that.
I actually do completely agree with that.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
You got good hair, though, so no matter how you're
wearing it, Like I got to do a little bit
of work to get my hair to work. You've got
solid hair and some solid prospect takes as well. Because
we're gonna be musing down the uh Triple A down
to Dominican Summer League, picking out some names talking about
some players, some valuations. Uh, kind of old school you

(18:48):
and me just chat chatting about prospects. We're in this
We are in this weird limbo stage of like it's
right before the trade deadline, you know, how everybody is
consumed and talked about prospects. Has been weird because we've
been dominated by the draft and we're finally done with it,
and we are in that period between them playing any
professional ball or the Bridge League. As I mentioned in
the open there, I'm gonna go see some guys tomorrow.

(19:10):
But you know, we don't have a lot of that data,
so it is a good time to kind of play
catch up as a ranks or updated mine as well.
And we have got a litany of players to talk about.
So let's start into it. First player, We're going to
start up at Triple A and work our way down.
I added this guy because I want your take on this.
You and I last year spent a lot of time

(19:32):
talking about Spencer Jones. I talk a lot about Spencer Jones,
and I finally didn't come off of it too hard,
you know, because sometimes it's like you give me two
years of struggles and I kind of put a clock
on Spencer Jones a little bit because the what we
always the biggest concerns, it's contact rate, strikeout rate. There's
a little bit of a clock of like, hey, listen,
we do need to start progressing and we need to

(19:56):
start having things click until we make some big changes
where I think a lot of people had just been like,
he's not even remotely close to a top one hundred prospect.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Oh, how the times have changed.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
You know, I don't need to wax too much on
you know, the statistically where he's at. You know, he's
hitting four hundred and triple A. Everyone kind of knows
the big changes that have happened, a big swing change.
The torpedo bat is finally taking place, and he looks
like a completely new guy. I mean, we're seeing elite
level triple A data, sixty percent hard hit rate, ninety
five average exit velocity.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
He's getting the ball in the air. It's wild.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
He still strikes out though, and his contact rates are
still a little All of that said, who is Spencer
Jones to you in the prospect world as far as
how do you rank him?

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Do you buy this?

Speaker 2 (20:43):
What's your take on Spencer Jones, especially this last hot month?

Speaker 4 (20:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
I mean he's a guy that I was right there
with you where I think we both had him like
top thirty prospect or whatever kind of at the beginning
of the year slowed down this year, contact rate is
so bad that I dropped him all the way down
to seventy two in my overall ranking. And then now
I'm kind of in this middle ground where I'm like, okay,

(21:10):
Like I don't want to just be bouncing back and
forth like a ping pong ball with him, but he's
doing the thing, like he's doing his thing, and that's
that's the thing, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
Like everyone's on hit tools right now.

Speaker 5 (21:21):
Everyone's like, oh, look how good Kevin mcgonagall's hit tool is.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
Look how good JJ weather Hoole's hit tool is. Spencer
Jones is not that dude. He's not the hit tool guy.

Speaker 5 (21:31):
You just have to know that if you're buying Spencer Jones,
you're gonna get a ton of power and speed. It's
gonna be super volatile. You're gonna get hot streaks and
cold streaks. You're gonna have bad weeks where you have
a ton of strikeouts, and he might get benched against
certain pictures to get or get you know, kind of platooned,
which is my biggest scare with him right now is
platoon splits. But I think that I still have to

(21:55):
have him as like a top thirty, top thirty five outfield,
you know, prospect at this point. So like when I
do my next update in a few weeks, he's that's
probably where he's gonna be. Uh, maybe it depends on
if he gets traded to. Obviously, Yankee Stadium is a
great place to hit. Contact rates you mentioned are up
like eight percent from double A to triple A, so
that's pretty solid. He went from fifty seven to sixty

(22:16):
five sixty five with his power. You can live with
that as long as he maintains that. And it's ridiculous
what he's done the last his last thirty one games. Well,
she's hitting four h five four seventy six nine oh
one with eighteen bombs and eight steals, just insane, insane numbers.
And we talked about before even last year. I mentioned
that he is streaky. He's a guy that's a summer guy.

(22:39):
We're seeing it again. It's been like three years in
a row where he just warms up in the summer.
So maybe you just figure, Okay, Spencer Jones just gonna
be like Carlos Santana. He's just gonna be a summer guy.
Did My concern is not even really the contact tool,
it's the splits. Twenty six of his twenty nine home
runs have come against righty's Welsh and against lefties he's

(23:00):
only hitting two eighteen, but against righties this year he's
hitting three forty three.

Speaker 4 (23:05):
So maybe the Yankees to ease him in nicely. Maybe
they just.

Speaker 5 (23:09):
Bring him up as a platoon bat and let him
ease into the majors that way. And that's the move,
just like you play down the middle, you know, you
let him play against righties and you don't play him
against lefties, and let him be a platoon bat to
ease him in instead of just throwing him against everybody.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
And then like then you've got, oh, his strikeout rates
forty percent.

Speaker 5 (23:28):
I think that's kind of the move that the Yankee
should be doing, uh when they promote Spencer Jones here.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, And I think like I'm I feel like I'm
so much more accepting than a lot of the rest
of the fantasy community and guys being platoony players, Like
I'm like Kerry Carpenter I think is a monster. You know,
obviously he tapered back down and stuff like that, but
you know, I kind of site like what Jock did
last year.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
There's some volatility, but it's like if you put the.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Guy will your Brady was a great example of it,
if you let that guy in the spot where he's
going to thrive the most. Yes, you're limiting at bats,
and yes, it's like it's almost maybe becoming catcher level
when a guy is a platoon player. But it's like,
I want the guys to succeed, and I don't disagree
with you. I'm worried this is a tall, lanky guy

(24:15):
like you're worried about, like breaking stuff low. You know,
that's a pretty common like triple A to major league
level adjustment period is where guys, especially with a guy
like him, they're gonna be like, well, even though he's
got long levers, like, they're gonna attack him low. That's
gonna be the thing. And then they're probably gonna play
like just vertical. It's gonna be super high, super low.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
You know.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
His his new stance and the advent of the the
torpedo bat kind of helped with that jamming on the
inside stuff that he had. That's why you know they optimize,
That's why he got the torpedo bat because of where
he was hitting. So I think, if you how is
he going to react to you know, heavy in hardcore

(24:59):
vertical pitch.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
That's to be seen. But you and I are in
the same space again.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Then because I have him currently at thirty six in
my ranks, I kind of did a move too, but
mine was like, because I totally agree with you on
the bouncing, I had him high for so long and
then right when I kind of made that move where
he had to come back down was where the batting
stance change really kind of took play and everything started

(25:26):
to change, and then I just said, oh, let's get
back up. Like he hasn't had a lot of movement,
but he had one extreme move that I'm with you
on it. Graduations, you know, if you haven't done your
rank up update and you're going to do yours and
you're saying he's gonna be top thirty five, Chase Burns
is going to graduate off of this list. Presumably we're
close to Lawler when you know, when Suarez gets traded up,
so like you know mid August he's going to be

(25:48):
inside the top thirty, and I think I can live
with the extremes. But I agree with everything you're saying,
like he's more volatile. Maybe the high upside is a
Schwarber like player but with more stolen bases and the
downside as a player that is going to really be,
you know, lined up to be a platoon player that
if they struggle there, then they're back at you know,
they could be a quad a player. It's a possibility,

(26:10):
But it just seems there's some extreme I mean again,
extream launch angle almost nineteen degrees. So he gets the
ball in the air, he hits it really hard consistently.
The hard hit rate is up there, and I'd love
to see the barrel rates.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
But Spencer Jones, he's on dude level.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
So I don't know if everybody has bought quite in
because there's a lot of adjustment period at the majors,
But I wanted to get your take on it. You
and I are We've always kind of been close. I've
had to sell you less on Spencer Jones than probably
anybody else. So you and I are just kind of,
I think, a lock step.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
With each other.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
That's good to hear you mentioned JJ Weatherhold. We had
a couple other guys. I let you pick some names
here that you wanted to hit. JJ Weatherhold was one
that you threw on this list. Who's moved up to
Triple A. Gonna see him sooner rather than later. I
love me some JJ Weatherhold. I think you have recently
seen him. If I am, maybe I could be incorrect
about that, But this is also your team, so talk

(27:04):
to us about where you're at on JJ Weatherhold right now.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (27:07):
So I got JJ last year. The whole end of
the year, he was here in Jupiter, so I saw
him quite a few times, and then this whole spring,
I he basically stayed the entire spring. This was the
guy that the Cardinals didn't said down until like the
last minute when they had to, and he was in
the starting lineup with most of the guys. The Cardinals
are sellers this year, so they're going to be trading pieces.

(27:28):
There's a lot of speculation that Weatherholt is going to
get called up once they do move off some of
these pieces. As a Cardinals fan and knowing how they operate,
I kind of doubt it. So I'll throw some cold
water on that. I don't think that they're going to
call him up and like ruin his rookie eligibility for
next year. If he get called up, it might be September.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
But no.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
But here here's one thing I think hat tip to
Matt Eddie for doing this. Matt Eddie had posted out
August fifteenth would be the official day where these guys
could I guess continue or keep their rookie eligibility if
they're called up after August fifteen, So they could make moves,
trade out a couple players, and then if you had
it like somewhere between August sixteenth and August twenty fifth

(28:10):
or something like that, they could come up keep that eligibility.
And I actually think that is a relatively likely scenario
with a guy like him, if they do trade off
a significant amount of the Cardinals pieces, because you would
want him to probably break camp with that team, and
he's got I think I think you agreed the skill set,
that that contact ability, the way his plate discipline, just

(28:31):
the way he approaches not only the field but at bats.
Like maybe he's still a little bit raw as far
as like the power goes and stuff, but he is
an advanced advanced bat who you could probably just lock
him into the majors right now. I kind of do
think we're going to see him by September first.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
I hope.

Speaker 5 (28:49):
So as a Cardinals fan, knowing how cheap they are,
I would not be surprised if they push him until
like the second week or whatever of next year, just
so they get extra eligibility from him, just because that's
the way that they operate, and it just would not
surprise me to see them do that. Though they did
call up Mason Winn at the end of the year,

(29:09):
so in the past they have done it.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
They let Jordan Walker break camp.

Speaker 5 (29:12):
But the thing is that they have other players that
they have to figure out too. So even if they
did trade Nolan Ernado, even if they do trade like
a new bar, you're still gonna have a Thomas to
jac that you have to figure out is he going
to be a starter or is he just going to
be a super utility bench guy. So maybe they want
to see him with starters reps throughout the rest of
the season to figure out what they have there. And

(29:33):
you still have Nolan Gorman coming back now, and you
need to figure out what you have there. With him,
you have to say, Okay, is Nolan Gorman going to
be a dude for us in the future or is
he toast? You gotta like they still have other guys
that they have to figure out. And I think, you know,
as a Cardinals or what you have with JJ Weatherholt already,
you know you have a stud there and you've got
to figure out, like what is the team going to

(29:54):
be around him? And I think it's important for the
team to kind of get some run for some of
these other guys. And that's just like my thought process
on it is that like everyone is just like, oh,
JJ is gonna come up, like as soon as the
trade deadline is over, But I don't really know about
that or even if it is August fifteenth. I think
that they may want to give more run to like
a Gorman and Aid jay Z and some of these
other guys first. Maybe you still see him in September,

(30:17):
but I just don't think he's going to be like this, Hey,
we got to get this guy in the lineup right
now because he's ready.

Speaker 4 (30:22):
I think it's all the trade deadline bay figure out
the rest of the team, and.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
The trade deadline probably tells us that story like it,
you know who they move and don't move is going
to tell us the aggressiveness of it.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
On this this the season total.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
As a whole for Hold, for as a whole for
weather Hold. Where is he sitting in the ranks for
you right now? Because I'm pretty enamored with him, Like
from day one, I've thought there's a lot of it
and I've said this a ton, there's a lot of
approach issues that approach tendenciates.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
It remind me of Corbyn Carroll in him.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
I don't think the power is going to quite be there,
but there's bad speed and he has a lower strikeout
rate so far in the minors this year, he has
the exact same walk rate as strikeout rate, which is
absolutely absurd, around fifteen percent. He's hitting over three hundred,
He's got a three four or five slash, double digit
homers and stolen bases. Where will he sit in a
rank update to you compared to you know, everybody is

(31:18):
talking about McGonagall and Griffin. They're the new you know,
default number ones. Do you think weather Holt pushes a
top ten prospect or is he still a little bit
out looking in.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
I think he's about top ten. I'd probably have him
right around that range. I mean, the guy to think
about is like Walker Jenkins, for instance, are you like,
is there really been enough from Walker Jenkins to bump
him ahead of JJ Weatherholt, who is showing similar contact rates,
similar plate skills. He's just doing at a higher level,
and he's doing it from a I guess you could

(31:51):
say more important or you know, less, you know, like
a more rare position doing it from shortstop because you know,
weather Holt's probably gonna get bumped a second which is
great because second base is kind of terrible. So like
that's really like best case scenario. You almost would rather
in fantasy have Weatherhold as a second basement in the
shortstop because shortstop has a lot more really good players
than second base at this point in time. So that's

(32:12):
almost like a best case scenario from a fantasy standpoint
for him to be a second basement. So if you
can get Walker Jenkins now, like a more proximity version
of Walker Jenkins at second base, I think that's kind
of what you're gonna get from Weatherhold twenty twenty, guy
who can hit two eighty, probably with a really good
OBP three to sixty OBP or something like that.

Speaker 4 (32:30):
Right out of the gate.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
I've got him.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
I've got them quite a bit different, by the way,
but I got Weatherhold higher, So you know, I think
there's also some injury issues that are going on. I'm
a little bit concerned with with Weatherhole or with Walker Jenkins,
but I've got him right on the outside of the
first round. I think I think a great debate is
Travis Bizana versus him, you know, because Bizanna has had
a weird year with the miss time and some of

(32:56):
the early struggles. But man, I still think the skill
set's there.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
But I'll tell you after.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Watching Bazanna even more, there is something to a a
patient hitter that is aggressive to a How am I
trying to say this? Bazana has a passiveness to me
that it's not at the Edward Julian stage where it's like,

(33:21):
why are you taking all these early count stuff in
your drive, you know, the whole being the most passive
early and then the most aggressive late. He's not that,
but there is a little bit more of an aggression
and maybe an understanding of the of back to ball
skills with J. J. Weatherhol that maybe stands out a
little bit more than Bazanna with some of the passiveness.
But at the same time, I think that it's louder

(33:42):
with Bazana. I think the power is going to be louder.
Stolen bases might even be louder. So I think that's
a really interesting debate. I have them next to each other,
but I still am giving the I'm giving this slight
nod to Bazana here.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
I'm all Weather hold on those two.

Speaker 5 (33:59):
You know, call me a bias Cardinals fan or whatever,
but I think the plate skills and the plate approach
are just that much better, and I think that the
power speed output could be pretty similar at the end
of the day. As far as like power, for JJ,
he's gonna have more power on the road than at home.
Saint Louis is terrible for a lefty power, So just

(34:19):
keep that in mind that he's probably gonna be more
like a doubles guy when he's at home in Saint Louis.
But he is really good about going the other way.
Like That's one thing about JJ Weatherholt is he really
spreads the ball around. He is not a pole guy
like he like if you if you watch some of
his bombs. I'd say like half of them are like
to center field or to left field.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Instead of to right field.

Speaker 5 (34:38):
So just something interesting about weather holds Bata ball profile
is he really does shot the you know, he shoots
the ball around all over the place, which is great
because it means that you're not gonna be able to
shift it. That's a guy that will never have Babbi
shift issues, even though he's a lefty hitter, Like, he's
never going to run into that in his career.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I love it. Good. Takes a couple more Triple A
guys and we'll start moving a little bit more. Here. Uh,
Dylan Beavers, I love that. Put him on here.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Three hundred thirteen homers, twenty one stolen bases so far
this year, doing it in tripa a low k rate,
high walk rate, almost a three four five slash scoring
runs like crazy, which you love to see. Does not
have like really really great like hard hit numbers, you know,
so like if you're future power projecting. But what I

(35:22):
will say is he gets the ball in the air
and he does have a max on one ten. I'm
a little bit washy on what the power is going
to end up really looking like. But This is one
of the He's.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
A big dude.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
He's a six foot five, two hundred plus pound guy, steals, bases,
hits for average. I don't think it's out of pocket
to think that he could end up being a guy
that hits twenty homers in the right environment, could be
a twenty thirty guy. Maybe it's probably more likely to
dream on him being a fifteen to thirty type of player,
but he's close to the majors. Let's hear your take

(35:52):
on Dylan Beavers and where you've got him ranked.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (35:56):
I love Dylan Beavers right now. I've added him in
so many leagues within the last week. There's a good
shot that the Orioles move on from Loreano or from
Cedric Mullins, or maybe even both, and if that happens,
then Beaver's is probably getting the call.

Speaker 4 (36:11):
His hit tool has made insane.

Speaker 5 (36:13):
Strides year over year from last year, which is a
big differentiator because even last year he had fifteen bombs
and thirty one steals and I comped him, I was like,
this guy kind of reminds me of like a PCA
skill set with Kyle Tucker type mechanics at the swing,
and you know, I'm not saying it is Kyle Tucker,
but swing wise like Simichana. But remember when PCA came
up too, he was not you know, his hit tool

(36:34):
was kind of questionable. It took a whole year for
PCA to adjust to become the PCA that we see today.
But Dylan Beaver's last year, his contact rates were in
the seventies, like seventy eight percent zone seventy seventy two
percent contact rate. This year's contact rate is eighty four
in his zone contact rate is hovering around ninety.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
So he's like almost elite I would.

Speaker 5 (36:58):
Say from a hit too person efective. And he's got
thirteen bombs this year. He had fifteen last year, So
he is showing more power this year than ninetieth percent.
Percentile evs are one to five point four, which is
above average. So his power is above average. Like it's
not elite, but it's definitely above average. Max max velocity
is over one ten and his average is hovering around ninety,

(37:21):
So he's got above average power with plus speed and
I would say a plus two maybe like close to
plus plus hit tool with that contact and zone contact
that he's shown at triple A this year he just
has made significant strides and he is a he's aggressive
in the zone too, sixty two point four percent zone
swing rate. So he's not a guy that's gonna sit

(37:42):
there and be Emmanuel Rodriguez and you know, just get
struck out on call strikes all day. You know, this
guy is aggressive in the zone, which is why he's
going to run high batting.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Average Beavers or Condon Beavers Beavers or Ryan Waldschmidt Beavers
Beavers or Slade Caldwell Beavers. A lot of proximity that's
in play here the Beavers or Yosue de la Paula,

(38:11):
what the Paula? Okay, So trying to find where your
your line is in there? So is he top thirty
for you Beavers?

Speaker 5 (38:19):
My last ranking, even before like some of the stuff
he's had, I had him at fifty seven, So I'm
probably he's definitely top He's probably top forty. I would say,
I don't know if he's top thirty, but I would
say he's definitely in the top forty one.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
More triple a guy. This is a picture to talk
about that you put on here.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
I love that you did.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
I'm a huge Ribby Snelling Stan I couldn't be happier
that he's bounced back after what really felt.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
I mean, what a up and down coreer, just an insane.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Twenty twenty three looked like one of those dominant pitchers
in baseball. One hundred and eighteen strikeouts to thirty four
walks ERA was under two innings, built up, Oh my gosh,
let's go, and then twenty four in all apart he
had a five VRA though he kind of kept the
walk to strikeout ratio which was pretty decent, but he
had a one point five to two whip just contact

(39:10):
all over the place. And then this year he's kind
of refound it. He's moved levels. Every single year he's dominating.
He's better in Triple A than Double A. He had
a three six ERA in Double A. It's two three
in Triple A. Right now he's back to not walking guys.
He's striking guys out. VLO looks like it's ticked back up.
Talk to us about Robbie Snelling and where you've got
him and what you've seen that make you excited to

(39:32):
highlight him.

Speaker 5 (39:33):
All right, So my last ranking update, I had him
at forty nine and I had Chris Blessing on my
show to discuss my ranking area at that point in time,
and Blessing.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
Is like, I don't know about that.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
He's like, I don't really like Snelling so much, blah
blah blah. And then a couple weeks later he's mentioned
on his podcast. He's like, oh, I saw Snelling and
he's like, I actually really like him now, I mean
he like mentioned. He's like I talked to him with
Tim and he's like Tim was like way high on him,
and he's like, now I kind of get it. One
of the things I've really noticed breaking down Snelling's arsenal.
He has added a ton of velocity this year. So

(40:05):
last year he was throwing his fastball, he was only
sitting around ninety three, like or he was hitting ninety three,
Like he's sitting more like ninety two, but hitting ninety three.
This year he's between ninety five ninety to ninety seven
on the fastball. And his fastball Welsh has a nineteen
point six percent swing strike rate on the season, which
is ridiculous for fastball, Like a good fastball can be

(40:26):
like a twelve percent swinging strike rate. Nineteen percent is
usually what you see on like a sweeper on on
like a great breaking ball, but he's getting that on
the fastball from the left side, which is insane. His
sierra because my buddy John Anderson has a jaer which
is basically minor league sierra. His sierra is two eighty
six on the season, and the sweeper also is up

(40:51):
this year, so he's throwing the sweeper faster. The slider
he's throwing faster. So basically he's added on all of
his pitches about three miles an hour two three miles
an hour on the vlow, which you might say, uh oh,
like we've seen this before, you know, you know, watch
that elbow. But it's resulting in a lot more strikeouts
this year, and it's resulting in Robbie Snelling being one

(41:14):
of the better pitchers at Triple A on the season
as a twenty one year old.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Where do you have him in your rank range? Like,
let me let me throw one at you, Robbie Snelling
or what's a good one, Robbie Snelling or tink Hens
I know you love tink Hens Snelling, Yes sir, yes, sir,
Robbie's Snelling or Quinn Matthews Snelling. All right, we're there

(41:40):
so so what is your rank range?

Speaker 4 (41:43):
I would say he's top thirty five.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Oh baby, all right, So you're like in and Robbie
Snelling or Jonah Toong Snellings, I'd say you usually have
more pictures than I do.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
But even that, that's a great sell on. I'm here
for it.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
I'm here for the Robbie Snelling love here for Let's
move down to double A. I on this, you pinpointed
some names. I threw a couple in here. Let's start
with a couple of the guys that you threw out here.
Kalin Culpeper. This is someone you wanted to highlight. Very
good season. Culpepper is put together one of those kind
of analytics dudes hits the ball hard, kind of in
the Bryce Matthews mold fourteen homers, nineteen stolen bases, three

(42:22):
hundred average. Up at double A, twins are talking about
blowing things up. You might see Carlos Korea gone. You
might see a handful of those guys gone, which could
up the timeline, which helps in the proximity game. But
let's hear what your thoughts are on Kaylen Culpeper so
far this year.

Speaker 5 (42:38):
Yeah, he's ridiculously underrated because everybody talks about how awesome
the draft was last year and how great all these
guys have been post draft, and it's like Cam Smith
and Nick Kurtz and you know, Connor Griffin and all
these guys. Nobody ever mentions Kalen Culpeper, who has been
insane this year. So Culpeper is hitting over three hundred.

(43:00):
I think he's got right around of four hundred OVP,
fourteen bombs, nineteen steals.

Speaker 4 (43:05):
That's really good.

Speaker 5 (43:06):
Like he's just like a like everything he's doing right
now is way better than what people thought he was
going to be when he was drafted, and he's just underrated.
He's like overshadowed by all these other awesome draftees recently.
So I'm all on Calen Culpeper. I mean, he's twenty
two years old at double A. He's moved levels pretty
well this year and he's actually been better at double

(43:27):
A than at HYA. So double A he's hitting three
thirty three four fourteen to five ten, so he's three
four five and he's pacing right now Welsh to go
over twenty bombs with maybe twenty five or thirty steals.
So we can see, like a twenty thirty season from
a shortstop here, and it's just like going completely unnoticed,
Like nobody talks about this guy at all.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
It's crazy and under the hood everything looks good.

Speaker 5 (43:52):
I mean like it's I wouldn't say anything is like
super elite, but everything looks good. Split wise, he definitely
has more power against right now, but he's still holding
his own batting average wise against lefties.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
So I'm in on Culpepper.

Speaker 5 (44:05):
I think he's just like a really nice underrated buy
that nobody's talking about.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, and there's a part of me too that the
underrated by is a really interesting part too, because like
how far can he go?

Speaker 3 (44:17):
You know? He he does.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
He's showing off a tremendous amount of his power is
coming against righties. As a right handed hitter, you want
you'd like to see more of an even distribution, but
he's not struggling on any big major whift stuff. I'd
love to see him at Triple A to start seeing
what some of the data is because I know this
guy can hit the ball really hard. But also I
think he might be one of those gyms that's just

(44:38):
kind of floating out there. I actually think he's a
possibility for the Arizona Fall League. I'm not sure that
they will do that because they'll probably push him to
the Triple A at the end of the year. Sometimes
that doesn't happen in the Fall League. But I think
this would be a guy you might want to see
more of an extended look for and get more at bats,
try to push him to that five hundred range if
he's gonna, you know, maybe compete with this team this

(44:59):
co here. I know they already got like brooks Lee
up and they just they got to figure out what
their situation looks like.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
But I think he is, like I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
I think he's like tremendously underrated and there's a good
group of guys he should be around that he might
not be. Has he hit the top one hundred prospect
range for you, Yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (45:16):
Had him at one twenty five last time. I think
he's like right there, he's he might even be in
like the eighties.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
I think I him at one twenty five last time too.

Speaker 5 (45:25):
Yeah, that was one of the guys we had exactly
the same like for instance, like I had Ttermar Johnson
at like eighty five last time. I'm definitely putting Culpepper
ahead of Tomorrow, Like Tomorrow is probably going down.

Speaker 4 (45:36):
You know, you know, like he's not gonna say the same,
He's probably gonna go down some.

Speaker 5 (45:38):
But like Colepepper's definitely ahead of Tamar Johnson. So I'd
say he's probably like the seventies or eighties or something
like that at this point.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
I mean, it's a pretty good high raiser that's on that.
On that double A list, you also put a couple
of pictures. You'd put Kendrick Rojas who moved up. But
I like the Thomas White stuff. Let's talk about Thomas White,
who we got to see in the Futures game.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
I'll give you credit.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
I think it was a like sometime last year where
I want to say, you were pretty definitively Thomas White
over Noble Meyer, and that definitely wasn't in the consensus.
It is so clear now like Meyer has really struggled
to find Meyer has these flashes of elite neists, but
he can't put anything together. Where Thomas White is showing

(46:20):
multiple pitches of elite and he looks like he's on
the higher end. Where are you at on tom I
almost asked you Thomas White versus Robbie Snelling. That would
be an interesting one because Snelling has the proximity. What
would your answer be on that, though.

Speaker 4 (46:34):
White Thomas White.

Speaker 5 (46:36):
I actually talked about it on my podcast, the Fantasy
Aseball Podcast yesterday with Doc and I threw out there
that Thomas White might be the number one starting pitcher
once like Painter's gone, like he's like Sekora is getting TJ.
So I'd say that it's very possible that Thomas White
is going to be the number one pitcher.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
And it's actually funny.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
When we did the preseason predictions episode on P one,
you asked me, You're like, who's your pitcher? And I
went with pre lip because it's supposed to be a
bold prediction. But then I also threw out there at
the same time, I was like, Thomas White could also
be like the number one starter. I just think it's
like I was like, I think that's like two league standard.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
That's not bold enough.

Speaker 5 (47:17):
So I wanted to be a bowlder throwing pre lip
out there, but like I did throw out I was like,
I think Thomas White could be like the number one
guy by the end of the year, and it's very possible. Now,
I mean last time out five innings fourteen K zero
walks Thomas White. One of the big things, and the
one of the things that pushed him ahead of Noble
Meyer for me, is that this spring or this offseason,

(47:38):
he changed his slider.

Speaker 4 (47:39):
He had like a.

Speaker 5 (47:40):
Very slurvy, kind of curvy forty five degree slider that
came in before, and now he's got a hard gyro
slider instead that's just a lot more effective. And there's
another guy who's had a below bump like when I
saw him, because I saw him last year in Jupiter.
When he's in Jupiter, he's only throwing like ninety four
ninety five. Now he's throwing ninety seven topping out it
like ninety nine from the left side.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
So he is another big filo bump guy.

Speaker 5 (48:03):
And one of the things I like is that the
Marlins are starting to like just let him go, and
I think that's actually helping with his command because earlier
in the season he had command struggles, but they were
only letting him throw like four innings or whatever. They're
doing like the kind of like the Noah Schultz thing
with him at the beginning of the year. Now they're
letting him throw a little bit more, you're seeing pitch
counts get higher. Like last time out he threw eighty

(48:23):
six pitches. Two times before that eighty six, the time
before that eighty four. Right at the beginning of the season,
he was only throwing sixty pitches and they were like
yanking him after like fifty sixty pitches. Now they're letting
him throw into eighties, which is good. I think that
the Marlins, like Peter Bendix is a smart guy. I
think that the Marlins have watched and seen how some
of these guys who are getting too babied can never

(48:45):
build up right, and I think they're like, hey, let's
avoid that with Thomas White and like start building him
up now.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Well, And that's also you know, Thomas White, Robbie Snelling.
Those are the reasons why this team is even more
comfortable that they end up moving an out Contra or
a Cabrera probably also assuming when they up making one
of those moves, they're probably going to get another future
starter coming back. So it's like, if this team in
a year or so, if the rotation looks like like

(49:11):
I personally, I mean, we has a recording this the
trade deadline isn't done or anything. But like Sandy to
Boston makes sense. Boston's got tons of riching pre pitching prospects.
You know, let's just in an arguable sense, say they
get one of those guys, one of those guys White Snelling,
maybe Noble Meyer ends up working out like you're building
yourself like a pre and that's not even counting like
Max Meyer, you know, who will hopefully be back next year.

(49:33):
So it's like they've built around these really great guys.
And you know, I was looking at what you were
saying in that world of graduations, like if I if
I assume Burn's Painter, Bubblic Chandler, if I assume these
guys graduate, also you take Rokie out like I think
Thomas White's in conversation for the top pitching prospects. I

(49:55):
don't know when you said that, where you assuming all
of those guys that I just listed off are in
graduation or do you think like you're not even concerned
with Bubba Chandler or Rokie At this point, it's clearly Thomas.

Speaker 5 (50:06):
White, I'm not even concerned about Bubba Chandler or Rokie.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
Thomas White. Sierra has a two eighteen Sierra in the miners.
This year. He's just been phenomenal.

Speaker 5 (50:17):
I mean, and he has no platoon issues either, like
lefties right like two fourteen Sierra against righty's two thirty
four against lefties, so it doesn't matter even though he's
lefty pitcher.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
He gets everybody out.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
A couple of the Double A guys that I picked
out here, Cal Stefan with the Toronto Blue Jays is
pretty ridiculous, just moved up to Double A. Has a
two point zero six ERA on their ninety nine strikeouts
sub one whip a nine to one record too, which
like what do we care about records in the minor leagues,
but just want to point out like he's pitching to wins,

(50:50):
has eighteen total walks in ninety one innings. He has
been a demon this season. And then the other one,
I'm just gonna throw them both out here for time,
per purposes is Ryan Clifford, who Ryan Clifford's a tough
one because we've, you know, we've seen like the stuff.
Ryan Clifford has got the stuff, but he has not
had any consistency. But all the sudden things have started

(51:14):
to turn. He's hitting two forty eight twenty one homers.
He's in double A right now, and he's done a
ton of it as of recent as well. That's been
kind of one of the big changes here pulling this up.
I think it's been over the last month. I think
he's gone ballistic. So in Junie hit two forty seven,
July he hit two sixty eight, so it's not necessarily ballistic,

(51:35):
but thirteen homers over those last two months, that's the
big that's the big thing for a focal point here,
because by the way, May fifteenth he was hitting two seventeen,
so he has raised that average up. We've seen some
pretty big power numbers. He's pushing over twenty legitimate shod
at having thirty homers as a twenty two year old
in double A, and I vega someone we got to

(51:58):
kind of repay attention to where there's a bit a
lot of concerns just overall in his game. Ryan Clifford
and cal Stefan, where do you have these guys and
do you think these guys are appropriate rank risers?

Speaker 3 (52:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (52:13):
I think so.

Speaker 5 (52:13):
Ryan Clifford made my my prospect article on Fantasy Pros
this week. I think that with him, like I've had
him hovering around like the top one fifties. So he's
like in and out of my rankings every time I
update it, Like in the one forty one fifty one
sixty range, I forget probably like yeah, yeah, I do
one fifty. I'm special. But that's so I like have

(52:39):
him kind of hovering right around that spot. I think that, uh,
he's probably in it this next time. It's just with him.
He's he's one of these guys. It's gonna be like
three true outcomes, right, So like when you look at
his future, he's never going to be a batting average guy.
You're just gonna have to eat that. It's like, what's
his potential maybe like Reys Hoskins is like his commit

(53:00):
potential outcome like to Hopkins.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (53:03):
And then as far as Steve Stephen, I like him
a lot. I tried to catch him earlier this year.
I've seen the Blue Jays like three or four times
this year and didn't get to see any of their
good pitchers except for Johnny King.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (53:13):
But cal Stephen uh six pitches, and four of his
six pitches have over a fifteen percent swing strike rate
this year, so you know, you could say four plus
pitches out of six pitch mix. So pretty interesting pitch
mix with this guy. He's not a velo guy. He's
more just like the kitchen sink slash good breaker approach,

(53:37):
which is pretty interesting.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
But I like him. I mean he's running really good
strike at rates.

Speaker 5 (53:42):
CSW has been ridiculous all year, swinging strike rates high
on four pitches.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
So I'm in on him for sure.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Top one hundred, Nah, probably not.

Speaker 4 (53:56):
I would say he's in.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
I would say that he'll be in my top one fifty,
but definitely not top one hundred. And last time, I
actually went back and counted how many pictures I had
in my top one hundred, and he was like twenty four.
So like a core of my top one hundred is
his starting pitchers.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
I did rub off on you didn't, I yeah you did.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
You did meet me ego.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
But I'd say he's probably like top one thirty, like
in the one like one thirty one twenty five range,
But I doubt he's top one hundred.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
You know, it's funny.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
I'm looking at my ranks the last update, he's literally
one fifty, Like he's one fifty right now. So you know,
with this move, this double a move, I think it's huge.
He's probably in the next update, going to be sitting
in the one twenty ish range, not in general vicinity.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
So those are some double A guys.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Let's move down to high A names for targets. You
had two here, Jefferson Rojas and Connor Eaton. So let's
hear some breakdowns on both of these guys and where
they've moved for you.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (54:58):
So, Jefferson Rojas is a guy that actually used to
be in my like top one twenty range. I think
I had him like right outside of the top one hundred,
and then last year he didn't really do too much.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
He had a pretty rough year.

Speaker 5 (55:10):
I mean, like from a power standpoint, he hit two
sixty five, but it's like, okay, whatever.

Speaker 4 (55:14):
Uh seven bombs only or now that's the year before.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
Sorry, but only last year only six bombs two forty
five was his batting average, only six homers, And I
was like, I don't know if this guy's ever going
to come into power. And then right when I think that, hey,
I might be done with this guy. This year he's
in double A. Now he just got promoted to double
A from HIA as a twenty year old. So he's
twenty in double A. Really good eleven home runs in

(55:38):
sixteen steals on the season, so he has five more
home runs than he had all of last year. The
previous two years he only had thirteen home runs and
he's already at eleven. So I think that he's coming
around a bit. And this might be like kind of
a Cold Young situation where like a lot of people
are like, ah, you know, Cole Young, we got to
give a little bit of a break too, because his
power numbers are not the greatest, but he's also been

(56:00):
super young for every level. So I think this might
be one of those situations because I mean, he is
twenty years old at double A, and he is a shortstop,
you know, a middle infielder.

Speaker 4 (56:09):
He's not.

Speaker 5 (56:09):
It's not like as Samuel Bisaiyo coming in as like
a corner type guy with massive power at twenty years old.
But I think Jefferson Rojas is finally starting to develop,
and some of these things we saw a couple of
years ago when people started taking note of him are
coming into effect. Like last week he had four home
runs or was that maybe two weeks ago? It was
for four home runs, and his walk rate is kind

(56:29):
of right there with the k rate is not quite
jj Weatherholt, but he's got like a thirteen percent walk
grate roughly against a fifteen percent k rate, So he's
pretty close on the walk to krate aspect that I
like to see, especially from young guys at that level.
So it shows that he does have an advanced plate approach,
especially when you consider the aged level here for Rojas.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Yeah, he's been one of those guys too. That god
you remember the you remember the selling point of him
like two years ago, it was just like watch out.
He is everything. Kind of a tapered back a little bit,
but he is on the high rise. What about Connor
Eaton though, picture with the Rockies little age to level
twenty two is a Rockies pitcher too, by the way,
in high A.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
But some pretty good results this year. What put him
on the list for you?

Speaker 5 (57:12):
Yeah, just really good swing and miss stuff. He has
a ninety four to ninety seven mile an hour fastball,
He's got a nice breaker. There's actually there's actually talk
preseason that his pitches are so good that they might
just put him in the bullpen, kind of like how
they did with Halverson and be like, Okay, his stuff

(57:35):
is like his his fastball breaker combo are so good
his slider fastball that we can just throw him in
the pen now. Like his slider he throws eighty six
to eighty nine miles an hour, which you know, if
you pay attention to like what Eno says. Eno is
always talking about, you want your slider to be eighty
five or higher. If it slider's eighty five miles an
hour or higher velocity, then it's gonna play really well.

(57:56):
And he's throwing that from a three quarters arm slot.
But eating Like every week when I'm writing my Fantasy
Pros article of like the top guys top pictures of
the week, he seems to be on this list, like
the last month and a half, He's been on my
list every single week. Like this guy has just been
really really good, really consistently, Like for instance, June twentieth,

(58:17):
eleven strikeouts, zero walks, June twenty seventh, eleven strikeouts, one walk,
July third, eight strikeouts, two walks, July ninth, eight strikeouts,
one walk. He had one little hiccup on July eighteenth,
four strikeouts, two walks, and then last time about nine strikeouts,
one walk. So you can see here five really really
good starts out of his last six, so I think
he's just figuring it out and tons of case to boot.

(58:40):
So I'm kind of in on Connor Eaton right now. Yeah,
it's a Rockies.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
So hard to be on Rockies pictures though, dude.

Speaker 4 (58:47):
Yeah it is, it is.

Speaker 5 (58:48):
I was joking the other day about Sean Sullivan and
I'm just like, look, Sullivan is doing Sullivan things again,
just like we talked about him a bunch last year.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
Just you know, he's got like.

Speaker 5 (58:57):
A point eight eight whip on the season and it's
you know, you watch what house Dolander has struggled there,
and it's just what he like, what do you want
to do with these Rockies guys. It's like one of
them is gonna play, one of the one of these
guys is gonna hit.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
I promise, well you hope, we hope.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
I don't have a Rockies pitcher in my top one fifty.
Brody Wreckt is like right there. Sullivan's interesting, But I
mean I think Dolan, I think Dolander has got stuff
stuff and it just does not play. And I think
Colorado ruins him and it's it's brutal, so but but
I think the speculation is fun. It's really interesting on
the relief market too. I think the Rockies just traded
Kinley today, so you never know what they're gonna end

(59:35):
up pushing with some of their guys.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
I mean, Gabriel Hughes.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Though used to be huge, Uh, the guy throughout here
at Hya, I was the guy was just traded. Uh,
Jadeer Aernamo and I think actually he's going to Double A,
so uh and maybe I had missed it. Now, Yeah,
he had been at high A this entire season, but
he's listed on the Double A, so it looks like the.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Rays are going to move him up. So it's kind
of cheating.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
But he hasn't played a game at Double A, so
I'm not going to take the cheat here.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
But really interesting, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
He's got a funky swing, makes a bunch of contact.
Never hit under two seventy five in his minor league career,
hitting two ninety seven this year eleven. Homer's fifteen stolen bases,
always able to steal some bases. Got a decent propensity
for power. I don't know if it's gonna quite hold.
He's a little bit of a smaller guy, but and

(01:00:21):
the swing, that's the other thing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Like size.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Size doesn't matter necessarily in baseball especially, but he's got
this like you just get vibes of like when you're
trying to describe it like Craig council Lee type of
It's not like that, but it's just his funky swing
that my main point is like getting on top of
stuff and maybe hitting more across your body. I feel
like he's gonna be more of a doubles hitter. But

(01:00:45):
the thing I just really like about him is a
high ability for contact with that power speed combination. So
I think he's like a super sneaky guy. It's a
super sneaky uh get in the trade market as well,
but the brewers are they're kind of flush. They're kind
of flush, dude, so I think they were able to
do it. But to me, this was like a really good,
really good trade for the race. I don't know if
you have any thoughts on Jeddie here.

Speaker 5 (01:01:08):
Yeah, he just reminds me. He's kind of like the
Thomas A. Jay Z type profile. You can play kind
of all over the diamond, good hit tool, really good
contact rates, some power or some speed.

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
This is like a little bit of everything. So it's like,
what are you gonna get here.

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
Is he gonna be, is he gonna start or he
is gonna be the super sub type guy with the Rays.
Probably he's just gonna be moving around the diamond, which
is good because guess what if you have Camin Arrow
and eventually Carson Williams is short and you know, I
don't know if they're gonna re sign Lau or whatever,
but you're gonna need someone to rest. And the Rays
are kind of a platoony organization anyway. So even being

(01:01:44):
that super sub type guy, the Rays are the ones
who made that popular. Ben Zoebrist was a Ray and
he was like the og of those types of guys.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
And also, like to your point, maybe what version is he?
Is he a platinity type of player, a regular or
a stud? I don't think he's a stud, but can
he get to some version of us a jay z
or a oh god, who is the I just had
a really good one.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
I just completely lost who it was.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
But that type of like platoon player that tries to
get regular playing time, Like I think that's oh, Nacho Alvarez,
like he's got more counting stats, but like the Nacho type.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
Of guy, Like that's probably the level.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
But he's super interesting where he's at right now and
twenty one years old, you know, so he's gonna play
the rest of this year at twenty one. So I
think that's why we pick him. This is probably the
super fun range of going to the A ball guys,
Johnny King. Had you not done it, I would have
put these guys on here. So let's just start and
we won't well because you've got two hitters, and then

(01:02:44):
I'll throw my gun in here. But let's talk about
Johnny King, absolute stand out in complex ball, moved up
to A ball. He is one of the big and
obviously like complex level players and as they succeed and
move up, they become some of the highest risers overall.
And I would say this list of players, these four
guys we're going to talk about, are probably four of

(01:03:07):
the highest risers. The only difference is one of the
hitters was already high. But talk to us about Johnny
King because he has been showing out in complex ball
and we're up at ay now.

Speaker 5 (01:03:17):
Yeah, he's a dude I've seen in person, so I
actually caught his A ball debut in Jupiter and fastball
slider are legit and the dude is also super athletic,
Like he's pretty. He's pretty ripped and like lean and
like pretty muscular for his age. A lot of guys
his age are like really skinny, like I saw Dason

(01:03:38):
Hill earlier this year, and dude was like really super skinny,
because you know they're kids, right, But King is pretty
ripped for a kid. But he was thrown from the
left side ninety four to ninety six miles an hour.
He's got seventeen inches of run on that for IVB
on the fastball and the slider.

Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
The slider is sick. I'm just gonna like the other pitches.

Speaker 5 (01:04:04):
He wasn't really throwing so much and he only lasted
four innings when I saw him, but he had seven
k's in this in the viewing that I had of
him and his debut, and was he was giving guys fits.
And the Cardinals team has a lot of like older
guys too, so it wasn't all just like guys who
had just been promoted from rookie ball or whatever. Besides
Ronyelle Rodriguez, pretty much all the guys on that Cardinals

(01:04:26):
team are like twenty two like some of our older guys,
like twenty two to twenty three, and they were having
problems with King.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
So I'm a fan. I think he's a dude for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Did he make your top one fifty or it will
if he did not? Will he make the next one?

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
Yes? To both?

Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
He will.

Speaker 5 (01:04:45):
He was not last time around, but he will be
in the next top one fifty.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
Yeah, he's floating in that range.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
For me, that because there's quite a lot there's a
proximity thing that's going on with a lot of pitchers
that are between like let's call it, like my one
twenty five and two hundred, and then you know you're
trying to find the you know, the guys that are
pushing so much high upside because there's there's so much
volatility in pitching in general.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
But he is like a big high riser. The two
hitters that you picked.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
We we've done a decent amount about Reino Rodriguez. I
definitely want to get your takes on him because I
know that you've seen him, but probably nobody hotter than
Edward Florentino, who you've probably talked about on your pod.
I've talked a decent amount on my podcast, just absolutely
going ballistic from complex to a ball video game type
of numbers. He's also a big bodied guy projectability through

(01:05:38):
the frickin roof. So maybe give give us a maybe
an update on the high ranking of Rodriguez, and then
what what you're seeing or where you're moving Florentino.

Speaker 5 (01:05:48):
All right, I'll start with Rodriguez here, because I've seen
him a bunch. When he first got to a ball,
he struggled, like I've seen him I think four or
five times now. First couple times I saw him, he
looked rough, and I was just like, I don't know
if this contact. Like I had him ranked in like
eighty nine or something like that, and the first couple
of times I saw him, I was like, oh, I

(01:06:09):
may have to move him down. I was like, this
is a little rough, Like the hit tool does not
look like you know, it's going to be good, and
he's not keeping up with the pitchers here, and I
was just like, maybe some of the statistics that we
saw are just driven by hitting against bad pitching. Right,
But the last couple of times I've seen him just
a beast. I got a home run and I threw

(01:06:30):
it on X or whatever. When I got it, I
was sitting right behind home plate and I called it.
I like this, there's a guy next to me, a
scout next to me, and I was like, he's going
to hit a home run here, and boom hits he
first pitch, a monster blast. He like drew in the box,
He like drew his little spot in the box with
the bat comes right up and that is the furthest
hit home run that I have ever seen in the stadium.

(01:06:50):
I've been going to games here for three years. I
have never seen a minor leaguer hit a ball that far.
The only time I've seen someone hit it that far
was when Jazz did it in spring training. I have
never seen a minor league hit the ball that far.
And he did it again the other day, just another
monster shot. So this guy's power is unreal, it's insane.

(01:07:10):
If he can figure out the hit tool, then he's
going to be a beast. I don't think he's going
to be a catcher. The Cardinals have a lot of catchers,
so I don't think he's gonna be a catcher long term.
That's what I'm hoping as your left fielder. But that's
that's what I would say.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
For where do you have him?

Speaker 5 (01:07:25):
I had him at eighty nine, I'm probably gonna have
him still around that range like in the eighties. Maybe
maybe I bumped into high seventies just because I do
have concerns about the hit tool, but he did. He
has looked significantly better, and the plate approach has been
way not even just the hit tool. There is swinging
miss there, but the plate approach itself has made significant strides.

(01:07:47):
Within Like the last month of me seeing him, I.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Got him slightly a little bit higher.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
And one of the interesting things I found myself doing
is I'm really sighting on extremes.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Give me extreme.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
High hit tool that lacks power but has some maybe projectability,
and give me extreme power guys that need to fix
some stuff in the hit tool.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
And it's just like I feel like, if you are
so high.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
Level elite in that and in a certain category of hitting,
like you know, again there's pure raw, crazy big power
that needs refinement, or guys that have insane plate discipline,
great ability for contact and they need to make that adjustment.
I feel like those are things that I like, I
hone in on, Like obviously we like middle ground guys,
but that's why I like him. I've got him slightly

(01:08:34):
higher than you. But Florentino Florentino is the super fun
one right now. Again, as I mentioned video game type numbers,
also video game type projectability too. Like you're talking about
an eighteen year old kid who's six foot four, two
hundred pounds, thirteen homers, twenty three stolen bases, three four,

(01:08:54):
three four five almost a three four six slash so far,
he's done through two levels and he's holding his own.
He has more homers in a ball than rookie ball
the exact same amount of games. The only difference has
been his batting average strikeouts. Those have like you know,
strike out a little bit more, batting average down a
little bit, but he's still hitting like essentially two eighty

(01:09:15):
in a ball. So is Florentino a top one hundred prospect?
And what is your take on him?

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
Easy?

Speaker 4 (01:09:22):
Uh? For me, he is easy.

Speaker 5 (01:09:25):
And this is one of the questions that I've been
thrown out to people, is should Florentino be ranked around
or ahead of a Jesus Made or a Luis Pana
at this point in time? Because Florentino at a ball
has an eighty four percent contact rate and an almost
ninety percent zone contact rate, So not only is their

(01:09:45):
power and not only is their speed, but there is
a plus hit tool here. For Florentino, the only concern
I have for him Welsh is against lefties, because against
varieties he's hitting three hundred four to thirty one six
fifty with seven bobs. Lefties he's hitting two to eight
with zero home runs in a forty percent k rate.
So right now, my only concern with him is the splits.

(01:10:08):
You just get a rock by lefties. But overall you
have a power speed guy with a plus hit tool,
and he is i think more home runs already at
a ball than made and he's only been there for
what a month or so since he was promoted from Complex,
So it's just really impressive what he's doing between hit,

(01:10:31):
power speed at that level.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Yeah, there's still a strikeout thing, though, I think it's
things around thirty percent, so I think that's probably the
thing that holds him back. Like at a ball, thirty
three strikeouts over one hundred and four at bats. So
you know, I'm not looking at this on fangraphs where
it gives me the percentage, but you know math can
tell me that we're under thirty three percent.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
We're over thirty percent.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
So I think at that level of strikeout, that type
of chase, there is some concern of like answering like
why would I not have him? You didn't ask me that,
but like why would we, you know, as a group
not have him as like a top twenty five or
be vying against Louis Pana or Hazers made.

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
I think that might be it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
There's a little bit more pop puppy in it. I
think he has checked so many boxes. But to me,
that's the type of guy that's like, all right, if
you want to be as high as top fifty on him,
I see it. I think you're you're better to be
a tiny bit more reserved. He's a no doubt top
one hundred just based on multi level production and stuff
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
But to move to that level yet, I.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Think that's part of it, Like you want to see
his strike ups come down, you know, other so he
doesn't become like the next Spencer Jones. Not saying that
that is happening at all. Those are elite contact rates,
but that would probably be the one whart where you're like, okay,
let's see that paper back down because the strike up
went up at a from rookie ball. So if he
gets that down to sub twenty five and he continues

(01:11:57):
doing everything here, yeah, then you're just talking about it, dude.
And he may and people may want to rank him
accordingly to that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:03):
Right now, I don't. I don't think there's any harm.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
In doing that. Like he is the rocket ship, that
would be my nickname. He's the rocket ship right now
because that is where he's flowing. But you're always I
think you want to look for what the warts are
on guys like these so you can properly put it together,
and then when a player kind of defies all of it, that's.

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
Where you're like, Okay, this is otherworldly.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
That's why Mahdi, that's why Paina takes that boost up
as well.

Speaker 5 (01:12:27):
I'm going to fight you back on that a little
bit even because guess what, his chase rate is only
twenty point eight percent and his swinging strike rate is
eight point nine So even though he has a and
his swing strike rate at a ball is only six percent,
So even though he has a twenty five point six
percent strike rate, yeah, strike got rate at a ball,
I think that that's probably inflated. There's probably just some

(01:12:50):
bad umpiring or something going there, because his chase rate
and his swing strike rate are also very very good,
and his batted ball profile is insane because he has
a fifty one percent fly ball rate and a fifty
one percent poll rate, so his air fly ball rate.

Speaker 4 (01:13:06):
Is just ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (01:13:07):
So like so like, yeah, I like, I like honestly,
I might have him ahead of Made in my next rankings.
That's how much I'm on board on this Florentino rocket
ship here.

Speaker 3 (01:13:16):
But I think that's cool, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
And yeah, by the way, I'm not is the math
not mathing to me here? I guess the five strikeouts
are the five at bad differences making because I'm looking
here and I'm like, what is the math not mathing
to me?

Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
It's twenty five percent at.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
A but thirty three strikeouts over one oh four that
must not that must be enough in my brain that
I'm missing that it goes down to twenty five the
calculator out here. But regardless, Fangrafts has got a twenty
five point six percent, which that actually is not as
bad that I was just doing in my head taking
a look at that. But I still think it is
something you need to pay attention to for a rising

(01:13:52):
strikeout rate up to a ball. But there are so
many factors. That's not the difference between me being like
he can't be a top one hundred. It's difference between
me saying he is one of the most top fifteen
thost valuable prospects in baseball by doing it in complex
and a ball. But that's also the passiveness and that
doesn't exist necessarily in fantasy sometimes. But I think where
that comes into play is just someone's like, hey, yo,

(01:14:14):
I was offered Arginnamala my ed for my Edward Florentino.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
Should I do it? And that's where I'm like, I'm
gonna take Namala at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Might be I might be wrong about that, but I
think it's in trade valuations or how should I evaluate
trading a way if someone's trying to get Florentino.

Speaker 3 (01:14:34):
Those those rocket ship guys.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
Also, you should hold onto a little bit tighter, like
you should find your placement. Maybe you love Tim's rank,
or you love I don't have no idea where anybody
else has. Maybe you're like, all right, I'm gonna take
the median between Welsh Clegg and Tim, and let's just
for argument's sake, say that Median is fifty.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Okay, cool, he's a top fifty.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Guy in trade, you should almost double that when they
are this hot, So you should treat him like he
is a top twenty five. So in what you acquire,
if someone's like, well I got off for Jet Williams
and you have Jet Williams high or whatever, we'd be like, no,
that's like it's an algorithm of trade how you should

(01:15:13):
approach evaluations or whatever. But I like it be the
Florentino guy because he's ridiculous right now.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
Like I said, video game comical at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:15:23):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
The other the player I wanted to throw out was
Kendrick Churio with the Kansas City Royals because he got
called up to a ball. Want to point this out.
He was called up from the Dominican Summer League to
complex ball like a month ago. I watched him pitch.
It's ridiculous, absolute elite level stuff. I put in it

(01:15:45):
bat out there where he was against Chin hin Coe
if I said that correctly, which I probably sound a
good pretty pretty close, and Co is a dude that
was hitting close to four hundred and comp lex ball
in a big bodied guy great contact, and dude, the
sequencing that Churio did in this complex level game was

(01:16:08):
so silly to me.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
Where he was he was pumping fastballs, he pumped off.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
Speed early, which he could throw for strikes. He hit
a couple fastballs on the outside, couple foul offs, and
then he just dropped what I think might be a
seventy grade curveball just in the zone. Code could literally
was standing there doing nothing. Struck him out. And at
the end of the day, the point of this is,
this is a seventeen year old pitcher who has got

(01:16:37):
to be one of the youngest in the league in
a to triple A ball right now, who is being
pushed up.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
They could have kept him. He just got here.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
They're doing Bridge League. He could have sat here and
played with all the draft picks for a month. No,
they pushed him up to a ball, did he I
think he is a rocket ship pitcher right now, projectable body,
could command and three to four pitches. I love Kendrey Cheerio.
I think he's a dog after seeing him and I

(01:17:07):
have been doing some high right. You can only do
so much high rising, I think on complex level of pictures.
But I'm very excited to see what he does in
a ball and I think this is a dude we're
going to be talking about a lot of people are
going to be talking about soon.

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
I don't know if you had thoughts in on Churio.

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:17:22):
I have had two starting pitchers that I've put for
in Complex league that have had that have made my
Fantasy Pros article for Players of the Week or whatever
the whole year. The only two are Johnny King and
Kendrey Chorio, and I think both of them made multiple appearances.

Speaker 4 (01:17:40):
Kendri Chorio has a few times.

Speaker 5 (01:17:42):
Now and what I wrote about him is a seventeen
year old who throws ninety six miles an hour. I
don't care if he's DSL. I don't care if he's complex.
This guy has the stuff to make it work. So
and you so, so you know better than I since
I haven't even gotten live eyes on him, but I'm

(01:18:05):
a fan.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
As we all should be.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
I got a little bit of video out I only
put like the small sequencing, but I have the full
at bat I should probably put somewhere, which is just
a really really good testament to the type of picture
he is really repeatable, delivery, just.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
I'm very, very enamored with him.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
Final is some DSL guys, and I think we both
picked two hot names here. Edgar Montero is your pick
and I got Chris Rodriguez from the Tigers. Let's hear
about Montero and why he's moving.

Speaker 3 (01:18:34):
Up for you.

Speaker 5 (01:18:35):
Yeah, so DSL, I've had only like three guys make
my weekly list all year, and Montero has made it,
I think like three times. This is his second time
at DSL, so just keep that in mind. But he
has a twenty five point seven percent walk rate and
a twenty percent k rate, so he's walking a ridiculous amount,
walking more than he's king. It is kind of like

(01:18:57):
an Emmanuel Rodriguez profile when you look at it, when
you think about it that way at shortstop, but he's
a switch hitting shortstop and he's an athletic, and the athletics,
I feel like, are gold right now in the miners,
Like it's it's hilarious. Like a year and a half ago,
everyone was just talking crap about the organization, saying they're
the worst, they can't develop anyone, and now it's like
the count, it's like the complete opposite. You've got Nick Kurtz.

(01:19:18):
You've got Jacob Wilson, You've got Mason Miller, You've got
a few successes that roll in and all of a
sudden you're like, WHOA.

Speaker 4 (01:19:23):
The Athletics are like the smart team.

Speaker 5 (01:19:25):
Now they're the they're the you know, the ones that
you want to be on their side. But he is
a one to eighty seven WRC plus with nine bombs
and seven steals in the DSL. He's an eighteen year
old and like I said, he repeat, He did repeat,
so it wouldn't surprise me. Even though it's kind of
rare to see a guy skip complex, there is no
more complex this year, so you know, he should, you know,

(01:19:46):
be in their Bridge League if not making.

Speaker 4 (01:19:49):
A ball at some point this year.

Speaker 5 (01:19:50):
Since it is his second turn in DSL, and since
he is eighteen, I would predict. But I like Edgar
Montero a lot, probably my favorite most consistent player throughout
the DSL this year.

Speaker 3 (01:20:01):
I'm exed.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
I hope he can sent over here too, because the
A's they've got some dudes, so they should, especially with
the repeating. I think Chris Rodriguez has got to be
back on the raider of seventeen year old outfielder with
the Tigers. I believe he was originally signed as like
a catcher but moved into the outfield.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
Big body guy, six foot.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Three, two hundred and seven homers, ten stolen bases, three
twenty one average so far in the DSL. Not a
big walk guy, So that's gonna the transition from the
DSL to rookie ball actually might be okay. And I
wonder if they're gonna baby it, like if they even
send him to Bridge League and he starts in Complex
next year, or does he go to Bridge here and

(01:20:38):
then maybe he jumps to High A. He's performing at
a really high level. He's got some big, big big stuff,
and I think he's a high rising guy that I
think it's pretty critical to see what he does on
state sideball here. But Chris Rodriguez is another one of
those big movers for me in the DSL. And friends,
we covered the whole gambit from DSL to Triple A,

(01:20:58):
some hot names moving up ranks, all that fun stuff
with Tim Kannak Fantasy Baseball Podcast, Tim, What do you
got going on right now? We're kind of tapering back
down into the sea obviously, trade deadlines here kind of
a flurry's gonna happen. But you know things, minor league
season's got, you know, roughly a month or so that's
going on.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
So what do you got going down?

Speaker 5 (01:21:16):
I've just got my regular podcast going where I'm doing
my ten Top Players of the week, the T ten
this year. Uh, coming on the Fantasy ace Ball podcast.
I've got my weekly article on Fantasy pros so you
can check out who's hot. And I should have my
rankings update coming mid months sometime. I do have baby
number five on the way, so we'll see.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
A lot about that. You told me about that mine. Yeah,
you just started. You got your full rotation though, locked up,
I do.

Speaker 5 (01:21:44):
I've got the basketball team, even though some of our girls,
so I'm gonna have the basketball team though, I'm gonna
have the hockey school. Actually, you know what hockey, you
still have the goaltender, so I need one more for
for hockey.

Speaker 4 (01:21:54):
Everyone forgets about the goaltender.

Speaker 3 (01:21:56):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:21:57):
But yeah, number five on the way and it's gonna
be five under five.

Speaker 4 (01:22:01):
So that's crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:22:02):
And I don't get time off because I own my
own business, so I don't have a choice. I don't
get the corporate time off that daddies are getting nowadays.

Speaker 4 (01:22:09):
Not for me.

Speaker 5 (01:22:10):
I'm working like two minutes after baby is born, so uh,
maybe I'll get some time to do some of the
updates from the hospital while I'm well, while the baby
is cooing or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
You're gonna be the best next year at games too,
just like I have like three kids with you trying
to scout, you know, Ronnie Rodriget like it's it's pretty phenomenal.

Speaker 4 (01:22:29):
So yeah, I already do I post.

Speaker 3 (01:22:30):
I know you like all the kids.

Speaker 5 (01:22:32):
I'm like, hey, this is my scouting here. I got
like three kids, three four kids on me. I'm like,
this is what's up?

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
You're like, my scouting starts with buying nachos and skittles
and hot dogs, and then I get twenty minutes at
least of no talking to get some video. But check
it out Fantasy ase Ball podcast Fantasy ase Ball on Twitter.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
Make sure you do that. Tim appreciate it, and we'll
have you back soon.

Speaker 4 (01:22:54):
Yep, for sure, And.

Speaker 3 (01:22:55):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
Thanks to Tim for joining me on the podcast. And
god knows what tree have happened by the time I
got this edited and posted. As I keep scouring and
looking and Sammy staffer is out there.

Speaker 3 (01:23:06):
What is going on?

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
I don't know, But while you guys are weighing through
all the chaos, make sure you go check my friend
Dennis Sidler at sidsgrafs out today where he did signing
with will You're or bray you recently, which is pretty awesome.
Louis Payania. You want to talk about top prospects, Dennis
always has guys at the tippy top of the prospect ranks. Well,
you're looking for Louis Paenia stuff. Dennis has got you

(01:23:28):
because he just did a private signing with one of
his exclusive clients and Louis payniss, So go and.

Speaker 3 (01:23:32):
Check that out.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
So major Leaguers, Top prospect sidsgrafs on the social, sidsgrafs
on eBay and the website, go and check it out today.
And I'm going to see Dennis in a couple of weeks.
So that's gonna be great talk talk shop talk all
the craziness out there. So looking forward to that. Thank
you guys for hanging out. Thank you to Tim for
doing the pod, Thank you to you for doing the
Hanging Prospect update.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
Especially with the trade.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Deadline, I am shooting for a much earlier update in
August also because football ramps up in my work at Fantasy,
so just be on the lookout for that if you're
signing up.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
We're no longer in.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
A world where like it used to be, like it's
beneficial to wait till the beginning of the month. That's
just when you sign up, is when you're you know,
your charges go through or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
So it just doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
So sign up when you want first doesn't necessarily matter
unless you're grandfathered into it. But just letting you know
that probably within the first week, we're gonna have that
big major update, and I am looking to try to
set up as well. It's gonna be really difficult, like
I said, with football and everything going on, but I
kind of want to do a P one ADP now

(01:24:35):
in the first week or two in August, maybe the
second week, and then we would shoot to do another
one after the Arizona Fall League, so because I would
do like you know, I would do one that was
after the season, and then then if I didn't do
one in between, we would wait all the way to
the beginning of the season. So the goal is doing
like a March one or late February, doing I think

(01:24:59):
one around July or August and then doing one around
like November December, Like I think that's like a good
reign of doing them. So just be on the lookout
if you want to take part or if you're thinking
what's going on this next month? More first year player
draft information, Bridge League and potential P one ADP data
that's going to be out there so much fun.

Speaker 3 (01:25:18):
Thanks as always following me on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
Is it the well, you guys have a fantastic one
and we will talk to you next time right here
on Prospect one
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