Episode 30: The Rook Is Back!

The Rook comes off the developmental list to get back to some mud as he and Nate talk about more observations from their B-Side looks, check in on some prospects trending in dynasty leagues, and take a look forward at this week's interesting minor league watches. Some players discussed include: Jackson Holliday, Gavin Conticello, Will Simpson, Henry Bolte, Brooks Baldwin, Edgar Quero, Luke Gold, Trevor Werner, Yoyner Fajardo, Mark Coley, Brant Hurter, Reid VanScoter, Carson Palmquist, Trystan Vrieling, Owen Wild, Ben Kudrna, A.J. Blubaugh, Jaden Hamm, Jackson Ferris, Adam Serwinoski, Hayden Mullins, Lazaro Estrada, Michael Darrell-Hicks, Yujanyer Herrera, Joey Loperfido, Jarel Perez, Jose Fernandez, Reynaldo Yean, and others.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Ninety five miles an hour, ridingto his head. He hopping down first
with the lumpbonius face, and onthe very next pitch he up and stole
second face with gretest speed. Hewasn't born, he had yes uniform.

(00:28):
Episode thirty of the Prospect B Sidespodcast, he is, what are you
going by today? It's rook RelYeah, And obviously it's Rookrow Yeah,
and I am Nate Handy. Welcometo the muddiest prospect podcast out there,
and the mud is piling up quitethick. I'm getting quite overwhelmed watching a

(00:51):
lot of minor league baseball, tryingto pick out what to talk about,
who might be most interesting for ourdynasty leagues. Welcome back still last week.
Thank you. Oh it's great tobe back. Yeah, it was
lonely over here, you know,as a return to your roots, you
back to the original podcast format.My roots have no friends. But I

(01:12):
feel like the season, the minorleague season is like really honest now,
Matt, because I kind of completedmy first sort of like OCD video experiment,
slash project. I don't know ifyou saw, but I was crazy
enough to cut up and put togetherBrooks Baldwin's forty batted ball events on the

(01:34):
season. I saw that. Isaw that, or at least I saw
part of it, because I thinkyou split it up into a few different
videos, right, and I thinkI only saw like the first half or
something. Yeah, you can onlyput so many minute long videos on Twitter.
That's at pitching specs if you wantto follow along there, So I

(01:55):
had to split it up into likethree different posts. But I'm sure we'll
talk a little Brooks Baldwin. He'sone of a handful of bats I've been
tuning into quite a bit. ButI wanted to give you some kudos on
an article that you wrote last weekabout Jackson Holliday. Gave that area that
was once again, very entertaining andsmarts, I think, and useful.

(02:17):
Well, it's the sort of storybehind my nom de plume today, it's
rook Rel, it's April. Mostof this stuff just doesn't matter, and
I mean, I can't help butdo it. I know that a lot
of our Dynasty Fantasy Baseball players fallinto this trap to two weeks of play

(02:38):
three weeks of play in and opinionsare all over the place. Aaron Judge
is no longer an elite fantasy asset. You know, Jackson Holiday can census
top five, top two, topone prospect in the game, he actually
stinks and sell them for anything youcan't. I mean, the takes are
so spicy and hot and mostly Ithink are just short sighted. And I

(03:04):
use Jackson Holliday's well publicized struggles ashe's come up to talk about a larger
point both about this is what prospectsdo when they come up to the biggs
leagues. It is tough. Havingan extended stretch of adjustment in the big
leagues is normal even for the veryvery tippy top of the prospects, let

(03:25):
alone the guys that are farther downthe prospect spectrum. I wanted people to
keep that in mind as we evaluatesome of these early games, and this
is especially true up and down theminor leagues. We have to keep reminding
ourselves this between Nate and me,as we look at guys, we're like,
oh, is this an exciting newstep forward or is this a hot

(03:46):
stretch? And as we've been beatingthe drum a lot lately, you should
change your opinion about guys pretty slowly. And what we try and do here
is highlight some of the ones thatmaybe we are changing our mind about a
little bit. And I know that'ssome of the things that I wanted to
touch on today with my guys.But looking back at how did the very

(04:10):
very best hitting prospects adjusted to themajor leagues? In this article, I
wrote, by and large like itwas hard for them. You know,
you have your Acunyas and Otani's andChris Bryants who hit the ground running like
they were among the best players inthe league right away, and of course
they weren't without their own ups anddowns early in their careers too. But
you've got Byron Buxton who had anegative eleven WRC plus in his first twenty

(04:33):
five played appearances, Vladgerer Junior fortyfive WRC plus, Julio Rodriguez just two
years ago, people forgot how badhis april was, and people were really
concerned. He was striking out allthe time and hitting the ball in the
ground all the time. Ran anegative five WRC plus. That's atrocious,

(04:53):
like worse than one hundred points offof big league average in terms of Wayverne's
created. So having a bad debutdoesn't tell you really anything. About their
future or what's going to happen downthe line. And while Jackson Holiday at
least of the recent you know,last ten or fifteen years that I looked
at, he's had the worst debutof any of them, But he's also

(05:15):
among the youngest, like he debutedat twenty and had among the least upper
miners plate appearances of any of theseguys. All that to say, like,
I'm still pretty sure he's going tobe a successful big leaguer, and
nothing about this tough stretch at thebig league level has changed that opinion.
As many of you know, Istill have questions about how much is he

(05:40):
going to contribute to your fantasy teams, especially in five by five or rot
leagues, because I just don't thinkhe's going to be a big stolen base
threat, and I think the poweris more below average to maybe average than
plus. But the guy is goingto have a good played approach, He's
gonna hit in a good lineup,and I think gonna play really good defense.

(06:00):
And so he's going to play allthe time once he gets established.
But let's just take a breath,Like if you thought that Jackson Holiday was
a really great prospect, two weeksago and you were clamoring for him to
be in Baltimore. This happens sometimesit shouldn't change your mind too too much
about about his prospects. And Ithink we just got to think about that

(06:20):
as we evaluate guys all up anddown the minor leagues too. So if
you hear me say it's April,it's two weeks or let's change our minds
on a guy slowly, that that'ssort of my continuing refrain for at least
the next couple of weeks. Ido not disagree, and I think that's
very well said, Matt. Doyou mind if we start off with a

(06:43):
couple of hitters that I've been watchinga lot of. Let's do it.
Who's been catching your eyes? You'vebeen flipping around the minor leagues. I
gotta say this very early two anda half weeks of minor league season,
and I think that I'm doing thisresponsibly, Matt. But my opinion of
my Diamondbacks B side selection this year, Gavin Conticello is getting more and more

(07:04):
hopeful. I think. I don'tknow if you think these ideas, these
thoughts might be responsible or not,But tuning into Hillsboro almost every night to
at least watch his at bats.And you know, we talked a lot
about his improvements hitting the ball outin front. I talked last week about
watching him put the best stroke I'veever seen him put on a ball and

(07:25):
go opposite field and hit a homerun. We talked about his sort of
lackluster and weak opposite field contact lastseason. Now I would say that that's
still a part of his game thatis developing, but I think stroking it
much better that way. Still turningon some stuff, and he's off to
a pretty nice start. Arguably hasbeen the best hitter in what's been a

(07:47):
tough hitting league thus far, theNorthwest League. I don't know. It's
still cold up this part of thecountry, and that's true. It's also
cold in the Midwest League, andthey have been hit bombs in the Midwest
League. Been watching a lot ofMidwest League bats this week too, and
it's been kind of fun and exciting. But yeah, I don't know,
have you been tuning in to anythat so I have. I've seen a

(08:11):
good bit of him, you know, some of the good and some of
the i'd say early swings. Youcould chalk some of them up to one
thing that we liked about his swingwhen we looked at it this offseason was
he does a really good job ofclearing his arms away from his body,
And it was one of the reasonswhy we were a little bit bullish on

(08:31):
the power projection, Like we thought, you know, he's sort of a
skinny looking guy and tall, andhe was sort of the type that we
were like, Yeah, that swing, he's got some. He's using his
frame really well and building that leveragethat you can get from longer limbs,
and he is seeming like a lotof what he's doing is really good,

(08:54):
especially the strikeout rate improvements, Likethat's one that I look at and say,
No, he's striking out twenty percentof the time. That's pretty good
for our twenty one year old inHigh A. And there are as we've
noted some decent pictures in this league, and he's face He's faced some decent
ones, I would say, notthe best ones. I like, I
think we both agree that Spokane hassome pretty good arms and I think Tri

(09:16):
City has some sneaky quality High Aarms. I think he went up against
some decent arms this weekend and ndid well. Was Yeah, I think
he could have been on the shortlist for Northwest League Hitter of the Week.
He's walking twelve percent of the time. What's the what's he slashed in
three seventy three, four fifty eight, six twenty seven. I don't think

(09:37):
there's any doubt that he's been theirbest hitter so far. The other thing
you look at, too, iswhat's the kind of babup is he running?
And it's you know, high.It's four twenty nine, so you
expect that to drop at least onehundred points, maybe a little bit more,
but still that's a strong batting linerunning a high ISO. He's hitting
some balls hard, hitting the ballsover the fence. You know. He

(10:00):
had that one opposite field homer thatI thought was a little bit of an
excuse me, but he really gotinto a couple of the poll side homer
City hit. And it's looking likea pretty solid call on your part to
say, like this is a guywho might have some more upside, and
it'll be interesting to see how longthey keep him here in Hillsboro. I
wonder how much he's going to haveto do to get up to double A

(10:22):
and push there. I don't know. I don't think they're in any hurry,
but just we'll be interesting to seehow things settle out for him.
Yeah, in mind you he's ata level that he's probably a year young
for, you know, twenty twoyears old. College bad is probably you
know, mostly high A. It'swhere you start. But the whole point
being so far, so good,I think, and I think some of
our suspicions may not have been crazytalk, Matt. I think there might

(10:46):
there might be a budding bat inthis system here. You know. I'm
definitely going to keep watching some moreof Another guy who I've been watching a
lot of and been getting impressed with, is Will Simpson of the A's.
He's in Lansing, A. We'vebriefly talked about him a few times,
mostly just didn't know a whole lotabout him, I mean, other than

(11:07):
he's from that fantastic university up there, Washington Husky, but we won't hold
that against him. He had awhole nother He had a home run yesterday
that I don't think I watched.But he's definitely kind of a line drive
hitter all fields, happy to takea single at times, but it's showing
the ability to turn on it.I mean I think he hit eighteen home

(11:28):
runs his last season in Washington.But I don't know if I have anything
spicy to say other than guy lookslike he can hit it a little bit
and seeing some good swings, puton tough pitches, tough situations, and
just have been impressed. He's gottwo home runs on the season. He's
striking out twenty seven point nine percentof the time. Excuse me, he's

(11:50):
walking twenty seven point nine percent ofthe time, striking out twenty four point
six percent of the time. Slashfrom three, twenty six, five,
way, five thirty. What's hisbabbit? He's running a four forty four
babbit. So but now I willsay Matt unlike the next guy, I'll
talk about Brooks Baldwin. I startedcutting up Simpson's batted ball events as well.

(12:11):
I was going to do the samething with him, but I think
that video I stopped because there werea couple of games that just for whatever
reason, weren't broadcast or didn't startuntil halfway through, and I was like,
Man, if I'm gonna do this, I want to. I want
to do it one hundred percent.But I would think his cut up would
be full of a lot less sortof cheapies and lucky, luckier bass hits

(12:31):
and stuff than than Brooks. Baldwin'swas Take that for whatever it's worth.
But this isn't like a masher firstbase prospect. He also has been playing.
He has played some outfield. Idon't know if he's been playing any
outfield for Lansing not yet, No, but he is. There's a little
bit of athleticism to him. He'sstolen a couple of bases, I think,
right, yeah, he's got one, but he's been twice already.

(12:54):
Yeah, I don't not that.I'm not saying that I think stolen bases
will be like a part of hisgame, but just trying to paint the
picture. This is in that vulaba. We should be so lucky some stiff
that that can't. That is firstbase only. I don't know how exciting
his profile might get fantasy, butmaybe a high OBP guy who can hit
some home runs if it all goesswimmingly. I kind of got Simpson stamped

(13:16):
here as a guy that I thinkis probably going to climb up some organizational
list for the A's this year.Have you watched any Simpson You have any
thoughts on him or not so much. No, I haven't. I haven't
watched him. I think I sawhim a little bit in college, but
I do feel like he might bekind of up your alley, right yeah.
I mean I like a guy whocan take a walk and hits for

(13:37):
some power, and I think hedoes a little bit of that. You
know, that demographic of player reallyhas to bang for me to go to
bat for him though, right rightfirst baseman in college, like you,
you know, and he's so farkind of hitting the ground running was solid
last year and this year he's likerunning a one ninety WRC plus I think

(14:01):
so far so he's certainly hitting theground running. But as a right right
first baseman right out of college,like you kind of expect some of this,
and especially running an almost twenty fivek rate in hi A as a
college bat there, it's like that'slike fringy. You know, you want
to see more, i'd teck yeah, And I think too. Just he's
a guy that on video I thinkis probably a bit more enticing, just

(14:26):
because esthetically, I think his swingand some of the swings I've seen him
put on balls just kind of getsyour attention. A good looking stroke sometimes
on some tough pitches, tuning intohim by chance. I've been watching some
Henry Bolte there what was either asecond round prep pick a few drafts to
go. M h. I don'tknow if his stat line is super jumping

(14:46):
off the page at this juncture,but dude, he can hit the ball
hard. Man. On Tuesday nightthey were in there in Lake County,
there was a pretty strong wind.That's another thing with that league is it's
been been windy and cold. Thewind hasn't always been favorable the hitters,
but both he hit for the broadcastone hundred and ten mile per hour double

(15:07):
into a strong wind and then hadan opposite field home run into the wind
again later in the game. ButI know he's catching my eye a little
bit. Not a guy that Ihave paid much attention to, whatever that's
worth. And then Matt, mylooks at my looks hit Bolty have been
that he really doesn't get cheated.He when he swings, he swings hard,
and he's a strong kid, sohe misses the ball a lot,

(15:28):
but he also hits the ball hardwhen he hits it. Yeah, what's
his what's his k rate? Rightnow? I don't think it's forty five
percent and it's backed by a twentypercent swinging strike rate. Yeah, the
Matt Our Mutual White Sox b sidethat this year Brooks Baldwin is getting some
attention, which is beautiful, right, And that's what we were talking about,

(15:48):
That's what we were suspecting. Sowe want to see from our selections
here. But man, he hasgot quite the slash line going on,
does he not. He does eightytwo five point fifty one. That's that's
pretty good. What's the babbit onthat there? Matt presently checking in at
a four eighty seven babbit. Yeah. Like I mentioned, I cut up

(16:12):
all of his battered ball events andobviously no one's gonna run a five hundred
babbit, right, That is notsustainable. So there is definitely fair share
of soft contact and you know,questionable infield hits and maybe some pop ups
that should have been caught in theshallow a couple of those. Yeah,

(16:32):
but there's also some very well struckballs in there. But I don't know.
I just thought it would be interestingto see what that sort of line
looks like in the video, andat the first time I've done a little
project like that. But I haveto tell you, man, I don't
really know what to take away fromfrom that. Look. First point,
you are a gem for doing thatkind of thing, because I love that

(16:53):
being able to see back to backto back to back a bunch of plate
appearances in a row, because youget to you get the sense of what
does the shape of that batted ballproduction look like. I mean, we
can read the numbers and watch agame here and there, but seeing it
over and over and over again likethat, I think it does illuminate something
about the swing path, both theintentional approach at the plate. Like some

(17:17):
guys you'll see them, they reallyare a full spray guy. Like if
you chopped up somebody like Boba Schett, you would see that he hits the
ball to all fields all the timeand it's line drives, bloops, pulled
balls, but it is like he'sspraying everywhere. And then you chop up
somebody like Isak Pritis, who heis trying to elevate and celebrate down the

(17:41):
left field line. That's it.And I think that when watching Baldwin chopped
up like that, I noticed justhow many of his fly balls go to
the opposite field from especially from theleft hand side, especially from the left
hand side. Yep, Yes,And it was something that we had talked
a little little bit about that wewere a touch surprise that he ran such

(18:03):
a good babbeb last year and abouthalf the season was at A and half
the season was at high A lastyear and he ran a three eighty four
babbit at high A, and itwas sort of interesting. Like the way
he slashes, he's definitely a bitof a slasher, bit more of a
flat batpath and sometimes especially if he'snot on time, it means that he's

(18:25):
his bat as late, a littlebit under the ball and it pops up
to the left side. Now thoseballs are dropping in for hits, and
you know, even when he's pullingit, it seems like it's pulled a
little bit on the ground through thehole, especially as a lefty, and
it makes me even more skeptical.High babbit like he's running right now.

(18:45):
And so that was the question thatwhen we were talking about him in the
Dyna c duggad the other day,I asked Clegg, hey, are we
seeing any exit d O bump oryou know, how's the contact rate,
chase rate? Is there something aboutthe approach that might be changed, and
I'm not sure if we've seen thatjust yet, but I will say one
of the things that we liked abouthim we talked about him in this offseason,

(19:07):
was he has a decent plate approach, Like you know, we thought
above average strikeout rate, like betterthan average strikeout rate, and potentially a
better than average walk rate too,And that's what he's showing in the early
going so far. That is interestingto me. Love seeing the hits drop
in, that's great. But he'srunning an almost eleven percent walk rate and

(19:29):
a sixteen percent strikeout rate and thisis his first taste the double as a
slightly young for the level, asa twenty three year old. I love
both of those things. Like thatboth of those numbers going in the right
direction is pretty interesting. And youknow, maybe if that keeps going and
he can sustain that for another month, then we're talking about maybe we're rounding
up another half grade on his futureprojection. So great start to the year

(19:53):
for him, and it's super funto see that chopped up. I want
access to that for everybody to justtype that into the MLB and ILB film
room and chop it up. Thatwould be my that would be my baseball
heaven. There part of watching likethat, it's like, you know,
obviously you put the ball in play, good things can happen. Right there
is a skill, there is acontact skill is required to do such a

(20:18):
thing as such a higher rate.I mean, how many games has he
played? Twenty games and he's gotforty bat at ball events. I mean
that's pretty good, and you know, so I want to give him some
credit for that, but I alsowant to note, like some of the
game situation going on in a lotof his at bats, the guys in
front, well what is I thinkhe's mostly bat in second right, but
it seemed like a lot of isthat bats. There's runners on and they

(20:42):
have been Birmingham's been pretty good.I don't know what their record is,
but I think they're in first place. They've won a lot of close games.
And I think part of the situationalhitting for him, I think needs
to be accounted for and considered theretoo, where slapping a single into the
hole was what was needed, waswas great, you know, for the

(21:03):
for the team. I think Inoticed from the left side, I think
he is probably more opposite field approach. I think from the right hand side,
which we don't see nearly as much. I think he don't know he
might be a little bit more dangerousfrom the right right hand side as far
as slugging and pulling the ball iswhat. And I think we might have
mentioned that when we first talked abouthim too, But I think we're pretty

(21:23):
spot on for the most part.Matt, like I think this is a
very interesting do a little bit ofeverything, kind of switch hitting, play
every position sort of guy, andin that organization, I think there's gonna
be some opportunities for him now fantasyFantasy wise, I think it very much
depends on your league and league size. But you know, I have a

(21:45):
Luis Renhifo in some daily move leaguesof varying sizes, And I'm not saying
Brooks, Baldwin and Renhifa are thesame kind of hitter. You know,
a Swiss army knife like that couldbe could be pretty fun and pretty useful.
Well, continue to monitor, Ithink, and keep an eye on
in watching Baldwin. Matt go backa few years. Edgar Quero keeps showing

(22:10):
up. Man. He's on atear to start the year, but he's
walking nine point three percent of thetime, striking out sixteen point seven percent
of the time. He's slashing threetwenty six, four to twenty six,
six ninety eight and Matt that's witha two to ninety babbit. He's got
five runs, five home runs.I believe those are all from the from
the left hand side. Yeah,all five of his home runs are as

(22:32):
a lefty. And now you knowthis is only eleven played appearances, but
he's he's got four hits as arighty. This guy who had a very
hot April last year too and thenkind of cooled off and so did it
seem like the prospect and dynasty love. But I don't know, I've always
I've always felt queer. I meanthat was the first thing that got my
attention with his bat in his whatten ten day pro debut at the end

(22:56):
of twenty twenty two or whatever yearthat was. I don't know. I'm
leaning that the offense of the goodoffensive Kiro is more real than some of
the struggles that he might have hadlast year. But just hitting everything hard
every time I see him, becausehe hit he bats after Baldwin and he
had a walk off Grand Slam yesterday. Young Man is on it right now.

(23:18):
Matt, I don't know. Ilike Carol, and I think you
were the first person to turn meonto him back when I was just a
lowly fan, not to your rookietober. And one of the things that
I really liked about what he doesis that he can He does hit the
ball pretty hard, but he doesso with really good contact skills. I

(23:41):
mean, these aren't elite, notlike Caleb Durban level back to ball,
but he runs and has four yearsnow a like sixteen seventeen percent k rape
and brings a really well rounded BAOtherwise, like, he hits the ball
pretty hard, hits on the ground, maybe a touch too much, but

(24:02):
it's it's a good batted ball profileyears. He's always been very young for
the levels he's been definitely, Imean he's twenty one now and repeating double
A and it would not shock meto see him in TRIPA A by the
end of this year, only becauseI think it goes well with the small
sample size stuff and what you whatyou were talking about at the beginning,

(24:25):
and that's my Tigers B side batthis year. Luke gold, who I've
been tuning in on a little,I don't know, if you've been watching
him at all, this is agreat, I think, a great example
of how silly early season stuff cango. Entering Thursday Thursday Night game,
he was slashing one oh seven twoeighty six to fourteen. He had four

(24:48):
really smoking hot games. Well,I don't know, you had three hits,
three hits, two hits, threehits, something like that. And
his slash line now is three fortyeight, four forty four, six seventy
four. He had a couple,so I mean that's four games. This
season was flipped upside down, right, Yeah, So got to take these
things with you know, lots ofgrains of salt early on. Similarly,

(25:11):
you know, I think we getcaught in the trap of talking about the
guys that are going well and definitelydon't talk as much, especially about our
guys, you know, the guysthat you're kind of rooting for or maybe
that we identified as, hey,this might be someone to watch. And
that was actually one of some ofthe guys that I wanted to highlight about
some of these guys that are offto slow starts and see is there smoke

(25:37):
here or is this like kind offluctuations or what we should expect over small
samples, and so I pulled acouple of the guys who were some of
my favorite B sides who were offto slow starts. One of them is
our Kansas City B side selection,mister Trevor Warner. After having a great
spring training, he is quite coldto start the year. Slash in one

(26:02):
ninety six, two seventy six,two fifty five, five point thirty one
ops to start the year. Andit's not because the hits aren't falling.
His babeb is three eighty five.The weird thing with Werner is that the
power that we saw show up inhis pro debut last year and even in
spring training it's been non existent.He has three doubles in like fifty sixty

(26:22):
played appearances something like that, almostsixty played appearances and not the guy that
we've seen. He's striking out alot too. That's not you know,
forty five percent of the time.Obviously way too high. I don't expect
that to continue necessarily, but it'sworth watching the homers like if they really
aren't showing up, and this mightbe a product of the ball is cold.

(26:47):
The parks that he's playing in arecold because he's you know, hitting
the ball in the air. Istill expect that it's pretty hard. I
tuned into a few of his games, but haven't watched every at bat or
anything at this point. But Werneris a guy that It's a slow start,
the strikeouts are a bit much,but I'm still not super swayed one
way or another here. This isone where I'm like, oh, yeah,

(27:08):
you know, super cool start.We'll see check back in a couple
of weeks, a couple of homera week and he's got three or four
homers and we're back kind of ontrack. And compare that to my twins
beside hitter Joiner for Hardo, whoI liked, is sort of a decent
defender, jack of all trades,Okay, plate approach, maybe sneaky power

(27:30):
and then a lot of speed againfor the kind of roto fiends in here.
And he's been atrocious to start theyear. One point seven percent walk
rate, thirty five point six percentk rate. There's very little power showing
up. I think he's got acouple of home runs and then that's it,
like three home runs and ten singles. So it's like he maybe is

(27:52):
selling out for some power, strikingout a Ton not walking. It's a
bad, bad start to the heregood for fifty three WRC plus and I'm
a little concerned. You know,he's not old for level per se.
You know, he's in Triple A, he's twenty five, and that Twins
team is often hurt. So thatwas the other thing that I was thinking.

(28:12):
If he hit well, maybe hewas a guy who gets a call
to spell Max Kepler in his inevitableinjury or Byron Buxton and his annual trip
to the IL. And I'm concernedthat the plate approach, the bat at
ball profile might not sustain that.So He's one where my level of concern
is a little bit higher than aTrevor Werner. You know, obviously they

(28:34):
are a couple levels apart. They'redifferent ages, different plate approaches, and
different positions. But looking to meat the k and walk rates is more
indicative of how much concern should shouldyou have. And so Fajardo is one
that I'm I don't know, I'mnibbling on my fingers a little bit looking
at that, like, man,that might be a bit of a wasted

(28:56):
d side pick. And I'm notsure he's going to get the apportunity to
really really show out. So that'sone that you know, talking about some
of the guys that are off toa slower start. It's worth owning up
to that and being like, yeah, it's it's not not what we wanted
to see, and there's some causefor concern. There a ton to add.

(29:17):
A second, that's why is likethese samples are just so small.
I try not to like let onehot week or a couple of good games
way my opinion like too much.You know, like we talked about,
that's why pitching is so much better. You get to watch their you know,
guy do his thing sixty or eightytimes and one night. These hitters
you got to kind of stay atleast for what I like to do and

(29:40):
watch them, like you kind ofgot to stay on guys for a while
to see you're hearing it here,folks. Nate just likes the easy way
out. He doesn't really like muddyingfor the for the hitters. He wants
to see one outing and say,ah, man, George Klassen's it.
You know. The first game thatI turned on this week, it was

(30:00):
an afternoon game on Tuesday. SouthBend was at Beloite and I turned the
game on the very first pitch.You know who I saw, I hit
a home run, Hendrick Banango.Nice. Yeah, I'm just like,
oh, don't do this to me. I know, right. I wanted
to mention. We talked about MarkCooley a little bit first year player guy.
I had mentioned that he was ayounger college guy last week. That

(30:22):
wasn't correct, twenty three years old. But he got promoted to hy A
and hit a grand slam his firstI don't think it was his first at
bat, but his first game,and then hit backed it up with another
home run. You know, interestingbut potentially interesting power speed guy. But
I think strikeouts are gonna be apotential whammy there. Of course, man
as soon as TJ. Walton gotgoing that Tuesday, he hit his second

(30:45):
home run in as many games,and then he got hit in the face
and putting on IRL classic. CreedWilliams continues to be Creed Willams early in
the season and hit a bunch ofhome runs and slug a bunch big boy.
Yep, did you see Ukfus tookJames Gonzale's yard. I did.

(31:07):
Cathus is often a nice start.He's kind of picking the sick where he
left off getting such a funky profilefor him, but I really like his
swing. Yeah, what is he? Three fifty five, three ninety four,
six thirteen, A couple of homeruns, a couple of stolen bases.
Yeah, he's he's an interest.He's different, he's a different he's
kind of a different cat. Butbut that's not in a not in a
bad way. Watched a couple ofmy favorite lefties this week in Brand Herder

(31:32):
and Reed van Scooter Herders at Toledoand with the mud Hens, and you
know, i'd say going into thislast Star he looked okay. I think
the era was was a little higher, and you know, was getting some
strikeouts but hadn't really put it together. But he had a really great start
this week. Has the overall linedown to quite quite a nice two ninety

(31:56):
two fifth. He's getting a littlebit unlucky on the batted balllock metro like
left on bass babip and home runs, but the stuff looks great and he
really carved this week. I thinkhe had nine punch outs in five innings
and looked really good and looked likethe guy that I'm as high on as
maybe any other of our B sidearms, Like, I really really buy

(32:17):
what he's doing, and it seemslike it's working at triple A just as
well as it did at double Alast year. You know, he's got
this strikeout rate up almost a thirteenper nine so far this year. And
yeah, he's he's looking really good. Continuing to limit walks, although I
think the walks had been a bitof a problem in his first couple of
outings. But five innings, ninepunch outs, no walks this time around,

(32:38):
just two hits, So he lookedreally good. And that was against
a very good NATS Triple A lineup. You know, he got James Wood
strikeout looking and chopped that lineup reallyreally well. Nice. I also watched
Revent Scooters outing. Oh against Texas. He had a good outing, you

(33:00):
know, six innings, one hit, one walk, but he only had
the one strikeout, and that's beena challenge for him in the early going,
and it's something to monitor. Youknow. His first outing, I
think we talked a bit about hehad some batted ball bad luck and gave
up a few runs that way.His second outing, he walked four,
which I don't think he's ever donein the minor leagues before. And only

(33:22):
got one strikeout. And then obviouslythis time around just one walk but one
strikeout. I will say he gotsqueezed a little bit. He had three
other instances of a two strike countwhere he just painted a fastball or really
dotted a slider on one pitch.I forget who this was against, but
it was like that's he thought itwas strike three. His catcher was like

(33:45):
the fuck that it was definitely astrike So he maybe could have had a
couple more strikeouts there. But ofthe nineteen batters he faced, I think
I counted thirteen ground ball outs inthat outing. So like he's just this
is what he does. He justhits the bottom part of the strike zone,
mixes up speeds, attacks hitters indifferent ways each time through the order,

(34:07):
and still ends up with a bunchof ground balls. So I want
to see more strikeouts. Like Idon't expect him to be a really really
high strikeout arm, but it's somethingthat I'm monitoring that balls that were whiffs
in high last year, a lotof those seem to be getting fouled off
early this year, and that's that'lltell us something about the sustainability of the

(34:29):
overall line. So you know,I still believe in him. This is
just three starts to start the year, but it's something to monitor about how
he's looking going forward. The onlything I wanted to note on the hitters
side was we got a home runfrom Javier Sonoya this week, Matt,
for real. That does not happenall the time, and I think should

(34:50):
be celebrated on this podcast. Thatwas fun to see. Yeah. Pitching
wise, Matt, I don't knowdid you watch any of but I have
found to be the best pitching duelof the minor league season so far.
Tristan Reeling versus Carson Palmquist. Ididn't. I saw a little bit.
I think somebody posted a mashup ofReelings side of it, But no,

(35:14):
I didn't. I didn't watch thatouting. It was pretty impressive on both
sides in my opinion. Reeling inhis mind you his third pro appearance ever
a double A in this season.He went seven to two thirds, gave
up no hits, no runs,walked two, struck out six through one
hundred pitches, sixty three strikes.Pump Quist went six innings, gave up
four hits, walked one, andstruck out ten. It's interesting watching some

(35:38):
of these funkier guys or nastier guysin the minor leagues where you know,
sometimes the catchers have a hard timecatching them, and I think sometimes the
umpires have a really tough time humpingthem too. Like pump Quist. Man
was just landing fastballs and breaking ballsover the middle of the plate to start
that game, and they were gettingcalled balls and it was ridiculous, to

(36:00):
be honest. But you know,pump Quist, We've talked about him some
and he's just I mean, he'sbeen doing nothing but killing it in double
A and that release that released pointthe action on all of his pitches,
Like, I think we're gonna seehim in the big leagues relatively soon.
Yeah. I like pump Quist alot. I mean yeah, and he's

(36:20):
nasty. So I mean, therewasn't really like anything super new to report
or to observe there, in myopinion, just him continuing to do his
thing and and really dominate the EasternLeague and then relaying, you know,
we only get he's so new,Like what you know is this guy?
Is this guy for real? Likewhat what's his story all about? And
man, I gotta say I wasI was pretty impressed. I would lean

(36:44):
that this is not some flavor ofthe week guy. I mean, he
was a third round pick by theYankees. I think that says something.
But finally seeing him and he's thefastball and the slider that just just disappears,
man, And if it looks likeit just disappears late too, and
he's commanding the arsenal well and pitchingand locating stuff like I'm kind of you

(37:07):
know, for three starts, I'mman, I gotta say, I'm pretty
sold that this is a legit pitchingprospect here and out of all the sort
of new arms that are doing thingsthis year, like he's he's the guy
that I would be the most interestedin, the most wanting to get on
my roster, I think. Butit proved far too late for me to
do that in my leagues. Yeah, or I didn't have the funds to

(37:30):
make that happen. But that thatwas a good one, man. And
then it ended with a who hitthe Ben Rice hit a walk off I
think solo home run in the ninthinning. But that was a good series.
That was one that I had highlightedto watch, and that was they
split three, three to two.Fun teams there with some some good prospects.
So I saw reeling live last year. I'm trying to find the game

(37:54):
last years in pitch. Yeah,he did in college, so it would
have been two years ago. Hewas a twenty twenty two draft pick.
Right, Oh, it would havebeen two years ago. Then. I'm
pretty sure he was twenty twenty two. You're right, You're right. So
I didn't. I didn't see himlast year, that's right. Where do
you go to school? Yeah?Okay, where do you go to Schoozaga?

(38:15):
Yeah, that's right. Well,just while we're here, Matt,
I wanted to ask you about OwenWild and if you have any thoughts on
Owen Wild. He had an FQOthis week. He was good. He
was the arm that I was thinkingof when I was like, oh,
yeah, I really was last yearat Gonzaga. I no, it was
Owen Wild was the guy that Iremembered because he had a great outing here

(38:35):
in Portland against University of Portland wherehe kind of got babboped in the first
inning and they just chopped the restof the way, like, looked really
good. I watched that outing.He's more over the top north South.
He was drafted in the seventh roundlast last draft out of Gonzaga, and
I don't think he pitched it alllast year. Right now, he's got
three three outings under his belt andCharleston a ball proven to be a little

(39:00):
too much for those hitters down there. Right now, I think his fastball
was like at ninety two for thebroadcast, but you know, life up
in the zone. I think hismain secondary might have been the one that
at least he threw the most,was a change up. I think that
outing. He does have a breakingball, very north south sort of attack,
breaking bats with changeups, hitting themoff the end of the bat.

(39:21):
He gave up two doubles in likeone inning for the run that he gave
up. But Gonzaga smaller school forcollege baseball. I don't know mid major.
Is it a mid major mid baseball? I don't know mid major for
baseball. But they've historically been apretty good pitching factory. I mean,
they've had a lot of arms outof there in the past ten years.
I'd say yeah, if you gotmy attention a little bit, I'd say

(39:44):
yeah. I don't think they've reallyturned out a hitter of note, not
that I can think, but youknow, from Marco Gonzalez to Gabriel Hughes
and a bunch of guys in between, they've been Gonzaga guys. They've had
some interesting arms come out of therefor a long time now. Ben Caderna,
I watched his good outing last week, and I don't know, maybe
I threw a little bit of shadeon it talking about the wind and I

(40:05):
think he got lucky with some hardcart contact. But then I watched his
outing this week and I was impressed. Matt, I think my man might
have taken some steps forward, andI think his arsenal has got some more
teeth here. That change up seemspretty legit to me. Is going to
be an interesting guy to watch therest of this season, I think,
And if you can stack these together, he's going to be in double A

(40:27):
mighty quick And I don't know ifyou have any thoughts on him. No,
I haven't watched him yet. Ithink it's a bit of a different
animal. I don't think this isthe same Coderna from last year. He's
been tearing up the Midwest League.The guy that is going to be on
the top of our trending list whenwe get to that part is Astros pitching
prospect aj Blueball and I know whenwe were selecting our Astros arms, he

(40:52):
I think was on the short listfor both of us. Is that right?
And he was yep for me.So now a guy that we are
too unfamiliar with, but he is, he's catching some buzz man. He's
what I don't think. He pitchedvery much in Double A and pitching the
AFL, and now he's up inTriple A getting some attention. I had
to take a close look. SoI watched his Wednesday night outing against Round

(41:14):
Rock, where he went six anda third, gave up three hits,
gave up one earned run, struckout eight eighty three pitches, sixty six
percent of them for strikes. Andthis guy, you know, like I
said, this said people buzzing andout of prospects that are not in the
major leagues, the most picked upguy this week on fan tracks and yeah
again, I got some questions aboutthe labeling of some of these pitches on

(41:34):
savant, but forcing fastball, slider, change up, sweeper, curveball,
I don't know. I think thoseare kind of the same pitch. So
the first pitch of the game fastballthat I don't know, I forget who
it was, but solo home runand that was it all Zero's after that
when we talked about him, theexecution of everything is just it's not super

(41:55):
clean in my opinion, and Idon't know how nasty his offerings are standing
alone, like I and I don'twant to tons of credits. Like don't
get me wrong, Blueball is aWisconsin guy, like he's my boy,
Like you know, I like himfor sure, I want to see him
succeed, but like, he gothit pretty hard. Matt, and I
don't know if you saw this,but I got really curious because I'm watching
that game and I'm like, man, he seems to be getting kind of

(42:20):
lucky here. So I compared himto the rest of the PCL pitchers just
on that night as far as hardcontact and other than Ryan Carpenter who just
got like lit up that night,blue Ball got hit harder than everybody else
one O wait, one O waitone O seven one O seven one O
two one oh one, and onlyhalf of those were hits. So I
don't know, you know him inthe PCL. I don't think that it

(42:44):
is crazy to think there might besome long nights for him. I don't
know. I do not disagree withyou here. I like him, and
I do think that maybe some ofthe swinging myss stuff looks a little bit
cleaner to me, Like I dothink that he's executed some of his two
strike pitches a little bit better inthe early going than we saw last year.

(43:05):
To me, it looked more likein the few starts that I perused
last year, my notes on himwere that he was out of the zone
a lot and got whiffs that way, but also walked a decent number.
Ye thus far, he to me, looks like he's riding all the luck
metrics to a sparkly pcl er.Like he literally every base runner that has

(43:29):
gotten on has been left on baseone hundred percent left on base rate A
he's running a one sixty babbit despiteall of that hard contact that you're talking
about. Like, to me,this is a flash in the pan.
I'm not saying he's a bad arm. I think he'll be a big leaguer,
but I'm not looking at him andsaying like, oh man, this
is just pristine execution, Pristine's stuff. This is a noe doubt mid rotation

(43:55):
starter. I think, like,you're right, we're going to see some
long nights and he's going to havetimes where those balls fall in. He's
going to walk more than one ortwo guys, and he's going to give
up some long balls, And Ijust think, like, this is the
kind of thing where it's it's anice pop up arm. I think I
popped him in one of my deepleagues where I had a little bit of

(44:16):
fab and dropped like a couple buckson him, But I'm not I viewed
it as more like, hey,maybe he gets five or ten starts this
year and that plays in that pointsleague, not like, Wow, this
is some guy who's going to turninto a mid rotation piece, you know.
So I would just be cautious withyour optimism about a guy like this,
And so I kind of agree withwhat you're saying that this is there's

(44:38):
like a lot more to prove here. Yeah, And I'd really interested,
Like I've got some of his likepitch plots pulled up here. Man,
Like the location radius of like hisfour scene fastball is is quite large.
Like I think part of his maybegood fortune that night was that round Rock
lineup was extremely aggressive against him,and it was like anything that got into

(45:01):
the zone they were they were puttinginto play or trying to at least.
I think that Round Rock lineup hasbeen a bit unlucky too so far.
I remember looking at because I likequite a few guys on that team,
and I remember looking and a bunchof them had really low babeps and were
seemingly still like like Blaine Cram andtrissou Ornellis. I think both aren't off

(45:23):
to very good starts. Put itmostly is babbeb related like that They're not
striking out a lot or anything.It's just like they've been a bit unlucky
on the batted ball front to startthe year. I'd be a little cautious
there, just just my two cents. But again I didn't watch like his
other outings this year, so maybe, uh, you know, maybe there's
there's things out there that I'm notprivy to. My guy, Tyler Schweitzer,

(45:43):
after a not so great debut,tossed a FQO this week. Hey
here you go. Yeah, soI was excited for that and went to
turn it on and we got apress spots view for that game. Yeah.
He told me that that was getto get into that one. Another
really interesting and pitching matchup by TuneInto this week was jayd and Hamm versus
Jackson Ferris and Man. I gottasay Jaydan Ham's pretty good. I think

(46:07):
he thinks so too. Yeah,he's working that whole impress like, yeah,
he looks slick to me, man. And that change up and now
I can't say for certain because wedidn't get the greatest view of the first
pitch, but who was it.Yeah, Alex Freelan came up, Man
and he threw Freeland like just fourchange ups to start and Freeland was done.

(46:30):
Yeah. I think we talked aboutthis too, that he isn't afraid
to throw right on right change ups, which you know, I love,
like I love that as a setuppitch or or especially on the inside part
of the plate like a change upin like hitter's highes get big to try
and yank the fastball and be earlyon it and they swing right through it.
I love that pitch. Yeah.You know, Jackson Ferris, Man,

(46:51):
he he was off to a prettygood start. I think he struck
out like the first four hitters orsomething like that. And you know he's
a young guy, but you seethis in the Sometimes did you see this
in the uppers too? Sometimes yousee it with guys in their major league
debuts. But like he just doesn'thave like the game and control yet,
like the run game and stuff likethat. He's some like weird, a
weird balk and guy's running on himand all this stuff, but still growing,

(47:15):
still growing up as a picture.But I gotta say that his armstroke
is just it doesn't make me feellike he's going to get the command to
where I like it. I don'tknow how much watched of him, but
he's just like, really, itjust seems like a lot of different checkpoints
that you have to get to andget correct in that long back armstroke.

(47:35):
And he's a longer guy. Likeit's not surprising if you were just watching
a video of him on the moundand not seeing where the ball was going,
like I think you would guess thatthat guy's probably not the most accurate
picture in the world. So Idon't know, I still have I still
have reservations on him as a whole. Another guy with a that I wanted
to I had mentioned last week Iwanted to get eyes on who I didn't

(47:57):
realize I had actually already watched alittle bit of because in his first outing
of the year he was opposite ofJoanah Tong, so I had accidentally turn
him on for a few at bats. But that is Adam Saranowsky. I'm
sure I'm butchering that he's a youngteenage arm in the red system. Got
to see him pitch them in Bradington, so I wanted to check out that

(48:20):
angle. It's a big lefty,tall lefty, nineteen years old. Four
innings pitched, one hit, walk, two struck out three, sixty eight
percent strikes on fifty pitches. It'smostly fastball. He's throwing a fastball and
a slider. But I think it'slike sixty six percent fastballs. And I
think it's an arm slat and anarm action that's very different. I don't
think he throws necessarily all that hard. What was his fastball averaging ninety well

(48:45):
he got up to ninety six,it was averaging ninety four. But talk
about arm actions. Like man,I got a good side view of him.
He's another guy that, like myarm just hurts to watch him.
It's just really sort of odd,weird, short arm. A lot of
this like going on, and Idon't know. I know he's he's guy
popping. He's a guy popping onthe trending list citing the untalented arm I

(49:07):
suppose, but I don't know aboutmy interest level and Sarahanovski, but I
felt like I should do my homeworkthere, so I did. Got to
watch some Hayden Mullens. Matt.Yeah, I haven't turned him on yet.
How's he look? Is he keepingthe walks under wraps this time around
her? He did this outing,I think he got I don't have that

(49:28):
line up in front of me,but I think he had a pretty rough
one last go, but this outinghe went four and two thirds. He
gave up three hits, three earnedruns, no walks, and six strikeouts
eighty pitches sixty one percent strikes.And we got a little bit of a
different camera angle this time than wedid last season, and seeing him from
more behind the plate mat. Hereally turns his back on the hitter,

(49:50):
like I didn't notice that before,But he's like really facing second base and
his wind up might add some deceptionthere, but I think he continues to
look pretty nasty. Man is dominantout the start. He like plunked the
leadoff lefty with the breaker one inning, and then Max Romero Junior hit like
a chopper that snuck through and thatwas like the run that scored. And
the other two runs came after hewas pulled. I mean, they're his

(50:14):
runners, but there was like acatcher's interference that loaded the bases and got
a sack fly something like that.So a couple I think of maybe a
little bit unlucky runs. But yeah, I don't know meens man. I
think he's he's got some nasty forHiga. I know he's older, but
we talked about the injury stuff,like definitely gonna still be watching him.
Yeah, did you see some moreof him? Yeah, he's a fun

(50:35):
one. But I think that sliderreally is gonna play. Yeah. Yeah,
it gets yeah, it runs man. Yeah. And then did you
see a Lazaro Estrata sighting man ina ball in able on a rehab assignment.
Yeah, and I saw did didhe throw just two innings or was
it two to one inning? Twoinnings, struck out three, didn't walk

(50:57):
anybody, gave up a couple ofhits seven Because that's something that's something that
I'm trying to watch with some ofmy b side arms is because a lot
of the guys that I picked arekind of fringy and seeing what teams are
doing with them, and so MichaelDarryl Hicks is one of these guys.
I've watched a couple of him,and he's coming in in relief, often
as bulk, so like they'll havea starter go three and then he goes

(51:19):
three behind them, but that doesn'tbode well. Often sometimes it's part of
a ramp up plan, sometimes it'spart of an innings management plan. But
I'm a little concerned that his mightbe trending to relieverhood, which isn't bad
in and of itself, but Isaw enough there that I was like,
maybe this guy could make it asa starter last year. And Estrada is

(51:39):
another one that I'm worried about,not worried per se, because I do
think he'd be quite a good believerif he went down that path. I
want to see what he can doas a starter, and I want to
see him throw once, twice,three times through the order, just because
I think his fastball has such outliertraits and I think his courball and slider

(52:00):
have potential like they could do thatslider is wild. That's that hard slider
is wild to me. Man,it's it gets some time under his four
steamer and saviant. Really yeah,yeah, most definitely. I was watching
it and doing the matchups at thesame time, and they would call a
foul for steing fastball like an eightyseven mile per hour slider or whatever from

(52:23):
a center field view. A lotof them it's not like this huge arching
movement, you know, but herball is the one that has the big
movement. But it's like that slideris hard and then it's just right at
the end. But you know thatcombination, you can you know, it's
easy to think like, oh man, this guy could be a nasty,
nasty reliever. But yeah, I'mwith you. Let's I want to see

(52:45):
my man walk some innings here.And I think they had him assigned.
I think they had him assigned toVancouver, so I think that's where he'll
be going after this rehab assignment orwhatever. But I like to that call
on your part. He's he's aninteresting guy and I don't mind watching him.
Pitch Man speaking guys such an enigmatoo, Like that's the other part
about him that it's like he's beenan a ball for basically four or five

(53:07):
years, like I want to seelet me see him, like bump him
up? Yeah yeah, and Idon't know, uh man. I talked
about him last week, and ofcourse I watched him again. No,
I couldn't watch him this week becausehe was at home. But what'd you
think of that? Dinsen Batista Alittle highlight reel from that one outing that
that I shared. Did you checkthat out? I did? It was
interesting. I thought that could seewhat you liked about him, and there

(53:30):
seemed to be some pieces. Again, he's one that like, I'm not
sure the execution and putting it alltogether is there quite yet. But he's
still he's twenty one years old.He's barely he's barely pitched really yeah yeah
yeah, And he's still throwing strikesat a high clip so far. But
he is some of those sliders,some of those two seamers like a drunk

(53:51):
guy has on remote control. Man, they just get going. He's fun
to watch too, just because catchershave such a hard time with him,
and good catchers too. That wasjust whiff on something. It's like,
Okay, that's to me, that'sa sign that there's maybe something a little
different going on there. I didwant to do some homework on some of
those Brewers guys while they were inGusta. Turned on Gosh, Matt helped

(54:15):
me. You you Hanier Herrera,a twenty year old in the Brewers system.
Sure that sounds good to me?Oh sure, yeah, yeah,
this was interesting man, if youwatch him, report to me, because
I couldn't help but wonder that ifthis was a kid that like was keeping
his big weapon in his back pocketand working on some other stuff this outing.

(54:37):
So they got him listed at sixtythree one seventy five on his MiLB
page, and on the broadcast theycalled him six three two forty one.
That's quite the discrepancy. He threwa lot of two seamed fastballs. There
were like ninety one ninety two forthe broadcast. But then every once in
a while, not often, hewould throw this four steamer that was ninety

(54:58):
five ninety six. At the broadcastsaid on one of them got two five
hundred and sixty six RPMs, andthat thing, I mean, it looked
like it was rising from center fieldright, and so I see that pitch
come out the first time, like, okay, here we go. He's
going to just start mowing through theseguys with this fastball, right, But
he didn't do that. He didn'tdo that at all. He threw change

(55:20):
up with eighty seven with some lookedlike some nice fanning sort of like you
know, finning two steamer action.Yeah, I don't know the whole fastball
change up game. I'm kind ofcurious to see some more of the slider
looks. I don't know. Seemedpretty pedestrian from that angle. There's definitely
a curveball. There's two different signsgoing on for breaking balls, but he

(55:42):
seemed to prefer throwing that sort ofman slider. I have a lot of
notes here, I'm not going toread through all of them, but his
line, what was his line forthat game? He pitched? He threw
five, game up, six hits, two hundred runs, two walks,
struck out six. But I thoughthe like was pitching, you know,
send it up, spotting stuff fairlywell. But I want to watch him

(56:02):
again and just see if this fourseamer comes out some more, because I
think I'm wondering if that's his bestpitch and he's just working on that's the
RPMs behind it. That's pretty it'spretty good. I know, I know,
right, so interesting young arm therethat Carolina team has got. Has

(56:22):
got some others too that I kindof want to see some more of.
But I just kind of wanted toshare that. Yeah, I don't know.
That was some of the more interestingpitching watches for me this week.
Matt very nice. I was justgonna mentioned a couple f QoS that went
down this week, Matt. Yourboy Mason Adams had one. It's a
couple of good but he went well. This is early in the week.
He went six, five hits,no walks, nine strikeouts. Don't hate

(56:44):
to see that. There's this youngpitcher Jan Slas that they're one with Palm
Beach. Palm Beach hasn't been broadcastyet, but I might tune into him,
see what's up there. We mentionedPalm Quest and Reeling Kit and Dana
had one the other day. Lookspretty pretty dominant in double A. Twenty
year old Carson Millbrandt, who Ihave not watched much of, if at

(57:06):
all before, had one for Beloit. But those were the ones that kind
of popped out to me this week. Trending on fan tracks, Matt Mitchell
Parker, I know he's got twostarts now out on the major league level,
but hey, not too shabby,huh, not bad at all.
Yeah, he's up eighteen percent totwenty five percent. I'll try to just

(57:28):
stick to the guys who aren't inthe majors yet. Here blue ball went
from less than one percent to sevenpercent. Laperffito made another five percent jump,
so he's up to thirty seven percent. Matt, what do you think
about Joey Laperfdo I like him alot? I mean, I think that
he had a pretty rapid ascent toprospect lists last year as a kind of

(57:50):
multi positional threat with some pop.I remained pretty skeptical of him as a
big time fantasy contributor because I thinkthe hours more good than great, and
he has a bit of a whiffproblem, so I think that that's gonna,
like, that's going to catch upto him a bit. And I
know I had mentioned this that Iwas like pretty skeptical of him as a

(58:13):
sort of top tier prospect, morelike back end top one hundred, just
outside a top one hundred kind ofguy because of that profile. And then
of course he went absolutely bananas.The first two weeks had like what six
or seven homers in a week andthree in a game, and it's become
a nice meme on the dynasy.I got discord to at me every time
he hits on the run. ButI have noticed that there. I haven't

(58:36):
been added for a low Berfeito bombin a while, and it's because he
didn't hit me this week and hekept striking out. And again I'm like,
yeah, great, he's out tosuper hot start. Maybe he wouldn't
be worse than the husk of JoseBraw who's currently manning first for the Astros.
But I don't know. I'm I'mnot viewing this as like he's turned

(58:59):
in to Kobe Mayo or Hessen cureStat or anything. I mean, how
can you not love le Brasfito man, He's like total B side. Yeah
no, that's like I said,I loved his ascent last year. I
just think maybe people were getting abit over hyped over a fifty percent home
run per fly ball rate, whichagain impossible to sustain that kind of thing,

(59:20):
So like you would expect that todrop way down, and it has
a bit see pitching prospect with theRangers, Winston Santos is up like three
percent to see a lot of buzzabout him. I can't say that I
am too familiar with Santos. Idon't think i've seen him either. If
you pitched last year, I definitelydefinitely watched them, but I don't remember.

(59:42):
Or Elvis Martinez is getting a lotof buzz. He's up like two
and a half percent, which wasthirty six percent total. Yeah, you
were you were skeptical of Irrelvis andAddison Barger, but I was telling you
I think both are big league regularsfor sure, and Elvis might be more
than that. It's hard, Matt, when you watch you see a guy
I would like struggle with strikeouts somuch, even if it's a year or

(01:00:04):
half a year, it's just kindof hard to unsee that and feel that.
But I know, I know hehas made improvements, so I'm not
I don't want to take that away. But big league pitching has a way
to really bring up some some mortzand some ghosts. So oh, yes,
we shall see. Jefferson Rojas ofthe Cubs is up a couple percent
in Cosume Orioles, James Wood Joanatanhas jumped up to six percent. Now

(01:00:29):
who I'm excited to watch some moreof Santiago Suarez up, a little Christian
Scott, some guys who haven't reallyjumped percentage but maybe half a percent or
sort or so that I think aregetting a little bit more popular now.
Matt. I don't know if youremember when the NL West episode, but
I was having a hard time pickinga Dodger's bat, right. I remember

(01:00:52):
Perez was was one that I likewatched the week of and I was like,
yeah, I don't know, man, this young eighteen year old that
the Dodgers have like them up ina ball for some reason, but he's
impressing early on. I think youlook at his bat, a ball profile
that looks nice for hitting the homeruns and such. But he's definitely I
think, on the up and uphere popularity wise. And then so I

(01:01:15):
was like bumming. I was like, man, I went with you and
your Garcia again. He just lookstrash. And then he popped two home
runs over the weekends, like allright, all right. And then a
picture in the Dodger system that Iturned on Jose Rodriguez, I think is
going to be getting pretty popular thisweek. Long limbed righty throws pretty hard.
You can tell he's got, youknow, good ride on the fastball,

(01:01:37):
good breaking ball. He pretty muchdominated that outing another guy that's just
got a lot of like moving alot of checkpoints in the delivery to get
to I want to watch that andsee if you can get that clean up.
But what I think, he's twentyyears old, definitely looks the parts.
I can see why folks might get, you know, a speculative share

(01:01:58):
of him if your league allows foryou're doing that with a ball. Pictures
shooting on Rancho Matt I caught whatI would think is the scariest picture in
all the minor leagues to face.Yeah you've mentioned this, Yeah, this
kid man? Where did I evenwrite down his name? Ronaldo Ronaldo E?
How do you spell em? Oh? Yeah, yeah, Ronaldo Yahan.

(01:02:22):
Dude is huge, six' fourtwo point fifty, throwing triple digits
and throwing a wicked looking slider.But it's I mean, I shouldn't.
I got to give him some credit. East west he's not too wild,
but north south they could go anywhere. But I would just be shitting my
pants if I had to get inthe box against him. But just a

(01:02:45):
guy relieving, potentially closing for Ranchoright now, who throws very hard.
But yeah, Perez end up winningthe cal League Hitter of the Week,
for whatever that's worth. But yeah, you know, you know how these
Dodger prospects going, Matt He's gonnabe loved well coming up this week.
This is what I got my eyeon. I don't know. You tell

(01:03:06):
me if any of these sound interestingto you. Well, there's one clear
matchup that I'm super excited to see. Okay, let me see if I
mention it. Okay, if Idon't, you write me. But in
the FSL Florida State League, palmBeach is at Fort Myers. This will
be the first time that PAULM.Beach is broadcast this year. So you
know, Chase Davis, Lynn,who's getting popular, getting some buzz,

(01:03:29):
you guy, Quinn Matthews. Thissalace kids. So some some arms there
maybe get a look at We can, you know, watch Winnakers strike out
a bazillion times. Maybe Charlie Sodogets taken the yard some. We'll probably
tune in some there. In theCarolina League, Myrtle Beach is at Lynchburg
and I haven't watched Lynchburg yet andI probably should. And this check out

(01:03:50):
this Matt Wilkinson kid. I don'tknow, if Matt, you should check
out his head shot. Tell methat he doesn't look like a police officer,
but he's leading the league and strikeup right now. Ralphie Velasquez is
on a tear at Chario and youknow, against some loser Cubs or whatever,
Leo Devrees is gonna be up.I don't know, maybe that's interesting.

(01:04:11):
Yeah, I saw on the discordand someone was like, hey,
it was the last last prospect togo from the DSL the full season and
the last one that came to mymind. And now it was a COVID
year, so maybe it's a littlebit different. But Robert Posslin went from
the DSL to or no, wentstraight from I'm sorry, I went from
signing to full season ball, skippingDSL was postin and he's now on year

(01:04:33):
four of a ball and still nothitting over one hundred and maybe the worst
left fielder I've ever seen in mylife. Dude, he's horrible, man,
God, poor kid in the CalLeague. Lake Elsinore is at Rancho.
See some more of this Perez kid. See if Jean's getting the fastball
over the plate. Some more JoseRodriguez in the sal League. Greensboro is

(01:04:56):
at Greenville, and I haven't reallywatched like any of Greenville this year other
than that, like Mullens outing thatI was just skipping ahead to day his
innings. But you know, McAdooversus Moens could be fun. In the
Midwest League, man, I've beenliking watching the Midwest League. I think
there's a lot of fun bats,you know, and they're they're college maybe
later around third day guys, andwho knows prospect wise, but there's there's

(01:05:20):
some guys swinging it in that leagueright now, and some and some good
pictures too. But this that Iwant to see some more Simpson Bolte,
is it Bolt or Bolte? Idon't know, Henry Bolt, I don't
know. But they'll be going upagainst like Louder, Cardona, Lions,
Sikama and some other you know,decent Dayton Arms. The Dayton lineup is
super fun. Camp day is areally fun team. Dayton's a really fun

(01:05:42):
team right now. Yeah, Iwatched quite a bit of Yeah, so
that I think that'll be a funMidwest League. Of course, Northwest League.
I'm gonna continue to watch some ContaceloI think he's got some tricky lefties
to the face against Eugene, whichcould mix for some fun at bats.
And you know, not that theseguys are super high I'm on prospect wise,
but they got Winjo Lonswai, Mkolskyand Corey as some lefties that I

(01:06:04):
think will be a good challenge forhim. In the Eastern League, Portland
at Hartford, these are two bestteams in the Eastern League. They might
be good angle to watch some pitching. And I haven't watched like any Roman
Anthony or any of those Portland guys, so maybe tune in there a little
bit. In the Southern League,I'm thinking Tennessee at Rocket City, maybe

(01:06:25):
at least for like kid Danna's startgoing up against those good smoky bats and
Shaw and Ballastero s Elkintara and thoseguys, that might be a fun outing.
In the Texas League, Wichita atSan Antonio. I want to see
em Rod versus Snelling and Maser.I'm still ben Ross is frustrating Matt.
He's frustrating because he's I think he'sa very skilled guy, but it's just

(01:06:46):
not doucing. That's the matchup thatI think is the matchup of the week
that was the one. Yeah,a bunch of fun arms in that one,
em Rod and a bunch of funbats in there too. So it's
funny how it works. So you'retalking about Wichita and like, man,
there's some really interesting bats there,and like their offense has struggled. And
the Twins, Man, we weretalking about preseason, like the man,

(01:07:09):
the Twins are, how are theygoing to fit all these guys together?
And man, they are off tolike a historically awful start, or at
least they were at the beginning ofthe week. Like so it's just you
know, baseball, man, wethink we know what we're talking about.
We don't know. Shit said.Anything can happen in small bursts, and
sometimes those bursts lead to banked losses. And you're looking up at the tough

(01:07:31):
rd to home. I mean,this is true. If the Astros right
now, they're off to a terriblestart and they're still a great team,
a little bit hurt on the pitchingstaff side, but man, they're in
a hole. I don't know,Like I said, I don't watch a
ton of Triple A, but Iowais at Buffalo. Man, do you
know that the Bisons have scored justone less run than those pretty boy Tides,

(01:07:51):
and that Durham has has scored justtwo less runs than those Tides.
And did you know that the Tideshave given up more run than anybody else
in the International League. Yeah,this is what I said when everyone was
like, should the are the Tidesbetter than the A's or the White Sox.
It's like, no, like they'renot. I think that stuff is

(01:08:12):
so silly and people just forget thatthe levels of baseball, it is still
a huge jump up Triple A tothe major leagues remains the largest jump,
and it's just not easy. ButI think that that could be a fun
test. I mean, if'reElvis is still around, I think those
that's a good staff. That Iowahas at least leading the International League in

(01:08:35):
a lot of pitching categories and stufflike that, and have some talented guys.
And then the PCL. I guessmaybe Oklahoma City at Albuquerque. I
guess Beef has been on a tearhitting a bunch of home runs, and
you know Oklahoma's supposed to have likean MLB caliber rotation, So let's see
how that goes. Yeah, Idon't know Matt anything on the MLB side

(01:08:57):
you wanted to touch on or not. I saw man unfortuate. His first
taste of the Bigs did not goas swimmingly as we had hoped. But
yeah, it didn't. And alot of it was the problems that we
had identified before. He walked abunch, you know, had some some
battered ball misfortune, but mostly itwas his own doing. Wasn't hitting his
spots, and you know he alsothe usage was not quite what we're hoping

(01:09:21):
for either, but somewhat predictable,sort of a long swingman pitching some blowouts
and mostly did not pitch very well. You know, we'll see. I
still think there's a picture that canget some k's in there, and maybe
he slots back in and the rotationback in triple A and and lankns back
out and it keeps working on stuff. But yeah, not his best first

(01:09:44):
turn. I mean, hey,look at I mean, is reed Debtmer's
arguably like the best picture in majorsright now or one of like it's up
there that has not been a youknow, straight ascension. But what a
what a fun little win for anyoneout there who likes value soft tossing lefties.
Huh, and know he's that likesoft tossing lefty right now. But

(01:10:08):
that's why everyone didn't want a pieceof him, Matt, And it turns
out that it can turn out.So he's on my dream rotation team,
not yours. He is. I'myou're right, you're right. But did
you see that article on fangraphs aboutDebt Meers and his pitch usage this year
and where he's locating his fastball andstuff. No, I think I opened

(01:10:29):
that one, but I haven't readit. I enjoyed that, and I
would totally give credit to the author, but I don't know who it was.
Off the top of my head,I don't know. You can follow
me on Twitter at Pitching Specs.I've been trying to drop a lot of
the video that I think we mighttalk about on the show during the course
of the week, and you know, doing crazy stuff like spending three hours
putting the video together and getting killedup by my wife and stuff. But

(01:10:54):
yeah, I don't know. Ithink that'll do it for episode thirty.
Anything else you want to say,or should we get out of here?
Let's get out of here. It'sstill April. We'll check back in in
a week. It's still going tobe April and uh, and then we
can start talking about what's real andwhat's not. In the meantime, you
guys, don't trade away your studs. Believe in your prospects that you like

(01:11:15):
them before, you should still likethem and listen to us, and we'll
help you find the money names topay attention to. At the very least,
we'll just shed some light on somepeople. We'll let Chicago Farmer take
us out and we'll talk to younext week. Audios. Miles an hour
riding to his head, you havehim down first with the lump bonus face,

(01:11:40):
and on the very next pitch heup and stole second face with gretest
be. He wasn't born. Hehad the dirt Yes uniform.