Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Not five miles an hour riding toohis head. You hop it down first
with the lumpbonius face, and onthe very next pitch he up and stole
second face with greatest speed. Hewasn't born, he had yes uniform.
(00:28):
Welcome to the Prospect Pretty Boy Podcast. I am Nate. There's another guy
here. Excuse me if I lacka little enthusiasm for talking pretty boys.
At the very least, maybe thisepisode can serve as a little fretey sleep
aid for you. Esting aside,Pretty boy Rookie is joining me. Matt,
(00:50):
how are you, my friend?Oh? I'm pretty. I got
all dolled up. I'm wearing mytucks. Yeah, I look good,
fresh cut, fresh fade. We'rein here. We're talking about the pretty
boys. We got to look pretty, so I'm ready to go. Yeah.
This is not my comfort range.But don't think. But I have
compiled the list of I don't know. I guess you could say the top
(01:12):
twenty pitching prospects. At least inmy opinion, you have constructed similar lists
for hitters, right, that iscorrect? Now, would you say,
when you put your list together here, how many of these hitters do you
feel like? Really good? Attheir chances of being an everyday guy,
(01:34):
all of them, some of them, handful of them. What do you
think? Yeah, I mean,we're going to talk about the top twenty
five hitters here, and I feelreally pretty strongly that all of them are
going to be regulars. Are betterLike most of these guys, I think
you're gonna end up being above average, so like twelve team mixed league,
(01:57):
Fantasy relevant such that, like theseare a guy. These are guys that
in two years, three years,whatever, depending on their timeline for some
of them, these guys are goingto be your top three four round guys.
And you know, not all ofthem are going to pan out.
I'm going to be wrong about someof these for sure, but as we're
sitting here right now, these arethe kind of twenty five guys that I
(02:21):
feel most confident end up as aboveaverage regulars. I don't entirely know what
your process was for this, buthow hard was it to whittle it down
to twenty five names? Do youthink there's another twenty five that could easily
be in here for you or wasit a bit easier than that. We
talked a little bit about this beforewe started recording, and I'd say the
(02:45):
top kind of fifteen to eighteen orso of the list fell together pretty quickly,
like the names were down pretty easily, and then it was about kind
of sorting and grouping and figuring outhow I prefer them within some of those
tiers. The last five names Istruggled with a little bit about who to
(03:07):
prioritize there, and then I wouldsay the next five names would be the
ones where it really starts to gettricky. For the most part, these
names aren't going to be surprising topeople. You know. Some of them.
I'm sure I'm higher on than otherpublic rankers, and I'm sure many
of our twelve listeners are going todisagree with me on a lot of these
picks. But for me, Ithink the top tier of hitters was relatively
(03:31):
straightforward. Now would you say thatthat's the same thing for the pitchers,
especially going down to twenty. No, for me, I feel pretty good
about the top two guys and everybodyelse I could see not working. But
on the maybe flip side of thator thin side of the coin, I
(03:53):
thought there were a ton of namesthat you can make decent argument for being
in your top twenty pitch list.Like I think Initially, I mean,
I was like, at fifty guys, I was like, Okay, all
these guys I could put in thetop twenty, I think, and then
maybe the last eight or nine namesgot a little tougher. But I don't
know the volatility. I don't knowif that's the right word. Pitching,
(04:15):
the way that it can, likewe've talked about before, can get much
better. The way that it canfail feels a little different to me than
hitters. I think, I,like I had mentioned you prior, if
I was doing a hitter list,I think I'd have to like kind of
go the other direction. I thinkI'd feel really good about like a dozen
bats or fifteen bats and have lotsof reasons I'd feel good about crossing the
guy off in the sense that Ifeel decently well that this will be an
(04:39):
everyday contributor that will be good forour fantasy teams, and I'd have to
fill the rest of the list theother way. I don't know if that
answer makes sense, but yeah,it makes sense, And I think that
that's one of the things about pitchingthat is so hard, and to be
fair, one of the reasons whyI and others fade pitching actually top pitching,
(05:00):
because names that are just outside thislist of your top twenty could easily
make a jump, and pretty quickly, within three months or a year,
you're like, that's a regular.That's going to be a guy who's a
staple of a rotation in the majorleagues, and that can happen pretty fast.
(05:21):
And guys that were never on toptwenty pitcher lists frequently end up in
the top forty arms in all ofMajor League Baseball at the end of the
season. And that just doesn't happenas often on the hitter side. And
so that's not to say that likethere aren't such thing as pitching prospects,
you know, that old aphorism.It's more that it's easier to see a
(05:44):
guy go from like, oh,that's an org arm or maybe he is
a back end rotation guy. Wesee those guys up level for a season
or two at a time relatively often, I would say, and I mean,
I agree, like you've picked manyof my favorite names from the minor
leagues in list, But at thesame time, there's a whole handful of
other names that I could argue anywherein the from ten on, you know,
(06:06):
what I mean, Right Like,if you got twenty five bats and
then there's the rest of the fieldof thousands of prospect hitters, right like,
I would bet your top twenty fivelists versus the field. Now the
pitching list, I don't know,I'd probably just take the field over my
top twenty, you know what Imean. I just think that's kind of
(06:26):
the nature of I mean, pitchingdevelopment. Like I'm going to share this
list. I think Clegg's going toput it out on the Dynasty dugout and
I wrote a little bit about this, the evolution the development of a picture.
I mean, I think the mainmeat of that takes place in the
majors and late twenties early thirties iskind of the peak for a lot of
pictures. Whereas I don't think hitters, I don't know if need is the
(06:48):
right word, but they have toget to a certain level I think a
lot quicker. So in that way, it's a very different animal I think
too. Yeah, And this timeof year is a really interesting one.
We sit here recording on May twentieth, and a bunch of the guys that
have been a staple of hot prospectlists for the past year or so have
(07:09):
all just graduated because they were theones that were promoted or made teams out
of camp. And so Jackson's Churio, Merrill, Colt, Keith, Colton,
Kowser, who holds me Evan Carteror why at Langford. These guys
all have graduated out and they're likehave been on these lists since six months
ago or more. This is aninteresting time of the year too, when
(07:30):
you start looking at the larger setof prospects out there, like guys are
just starting to get promoted out ofa ball. On the pitching side,
we've seen some of those arms thatwe've identified as like, hey, these
are really interesting and now they're startingto get promoted and have success in High
A or Double A. While thathasn't quite started to happen with most hitting
prospects yet, I think it's goingto start relatively soon, Like we're going
(07:54):
to start to see a bit moreof the promotion some of the prospects we'll
talk about, and certainly the prospectsthat are right behind this list who as
you'll hear, I struggled with thatnext tier beyond the kind of top twenty
five because so many of those guyshave potential to leap into this list with
graduations and with their performance. Butit's a big mixing bucket, and we
(08:16):
still don't have enough information yet,you know, And I think that that
makes it this time. You're sortof an interesting update for prospect lists.
Generally agreed, and I think alot of public list makers are getting ready
to put some of the some oftheir new updates out. And uh,
yeah, I don't know what we'reyour first five, last five, however
you want to say that names onyour list here, Well, we're going
(08:37):
to start at twenty five Mariners youngoutfielder question mark, Lazaro Montes, twenty
four Cole Young Mariners infielder question mark. Oh, here we go. We're
just going to get twenty five Marinershere, Matt. I mean, I
wish you know that there are somenumber twenty three for you. Nate Handy
(09:01):
Adiel Amador, Colorado, Rocky's middlandfielder, probably second baseman, twenty two,
Hesson kirstad for the Baltimore Orioles outfieldertwenty one, Kyle men Zardo the Cleveland
Guardians newly promoted first basement Las Montees. He's the only a ball guy that
(09:24):
made my top twenty five, andthere were a bunch of names that I
considered here. As as I toldNate, there's a bunch of like the
kind of major League ready guys thatlook like regulars, you know, Brian
Ramos, Graham Paully, kind ofthat tier of guys that are they're interesting
hitters, but they maybe lack theupside. And then there's a bunch of
(09:46):
the A ball hitters like Colt Emerson, Daral Perez, Aiden Miller, like
those kinds of guys that are performing. They're really young, but they're only
doing it in A ball so far, I have questions are they going to
be able to sustain? So Ipicked one A ball guy, and I
picked Las Montes, and it's becausethe calling card is power and the question
mark for him is his contact.And so far this year he has improved
(10:09):
his contact and his strikeout rate sosignificantly that to me, he starts to
look like that actualized version of himself. So for Las Montes, the calling
cards power, it's still just atA ball, but I think when he
gets promoted to Everett, he's goingto crush it and then he might not
get tested again until double A.This is just a corner outfield mashing starter
(10:31):
kit. Cole Young and Adaiel Amadorare two of the best contact hitters in
the minors. Bring different things tothe plate. Though young they are,
they have some of the lowest swingstrike rates. They've been very young for
the level, so they both remainvery young, and they're both in double
A. Cole Young, his batterballspray, I think is a little bit
(10:54):
more conducive to letting those contact skillsflourish. But he's not as and Amador
this year despite running a really lowBABAP and the surface numbers look bad,
but he's still getting on base.He's stealing a lot of bags more than
I thought he was going to.And I'm kind of thinking, my opinion
is that Amador is just getting abit unlucky and some of this is just
(11:16):
going to work out in the wash. So this kind of soft contact ground
balls that he's hitting a few toomany of, now, I don't think
that's who he is, and Ithink he's gonna end up adjusting with the
speed. I just put him anotch above Cole Young. Hetsin Cresad and
colemon Zardo are similar in lots ofways. They both have high home run
projection. Curestad has more raw power, Manzarto kind of similar to Cole Young,
(11:41):
hits the ball at better launch angles, like he's hitting a bunch of
fly balls, hitting high line drives, and has just done that since college.
That's kind of all he's done.So even though the overall ceiling pretty
similar, these guys are going toget to those home runs in slightly different
ways. Neither is really a threaton the bases, so I kind of
lump them together. Kerstad's a littleolder, he's had a taste of the
(12:03):
majors. Manzarto a little bit younger, but recent promotion as well, so
kind of both knocking on the door. And these are the oldest guys on
my list. I think, yeah, there might be one other hitter that's
close to Manzar's age, but Curestad'sthe oldest on the list. And some
of this is he's missed time becauseof injury, so he may make up
for that once he makes the majorleagues. So that's my first five.
Man. I gotta say, Idon't know if there's been a pretty boy
(12:26):
prospect more disappointing in my looks thisyear than amador. I just, okay,
your contact rate is high, you'renot striking out a lot. What's
his strikeout rate? Did you mentionthat? I didn't. But over the
last two seasons, so his agetwenty in age twenty one seasons between High
and Double A, it's been thirteenpoint three percent. Okay, he's at
(12:48):
seventeen point six this year and hisground ball rate is fifty eight. Matt.
I have seen just so many weeksass swings from him, like okay,
cool, you put the bat onthe ball, you have bounced it
back to the picture. I wasalready a bit reluctant on what his sort
(13:11):
of fantasy upside might be. Justnot impressed. I don't understand that that
sort of hitting and what purpose thatserves, Like, just swing the bat
and if you strike out over thelong haul, you're gonna have more positive
outcomes than tapping it back to thepicture or some soft ground ball to second
base. Like I don't know,I just don't. I don't really get
what he's doing. I'm with you, this has been sort of unquestionably outside
(13:35):
of one thing, a really reallydisappointing start to his Double A season.
But he's running a one seventy sixbabbit. Literally, nobody runs a babbit
that low, Like Joe Blow doesn'trun a babbit that low. Right,
Well, you're not going to geta lot of hits when you hit the
ball so weakly, But that stillis like it's an impossible babbitt to sustain.
(13:56):
I also think that we've seen himadjust before. He's a very talented
batta ball hitter, and I thinkthat that adjustment is still in the offing,
and this is like bad surface resultsand potentially some bad process that we
hope he's learning from. And evenwith that, he's still swiped fifteen bags
this year, so he's barely onbase. He's not hitting for any power.
(14:20):
I think his ISO is like he'sgot like one double or something this
year, and a lot of thatis because he's making this soft content out
of the zone. His ISO rightnow is point zero zero nine. Yeah,
one double on the air for whatis that really bad? And yet
he's just bunting, just practice bunting, just bumped every time, and he
still has I think he's taking walks, which I know you hate, but
(14:45):
it's still to me showing that thereare some good swing decisions happening. And
some of the underlying skills remain interestingto me. Betting on, he's very
young for double A still and he'sgoing to make an adjustment. We'll see
wrong on this, but we've seena lot about his back to ball in
the past that makes me think alot of this is an operation and those
(15:07):
ground balls are going to turn intoline drives. He's going to get hits,
get doubles, put them out ofthe yard. Yeah, I don't
know. I mean, we're onlya couple of months, not even a
couple months into the season, ButI mean I'm pressing that pumpkin button down
halfway right now. I am.I don't know if I could be any
less impressed with a hitter than Amador. All right, enough for that,
Let's get over to the good sideof things here. I'm like, I'm
(15:28):
sure I'm probably gonna have some namesthat other folks wouldn't have, maybe as
high. But like I said before, I think that there's a lot more
room for placing certain kinds of betsand going after and valuing different types of
arms. This is me, LikeI said, I'll have some more explanations
and tidbits out there in my piece, But number twenty. We've talked plenty
(15:52):
about Joandra Swarez of the Mets.I put him there, Whoop Whoop.
Nineteen I went with young Ja Weare Richie who we have a very small
professional sample size of, but Iwas smitten with his reputation and a little
bit that I did see of Idon't know, wanting to value him enough
that he could be a young andup and coming executionist that I love to
(16:18):
go after. I'll put a decentprice tag on him. Eighteen I went
with Pirates. Well, I guesshe's the top pirate on my list,
which probably go against a lot ofpirate lists here. But I was a
big fan of Mike Burrows and hisascension in twenty twenty two. I felt
like he and Gavin Stone had somesimilarities in their rise. At the time,
I wasn't sure which of the twoI liked better, and of course,
(16:41):
as Burrows was kind of rounding intoform a little bit, Tommy John
struck. But Matt. When Ido pitching speculation, I like to just
treat Tommy John as just a pausebutton, and I don't necessarily get down
on guys or value them less.After Tommy John, I just am hoping
that the story zooms where it leftoff. But him and his changeup and
(17:03):
the way that he was looking,and I think, knocking on the big
league doors, I have remained MikeBurrows stand. At seventeen, I went
with Sean Sullivan or the Rockies,which I know is going to turn a
lot of people off. But thatfastball from the left side, and that
deception, the shape of that thing, what it's doing to hitters, this
sort of tier pitchers where all ofmy I don't know, more confident bets
(17:29):
start to dwindle. I will takea ride on that Sullivan fastball and stay
a little committed to his development here. And then sixteen I went with the
very trendy hot name. But Ithink rightfully so Zebbie Matthews are the twins,
all right? All right? Someinteresting names there, some that I
really dig I know some folks aregoing to want me to ask about Burrows,
(17:52):
but we've talked about this before.I'm kind of with you. I
really liked Burrows when he was comingup in twenty twenty two, So we're
gonna skip over talking about him.Maybe we can dive into him as he
starts his coming back from rehab,which I think should be. I haven't
really looked or heard much, butit's got to be coming fairly soon.
(18:14):
What I think, maybe beginning oflast year, if I remember correctly,
his first or triple A start maybeyou know, wasn't the greatest, but
then I thought he looked really goodand at least one of them, and
then was gone, yep, yeah, I think it was a second one
that he got hurt in. Wasit okay? Yeah? I am curious
to hear your argument for Sean Sullivan. Yeah, and that's fair, And
(18:34):
you know, I will not lookdown upon anyone who wants to cross a
RACKI off their list completely. Butlike we've talked about their system and their
their arm farm right now, andobviously I'm a bit biased. I'm a
Rockies fan, but I really amtrying to not be. They have collected
talent at an unprecedented rate for them. I don't think there's ever been this
(18:56):
much arm talent in their system before, so I'm really didn't to necessarily like
judge them like past Rockies arm farms. I think there is positive things going
on, and they're pitching, theyare catching up to some degree. They've
got a pitching lab and from allthe way from from what I can see
a ball to the majors, Ithink there are good things happening. I
(19:19):
like what some of their major leaguearms are doing right now. I think
they've all taken developmental steps, andwith the attrition of arm health that perhaps
an unprecedented rate, there is apossibility that a Rockies arm or two can
help our fantasy squads. I don'tknow. I'm trying to navigate that the
best I can. But with Sullivanin particular, I think about Cody Bradford,
(19:44):
some Matt and how he's got asofter left handed fastball that is really
effective. And I'm not saying thatthe fastballs are one for ones here,
but after about I don't know,fifteen fourteen on my list, I think
the glab gets way bitter. Thereare less sort of whole packages, if
you will, flashing what I wantto bet on. So I was just
(20:07):
kind of then attaching myself to maybeone particular skill that I really want to
commit to, and for me,it's Sullivan and that fastball, and I
think he's just in Hia right now. It's a tough place to pitch,
but I think we're seeing what thatfastball can do, and if that's the
rudder to his development, I thinkI kind of want to take that run.
Yeah, And we talked a coupleepisodes ago about how many of the
(20:30):
Rockies pitching prospects were actually showing outreally, really well, whether that be
in Spokane like Sullivan or in HartfordPalmquist, who we've talked about quite a
bit. I think there's a fewguys that you can make the case for
as the top Rockies pitching prospect andnot get laughed out of a room.
Right, these are real arms andSullivan, you know, he's a second
(20:52):
rounder out of wake Forest, whichis a pitching factory, so there's certainly
some interest there. And he's hada great start to his professional career.
I mean love the low walk totalslike that is really really exciting to see,
and he's getting lots of whiffs andnot just on his fastball. I
(21:14):
think some of the off speed playspretty well too. And the fastball is
very i mean, it's slaps verydifferent. Just watching on video, it's
just it's a different look, differentdeception, a different release, and I
think a different movement profile. Likemy hitters list, it's just it's hard
for me to really get behind aguy when the track record is still pretty
(21:37):
short. And sure, they've onlymade it to high A as we've seen,
and we've talked about double as reallywhere prospects start to cut their teeth
and the drop off to double Acan be big, right, it should
be a big drop. And I'mnot saying that that's true of Sullivan,
just for me, it's a questionmark for a guy that had such kind
of a short professional track record upto this point, I will admit,
(22:00):
and I think if folks look atmy list, I'm I'm pretty picky.
I will cross a guy off becauseI don't like his headwhack. You know,
I think for the most part,it's worked fairly well for me.
So this might be a little bitof a risky call. But if you're
going to ride a Rockies arm,it might be wise to ride one where
the juice is the fastball and notbreaking stuff necessarily. So and you know,
(22:25):
I'm thinking long haul here, Matt, you know, like our eight
year draft and Hold pitching league thatwe did, Like I'm trying to think
about eight years from now. I'mtrying to think about what this guy's career
will look like I'm trying to thinkabout the skills that they may or may
not have to survive the attrition andsurvive long enough in the bigs, make
enough good big league pitches to getto that their late twenties their early thirties.
(22:49):
Yeah, And that again is somethingthat I think we forget about with
prospects and in dynasty when you're lookingat these guys like you aren't brostering prospects
because you want them to be goodnext year. Your rostering prospects if you're
in a rebuild, for example,so that they're going to be good in
three years or two years or longer. Tricky with pitchers like you're talk about,
(23:11):
you know, with Brandon fo orGavin Stone or some of these other
guys that looked great in the minorsand then had a significant adjustment to the
big leagues and sure look pretty good. Sure, And I get And I'm
not saying we need to think about, oh, which arm, which hitter
or whatever that I'm going to puton my roster for eight years, because
the reality of that happening is isslim. Five years into a new league
(23:33):
and I have one player left fromthat initial draft you know, and I
feel like I'm stubborn, but Ido feel like when we put lists together
like that, that's, in mybelief, that's how we should be looking
at these players, looking at theircareers, not the short term. Yep.
All right, back over to theathlete side. Starting at number,
We're going to go with Orioles outfielderDylan Beaver's number nineteen. We're gonna go
(24:00):
with Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Andy Payesnumber eighteen. We're gonna go Pete Crow,
Armstrong Maybee's centerfielder, number seventeen,Mariners catching prospect Harry Ford, and
number sixteen Tampa Bay Ray's shortstop prospectCarson Williams. Now, this is an
(24:22):
interesting group. Some that I've beenskeptical of before this season. We talked
about a couple of these guys inan off season episode, and some that
I've kind of stumped for for awhile. Dylan Beavers is I think my
kind of prospect, and that hedoes everything well and doesn't have a standout
specific tool. He strikes out betterthan average amount, he walks more than
(24:45):
average, He swipes bags and haspower and I think can get to it.
He's sort of like quietly under theradar good at all of these things,
and I find that those players oftenlitter my rosters, especially in ROTO,
because I like having a baseline ofskills across the board rather than guys
who excel in one specific category.So Dylan Bieber's I think fits that to
(25:07):
a t, and he's done athigh and double A at young for a
level twenty one and twenty two.Andy Pies. I was way on last
year when we did the Dynasty dugoutinitial draft. I think I drafted all
major leaguers, so I was like, I'm competing out of the fourteenth draft
slot, so the last pick inthe draft, and I was like,
(25:29):
I'm competing, and so I waitedon all of my prospects, but I
felt like I picked some good ones. And my third prospect that I picked
that year was Andy Pies because Iam a huge believer in guys that do
things well at the extremes and histrick his one weird trick and doctors will
hate him that he hits everything inthe air and he has the power to
(25:53):
make that work. He's hit theground running for the Dodgers already. But
I think that even though his exitthe velocities are more good than great.
He's going to be a great powerasset for a really long time because he
has great plate discipline and he hitsthe ball in the air all the time.
And I love that PCA similar playerin a lot of ways. The
(26:15):
exit velocities aren't outstanding, but he'sgoing to play all the time because he's
got plays really really great defense andhe hits a lot of flyballs. So
even though some of the exit velocitystuff and the plate discipline stuff is not
as good for PCA as it isfor any of these other guys in this
grouping strikes out a bit more,walks a bit less, but he's got
that defensive floor, so he's goingto get plate appearances and that is king.
(26:38):
And he's fast enough to steal bags. He's shown a propensity to steal,
which it matters, and that's somethingagain that I think we'll come back
to for some other guys that maybehave better speed but aren't as good at
stealing bags. And I think he'sgoing to get to his home runs because
he hits fly balls and he's goingto play at Rikley harry Ford maybe my
highest riser when I was doing thisprospect list for me coming into the season,
(27:02):
he was like in the sixty seventyrange, and I had expressed some
skepticism about how his power was goingto play at double A, especially in
Arkansas where the park is pretty unfavorablefor power. That whole Texas League has
a bunch of parks that aren't particularlygood for power. And it's been super
(27:22):
impressive. He has not missed abeat. Like his lines from last year
and this year look so similar.He's hitting home runs at about the same
rate. He is walking at aboutthe same rate. He's striking out at
about the same rate. He's doingthis while he's a catcher and is twenty
one years old. That is reallyimpressive. That he has advanced to a
(27:44):
harder, a worse ballpark, amuch more difficult league, has it missed
a beat at all. I amsuper buying that this is just like the
plate skills that he's known for,you know, walking and not striking out
very much are going to help boyhis profile kind of no matter what the
other contexts. And for me,he's kind of cemented himself. I'm still
not sure he's going to be acatcher hit or miss in my looks,
(28:07):
and I've watched quite a bit ofthat Arkansas team, and so that's maybe
still a knit to pick for him, But everything else about it has looked
pretty good, down to him stealingbases, which, again at the catcher
position, that can be a bigleg up. And the last guy in
this group is another one that I'vebeen somewhat skeptical of, Carson Williams shortstop,
and my skepticism for him has beenhis contact ability. He's run strikeout
(28:32):
rates north of thirty percent for mostof his minor league career, but he's
done so while still having well aboveWRC plus despite being really young for the
level. I mean, he madetriple A as a twenty year old last
year, and he's made the strikeoutrate work because he has a lot of
power and he plays great defense.He's a plus defender at shortstop. The
(28:53):
plus defender still seems to be true. My looks at him this year have
looked he looks as slick and smoothas ever. The power is still there,
and most encouragingly, he's back atdouble A, but his strikeout rate
is way down and he remains oneof the youngest players in the league.
So that's my five number twenty Beavers, nineteen Pies, eighteen PCA, seventeen
(29:17):
Harry Ford, and sixteen Carson Williams. Who you want to touch on,
Nate. Interesting group on a coupleof fronts for me, Matt, Like
you mentioned two guys in here thatwe actually traded away in our I'm not
taking the hour on that yet,but it's having a great year. Yeah,
he's doing all right, Harry Ford. I think in a way,
Matt, if I remember correctly someof the things that we kind of threw
(29:38):
some doubts on or question ear leastI did. He's also kind of proving
what we like to see in somehitters. Right. He might not hit
the ball the hardest, but heis maximizing his home run potential, right
yep, which is what we like. So sneaky little Harry Ford there at
the front. I had asked youhow many of these guys you do,
(29:59):
like, you know, going tobe every dayers? And this is where
I think, historically for me,at least after about the top ten or
fifteen hitters, is where I startto get some questions about how good I
feel that these will be every days. But I got to ask you about
Dylan Beaver's, you really feel thatconfident that he's going to be an everyday
outfield there, Huh, I reallydo. I think you look at what
(30:19):
he's done so far in his minorleague career and it's flown a little bit
under the radar, both because he'sin a stacked system and there are lots
of exciting prospects kind of sandwiching himin Triple A now with Mayo and Holiday
and Crestad and all those guys thatare kind of above him, and then
below with the SAO and a bunchof the draftees in Booie. But I
(30:45):
don't know. I think Beaver's hasa case to be made as just as
impressive. And we when we hadback on he was asking about kind of
what the ideal kind of ideal hitterprofile looks like for me, and one
of the things that we had talkedabout was how often does a hit or
hit the ball in the ground,how much do they put it in the
air. Beavers kind of looks likeone of the most ideal versions of it
(31:08):
for me. Twenty eight percent groundball rates so far this year, twenty
seven percent line drive, which ispretty high forty four point seven percent fly
ball. That's not super extreme.It's not quite Andy Pies level. That
ground ball rate kind of is.I think that actually might be better than
Pies's so far this year. ThatI love. And the rest of his
(31:30):
game is just pretty well rounded.He gets to his homers, He's running
almost two hundred ISO as a twentytwo year old in double A. He
can steal a bag or two.You know, he's got nine steals versus
one caught stealing this year. Ijust love that like well rounded production,
and nothing about what he's doing seemsunsustainable to me. He's got a better
(31:51):
than the average strikeout rate. It'sbacked by a better than average swinging strike
rate. I look at him andI wish he hit for a little more
power. If he hit the balla little bit harder, he might be
pushing into my top ten. Righteverything else about it, I feel really
really good at I can't say thatI've seen a ton of him playing the
outfield, like I'm not confident thathe's a plus outfielder. When I have
(32:15):
seen him out there, he looksathletic and fast, and it feels like
he's going to play at least averagedefense. So Beaver's for me, yeah,
I'm confident that he's a big learegular. I think the knock for
me on him is, I'm notsure there is a star level carrying tool
here. So a great outcome forhim looks something like Brian Reynolds maybe and
(32:36):
he's I'm not saying he's there yet, but that kind of shape of production
with like teen fifteen and so stealsfifteen to twenty homers annually and just good
across the board production. But I'mnot sure I see like the upside case
where for like a Christian Yelich breakoutseason where he is hitting a bunch of
homers, you know what I mean? Like that thats to me like maybe
the upside isn't quite as exciting forBeavers. But I am very sure that
(33:00):
this guy is a big league regularwho really checks a lot of boxes for
me fair enough also too, Matt, we never even broached this. I
think it's a lot tougher to dothis for hitters and pictures in the sense
that there's lots of different formats andhitting stats that get weighed and valued different
leagues when you were putting, Isthis just kind of a generic list,
(33:21):
or are you leading a certain format. No, that's a good question,
and probably should have mentioned that atthe outset. This is for your five
by five, so scundard categories likeroto classical league, and that comes into
play. I mean I mentioned thatwith Amador, like there's a lot that
he doesn't do well, but hispropensity to his steal and contact ability to
(33:43):
me bumps him up, whereas ina really power focused points league he would
not be interesting to me really atall. In fact, I traded him
way in one of those leagues.But yeah, this is we're looking for
guys that have that across the boardproduction, especially with as it relates to
steals. An average did not envythat aspect of your challenge putting a hitter
list together. Matt, all right, should we go back to the good
(34:05):
side? Yeah, I go backto the boring pitchers again? Are interesting
names in this next group, youthink? So fifteen I went with very
young Marlins lefty Thomas White. Now, again, this is an a ball
pitcher, and this is probably aboutas far up I will push this sort
of projectable hopeful, but I thinkI have seen now a couple of nice
(34:28):
flashes similar to what we saw inthe Spring Breakout game that I would put
a gamble down on Thomas White inabout this range. Okay, okay,
three big pitches, and I thinkthere are signs that he's learning how to
pitch some Fourteen man, I promiseyou this is the last Rocky. But
I went with Chase Dolander. Ithink he is just if you're gonna ride
(34:50):
a RACKI or better Racky, he'sprobably the best arm to do it.
Thirteen I went with Caden Dana,twelve I went with Adam Maser, and
eleven I went with Christian Scott.Hmmm, yep, this is an interesting
quintech here. Yeah, it's alittle group like Scott, Maser, Kadan
Dana. Those three guys that Ihave I don't know if on early or
(35:13):
have valued more highly than others,but kind of have been on for a
minute and don't have much of areason to lose my hope with them.
I think. Yeah, so juston that trio, I think that's a
good segue into who I want totalk about. Like Scott, I would
push quite a bit higher than this, Like I think, you know,
(35:34):
he's one of my favorite arms inthe minor leagues. Maser. I'm right
there with you this. He's pushinga top ten you know, teams pitching
prospect. For me, I loveguys who throw strikes, and that's what
he does. He can get betterat commanding those strikes, as we've talked
about, but I really really likehim. I got to ask you to
sell me on Caden Dana. Iknow we've maybe touched on him a little
(35:57):
bit, but he's the guy Iwant you to dive into because ye from
me, he's not sniffing my topthirty forty arms maybe, and I know
lots of people really love him,and he's got at least one pitch to
me that looks really good, butI'm skeptical. I need to be sold
here. What do you got?Yeah? Watch a good bit of him,
And then I went back and Iwatched his most recent start as well,
(36:17):
and I will admit that before watchinghis last start, I don't know
if he would have made my toptwenty. But here's why. Came away
last year very impressed with his northsouth game right, his ability to spot
his fastball and play his curveball whereI don't know if calls it a slider
off of that well and what wewere talking about at that time. A
(36:37):
nineteen year old in Hi A right, and my man was logging innings and
he's a horse, big strong.This last start, I saw him throw
way more sliders and two seemers sinkers. I don't know what he's calling it
than I had in the past.Now I think that there's still definitely some
work to be done with those twoofferings, but I love that I saw
(37:00):
him working on an east west attack. How good it gets, I'm not
totally sure, but I feel danggood about seeing that and riding what I
think his horsepower is going to be. As long as the Angels don't push
him too hard and too fast andgive him the requisite time to sharpen his
whole arsenal, I think you'll seeswing and miss improve. And I think
(37:21):
he's just on a path where he'sgetting himself better for the major leagues and
not selling out for right now production. And this is a twenty year old
in double A and he's logging longoutings, lots of quality and quantity of
innings, and I don't know howmuch better we can get than that sort
of bet. So is this theouting that he had last week? Versus
(37:43):
the Smokeyes, that's the when youwere diving into Yes, but it's interesting
you say that. I mean,that's definitely his worst outing of the year
so far. Right, Maybe itwas statistically, but for me, that
was the best development and developmental senseouting I've seen from him. I love
and I want to see young guyslike this doing things are not good at
yet. Yeah, and there's there'scertainly something to that, like trying to
(38:07):
improve your weaknesses to help build amore well rounded arsenal and learning how to
pitch. I think that that's valuable. We've talked about kind of the difficulties
of how do you assess is thisa regression of skills versus willful progression of
trying to learn something and rose nuggetsof development can be really challenging to tease
(38:30):
out for me. For me,like, I watched that start too,
and it looked like and again maybethis is because I went into it thinking
why isn't this guy missing bats?And where's the control? Like he's had
some command issues in the past,and up to that point this year his
control had been pretty good, Likehe hadn't issued many walks, but then
(38:51):
in three and two thirds he walks, three hits, two throws, two
wild pitches. I came away like, oh yeah, there's the kind of
below average control that we saw lastyear and he's still not missing any bats.
That's he might be not an appropriatelevel right now. You know,
he's up in double A as ayoung twenty year old, Like the Angels
are being really aggressive with him.I'm less willing to blindly attribute performance like
(39:16):
that to he's working on something,and more to me, it's like he's
not very good like he you know, if you step back from his performance
so far, like, yes,he's young, yes it can develop.
There's long time still between now andwhen he makes the major leagues and his
contributing but going from less than fiveinnings per start so far in his career
(39:39):
walking more than you would like tosee for a guy like this. I
mean, he's run higher than tenpercent walk rates at his two longest stops
before this year, and now he'sat sort of a league average eight percent
after that last outing. He's notstriking guys out very much, like a
thirteen point five percent CA minus bbe on its face to me, is
(40:01):
like this is not a guy yet, Maybe he can get there. And
maybe this is part of his progressionto get there. But yeah, Dana,
for me is the guy on yourlist that I just like, probably
wouldn't even consider at this point.Well, one thing is I wouldn't say
that this is blindly doing this.I watched all of his broadcast starts from
last year. To me, itmakes a lot of sense that you might
(40:21):
walk some more, guys might hit, a guy might have a wild pitch
when you're working with some tools thatyou're not comfortable with. My hope is
that this story ends up very similarto a guy in my next year that
I'm sure we'll talk about, CaveeCavali, not one for one, not
the same sort of pitchers, butI think potentially the same sort of developmental
story or similar. Yeah, couldbe we're making guesses in the dark here
(40:43):
to some extent, and we're certainlynot always going to agree. I thought
that was in a pretty aggressive placementfor Danna what we've seen so far.
Well, if you want to forme, also part of this is if
you look at it from the contextof, like, who do you want
to bet on is going to logsome major league innings? Like I think
you feel pretty good about Dana gettingsome Major league innings to Angels and them
(41:04):
staying fairly committed to him and whateverthat development in the majors may need to
look like that might be true.I'll just note that they're fast tracking development
of their pictures hasn't really seemed topay dividends outside of maybe debt mark maybe
maybe you know, I'm just saying, like the other guys that they've kind
of really pushed through, They've tradedsome of them in Ky Bush and Sith
(41:29):
has shown flashes in the major leagues, but they pinged Bachmann pretty quickly after
trying to push him fast. Yeah. I can't really think of anybody else
that that's that's worked for. Andagain maybe it's not to say won't work
for Dana. Well, if horsepower, if there were horsepower grades, I
think Dana could be like a seventyand uh maybe with a future eighty.
(41:51):
So maybe that's what you want tohang your head on here. Horsepower,
of course, one, What whatoutcome are we hoping to get out of
horsepower? Like sweat two hundred innings? Ok, that's interesting you say that.
I mean, he doesn't go morethan five innings to start, you
know, he was lugging six inningoutings fairly regular last year as a nineteen
(42:12):
year old, I mean, fiftythree and a third in eleven starts.
Like, that's less than five inningsper outing, Like it's that he's not
some five to six for a nineteenyear old. That's a lot. You're
you're saying horsepower and the guy throughwhat sixty five sixty eight innings last year,
Like, that's not it's not horsepower. Well, you ain't gonna get
a lot of nineteen year olds throwingsixty some innings in high A in the
(42:35):
minors. Maybe yeah, maybe it'sa like an age or level adjusted horsepower
ranking. Sure, sure whatever futurehorsepower, future horsepower into it, like
an into it, Like all right, back over to the hitters. At
fifteen, I'm gonna go with Chasedthe Louder Guardians outfielder, fourteen another Cubby
Matt Shaw infielder for the Cubs,thirteen Romananthe outfielder for the Boston Red Sox,
(43:01):
and twelve Owen Casey, Cubby's outfielder. And finally at number eleven,
Jet Williams, shortstop for the NewYork Metropolitans. This is an interesting group.
I don't know, there's not likesort of a clean theme here.
The Louder would definitely have been higherfor me because he kind of similar to
(43:22):
Beaver's, does a lot of stuffreally really well, doesn't really have a
statistical flaw in his profile, likestrikes out thirteen percent of the time so
far in his major in his minorleague career, walks, you know,
better than average league average amount,has power, hits fly balls, runs
a bit, gets his homers,like, there's not a lot to nitpick
(43:42):
here. Weird swing finish aside,he just is hurt all the time,
and at this point it's like theseinjuries seem to be recurring. There might
be something underlying this that is justgoing to keep happening. Maybe arguing him
as high as like six if hewasn't hurt, but the injury in the
lack of kind of sustained performance becauseof that knocks him down to fifteen for
(44:04):
me. Matt Shaw had a greatdebut after his draft year last year.
He's this high despite being you know, a college draftee because he runs and
I think he's pretty good at it, and everything else about him is solid
to plus, I'm not sure he'sgoing to have a ton of power at
peak. Like this isn't a guythat you dream thirty homers on, but
thirty forty steals I could see it. And he's got the kind of line
(44:28):
drives and walks enough to get thoseopportunities. Roman Anthony hasn't been as stellar
this year as he was last year, striking out a bit more than he'd
like to see. But remember heis so young. This is his age
twenty season and he's in Double Aand he's holding his own. I think
there's power here. I'm maybe atouch concerned about ground ball rate, like
(44:51):
he's one that I wish would hita few more flyballs because he does have
power to make that worth his while. But otherwise, if he can keep
the strikeouts down and hit a fewmore fly balls, he could be a
top five guy, no problem,Owen Casey. He's kind of similar to
Carson Williams from the previous year,except the power is even better and the
strikeouts are even higher. He isnot very good on the basis. I
(45:15):
wouldn't call that a strength of hisat all. But this guy's going to
hit have seasons where he hits thirtyfive or forty home runs. In the
big leagues, it might come ina depressed average because unlike Carson Williams,
he hasn't really shown the ability toget that strikeout rate under control, and
he doesn't have a great plate disciplinelike so he's not going to walk a
lot to offset that. The othertrue outcome he's going to hit homers and
(45:37):
I love that. And the lastguy in this year, Jet Williams,
whom I traded Carson Williams away forand I still prefer because of everybody on
this list. I think he's thebest base stealer and has maintained his pristine
walk in strikeout ways and I thinkhas enough juice that it's not going to
(45:57):
be We're not talking single digit homerun how we're here for Jet Williams.
Key's a guy that when he putsit in the air, he tries to
pull it, and he does soquite successfully because I think he's got really
good barrel control. So Jet Williams, call it like low teens to twelve
hommers annually, but I could seefifty stolen basis a year and pretty good
average to go with it. Sothat's my next tier. Well, you
(46:20):
know, I will always have tobe sold on cubs. But ow in
case, he's a guy that Ijust admittedly I haven't paid a ton of
attention to. No, I don'tknow agree or disagree with your value here
so much here, But Matt Shaw. Yeah, everything's all good in the
Matt Shaw world. Like, we'renot concerned about his little jump and strikeouts,
(46:40):
his three twenty eight slug right now, his one two to ozero iso.
What's his ground ball rate? Yeah, forty six percent ground his You
know, I'm always guys with stepsand like leg kicks like him. I'm
always wondering about timing issues and stufflike that. So you're you're not phased
(47:01):
by any of this? Huh No? And and here's why. I mean
it's somewhat a similar story to Amadorin that I think some of this is
babbit driven. He's running a twofifty six babbit and given the shape of
his production, you know, decnumber of ground balls you would expect,
you know, more than twenty percentline drives out of here. You like
(47:22):
his forty five percent APPO for ahitter like him. He doesn't have a
ton of raw juice, but thatkind of APO rate is going to lead
to higher babbit. So I thinkwhat I'm what I'm saying is just on
the surface here. When I seeforty five percent APPO, I see the
bump in strikeouts, the decrease inslug from a guy who I know has
(47:44):
got like that goofy step. Thefirst thing I go to is timing.
Is this guy this guy SYNCD upor not? Yeah, And maybe there's
something to that that he's still adjusting. But the bump in strikeout rate is
up to twenty two percent, butit's only an eight point five percent swing
strike rate, So to me,some of this is like he's trying to
(48:06):
be more selective. And he's alsoseen a huge uptick in his walk rate
up to fifteen point six percent.That's enormous at double A and even with
a two point fifty six babbit,which, again looking at the kind of
hitter that he is, line drivesground balls, hitting to the opposite field,
all of those things should lead toa higher than average babbeb. I
expect him to run more like threetwenty maybe three thirty kind of babbebs at
(48:30):
peak, which to me, witha guy who's not going to strike out
a ton, that starts to looklike a middle infielder or corner infielder who's
going to get on base a lotand is going to steal. And again,
he's swiped nine bags already this year, been caught twice. He's running
a lot. And I think thatthat's like a high batting average, high
(48:51):
on base, high runs and okay, power kind of bat like, you
know, not quite the same thing, but something like a Bobashet, you
know, lots of line drives.You might not ever be overwhelmed by the
power. But I think Shaw's goingto steal more than bushat so that kind
of higher babbit running infielder that's supervaluable. And I think that he's the
(49:14):
surface numbers, though they're a littlebit less than you'd hope to see a
lot of that is like babbit badluck and everything else about it looks kind
of as I expected, you know, like a well rounded contributor. Fair
enough. All right, enough ofCubs hitter, Let's talk about some pictures.
Ten I went with Ret Louder theReds. I just think this is
(49:37):
just a very solid I mean,it's pitching speculation, so relatively speaking,
just a solid bet. And Ijust think he's a picture and he's got
good enough stuff, nasty enough slider. You know, safe isn't bad here,
safe doesn't mean boring. I thinkthere is some strikeout potential, and
I'll hitch ride and stay committed tosome louder speculation. Nine the same story,
(50:00):
but a bit of a younger guy, but Robbie Snelly know the Padres.
It's like the young lefty. Ithink he's got, you know,
fine enough stuff. There might bequestions about with and all that at this
juncture, but just kind of intangiblewise, like a guy that I just
feel good about betting on and thinkhe's you know, I'll take this career.
Number Eight I went with Ricky Titaman. I don't think that's a big
(50:23):
shock to anyone. It's plenty bigenough stuff. Of course, health is
the question there. Seven I wentwith one of my all time favorite developmental
stories, Kate Cavali, Who's Ithink getting ready to start some rehab in
the miners right now? And thensix did he start already? Yeah?
I think he had one rehabouting already. No, sweet looks great, awesome,
(50:45):
looking forward to the resumption of thatstory. And then six another cub.
I went with Kate Horton, whoI have been skeptical of and still
have a little skepticism with, butcan't unsee what I've seen from him and
feel like I thought maybe he wasjust a bit of a college thrower raw
getting by with some stuff, butI like the signs of him being a
(51:08):
good pitcher. I agree with you. Coming out of that draft, I
was not that impressed with his collegeperformance and what he looked like. And
it was numbers and he did crazystuff up, but just pitching wise,
I was like, this is prettyloose. I don't know. No,
he won me over as well,so I'm not going to force you to
talk anymore about a cub here.But going back to your workhorse metric,
(51:31):
how can you live with yourself puttingRicky Tiedeman on there is his horsepower metric
like the donkey with a freaking tractorstrapped to its back because the guy can't
get more than two innings at atime. I know, I know all
fair, and I feel all ofthat. The first time I watched titum,
ind is the only time that Iwas like, this is one of
(51:52):
the best pitching prospects. I gotto value him like one of the best
pitching prospects in the land here,I don't think there's any doubt that the
fastball slider come Nation is capable ofputting up some really nice fantasy numbers for
us. And you know that Iam adverse to just betting on stuff alone.
I don't think that is with Rickyhere. And I know it's it's
just all injury stuff is I don'tknow if it's shoulder, when he's a
(52:14):
hamstring whatever, he's got to stayon the mound anywhere from three on this
list to completely off of it.I feel like it is totally fair.
So it's just you want to putsome risk bucks down and and go after
this, you know, potential fantasyace or something, however you want to
phrase it. I don't know.I just slidded Ricky eight. Felt like
that's where I would take the risk. Yeah, I mean I was there
(52:36):
pumping Daniel Espino as the yeah,next great pitching prospect, and if you
would have stayed on the bump,man, dude was so unbelievably dominant.
Man, I mean you can't denythat. But availability is the first what
they say for a skill, andyeah, and this is this is one
where I'm with you on the skills. Every time I've seen him over an
(53:00):
extended outing, especially across his twentytwenty three small samples. He threw out
some electric outings, had some moreconcerns at times, and definitely was dealing
with some injuries, some that werereported, some I think that weren't.
And Tiedeman is man, it's enticing. You get why people really like the
(53:22):
flat approach fastball, the slider thathas good hitters diving out of the way.
Yeah, I mean, it's it'spretty impressive stuff. Wise get Aspino
flashes, you know, I it'sI'm able to stay on the mound now
for better yeah of three years.No, this is what I this is
what I wrote in the piece here. You didn't need metrics to see the
(53:43):
potential in the fastball slider combo fromhis left arm. Slaught to know,
with two big offerings and a physicallyimposing bill, a lefty Daniel Espino as
dream was born, unintended, unawarethere was a potential whammy of the similarity
between the two, a struggle tostay on the mounds. So, I
mean, the first time I watchedhim, it was like lefty Espiino esque
dreams for me, Donald, Justwhere do you want to let's alide in
(54:05):
that kind of gamble, you know, yeah, I for me, it's
just not the kind of gamble Ilike to make. And I say this
as somebody who I think maybe gotburned by that kind of guy enough,
and I still regret one of themajor league versions of this trade that I
did. I had drafted George Kirbyin a Dynasty startup fairly early, but
(54:25):
I felt like, you know,good price where I got him, and
then pretty early in this would havebeen twenty twenty three, so early in
twenty twenty three, I traded Kirbyfor Jake de Gram, who's like,
I have the same thing, rightof like Kirby's great excellent Dynasty picture has
thus far shown incredible availability and consistency. Jacob de Gram is the best picture
(54:50):
that I've ever seen, and Iwas like, I want some of that.
And then immediately I think I gotlike two starts out of him.
And he was on the shelf forthe whole year, and it's been on
the shelf for most or we'll beon the shelf for most of this year.
So I'm with you. It's enticinggoing after that kind of upside,
But man, it sucks when itdoesn't pan out. Catching injuries can't scare
you too much. You've got tojust deal with it. We'll see,
(55:13):
We'll see with Ricky t all right, Matt, then you loser hitters.
All right. We're not done talkingabout Cubbies yet. This might be the
lone kind of surprise in the toptwenty five here, but I'm going with
Moises Biasteros at number ten, theCubs beefy boy catcher number nine. We're
(55:35):
gonna go Samuel Basseo for the Orioles, another big boy catcher, first base.
Kobe Mayo Oriols, a sensible thirdbaseman but probable first baseman, comes
in at eight for me. Arizona'sJordan Lawler at number seven, good shortstop
there. Number six is Cincinnati Red'sthird baseman, Noelvie Marte. Biasteros and
(55:59):
Bisseo are together, not by accident. They're both guys with questions about their
ability to stick at catcher, buthave done nothing but absolutely mash in the
minor leagues. Slightly prefer Bisseo,even though he's mostly been a level behind
Biasteros, because I think he's goingto get to more of the power,
(56:22):
so I think he's going to hita few more of those polled fly balls.
Basaye has sort of got an interestinghitting approach where he'll hit all over
the yard, but then when he'sreally trying to crank a homer, he'll
pull it and he'll will mash itthat way. So I just slightly prefer
Bisseo, and the fact that he'sdone it younger is another mark in his
favor. But Bias Steros is agreat hitter, and don't let people tell
(56:46):
you that he's never going to bea major leaguer because of his physique.
Like he's huge, no doubt,but he looks pretty good behind the dish
in my looks, and he's showingreally rare ability with the bat, you
know, walking to percent of thetime, only striking out fifteen percent of
the time as a twenty year oldin Double A, and hitting for power
(57:06):
to go with it. He's evenswiped seven bases over the last couple of
years. But he's deceptively athletic despitehis huge size. I'm a big fan.
Toby Mayo has looked great all throughouthis minor league career, has really
demolished at his last couple of stops. If there's one slight concern with this
masher, it's that the strikeout ratehas ticked up a little bit this year,
(57:29):
and it's at that range where youmight start to expect a greater uptick
when he makes the majors as well. And is that going to impact what
is kind of a mainly power onlyapproach, like we'll see, but mao,
he's going to be a power hittingmasher and the corner and I think
is going to be really good.Jordan Lawler and Noelvie Marte. I've had
(57:50):
skepticism through the years for both ofthese guys, but in the last year,
the last year in particular, thisis waiting last year heavily obviously for
both these guys. They both madebig gains in their strikeout rates and everything
else kind of seemed sustainable, Likethey got their swinging strike rates down to
about league average despite being really youngfor their levels. They both made it
up to Triple A and had alot of success as twenty and twenty one
(58:15):
year olds, and then both hadconcerns this year. Noelvie Marte pede suspension
and hamstring injury and Lawler on theshelf, but I slightly preferred Marte.
I think the power is going tobe a little bit better for him,
though I could flop these guys backand forth. Lawler, I think is
going to steal more and hits moreballs in the air, and so I
(58:36):
think it's going to get to someof the some of the power a little
bit more, especially to the pullside. So of these five, I
know you're dying to talk about morecubbies, So no, I just dive
right into vice there. We're notgoing to do that. Look at you,
rock question Mike gambles on a potentiallyoft injured pitcher over here, while
your number six and seven batters inthe land can't really stay on the field
(58:59):
that often either. But Noelvie,Now this is part what's a lot of
the KEL League in twenty twenty,right, And this is what Nouelvie was
like by some aggressive dynasty folks,a top ten prospect. Then the way
out of that, I think,and now we're back right. I'm probably
justo biased from that season and seeinghim as a teenager compared to other hitters
(59:21):
in that league at the time,and just being really skeptical and not seeing
it and wondering why people love thisguy so much. So, if you
can, what's been the story overthat? Why are we back now?
Why did he drop? And whyare we back at Noelvie being one of
the best prospect hitters in the land. I was always really interested in Noelvie
Marte because he was the Mariner's topprospect for a little bit there, and
(59:43):
then obviously it was the headliner inthe Luis Castillo trade over to the Reds.
Which maybe there's something to that thatthe Marrior has traded away such a
like a big time prospect that obviouslygot a cy young caliber pitcher in return.
But it does tell you something whenthe returns for teams trading away really
good prospects, those prospects pan outless than the ones that just graduate within
(01:00:08):
an organization. I forget who didthe research on this. I meant to
look it up. I made thispoint the other day, and maybe there's
some truth to that with Marte,And I know after the Mariners traded him
away, I was like kind ofskeptical about him, like, oh,
maybe he's not going to succeed.Their strikeout rates started to tick up for
the Mariners and in Everett, andso I was like, Okay, maybe
(01:00:29):
this is the right guy to tradeaway. He was a little better for
the Reds in that twenty twenty twoseason when he struck out less, walk
more, hit for more power,stole more bases, had a better clip.
It was like just better all around. And then last year promoted to
double A as a twenty one yearold, and then up to Triple A
as a twenty one year old,and then made the major leagues all as
a twenty one year old, justcontinued to perform like some of these other
(01:00:51):
guys. The shape of his productiondidn't change very much, And to me,
that demonstrates a mastery of that ofthose skills. A lot of guys
you'll see promoted and then a lotof their skills take a step back.
They strike out way more, theywalkway less, that something about the shape
of their production changes a lot.That really wasn't happening with Marte. And
there wasn't really like knits that youcould pick with what he was doing.
(01:01:15):
And the major league example, healmost passed prospect status last year and would
have certainly had not been for thePD suspension and injury this year because he
got one hundred and fourteen at batslast year, so some of this is
cheating a little bit, but thepublic numbers that we got, his max
eve was up to almost one sixteenone fifteen point six, his average was
(01:01:37):
ninety one point three, and Ithink his ninetieth was in the like sixty
sixty five range, like plus todouble plus range. He hit the ball
on the ground a bit too muchin the majors, but that hadn't really
been an issue for him in thepast, So taken together, this looked
like a guy who mashed the ball, didn't strike out very much even playing
(01:01:59):
in the major leagues, had shownat least a league average ability to walk,
and on the Reds had started torun more, which is something that
I had been kind of skeptical ofbecause you know, he's kind of a
bigger guy. But he was runningand being fairly successful on the bases,
which is I think something that theReds like to do anyway. So he
looked to me like a really wellrounded guy who's going to produce, except
(01:02:22):
that maybe it's going to take hima bit to really lean into the raw
home run totals. But everything elseabout the production to me looked great.
Was some of this because he wasmoroiding. I don't know, maybe,
but until we see him back andhopefully clean and back in the field,
we can't really know that for sure. And what I saw was a debut
(01:02:43):
where he put up a one twentyWRC plus as a twenty one year old,
and nothing about it looked really unsustainableto me. So that really convinced
me that this is a guy withthe capital G. And while Lawler might
have some more upside with the stolenbase totals, he also every promotion that
he's had, he's really struggled,including in his small tiny cup of coffee
(01:03:06):
at the Big Leagues last year.And so when kind of splitting hairs between
these two, I went with theguy that I thought the production was more
likely to come and more likely tobe sustainable. All right, Matt,
my top five pitchers here. Ifeel pretty good about these five here is
because read van scooters number one,not quite not quite, but number five
I went, Now, this isthe riskiest, riskiest of the five,
(01:03:30):
for sure, I think, butone with white Sox, Noah Schultz,
big young lefty. I know,we only got what like sixty ish pro
innings to go off of right now. But I've seen enough of the fastball
slider combination from that angle and enoughgood execution, and I've good enough strike
throwing that I'm going to take thisgamble. I'm going to value him highly.
(01:03:51):
For Fantasy number four, I wentwith the Tigers Jackson job. I
know we've talked a bit about him. Loved his done right ability to walk
people last year, and I knowthe walks have jumped quite a bit this
season. Don't know if there's acorrelation between him uscles showing off some higher
velocities, But when you just talkabout ability to execute marrying I think what
(01:04:14):
will end up being plenty of goodenough weapons. Jackson's job is up there
for me number three, And now, I know maybe technically he's not a
prospect, but I think anywise hestill is. Shane Boz another just you
know Tommy John resumption story. Tome, he was at one point my
number one pitching prospect in the landbecause of the ability to execute highbrow stuff
(01:04:35):
we saw some of the majors.There's nothing performance wise to make me not
still think that about Bozz And Idid watch but his last rehab outing,
and I don't think there's any signsthat he won't have his stuff back,
So stick with Boz there and numberone and number two were tough, Matt,
but I am I think this isabout as good as it gets for
(01:04:55):
pitching prospects for us. And interchangethese two if you want. But I
went pole Skiens number two and Iwent with Andrew Paynter number one, which
I don't think would surprise anyone whohas listening to me to talk about Andrew
Paynter before. But I just thinkwhat we saw from him and his double
a run as a nineteen year oldis just exceptional. Do you want to
use the word phenom that I'm puttingthat word on what that was to me?
(01:05:20):
Just unbelievably good stuff being used howeverhe wanted to. And I'm gonna
bet on that all day whenever Isee it, whenever, however many years
it takes to see that again,I will always bet on that strong Top
five for sure. Lots of namesthat I really like. Andrew Painter was
about the most exciting pitching prospect thatwe've seen, that kind of ascension stuff,
(01:05:43):
whole arsenal, so impressive schemes too. I mean what he did in
college, his junior year was incredibleand has really just hit the ground running.
Sitting there watching that started against theCubs, and I'm like, I'm
going to put him too on alist after this? How can I?
How can I do that? AndI, you know whatever, waffled on
that, but just going to givewhat I thought might have been maybe like
(01:06:09):
once in a lifetime glimpses of thecombination that Painter has with the execution of
smaller braver bet over schemes. ButI think they're both are going to have
very good careers health with standing.Yeah, you know, I think Joe
might be on the shelf with something. I'm not sure what it is.
I don't think it's yeah, curious. But let's talk about Shane Boss.
(01:06:30):
It's been a minute since we've seenhim in the bigs. He lost pitch
in the big leagues in twenty twentytwo, another guy who had a pretty
impressive rise in that began in thePittsburgh organization and ended in the Tampa Bay
Ray organization. Talk to us aboutwhat you're still betting on here. And
by the way, I say thispartly selfishly, I saw the line on
(01:06:51):
his last rehab start and it mademe a little bit nervous that we aren't
getting the Shane bos of old back. But talk to me about what it
is you like about Boz still comingback from injury and what you think this
can look like at peak. Yeah, Well, before Painter came along last
three four years, Boz was theguy I thought really good stuff, using
(01:07:14):
it the best I've seen in theminors. So that's hard for me to
unsee in that value. Now Bozis interesting because he kind of goes against
what I like to bet on inthat his execution abilities got way better over
his minor league development than where heonce was. And I know the Rays,
at least from what I have gatheredand heard, like preach just throw
strikes. But I don't think Bozis just a strike thrower, and I
(01:07:36):
think we saw that in major leaguestoo. Like he spots the fastball I
think very well, has great commandof that pitch, executes that very well,
and he's able to play his otherofferings off of that. And I
don't know, I just I don'tthink, you know, execution plus stuff
marriage can get much better than whatwe've seen from Boz. And I know,
doubting the other day, like I'mnot expecting a guy who hasn't pitched
(01:07:58):
in like two years to just haveall the rust knocked off. But I
think the fastball had the same sortof teeth that it once did, so
I'm not too concerned the stuff isn'tgoing to come back. You know.
It's funny. Guys get hurt,guys get Tommy John and then they're just
like off of list. I seeall of a sudden their pitch grades decrease,
Like Painter was getting seventies and nowhis fastball is like a sixty on
this Like what, like, howhow can you change your assessment of the
(01:08:19):
skills. I don't I don't getthat. But in as confident as bozz
as a pitching prospect as anyone,and I don't see any reason to change
that. All right, well,I hope you're right. I've got him
in a thirty teamer that my teamis in a really weird spot, and
I'm definitely hoping that he comes backand is good. I mean, we
saw him what twenty one, twentytwo. He's in the uppers. He's
(01:08:40):
striking out thirty six to forty percentof hitters, not walking more than six
percent. I mean that was.Uh, folks, remember how freaking good
he was, and I liked himcoming up. I liked him more than
Shane McClanahan. I mean, Iknow it might be splitting hairs there,
but McClanahan came up and was oneof the best fantasy pitchers in the land
before he went down. And Idon't see a reason why Bozz can't potentially
get to that point either. Yeah, and you hope that you know that
(01:09:01):
he's fresh off DJ. Yeah,he's got a few years of performance.
Whereas you know, and I putticking time bottom that elbow is going to
go. It's something that's mentioned inthe piece as well. But the way
that I kind of was going aboutis from what I've got, you got
about a one six shot of aguy not getting this stuff back, not
coming back to the same level beforeTimmy John. So to me, that's
(01:09:23):
good enough. Odds fuck it,I'm just gonna keep valuing the same We're
not going to bat a thousand ifI'm wrong and one out of six of
those guys coming back, so beit. I'll survive that, all right.
You heard it here. It's Keensucks Andrew Painter for rules. No,
that is not that the case,Nate Handy, everybody, Okay,
(01:09:43):
let's round out my yeah, yourtop five here, rough top five.
I don't think people are gonna besurprised by the names. If you're counting
down at home, you probably knowwho the top five are. But I
hope the order at least sparks someinteresting conversation. Number five Jackson Holiday of
the Baltimore Orioles. Number four EmmanuelRodriguez, outfielder for the Minnesota Twins.
(01:10:08):
Number three James Wood, outfielder forthe Washington Nationals. Number two Jayson Dominguez
for the New York Yankees. Andnumber one Junior camon Aro, third baseman
slash maybe second basement for the TampaBay Rays. Now, this crew are
just the best of the best.I think looking at these guys, it's
(01:10:29):
like Tommy Lee Jones recruiting the bestof the best of the best for men
in black. Like, these guysare all going to make the major leagues.
They're all going to be productive majorleaguers. They're all going to be
I think, above average major leaguers. What they've done at such young ages,
Like the oldest of this crew istwenty one. Now basically impossible for
(01:10:50):
these guys not to come up andbe useful major league contributors. The reason
Jackson Holiday is number five here despitebeing the youngest and for many people,
the number one overall prospect, isthat, as I've said before, I
think his fantasy relevant skills are notas conducive to the rodeo game. Like
(01:11:11):
I don't think he's a particularly goodbased Steeler. Even though he's got decent
speed, I don't think he's goingto hit a lot of home runs,
Like he doesn't have high end exitvelos. While he hits a lot of
line drives, I don't think he'sgoing to hit a lot of flyballs,
and so his raw home run totalsI think might be in the ten range
in some of his first years.But he's got a really good feel for
the strike zone. He's going towalk, he's going to limit his strikeouts.
(01:11:33):
I think his small thirty or fortyat that sample in the major leagues
this year. Notwithstanding, he's goingto be a good hitter. It's going
to play up the middle. EmanuelRodriguez and James Wood I kind of paired
together, and honestly I could flipthem either way. They both have had
strikeout concerns. They both have prodigiousraw power, They're both fast and have
(01:11:55):
shown a willingness to steal. Igave the edge here to James Wood despite
my abide love for Emmanuel Rodriguez,because James Wood is showing the strikeout gains
and he's doing it at a levelhigher while being about the same age as
Emmanuel Rodriguez. So the big concernwith James Wood was is he's going to
get those levers under control and strikeout less than thirty percent of the time.
(01:12:16):
He's down to nineteen percent of thetime in triple A this year.
That is super impressive, and everythingelse about his performance continues to look super
exciting. Emmanuel Rodriguez, he's currentlystriking out. I think at last I
looked it was under thirty percent,but he's hovered at thirty percent or above
strikeouts at every level pretty much thathe's been. He's also walking almost that
(01:12:39):
much and does hit the ball inthe air the most of these guys so
and has great eggsy vealos as well. So I mean, I'm very convinced
that Emanuel Rodriguez is going to hitfor a lot of power, and he's
deceptively quick and is going to swipesome bags too, So Nate knows.
I'm a huge fan of em RodJasin Demingez. I think might be a
(01:12:59):
bit of a prize here. Butagain, people forget how young he is.
He's, you know, like justbarely twenty one now, has already
shown success in the major leagues.Maybe the skills and tools off the page
like don't jump that much. Peopleforget that he steals bases a lot and
did in the minor leagues too,And so for me of that, like
(01:13:21):
grouping of four guys, you canorder them a bunch of different ways,
and you might change it depending onthe kind of format that you play.
I'm a big Jason Dimingis fan.I think that a lot about his production
in the major leagues was backed upby his underlying skills, and then his
propensity to steals just gives me alittle more confidence in him being a fantasy
(01:13:42):
kind of categories contributor going forward.And then my number one junior, Cameronaro,
this guy's a freak. He's barelytwenty years old and has legit like
top five level power in the majorleagues. Doesn't get to all of it
yet, like, I would stilllike to see him hit more fly balls
because he does good things happen,but he's got a perfectly acceptable strikeout rate
(01:14:04):
over the last couple of years inthe upper miners. He doesn't walk that
much, and so maybe Nate likeshim a bit more because of that.
But I also think that that's goingto help his balls in play tick up
because he doesn't strike out a tonand doesn't walk that much, so he's
swinging a lot, and I thinkthat might lead to the highest home run
totals of this crew. You know, this is a guy I'm not going
to be surprised if he turns inforty or a fifty home run season.
(01:14:27):
If he starts to put the ballin the air just a little bit more,
you could see that happening. Sothe massive power upside, along with
pretty well rounded rest of his battedball profile has Canon Arrow in a tier
of zone for me, just atthis age, this level of power,
this level of hitting success is sorare. I think he's going to be
like Raffie Devers, Austin Riley likehave seasons that put him in the MVP
(01:14:51):
level conversations. So Junior Canon Arrowis my number one. We would,
Howiday have been five on this listregardless of how his first little stint would
have went for you. Yeah,okay, I figured it as much.
I love that you put Jadam too. To be honest, I don't know.
I might have a hard time notputting Jadam one. Yeah, I
wouldn't argue with you too much,especially because the steels like is so far
(01:15:13):
his favor versus if we're talking likerodo for me for me though, like
having a masher who like maybe theRays are considering it. Second side played
some games there at Triple A.I don't know if he really could do,
but if he's playing second base,like talking about a forty plus homer
bat at second base in your BayLeague, like yeah, yeah, it's
fun. The story of Jadam's dynastyvalue if you like sum it up into
(01:15:38):
like a tic tac video. Tome, it'd be like a like a
wife getting ready for people coming over, like frantically cleaning up in the house,
like just kind of losing her mind. Like you talk about a teenage
bat that you know folks were identifyingas a phenom or what have you,
And it's like his numbers at aball weren't that great. It's number like
(01:15:58):
just funny to me, the ficklenessthat dynasty value can have on players like
this, Well, well, firstof all, could it have gone any
better? Could have been clean aroundthe house when when you're having people over
to Nate, they're not gendering thehousework around here? Nice, you're right.
Second of all, A hundred percentagree like the wild bouncing around the
(01:16:20):
perceived value of performance of Domingez,Like, it's weird to me that he's
so far down some less like Ithink even Eric Longenhangen, who I love,
I think he does great work.I think Longenhangen had him like in
the thirties in his top one hundred, and I was like, what fuck,
he's so good. And I mean, maybe he's closer to right too,
(01:16:42):
because I heard that the Yankees arenot going to promote him right up
to the to the big leagues oncehe's back healthy. Yeah, I heard
they're going to let him work inScranton for a bit. But yeah,
I'm first things that I asked aboutin the Dynasty dugout like late twenty twenty
two, I was like, arewe undervaluing Domingez? Because this was after
his I think his a ball orDouba run rather where he was just mashing
(01:17:03):
but was maybe having a little bitof babbit misfortune, and everyone was like,
ah, that's okay, you know, yeah, he's doing okay.
But I was like, under thehood, this looks really really good.
And then he kind of exploded intwenty three again like people had expected him
to right out of the gate.Yeah, he's he's incredible. And I
think it's interesting looking at that topgroup. So my top five hitters,
(01:17:25):
the fifth guy was a number oneoverall pick out of high school. The
other four were all international guys,right, and oh that's right, not
would not would. But I wascoming back to that just thinking about that
next grouping of players that I didn'trank in the top twenty five. But
who has the skills to be thatlike top tier? And you know,
(01:17:48):
I tried to talk myself into likeClaws or cell est In or even Sallas,
who you know, some people obviouslyhave way higher already. But I
just think the thing to end upmattering for your performance as a hitter is
success at a young age versus mucholder competition. The guys that get there
are like kind of younger super talentedhigh school or international level prospects that then
(01:18:14):
get pushed. So you want tolook for like the guys who are most
likely to be top five at theend of this year or this time next
year that are maybe not there yet, Like maybe it is the Lorenzo's or
the Emerson's Aiden Miller, like thesehigh school guys that come up and start
performing at the next couple of levels. It was the thing that I was
(01:18:35):
I was reflecting back on, like, yeah, you want to shoot for
the moon. Those high upside RobertKlea's kind of prospects are the ones to
go for young international bats or prepsthat are getting pushed. Yeah, yeah,
well you know what, I wantto really look for Matt a shower
and watch all of this pretty boysshit off of me because I am done
with this. I don't want todo this again. To take a break,
(01:18:59):
this was pretty boy, I amlet's back to the other guys.
Respect of the guys that do thisall the time and talk about only mixed
league only prospects. But it's justlike, oh my god, yahn,
I don't own any of these guysreally, and most of my latest because
it's good I trained him away.These are these are not my not my
prospects for the most well, I'mgonna go take a shower. Prospects trending
(01:19:24):
up on fan tracks ownership. Topof the list this week was Zebbie Matthews
plus five percent. Up to fourteenpercent makes a lot of sense. I
think Adam Mazer probably his promotion toTriple A fueled this. But he's up
two and a half percent to nineteenpercent. Guy that you talked about this
off season, some Chandler Champlain,getting some getting some shouts and attention.
(01:19:45):
He's up two and a half percent. They had a good outing last week
and he's doing that in Double A, right, Yeah, Felman Celestine is
up two percent. Oh, lastweek we talked about we had Attle renaissance
episode. You think there might bea Brennan Davis renaissance. He's up a
couple of percent, and but hehit like five home runs this week and
didn't win Player of the Week forthe International League, which was interesting.
(01:20:06):
Yeah, I don't know a lotof people really liked him. I was
kind of skeptical personally, but yeah, I was never. I was never
like he's a top five prospect,But who knows. People say that he
wasn't healthy. I just know thathe always had a problem hitting one side
of the hitters. I don't rememberwhich. I think lefties or something who
was a righty who couldn't hit leftieswell, which was weird up two percent,
(01:20:27):
Brandon Sprote, Augustin Ramirez up anothertwo percent, Owen Murphy up two
percent, who was one of probablymy last cut for the top twenty list
here, and then matt Ronaldo.Yean, I see people getting all excited
about and taking up He's up oneand a half percent the one hundred and
mileths four. Yeah. And hemust also see people suggesting that he has
(01:20:51):
above average command and I don't know. Out on Twitter, I cut up
thirty one of his pitches from oneof his outings, and I would not
call that above average command. Ithink the big Gary Gil Hill's up up
a percent, which is good.That brings his roster percentage up to one.
That's good for that. Besides callthere, hang on, did Matthews
(01:21:16):
Quinn Matthews make that list too?Yeah, he's on you. Yeah,
he's been like on this list.I think most of the time, you
know, half a percent every weekor so. Climbing a little bit.
It wasn't huge, but maybe that'llchange next week. Looking ahead this week,
I should mention we're not going tohave an episode next week. The
holiday and our schedules just started sninkingup, so we'll be back in two
(01:21:40):
weeks. But I think that'll benice. I think we're kind of at
a point where kind of all thebig names at the beginning of the year
sitting on some rosters, and peoplemight be a little less inclined to pick
up some new pop ups, ifyou will. But I've got a little
cachet of hitters and pitchers I've beenkeeping an eye on that maybe didn't get
off to the greatest start, butmight be worth a worth of luck.
(01:22:00):
But looking ahead to this week's minorleague Action International League, I don't know.
Maybe Indianapolis at Iowa. See ifBrendan Davis keeps it up and PJ.
Murray's he does nothing the many hehas like a huge week every three
weeks in the PCL at El Pasosee now in case he's Schmidt and Company.
(01:22:21):
Sacramento has got a pretty good lineupagainst Maser Eastern League. Maybe Richmond
at Booie. I don't know.I've been watching some Victor Barracotto and I
know his numbers are not there,but don't like really see anything bad happening
on his bats except for just notgetting hits. I've been keeping an eye
on Cam Weston. He's striking outa bunch of guys. Still see if
anyone from Aberdeen gets called up thisweek. Southern League. I gotta go
(01:22:45):
with Birmingham at Biloxi. I wantto see Schultz double a debut. How
that goes. Texas League San Antoniohas got Wichita maybe uh yeah. I
watched some snowing and others. Thatwould be Zebbi's third double a start in
this sal League. Jersey Shore atAberdeen. Pineda had another good week.
Watch some more, maybe some Aldegariversus those Aberdeen bats which we've seen before,
(01:23:10):
We've seen him dominate them before.Let's see if he backside up.
Midwest League West Michigan's at Lake CountyMatt that should be a good one to
see ham if he's not promoted.Versus our boys, Mooney and Capus.
You see what Nate Furman has beenhot, their leadoff hitter a really good
week. Yeah yeah, and youknow who also had a really Good League
(01:23:30):
week is my Tigers B side bat. Luke Gold has been doing some things.
He's up to like nine home runs. Yeah. Northwest League, which
is always slim Pickens. Maybe Spokaneat Eugene. It's the two top teams
in the league, Sullivan and Dolanderversus the best offense in the league.
Call league Modesto at Rancho. Imean pretty much whenever those two teams play
(01:23:53):
each other, that's probably the mostinteresting watch to me. Florida State League
Dunedin at Bradenton. I keep notgetting to watching some of these young Blue
Jay arms that I want to,and this has got to be the week
to do it. With that awesomeAngle at bradon Ton and then Carolina Lee
Lynchburg is at Fredericksburg. Fredericksburg broadcastshares velocity. So maybe that tugboat outing
(01:24:15):
will be an interesting one to watchwith a gun that could be really interesting.
So yeah, I don't know,Matt. I think that'll do it
for episode thirty four of the Wellthe Pretty Boy Podcast, Pretty Boy Podcast,
we need to change the podcast namefor a week. Yeah, maybe
maybe I don't like it. Idon't want to do this again, Matt
at least maybe not for another year. Sounds good. All right, well,
(01:24:39):
we'll let Chicago farmer take us out, be well, and we will
talk to you again in two weekslater, half miles an hour, riding
too his head. You hop itdown first with the lump bonus face,
and on the very next pitch heup and stole second thing with greatst speed.
(01:25:04):
He wasn't born, He had deadyes, uniform