Episode 41: Season Finale

Nate and The Rook cap off the 2024 Mudding season, tallying up the total and crowning this year's mudding champ. After selecting some B-Sides of the Year, the two get into a discussion on Brant Hurter and his unique MLB performance.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Not five miles an hour riding too his head. He
hopping down first with the mount Bonius face, and on
the very next pitch he up and stole second phase
with gradest be he wasn't born, he had the yes

(00:27):
uniforn Well.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to episode forty one of the Prospect B Sides Podcast,
the season finale. I am Nate Handy, joining me as
always the late rookie because he was late tonight, NAT's man,
how are you?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I am fantastic? I can't wait to review my awesome
B Siders. You know, we've touched on a lot of
these guys throughout the year, but it's fun to look
them all on one leaderboard and see the progress throughout
the year. And while there are definitely some flops, mostly
on Nate's side, Miner really good. But it's fun to

(01:02):
just review. And I'm pumped to do a recap episode
with you, buddy. How are you this fine Monday?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Good man? The Rockets just won walk off. They gotta
they gotta win five of their last eleven to not
lose one hundred. Feeling pretty optimistic about them coming down
the stretch here, Matt, their biggest bugaboo is relief pitching,
and I'm sure no one's paying attention but their young
bullpen arms. This last month, the guys who have come
up have been pretty good, and you know, relief pitching

(01:28):
is what it is, but at least it's some hope, Matt.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yeah, and even I saw Kimley has been pretty good
at play yeah, close lockdown some games. I think he
want to match up against me the other day, and
so I have hate in my heart for him.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
But you know, Elverson's pumping a hundred and putting it
on the black, and Ve's been good, and Hill's getting
his run, Like, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how
that looks next year. This episode, Matt, we're gonna review
our B siders from from the year. I was thinking
maybe we'll talk a little bit about I don't know,
lessons learned from the season, things of that nature. Put

(02:05):
a bow on twenty twenty four, and continue to mud
along and get ready for our off season selection shows.
Does that sound good to you?

Speaker 4 (02:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:16):
It does imply that we're capable of learning and reflecting,
And as I have continued to beat the drum, we're
not really about that here.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
At least on this side of the B side.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Podcasting table. I'm just about of hyping my calls that
were good, ignoring my calls that were bad, of which
there were none, let me remind you and yeah, yeah,
So I don't know if I need.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
To learn anything.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
I'm pretty good at this, Saint let me tell you.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, we'll talk about that a little bit. But Matt,
last episode, that was pretty fun. It's been a minute
I think since we recorded. Having Connor on was nice
and I wanted it was really hard for me to
not talk about and ask more about calling games. I
feel like if he comes back on, I might just
ask him a bazillion questions about what it's like calling games.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
Should he's good at it. He thinks about it a lot.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
And that's actually something that we've talked about over the
years with as he took over and started putting his
stamp on pitching staffs. One thing that I think that
I was a little ahead of the kind of major
league game on just from my own experience, was that
the baseline for pitchers should be that you throw each

(03:34):
of your pitches equally. So if you're a three pitch pitcher,
you should throw each of them about thirty three percent
of the time.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
And then you.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Ratchet up and down based on kind of how good
each of those pitches are. And that's I think something
that he has incorporated into his pitch mix calling for
his pitchers. That's actually something they developed they work on
in the fall, is each pitch gets equal treatment until
they prove that one is better than the other, or

(04:02):
that they can't command one, or that one is actually
really a terrible pitch. And it gets guys comfortable throwing
pitches in any count in really mixing things up. And
I think that it's a way that hitters still are
on the back foot because still from a young age,
everyone's taught to hit the fastball. I know that in
my career I was way better at hitting the fastball.

(04:25):
In my four years in college three years in college
summer ball, I only ever hit home runs against a fastball,
and yet people still kept throwing me fastballs. And I
could hit the other pitches for singles and doubles, but
really getting into one. For some reason about my swinging
like fastballs was the only thing that could do it,

(04:45):
and people just still kept throwing them to me. But
I think I would have been way worse if they
mixed more. I kind of think that's true of most hitters,
and that pitchers still throw fastballs too much. You should
mix more. So that's something that he's incorporated into his
pitch calling. I take some small amount of credit. Most
of it is his own intuition and scouting reports and stuff,

(05:06):
but yeah, that is that's one piece about the pitch
calling game that I know that he has done quite
a bit more of of late.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Nice. Well, that seems prudent to me, starting off throwing
everything equally and going from there. How have your league's gone?
How is your year as a whole as a fantasy player.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's not over, but it is looking like I'd say
a B minus here for me, I'm in one final,
three semi finals, and got bounced in playoffs in four
other leagues. So like solid, I'd say, if I win

(05:45):
this thirty team or that I've talked a fair amount,
that's my favorite league. It's my thirty team daily points league.
If I win that one, it would make up for
some of the other sort of middling outcomes that I
had still in the mix to bring that grade up
a bit. But I'm not sure I'm sitting well in
two of the other semi finals, and I'd say one

(06:06):
of the finals I have a decent shot in. That's
a points league that I play with in a couple
of the guys from the Dynasty dugout I got to
I have a pretty good shot in that final too.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
So in Dynasty, I won no championships this season, which
is unfortunate, but money wise, one more money than I
paid to play. So hey, that's good in that sense.
I guess that's a win. But oh, in all, feeling good,
not great about my Dynasty performance this season. But I
wanted to ask you, Matt, a common theme across my

(06:36):
leagues that I found this year was relief pitching, not
doing well as a whole, identifying guys making trades to
try to help me in those categories. And I feel like,
especially in like thirty teamers or maybe only leagues, you know,
the best teams will have a good lineup, they'll have
good pitching, and like, the way you can get an
edge or separate yourself is with your relief pitching. I think,

(06:57):
And the sort of these teams that I Dynasty teams,
they have of all kind of been built up. You know,
I didn't like take over a great team or draft
a great team out the gates. So I've been building
these teams up over the years with the idea that, hey,
when I get there, when I need to, I will
just trade for some relief pitching. And one of those

(07:17):
trades I made with you this year, and I paid
way too much. And I know relief pitching is so volatile,
But admittedly I don't spend a lot of time prospecting
relief pitching. You did this year. You picked out some names,
some good ones debuted this year. They probably haven't become
fantasy winners yet anyways. But I don't know, man, you
got any advice for someone like me trying to be

(07:39):
better at relief pitching in dynasty leagues.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
I think there's a couple of things that I look to.
One is small sample changes happen really fast with relievers.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, I send you a gazillion great pitching starting pitching
prospects for Craig fucking Kim.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Right, Well, that's not the kind of guy that I'm
talking about. Like Kimberl is a different type of relief
asset in it. At the time, he was fairly well
locked in as a situational He was valuable because of
the situation that he was in, and he had been
fine as a pitcher, you know what I mean up to.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
The point that I traded you for him. He was
like the top scoring relief pitcher in our league at
that juncture, or.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Right right, he was, but again that was because he
was put in situations right he was the locked in
closer for the team with the most wins in baseball,
so he had the most opportunities to get saves, and
often they were like three run leads, which is a
super easy thing to do, so you don't have to
pitch that well to convert that kind of a save.

(08:50):
And he was doing okay, but if you looked at
his K minus BB, if you looked at some of
the other situational things like his walk rate had ticked up,
he was getting fewer with there was signs that all
was not well, and it kind of he wasn't earning
all of those points.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
So now, are you on Are you on the air,
so to speak, right now, admitting that you sold me
a lemon? That's the kind of trade friend you are.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
It's it's I'm not admitting that I sold you the
second best reliever in that league. What I'm saying is
that you've got to understand why he was so valuable,
and a lot of the reliever game is trying to
find either the guys that really are locked into their position,

(09:37):
and Kimberle has been that kind of a guy.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Like I kind of expected him.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
To just keep holding the closer role even if he
wasn't great, but because he was going to get opportunities
he had quote unquote, he's a Hall of Fame closer.
He's done it for a ton of teams and for
so many years now, and then he would just keep
racking up mediocre innings, but he was going to keep
getting saves, and our league rewards that that's value, right,
So that is a kind of value that often you

(10:03):
can get for relatively, you know, not inexpensive, but it's
worth paying that price if you're a contending team. I
did the same in our league the show. I bought
a few relievers because I was a playoff team and
I was like, you know, my relievers for most of
the year were kind of shitty, and so I bought
a couple that were They weren't kind of kimberrel esk
in terms of their role, but they were decent back

(10:26):
end relievers that were going to get me more points
than the guys that I had. That's the other kind
of guy. So there's the guys that like are valuable,
even if they themselves aren't that good of a reliever,
they are kind of locked into their role and they're
going to give you value there. I mean a role
as Chapman has been this in the last couple of years.
He's having a bit of a resurgence this year, but

(10:47):
I'd say the two years before that his stuff was down.
He wasn't getting the whiffs, he was walking guys, but
people were running him out in the ninth in and
that was valuable, and you wanted that on your Dynasty team,
especially as a competitor. You didn't really want to like
carry that all year, but coming up to the end
of the season, like, let's roll with our best guys
and paying a slight premium for those things makes sense.

(11:09):
It's also one of the reasons why when I talk
to guys that are trying to rebuild, I tell them
don't ignore closers or set up guys that might get it,
because those turn into assets that like in that in
the WGM League where we made that trade. My team
fell apart because of some big injuries early on, and
who did I try.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
And go and get eighth inning guys, Guys that.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Were I knew that those were going to be some
of my best trade value assets at the deadline because
my team wasn't going to need them.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I'm glad you brought that up because I want I
wanted to note. I wanted to say, Man, if you're
a rebuilding team, at least in my experience across my
five dynasty leagues, to me, that would be the most
that seems like the most profitable demographic or place to go,
gobble up that nevers man. And then when the contending
teams get to the trade deadline, at least if they're

(11:57):
like us, I kind of pay you wait too much
for them?

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, that that an injured starter. So the other one
that you can often buy for cheap, hold on your roster,
on your bench because you don't need them for the points.

Speaker 4 (12:09):
And then when they come back healthy, you try and.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Screw the maybe bat in the lowers. Yep, housing those
guys get that, I say, yep.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
I'm normally pretty skeptical of small sample size performances like that.
It shouldn't change your underlying opinion of folks too much.
I think relievers might be where I change my mind there,
and I do pay some closer attention, especially kind of
early in the season, middle of the season to rolling,
you know, fourteen game k minus bbs, because managers front

(12:41):
offices even they make the same kind of fallacies that
we do, and that they like the hot hand, they
like the performance of the guy, and sometimes that means
a real uptick in talent level or talent level for
that season. I think like Tyler Matsek in twenty twenty
one just all of a sudden reverted back to elite

(13:01):
reliever ways, even though he'd been hurt or bad for
like the previous five years before that. But pretty quickly
he was like running thirty five percent strikeout rates and
wasn't walking to anybody, and you're like, oh, this is
an elite back end reliever, and he helped win the
Braves of World Series. Those kind of guys, in small samples,
they earned the trust of their manager to be in
those hold situations, those late in inning situations, and then

(13:24):
maybe set up men to closer promotions down the line.
And so trying to find a couple of those guys
early on that are free, like they're going to be free,
just like the Cade Smiths of the world. Like he
was one that popped out of nowhere, wasn't on any
dynasty list, nobody was talking about him.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
And Miah and Jeremiah Strada another one.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
Like there's a ton of these guys every year that
come out of nowhere and then are useful. But that
also changes over time.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah. Sorry, that's a point that I think I may
have failed, so to speak, or could be much better
at as being on top, you know, first of the draw,
getting Jeremiah Strata and those types. I need to pay
more attention to that.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, And it's a thing that's a little bit tricky
because these are super small samples where all of a
sudden it looks like, oh, a guy maybe found a
new gear and is the next James Krinchak who came
out of nowhere a couple of years ago, was striking
everybody out, was still walking people, but nobody could get
any hits off of him. And he was an elite

(14:26):
setup guy for like a year and a half and
he's been really bad since then, and isn't really rosterble
in Dynasty anymore.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
I think I have him on one of my teams.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Like it's that kind of guy that can pop up
out of nowhere, be really useful for a year and
a half, and then kind of flame out and be
not very useful.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
I also watching that guy Matt, like yeah, his anxiety
just like went through the TV screen and like got
inside of me.

Speaker 4 (14:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah. I feel that relievers are tricky, and your format
really matters a lot too in this league that I'm in,
the ALCSN that I mentioned just before or maybe before
we started recording, Like, I have four solid relievers, and
that's like the most you want in this format. But
what some of the other really good teams do is

(15:15):
they really rotate through They keep maybe one or two
of their reliever spots open, and they just stream relievers
to whoever might pop up that day, who might like
pitch that day. And I think that that's something that
I might have to do this week that I'm kind
of bummed about, because my relievers have been some of
the better relievers throughout the course of the year. But
it's really about the roster spot in this sprint to

(15:37):
the finish, where I've got Ryan Presley who's been seventh
or eighth innning guy for Houston and really effective last
few years. Jason Foley, who's a closer for Detroit and
has righted the ship after being a little shaky in
the middle of the year. David Robertson, who Loki is
one of the best relievers of all time and that's
not a hyperbole and is back to having a great
season with Texas, and then Kyle Finnegan, the Nats closer,

(16:00):
who all have been good throughout the year.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
They've gotten me to this point.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
But I'm probably being suboptimal and like clinging to my
pearls a little bit by keeping all four of them,
and I should probably cut one of them loose and
try and stream that spot because in that form, in
this format, that can get rewarded. So that's the other
part of always knowing your format and what's useful a
couple of formats that we play. You need eight relievers

(16:23):
to be a really good team to really eke out
the most points you can get every matchup. You need
to be able to mix and match to make sure
you've got a reliever who's hot and ready and likely
to go each of those days. And that sikes work
like that's a that's some deep diving to do. So,
long story, long way of saying, each league is a
little bit different. Some really reward the role, some really

(16:47):
reward the skill, and some just really reward availability, and
each of those things are a little bit different that
you're looking for.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Man, I think, you know what might be useful just
a relief pitching only podcast.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Should we convert that is really niche?

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Should we convert to a relief pitching only podcast.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
I know we already have only like ten subscribers.

Speaker 4 (17:09):
I just don't know if that's.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Five of them will hang around maybe, I don't know.
I think another air that I made in one league,
in a Roto league that I've been horrible since I
joined took over a team is I had like I
was good like the first month of the season. So
I was like, all right, this is it, you know,
we finally made it, and I traded off some good
prospects whatever it was for basically a bullpen for a

(17:34):
whole bullpen, and then my team just immediately went to
shit and I'm in last place, and so it was
like getting a little too excited a little too early,
I think. So I'm going to try to be mindful
of that moving forward as well.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, I got to take the long view in the
rotor leagues for sure, And that's why I'm a big
fan of the spreadsheets for those leaks, just because we
can get caught up and like, oh, all our guys,
you're going to perform our projections. But that just is
never true. You gotta think people are going to revert
to the mean, and you want to take advantage of
the hot starts and bolster where your team is going

(18:07):
to be rather than where it is today.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, well, Matt, enough of this relief pitching mumbo jumbo.
Let's get into the good stuff here. Let's let's review
our B siding season. Let's do it well. I mean,
clearly I was superior, but I think you did pretty well, Matt.
I think you did pretty.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
Hang On, you can't.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
You can't just do that at the outset clearly superior,
like I crush you in this Well.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Hang on, hang on, Let's just back up here. Let's
maybe explain a little bit. If someone's listening, who wasn't
listening the year ago, which is probably anyone listening last October.
I think it was we started our B side selection process,
so to speak, reviewed a bunch of guys, watch guys
under the radar, rosterd and zero to two percent of
leagues at the time who we think might one one pitcher,

(19:01):
one hitter from every organization, someone we wanted to throw
out there that might gain popularity this the coming season.
And then we did a little competitive draft to start
things off. I think we each picked nine hitters. Then
we did a picture draft where we each picked five
guys out of our ultimate or whole group of selections.
And Matt, I gotta say, the draft we didn't do very.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Well, dude, No, we really didn't.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Like so you know, again, sometimes when you're when you're right,
you're wrong. Sometimes when you're wrong, you're right. I think
as a whole, our whole selections were pretty decent. I
think we had some bangers. I think we had some
guys that I'm still very much interested in, even though
the popularity might not be there yet. But our draft
really was kind of poop.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
I mean, my hitters were pretty good, My pictures were awful.
Your hitters were terrible except for one, And.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
My whole draft was pretty much terrible except for one.
My hat in the draft was Charles McAdoo. We went
up to ten percent and then nobody had drafted.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
Which got a strong co sign for me.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
By the way, true which I wanted to note. I
don't know if you saw on the list that I
put together here, but I believe there were five guys
that we both selected the same. Four of them went off,
one of them did not yet anyway, So if you're listening,
we do this again this offseason. If Matt and I
are both on a guy, there's a good chance his
history says there's a good chance that that might be

(20:24):
a real banger.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, are n four really really speaks strongly to that.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
But man, I will say about my draft, though there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
there's still seven guys that I picked that I still
was happy with their season. It wasn't quite the big
breakout explosion that obviously I was trying to predict or
trying to get to beat you in this competition. But

(20:51):
there were some, you know, poopy picks, But as a whole,
I think it was okay. Maybe it's just maybe next
year is their year, and then you your best pick,
just gaining percentage points wise, your best pick was Cjkafis
and Drake Baldwin, who you you got lucky on because
you just drafted him before I did. I was gonna

(21:11):
draft Baldwin too.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
You never said that this is the pick.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
I'm gonna find the clip and I'm gonna edit and
put it in here. Matt, I probably won't do that
because that'll take But then Durban is up to five percent.
Troy Johnson, he's at four percent right now. But like,
wasn't he like at four percent when you picked him?
So I don't know about that one. I wouldn't say
that that was.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
I remember he was like he was a two or
three percenter guy.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
I think I wouldn't say that was a successful pick,
would you.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
No, I agree, yeah, I think it was at this point.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
And and and he he like one of the guys
that's farther down the list. He and Blaine krim they
both just were bad to start the year. When if
they if they had flipped their seasons and had their
second halfs in the first half, I think both would
be in the bigs and both would have shot up.
I mean Blaine Kremis, so he's down there at one percent,
which is what I think he was when I picked him,

(22:03):
but he just got written up in Baseball America as
like Eli Ben Parratt, who who I think I've shouted
on this pod before. He does great work. But he
was like, this is one of my favorite guys, and
I'm like, yes, Eli, Yes, that's exactly what I said
last year and he ended up having a really good
year overall, just never got the shout at the show
that I thought he was going to get. Yeah, And

(22:23):
that's kind of a commonality with a bunch of my
picks that didn't really pan out. Like I picked some
quad A type guys that I thought had opportunity in
front of them and we're going to get some run
and just never did, you know. And so that that's
like Terso or Elys is like that, Troy Johnson's like that,
Blaine Cram, Matt Crune, You're in Fernardo.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
I want to say, though, so just counting every percentage,
just percentage points, your draft cumulative ownership is forty six
percent right now, right just counting Does that make sense?
Just calling it the point you got forty six points
whereas my drafts was twenty two points. It might be different,
and we can't do it because I don't have the

(23:03):
percentages of when you selected them. If you did a difference,
you know, subtracted last year's per roster rate from this year's.
I have a feeling that your forty six percent won't
be quite as high because I think, yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
It would.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
It would definitely knock a few guys who they john
said Johnson was like a three percent, maybe like zero one.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Now, so still officially you are the draft champion of
twenty twenty four.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
I give it again.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
That's forty six points to twenty two points to Nate.
That's like more than double I think.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
So just trying to tell you I would also, I mean,
we'd be remissed if I didn't highlight that I am.
I am mentoring you, I'm grooming you in in the
B side game. Here, Matt and I set up a
situation so that you could succeed and gain that confidence
that you needed at the start of the year.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
You know, so you got to yourself to soothe the
pains of the big old fat el you're taking eight.
I know you have to do this in a lot
of your dynasty leagues. So this comes to no surprise
to me that you're trying to rationalize this, but it's
ass whipping that the rookie put on you.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
All right, all right, so congrats Matt, you won the draft.
But now let's look at the whole picture here. For
some reason, you had a few more official B side
selections than me. I think maybe because you picked a
couple got I think the astros. You picked like two
pictures or something, whatever it is, And then there were
a few that we both selected the same player. Right,

(24:39):
But adding that altogether, your fifty eight selections to my
fifty six selections, you would be at one hundred and
sixty percentage points. I would be at one hundred and
twenty nine percentage.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
What is that? Is that more for me? Again?

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, but let's just look at the top of these lists.
Though you're like, you know, in gymnastics, you have a
level of difficulty components to your score, right, I mean,
it's not if I do a bunch of summersaults. If
I do a bunch of summersaults, but I do them perfectly,
Oh perfect ten summersaults. Congratulations. But you know, if I'm

(25:16):
I don't know what's called double triple axle loop d
loops flying and fIF twenty feet in the air, but
I get like an eight, I don't do it perfectly
like what was better? You know, there's a component of
that here.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
I think, in what way we have the same rosters
to choose for out?

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Okay, in this way, in this way, let's look top
of our list right now, Matt. Your b side selection
that is rostered in the most percentage of fan tracks
leagues today is Brent Herder at twenty three percent, and
going up mine is Logan Evans who is at twenty percent.
Now rewind a year. What was brand Herder doing? What

(25:55):
a Brand Herder do in twenty twenty three, chopping up
double AM, chopping up double A. What was Logan Evans
doing twenty twenty three debuting? He was in college and
got a couple starts at the end of the year.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Right, So that's kind of how I'm trying to help
myself feel better here, Matt. Okay, so just appease me
a little bit.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Well, I've said this for the whole year.

Speaker 4 (26:18):
You really do.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Have a knack for looking at just a couple of
starts of a guy and seeing something there. And I
think this bears out in the biggest hits for your pictures,
especially you know, you've got Logan Evans at twenty percent,
Samuel Aldegary at eighteen percent, Jaden Hamm at twelve percent,
Gary gil Hill that I still can't believe that's the
same at ten percent.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
Those are all.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
All guys that we had had not a big look at,
not a big sample, and you had said, hey, there's
something pretty interesting here.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Now, if you were really good at this, you would have.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
Grafted those pictures instead of Zach Germing, Rosario, Jared Andy,
DJ McCary Party and Hamington Mendez. You know, I think
you might have crushed me in the traffic, actually had
some conviction.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
That is right, just that, just like and thank you
for going there, because that is kind of what I
wanted to get to. And and I foreshadowed this at
the time, Matt, I was multiple times I said, we're
gonna pick some good ones here. There's gonna be some bangers.
But my money is on me ultimately picking the wrong
ones when when it comes to the draft and who

(27:28):
I'm going to prioritize prioritize is probably not going to
be the real bangers. And that's how this b siding
thing has has really gone at for the last you know,
four years or whatever it is, I've been trying to
do this sort of thing. So it's not a dud
and it's not victory lapping here. I am not like
saying I'm awesome, and I think I in a way,
I actually kind of really suck at this. I find

(27:50):
some find some guys, but don't prioritize them correctly.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
I mean, it's tricky, like I picked a bunch of
these guys in the draft, and then I was in
a Dynasty startup and tried to grab a bunch of
them late. But I didn't grab all of these guys, like,
I didn't grab all these ones that I thought were
the better ones. It was definitely more of a mix.
And I think I only ended up with like one

(28:14):
share Drake Baldwin, whom I loved last year and and
a lot of people liked more than most other people
that were in Dynasty Baseball, But I'm still only ended
up with one share.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
And a lot of that too, is just opportunity. You
know what's happening at the draft table at the time,
or on the waiver wire with your roster and stuff
like that too. But let's look at your big your
big hits, a Herder like we mentioned, who, by the way,
has been awesome. He has been He's been killing it.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
What how many if it's like six or seven?

Speaker 3 (28:45):
I think if I get a little bit of time,
this last couple of weeks has been pretty crazy on
the home and work front here, But if I get
a little bit of time, I'm actually gonna I've got
a thesis to write up. Because our buddy Chris Clegg
keeps pooh pooing Brant Herder because he quote unquote has
a ninety one mile an hour fastball, and it's driving
me a little battie because I think that brand Herder

(29:09):
is showing us the some of the gaps in sort
of your stuff plus analyses or your kind of fastball
velocity only evaluations. And I actually think that there's a
really really interesting case study here. So I've done some
work on it. I've got a rough outline of a
draft I just need to get in if if I

(29:31):
want to do it right. I'm trying to like take
some screen caps and stuff and all that shit takes
me too much time, So yeah, I need I need
to do that. But anyway, let's let's shelve him. But
I'm I'm loving what I'm saying that a Herder.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, your hits there. Herder twenty three percent, Cafus sixteen percent,
Chandler Simpson at fourteen percent, Logan Henderson at twelve percent,
Trick Baldwin at ten percent, Macdoo we both chose at
ten percent. Well, we both chose Baldwin too, Oh Brooks.
Baldwin is an nine percent. We both chose him.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Durban would be a fair bit higher, but he missed
so much time and ended up not getting a shot.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
And Neely, you like had a couple of relievers who
have made like the bigs that were, you know, good calls.
I think you've gained that well. And relief pictures are
not really a part of my process, not that, and
I'm I'm glad that you do it. So yeah, So
I don't know if you've got the tippy top fairly
even points wise, you just kind of nickeled and diying
me a little bit more throughout the list here. So

(30:29):
I think we call that a tie. You know, it
was a.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Tie again, one one hundred and sixty points to one
hundred and twenty nine points. I don't know, I don't
know if that's a tie in in my estimation, who.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Would you rather have in a trade? Logan Evans, Elder,
Garry Ham, Gary gil Hill for Herder Capus Simpson, Logan Henderson,
Who would you take? What's that?

Speaker 3 (30:50):
My four?

Speaker 4 (30:51):
No question?

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, I think damn it. I think I think I'm
with you all right. Well, Matt, I have been heavy
at it already, watching a lot of guys. I'm gonna
get you. I'm gonna get you next year, you got
the sophomore slump is coming.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
In reviewing this, this is my first time looking at
the percentages since we've checked in every so often.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
I don't agree with the percentages either, Like as far
as how I would value them. For a lot of
these guys, I don't know how.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
You Yeah, I agree, and I think I think a
bunch of them are still arrow up guys, like on
both of us. For both of us, I think we've
got a few guys that are filling that zero to
one percent range that give them another year continued performance,
and we're going to see them up in the double
digits relatively soon. So this certainly isn't over. It's just
an interesting year. And again I definitely picked guys that

(31:40):
I thought were gonna maybe be a little closer to
getting picked up in more dynasty leagues, like there were
more upper minors guys, so that I'm also not surprised
that's maybe what you're getting at with the higher degree
of difficulty piece. But well, one thing we've done throughout
the year, I think is trying to come back and
revisit some of these guys to see who was doing
well but also who was doing poorly and trying he's

(32:03):
out is this signal?

Speaker 4 (32:04):
Is this noise?

Speaker 3 (32:05):
Because slumps happen, hot streaks happened. I think we've tried
and done a relatively good job of being sober in
our take. You know, I joke around about patting ourselves
on the back, but like I had talked up Joey
Lo Perfito last year and then I was like, as
he got off to this electric start, I was like,
he's still the same guy who's going to punch out
thirty plus percent of the time in the show, and
I'm not sure he's got the pop to make it stick.

(32:27):
Like this is fun, but I don't know if this
is real. And we've talked about that with some guys
like Brooks Baldwin too, like he ran a four hundred
babbit for most of the year. That's just not a
sustainable thing. And he had an incredible season. His roster
percentage shot up. He's in the bigs, has had a
nice cup of coffee. Is that going to keep going?

Speaker 4 (32:46):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
He's got the position flexibility. He's done some good things,
but I think we've done a reasonable job trying to
provide that additional context. And even as we revisited some
guys that kind of started off slowly, Blaine Krim was
one of them that I noted. With nathanie Low's injury
early in the year, Krim started out super slowly and
then has ended up the exact same guy that he's
been for the last five years. But because he missed

(33:09):
timed that run, he ended up not getting the shot,
and they signed the husk of Jared Walsh for a
month or something to fill in. So kind of looking
back on your guys, Nate a little bit of retrospective, like,
are there guys that you were like, Oh, I definitely
wouldn't have gotten I wouldn't have picked him. I would
I like regret this choice, I regret the process, or

(33:32):
I really didn't see this outcome coming. Are there a
couple guys in here that you look at and you're
just like, Wow, that was a big mess.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
I think for the most part the guys that were
just really duds. I think for the majority of them,
like we kind of already at the time. That's the
area of the list where it's like, yeah, at the time,
I was like, I don't really know if I liked
this guy that much, but given all my options, this
is who I'm going with. I think that's like, really
the poor part of this list is that is mostly that.

(33:59):
But then of course there are some guys that I
was much much more hopeful and convinced that they're going
to have some good seasons and did not. Ben Ross
might be the biggest disappointment for me. And yet I
say that and I don't. I don't think there isn't
really anything i'd redo in my process. I mean, my
process is pretty pretty basic. I think find out all

(34:19):
the guys that I can watch or at least dig on,
statistically impair some of that or whittle it down that way,
and then watch them side by side. Who do you
think is the best you know? Who do you want
to put a little fun bet On here, So I mean,
I wouldn't change that. That being said, I'm not totally
sold that Ben Ross can't be a good baseball player,
can't be a good hitter. Small sample sizes giveth and

(34:41):
taketh away. I think, Matt, like, some of my biggest,
you know, successes this year with this stuff were guys
from very small sample sizes. Some of them, like Trevor Werner, weren't.
I mean then we weren't the only ones who were
like thinking Werner's might be more real than fake, and
it turned out to be that's good, not the real
Trevor Werner. Right, So I don't know for me, Maybe

(35:04):
maybe I'm just not smart enough to realize, uh, you know,
we're there the crappy parts of those processes. But I
think a lot of it is just is baseball and
human beings and countless variables. Maybe you know, it's all
these things are about reasons, right, I thought these guys
had the best reason for me to pick them out
of what was given. So maybe think about some of

(35:27):
those more. I mean, with hitters, I think it's just hard.
I mean, if I could line them up and watch
them like I can a pitcher. I think I'd be
better at it, but I don't take the time to
do that with all these guys and cutting up all
their plate appearances. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know
if there's like one just kind of like global Oh,
I took guys who struck out too much because there

(35:47):
was guys on this list to edge high strikeout rates
and significantly drop those like a Ritter. So so I
don't know. I don't know if I'm answering your questions
question well or not. But I think it's a lot
of subjective stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
And yeah, it's a tricky question kind of coming and
looking at the misses and seeing was it something that
was systemic to the process or was it just hey,
that's baseball.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
I think I think some maybe I could pay or
maybe not right off injury stuff as much, Like you know,
I like Ryan Sermak. Dude, he was like my first
pick in the in the hitter draft, and I was like, oh,
I think he's good. He's just you know, hasn't been healthy.
Well he still hasn't been that healthy, and maybe he
really isn't good. So maybe Wayne injury stuff missed time

(36:32):
a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
I think for me, looking through some of the ones
that were good versus some of the ones that were missus,
there's definitely some luck.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
Involved, you know.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
I look at some of the guys that ended up
higher on this list and had really good years, and wow,
look at that. They ran high babbits or high homer
to flyball rates, you know, or both. In the case
of like Oliver Dunne, a guy we had talked about
for Milwaukee, he ran a four fifty BABBB in his
small showing in Triple A and hit a couple of

(37:05):
homers and then got some play in the bigs, Like
that's that's not who he is. That's not like how
he's going to be. But that was one that was
a bit lucky. And then looking on the ones that
were less successful, like Jackson Lofton, who was like a
plus club guy that I like for Houston, Well, he
ran a two forty eight BABBB, his strikeout rate ticked
up to twenty seven percent, and he ran a seventy

(37:26):
four WRC plus on the year split between HIA and
Triple A. And it's like, yeah, it's like that's not
a great season. That doesn't portend good things at the
big leagues, so you know, it's it's sort of a mix,
like some guys kind of performed how you wanted and
took a step forward, but some didn't.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
And sure, that's just part of baseball.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
And there's still guys like just looking at some of
the zero percenters that I think had good, successful seasons,
it's just not like translating to fantasy popularity, you know,
like my Houston bat Miguel Palmer. Sure his offensive numbers
aren't super great. I think there is a potential good
offensive player in there, but he's extended two levels, is
up in Triple A now, like he's a legit prospect,

(38:07):
you know, And I get that rostering him in a
fantasy league that makes complete sense. But there's still a
lot of stories that have not totally been told yet.
And that's that's the fun part. Like we're gonna select
the b side of the year, and I think with
some of the finalists, you'll see there were a couple
of guys on there that I selected a few years
ago and didn't really do anything and then this year
was their year, you know, And that's how it's going

(38:28):
to go.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
And that's well, even even a guy that we had
checked in on after maybe a month or two Joiner
for Hardo, who is my east side pick. I think
I drafted him right and like the seventh pick or
something of r hit her side of the draft and
outfielder for Minnesota. He was awful to start the year,
just strike out right through the roof and Triple A.
Wasn't walking, wasn't hitting the ball, hard wasn't running like.

(38:50):
It was a miserable start to the year. And he
ended up thinking in dfage. I think they cut him, yeah,
and at least he landed, Yeah, they really, And then
he landed with Pittsburgh and they stuck him back in
Double A and he was awesome. His line for the
whole season ended up being pretty strong, certainly given how
he started, given you know, the kind of up and

(39:13):
down nature of the year. It ended up being a
one to ten WRC plus right across the year. But
I would have said halfway through the year that he
was one of my worst picks. And again in retrospect,
the other guy that I talked about who was pretty similar,
he ended up getting a cup of coffee in the
bigs and Deshaun Cursey. I should have gone with Cursey
but yeah, Farhardo. You know, he maybe he's going to

(39:33):
stick around with the pirates and do something. So the
story is far from written with a lot of these guys.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Right, And we had quite a few b siders just
selections from this year and make the Bigs at least
get a cup of coffee.

Speaker 4 (39:45):
A couple more recently since we last recorded.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
I know, this whole point was I want to get
congrats to you and Gustavo making my boys, man, my boys.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
As we were sitting here just about to start recording,
I watched his first major league hit.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
I'm so proud. I'm so proud. Gustavo's great.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
They had him in DOUBLEA for seemingly forever, and then
it was just like, I don't know what was it,
a couple of weeks in Triple A and now now
he's up there and he's fun. He's fun, fun, so fun,
fun fire hydrant.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
His first hit was classic Gustavo, one two count fastball,
like letter high and he just laces it the opposite field,
immediately raises his hand in celebration. Is he's running down
the line. He's so fun.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Thirty nine B setters have made the Bigs now Matt.
And hopefully next year we get even more. I'll break
this year's record of I mean it's really the first year,
so it'll be the record.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
But yes, Nah, how many do we get from this class.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
From this class that we just selected a year ago? Twelve? Matt,
there were twelve of this year's class that actually hit
the bigs this year.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
Not bad.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Now will they stick around or be anything fantasy wise?
Totally another story. But yeah, but Matt, let's select the
B side of the year. You got anybody in mind?

Speaker 4 (41:09):
Talking inside all the time?

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Year, the most popular, the most rostered B siders right
now are Tovar, Michael Garcia, Raphaela. So I don't know,
if you want to look at it that way, I
don't know who had the most successful MLB season or
is it somebody that really rose the most this year
popularity wise, or someone who you think rose the most

(41:35):
just as a player in general. I threw you about
twenty five names. I thought somebody on that list would
be it.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
I think of this year, it's hard not to go
with Tovar or Garcia.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
So you'd go that route. But I mean that's kind
of just like old news, isn't it. Like is it really.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah, Like, are they the b sider of this this
year when both broke out before? I guess maybe not?

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Maybe better I with ask this, whose stack has risen
the most for you just as a real player or
fantasy asset. And if that's one of those, you know,
popular guys, so be it.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Hmmm, that's tough, man, that's tough. Leaning a little towards
Joan Kenzie Noel.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Ah, okay, who's rastered in forty eight percent of leagues
right now?

Speaker 3 (42:26):
And what was he at the part of this year,
you know, like I know he was a couple of
years ago.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Right, yeah, twenty twenty one. Yeah, at the beginning of
this year he was rastered in sixteen percent of leagues. September,
well that's September of last year he was in sixteen percent.
So maybe even better, may he was at twelve percent.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
Correct me if I'm wrong, But that might be the
biggest percentage jump on this list.

Speaker 4 (42:49):
It might be, like that's a pretty big bump.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
I mean, I guess maybe Raphael Garcia.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
Could have had a little bit bigger bump.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
But here here's why I'm saying Noel. I really liked
him a couple of years ago, because he was showing
prodigious power at a really young age, at an advance level,
and I wasn't too concerned about the strikeout rate just
because he was so young and seemed to adjust to
each level relatively well.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
You know, so I was a big fan.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
I was a big fan of what he had been
doing up to this point. But even then, I was
still somewhat skeptical that he was going to be able
to make it work, because you know, every time he
jumped to a level, he would top that thirty percent
strikeout rate and it'd be like, oh, well, big donkey boy,
he swing hard, but.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
He missed a lot, and I was a little worried
that it wasn't gonna work. But I kind.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Of think he's showing that not only can he make
it work, but like this might be kind of real.
I mean, he's just striking out thirty one percent of
the time in the bigs so far, but he's still
just murdering the ball and he's putting it in the air.
And when you hit the ball as hard as he does,
that is a recipe for real, real success. And he's

(44:07):
still just twenty two. To me, is the one that
showing that he can. He's got the power, he can
get to it, he can lift it in air in
the bigs. That's exciting to me.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
That's more.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
It seems like he's getting to what I thought he
could be earlier, you know what I mean, And that's
a corner outfield, just absolute slugger. So I think he's
a really good He's probably the biggest one for me
because a lot of these other guys that we liked
for one reason or another, they haven't proved it at
the big league level, or they haven't done so for
very long, or there's still some warts to look at.

(44:42):
But Noel looks like.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
He might be a middle of the order masher.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
You might live with a slightly elevated strikeout rate, but
I kind of think you're gonna be happy about doing so,
especially in a power focused league.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
I like that Clau. I think that's a solid pick,
and I think there's some similarities with who I'm going
to pick. I'm gonna go with Jose Tania, similar in
that I think both of them might be on a
track right now where we're talking about them having every
day run next year. Now, Noel may be closer to
that than Tany at this point. But Dany has been

(45:15):
pretty freaking good with his time up with the Nationals.
And I've been watching a lot of games and just
kind of the even some interviews and some of the jive,
some of the vibes that I'm getting is that like
they really like him. This is a good little example
of like prospect fatigue stuff to Matt, Like July of
twenty one, he was one percent, February twenty two, fifteen percent,

(45:38):
nine percent November of that year, down to four percent
a year ago, and then now he's up at twenty
three percent, you know, and I wasn't sure if he
would ever. You know, it's good enough to become and
I still don't necessarily know if an everyday MLB player,
but I think that's very much on the table now.
And guy can swing it. I know he's aggressive. I
know he's not a perfect hitter. He's had some WPA

(46:01):
moments and Big Rbo had a kN act at one
for four Totnite with their one RBI. I think he's
good enough defensively to play a good third base. And yeah,
I don't know his To me, that's the guy that
has legit become most legit who probably wasn't on this
list this year.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
For me, yeah, he seems like somebody who might be
proving that his line drive skills are somewhat real. And
he reminds me a little bit of the Luis Garcia
for the Nats, like kind of a similar player in
some respects, and that they've been young for their level,
always have shown some skills, but people have always kind

(46:38):
of doubted that they can keep it going. I like
Tania to prove that wrong a bit. And again I'm
still skeptical that he can run a three seventy six
bab it over you know, six hundred plate appearances. But sure,
he does hit line drives at a pretty good clip.
He does hit the ball pretty hard yep, And in
his MLB time this year is showing that he's able

(46:59):
to herb the strikeout rate. If that gain is real,
then the Knats might have a decent little player on
their hand.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Talk about aggressive guys coming up, Matt. Maybe this is
a little self serving too, but he can hit good pitches.
He can do damage on you know, some nasty and
that's that's kind of what he's been doing in the BIGS.
He's not just you know, hitting the backed up slider
over the middle, you know. And yeah, maybe his aggressiveness
is a whammy for him, But right now he's got

(47:29):
the athleticism, he's got the bat speed, he's got the
mental reps in there that he can put the bat
on the ball at a pretty high clip. I think,
mm hmm. So I don't know I'm gonna go with him,
should we pull it? Maybe you are ten listeners who's
the b SAT year Noel ertained you. I'm sure they'll
go with Noel.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
But sure I think we should also uh a pitcher,
you know, we can have your pictures hanging high and dry.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Well, we've only got you and I did it this
year and then threw some out last year, so it's
not as big of a pool to pick from. But
I don't know. You're going with somebody who's in the bigs,
and we just started getting some guys in the bigs.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Well, our two Detroit guys who said a top our
list are both pretty interesting picks.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
For me, Herder didn't show me anything new this year,
Like this is kind of the guy I thought he was.
You know, maybe it's succeeding even more than I than
I thought last year, But I'm not gonna pick him.
I'm the guy that has impressed me the most this year,
I think is Gary gil Hill. Like of a lot
of the guys that we picked looking at them last year,
like Logan Henderson, I think he'd be higher than this

(48:33):
if not for the injury to start the year. This
is the guy that I fell in love with watching
last offseason. Like that's not a surprise, Logan Evans. I'm
not really convinced yet, Like, yeah, he's twenty percent owned
and he showed some stuff this year, But to me,
I still think he's got a long way to go
to really prove that he's rosterable as a kind of

(48:54):
starter in the majors. But watching a bit of Gary
gil Hill, I see, like I see that that has
some potential. It's got a real mix, a nice pensiant
for execution that I don't think everybody has. And he
was one that I just didn't buy like you were,
Like I thought he was a made a character, like

(49:15):
you had just invented this name. And then even after
I watched him, I was like, boy, these like fore innings,
I don't really see what Nate sees here and having
watched a fair amount more of him this year, that's
the guy for me on the pitching side that most
that my opinion about has most changed.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
I'd say right on, I think I would go with
Kaider Montero because what I picked him last year, and
that was nice he broke out. I wasn't sold that
he was really going to be an MLB starter and
that you know, yes he's starting right now, but he
hasn't like really established himself. But I think I'm more

(49:53):
inclined to think that he can stick in that role
now than I did a year ago. And he's had
a couple of nice outings and I think he could
do it. So yeah, I think I'd go with Montero.
B side arms just a lot of the arm specs
that I pick up, I don't always totally like love
them and don't want to like stay married to them.
This is I totally want to use them as trade bait,

(50:15):
you know. And Montero is a guy that I traded
away just about everywhere, but I wonder if that was
a mistake.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
Now Montero, I feel like his roster percentage is inflated
by a couple of good outings recently, and you know
same same is true of Herder too.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
At this point, I'm thinking that that Montero still might
struggle to stick in the Tiger's rotation. He's the guy
that I'm not totally convinced on, Like he's been useful
and definitely showed some stuff.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
But to me, that's fair. I think there's.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Before he before he got into the bigs. If you
would ask, no way, I'm betting that he sticks now,
I'm like, yeah, maybe I would, you know what I mean,
I'm not I'm not completely sold. I didn't think i'd
be in that situation looking at everybody else, like, I
don't know if they really change my opinion as drastically
as he did.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Yeah, I think that makes sense. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Are you sure that we can't go with brand Herder
though he's a b side arm that's dominating the bigs.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Honestly, I'd love to go with Herder. I it's just
that this is kind of what I said, Like, I
was like, he's gonna come up, he's gonna look different,
he's gonna befuddle big leaguers. I think he might be
getting a few more whiffs than I expected this time
last year, and I'm not sure he's gonna be able
to sustain one point one walk rate per nine or

(51:36):
whatever it is. Like his his walk rate is really impressive,
but like it feels pretty real to me. The fifth
is there, the XCRA is two point one eight, Like.

Speaker 4 (51:47):
That's fucking phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
And it's not like he's going out there in one
run outings or in one inning outings to bump up
the stuff or anything like, Yeah, he's only got one
game started, but he's gone bulk and every single outing
that he's had, So I've got I've got some opinions
about this, like some thoughts about how he's succeeding and why,
and to me, it seems fairly sustainable. He's not going

(52:12):
to be a sub three er guy, I don't think.
But is he going to be a really good, valuable
starting pitcher, Yeah, I kind of think so.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Why were his Triple A numbers so middling this I
didn't watch much of him in Triple A at the
beginning of the year. I watched a few outings and
that was it.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Early on, his walk rate was a little elevated for him.
I think it was up over three per nine At
one point.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
I wonder what he was doing, what he was throwing,
what his game was looking like. If he was I
don't know, throwing some offering more than than usual or
what is it?

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Just yeah, I'm not sure about that. But I remember
when we checked in on him and you were like, oh,
the era is high, and he's like not succeeding like
we kind of thought coming out of his really impressive
double a the year before. But you look at it
other than the walk rate ticking up ever so slightly,

(53:04):
and again I think that was inflated a bit by
some early outings. Everything else looked All of the skill
related stuff looked pretty normal. But what wasn't normal was
a three point fifty BABBEB of sixty three percent left
on base and a fourteen percent homer to flyball rate.
All of those were worse. Those are like the three

(53:25):
luck metrics you look at for pictures right. While pitchers
have some influence on BABBOB and some influence on homer
to fly ball rate, left on base rate is like
pretty much luck of the draw shit and BABEB and
homer to flyball rate are also somewhat luck metric. Base
and all of them were in the worst direction for
his overall line. So when we looked in on him

(53:46):
earlier this year and we're like, oh man, the ERA
doesn't look great, and you know, his triple ARA still
sits at five point eight, I was like, you know,
I kind of don't really think it's telling us anything different,
just as like this is the how the luck metrics
is stupid. Yeah, yeah, and even FIP in this case, like, yeah,

(54:06):
I you know, four to four FIP in triple A
as a starter is like, that's fine. The International League
is quite the PCL, but offense is up there, and
I think those things should tell us that, like what
he's doing at the major league level is due for
some regression. But I also think that what we should
look into the triple A line is, yeah, those luck
metrics were all three against him. He's still pitched to

(54:30):
a four to four FIP, Like that's impressive, that's that's
not that's pretty good. So that to me is that
he wasn't doing much different. And I think we've seen
that at the big league level too, that he still
throws mostly fastballs, leans on his slider in the strikeout counts,
and then has still a bit of a show meet
change up that I still think he could do to

(54:51):
use a bit more the Okay, i'll spoil a little
bit about the hypothesis that I have for how herd
Or succeeding here is he he has a unique four
seam fastball, and he uses his plus command in a
really interesting way. So his main pitch is his two
seam fastball, and while it grades out okay by some

(55:13):
of the stuffed metrics, it looks sort of like your
standard sinker. It's got some run, its got some sinc
but neither are super impressive. And as we talked about
before Nate in the Dynasty, Herder doesn't have great extension,
even though he is a huge old donkey six six
two fifty with long limbs.

Speaker 4 (55:32):
One thing that I think.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
Is helping him as a sinkerballer primarily with his two
seam fastball, is I wonder if his lack of extension
is helping the movement play up a little bit more
on the on the two seam. So his observed horizontal
movement is greater than the predicted horizontal movement, and some

(55:56):
of that is due to what's called lamin or flown.
If you if you've heard that term before. But the
turbulence around the two seam that lambiner flow, laminar flow.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
It's not like a like a woman thing, No, it's.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
It's the turbulence around the ball that causes it to
move more than you would expect just given the spin characteristics.
It's a super complicated physics phenomenon, but it helps explain
the difference between lamar. I think it was a guy.
I think that's a guy's last name. I don't remember
it's capitalized when when I've seen it, so it usually

(56:29):
means it's a guy. But I wonder if he's letting
the ball move more because he isn't extending down so
unlike with a like a four seam super high ride fastball,
where you want to release it as close to the
batter as possible so they have as little time to react.
I wonder with something like a two seam whether he
isn't served by the little bit of extra movement that

(56:51):
he gets by letting that ball hit the air and
move a little bit more as it goes.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
It's not a completely alien concept. I've never heard lamin
or flow, but I've heard some people talk about and
this makes sense to me too, Like the ball obviously,
if the ball's in the air longer, has longer to travel,
you could get more movement, like you're saying, right, I
think that's is that fair the way that I that
And also too part of that because like Noah Schultz

(57:17):
has a really short extension as well.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
Hmmm.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
And it's funky from the left side, very basically putting it.
If you're if you're throwing a ball that looks like
a strike, right, which is you know, an optimal thing
for a pitcher to do, and the ball is traveling
longer and looking like a strike longer, like that might
be a part that plays into it as well. Does
that make sense?

Speaker 3 (57:39):
I think that that's some of it too. And one
thing that he does seem to have is pretty good
command of all four of his pitches. And I say
that too because he has a unique fastball, a four
seam fastball he uses very differently to his two seam.
Two seams is bread and butter. He's using it early
in the count to get strikes. He's using it on
the shadow. You look at the heat map and it's

(58:01):
one of those ones where it's a lot in the middle.
But he also puts it in all different corners of
the zone depending on what hinded batter he's facing. But
his four seam fastball, if you look at his heat
plot on that, he commands the shit out of that thing.
It is only at the top of the zone. And
now you're saying, like, oh, well, of course, like you
throw a foreseam fastball at the top of the zone,

(58:22):
you're looking for pop ups, you're looking for whiffs, and
that's what you're going for. But that's not the shape
of Herder's fastball. Herder's fastball actually is a unique outlier
in the other direction. It drops way more than other
similar velocity and spin rate foreseeing fastballs. And I'm not
sure why this is yet, but you see aiming that

(58:45):
thing at the top of the zone. You see these guys,
nobody's hitting it hard. They're also hitting it on the
ground a lot, which is sort of a weird thing
for a fastball at the top of the zone. And
I wonder if there's something about the unique nature of
of his four steamer that guys are looking at and
used to that four seam riding high, hard fastball and

(59:08):
they're trying to swing to try and hit that ball
and hit it hard and hit it out. But instead
of it continuing to quote unquote rise as the as
we're seeing more and more often, Herder's unique extra five
inches of drop. So it drops five inches more than
you would expect it to given the rest of its characteristic.

(59:30):
That's a big amount. And so you look at him
on stackcasts and like that's a huge outlier. It's just
that it's an outlier in the other direction that we're
used to thinking about four seamers. And I have a
hunch that that's really leading into why his batted ball
outcomes and why his expected era from its stack caast
metrics remain excellent. As I mentioned in the Dynasty Got Discord,

(59:53):
the guy that comps closest to Brandt Herder as far
as batted ball outcomes is Corbyn Burns.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Yeah, who excels.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
At getting the soft contact, excels it getting weak contact
on his pitches.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Yeah. Well, that you bring up a couple of interesting
points to me, Matt, Like, okay, so stuff plus models, right,
I am not a scholar. Aren't they supposed to measure
how different a particular pitcher is for steam fastball or
whatever offering is the mean fastball of the league. Yes, okay,

(01:00:26):
but so is there not like an absolute value sort
of measurement going on there, Like, Okay, this for steam
fastball is really good because it's got x amount of
more inches of you know, IVB or whatever. But like,
like you're talking about Herders, it's like like maybe it's
like a kish fastball, like it's it's so bad it's

(01:00:50):
good sort of an idea.

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Just measure it that way if you're supposed to be
measuring the difference from the mean.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Yeah, I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
And some of this might be just some small sample
nonsense and people might start teeing off on Herders for
seam tomorrow, Like I don't know, but I do know
that stuff plus grades herders foreseem fastball as like absolutely atrocious.
And I think so does pitching Bot too. Yeah, both
of them like say that this pitch should be unplayable.

(01:01:21):
It says his sinker is okay, like below average but okay,
and his slider is really good, and his changeup is
atrocious but he's got good locations and so it all
adds up to again, I've got some I think that
both stuff plus and pitchingbot don't do a good job
of like actually using numbers to make them mean something useful,
but gives them an overall pitching plus of ninety five

(01:01:43):
with all those things combined, and a stuff plus of
ninety even though he still is throwing by far more
fastballs than he is any offspeed. I still don't understand
how that works when it just like hammers his other
his other stuff grades, but I wonder if those stuff
grades are kind of missing that kind of thing. And
looking at some of the other comps that are on

(01:02:04):
his like pitching characteristics comps on stack cast, I think
they were like it was like Braxton Garrett, Shoot, I'm
forgetting some of the others, but it was like maybe
just in Steel it was like crafty lefty types, you
know that have like a low nineties fastball and then
an interesting array of secondaries, and that all seemed like
pretty useful pictures to me. I was like, those are

(01:02:26):
some decent pictures.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
Like I don't hate that group.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Right, Sometimes part of being a really good picture is
just knowing how to use your tools well, right, And
stuff plus doesn't measure that, right, man. I know they
try to do like location plus and all stuff. But
is there sequence plus? Is there? Yeah, knowing your hitter
well plus like I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Well And one of the things that I find so
interesting about this and again it's a small sample that
we have at the big league level, but we've got
the stuff plus saying that Herder's two seem his most
thrown pitch is a eighty eight, which is very bad,
Like that's not good for for a fastball. And yet
Fangrafts also puts the run value on a particular pitch,

(01:03:10):
So how many runs above average has that pitch been worth?
His run value for his sinker so far this year
is six point nine. That nice, Yeah, that is nice.
And give me a second, because that like is I'm
fairly sure, wildly good, like it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Is performing really well.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
Yes, like this is a terrible pitch and is up
there pitch is up there with one of like the
very best pitches.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
I don't know, you know, Sarahs, I don't you know
I have any sort of relationship with him. I wanted
to ask him just recently, like is there a commonality?
Does he notice things that like when you're looking at
the difference of performance of a pitch versus it's stuff plus,
like what those pitches that are outperforming, there's stuff plus,
like what do you what do you see there? What
are their commonalities? Is there a theme going on with

(01:04:03):
pictures that are outperforming, so to speak?

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
So so I just went to the Fangraft's leader board
and looked at the most valuable sinkers over the course
of this year. And this is this is not a
rate based metric, right, this is a counting stat So
the more of them that you throw that accrue positive values.
So a lot of the guys on this list have
thrown a.

Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
Lot of innings.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
Number one on the list, Paul Skeins nineteen.

Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
That's a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
He's also thrown one hundred and twenty innings. Number two
on the list, Logan Web seventeen point five. Seems like
those are two pretty good fastballs. Jose Soriano is way
up there, which I think is interesting. Number four Franbervaldez seventeen,
Zach Wheeler sixteen point eight, Number seven George Kirby eleven
point eight. You get the picture, right, This is like
the volume and these are guys with great sinkers, great

(01:04:50):
commands that are really making it work well. Brent Herder
in thirty eight and two thirds innings is twenty fourth
on this list at six point nine. His sinker has
it has been as value valuable as Errek Scoobles, and
Trek Scuoble has thrown about five times as many innings. Now,
of course he probably hasn't thrown five times as many sinkers.

(01:05:11):
They are slightly different pictures. But that is like kind
of astonishing to me that in thirty eight and two
thirds innings, this quote unquote bad pitch is either being
commanded so incredibly well that it's actually really good, which
you know, the stuff plus models do give him some
credit for exceptional command of all of his pitches, really

(01:05:32):
and do that. Obviously, bolster'ses overall pitching plus thing. But
it's just a really interesting case study that I think
maybe it's missing something about that pitch, and certainly the
command I think is one of the real positives that
we're seeing from Herder.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
You're geeking out on Herder here and going on like,
I think I accomplished my goal of the year, Matt.
You finally are getting it. You're finally coming to the
right side pictures. That's where it's at. Matt pictures are better.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
It's certainly it certainly as fun when you hit on
somebody as as exciting as this.

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
Uh and and.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
We'll take our victory lap while it's still hot and
fresh out the kitchen.

Speaker 4 (01:06:10):
We don't need to wait for I'm gonna roll that
body in.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
So you may have won the battle, my friend, but
I won the war.

Speaker 4 (01:06:19):
If you say so, If you say so, well.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Matt, I think I want to be done with twenty
twenty four.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Well, you got to root my couple of teams that
are still alive. I've still got a couple of championship hopes.
Good look there and hoping, hoping it works out.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Hope you do. I'm to say this, it was really hard.
I wanted to talk about some guys I've been watching
lately so badly right now, So we have to turn
off these microphones until I guess, the off season, until
we're ready to get into that and and do next year. Matt,
Is that is that cool?

Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
Yeah, buddy, and that's cool.

Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
I'll have some time off of work coming up.

Speaker 4 (01:06:52):
I don't know how much in minor.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
League baseball I'm gonna be able to get in, but
I'll do my best. I'll start working through my list,
and yeah, we'll work on it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
You have the title to defend, now, don't you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):
I do, I do, And like you, I'll just keep
pointing to the like two successes that actually work out
and say, like, man, look at how good I am
at this, Like too out of every hundred turn into
something real.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
I know, look at me. Well, I think that'll do
it for the year. If you've been following along, you've
been listening, we appreciate it. I've had some fun, I've
learned a lot from Nat. Nat, thanks for joining me
this year. I hope it wasn't too painful for you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:30):
You bet, buddy.

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
This has been a real pleasure and thanks to our fans.

Speaker 4 (01:07:35):
We love hearing from you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
And even I was just looking at some guys roster
today is asking for some help in the Dynasty. I
got Discord and I was like, oh, man, either this
guy's a B side listener or he's just got some
of the same ideas we do, because he had so
many interesting B side cats in his Deep Deep Dynasty league.
So we always appreciate hearing the shout outs. Come join
us in the Dynasty. Discord reach out to Nate on

(01:07:58):
Twitter and it'll decide whether you're cool enough to talk
to me, and then he can pass along my my
info if you are otherwise. Happy, happy mudding, everybody.

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
This has been a real pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Yeah, we'll, we say, next year, but it'll probably just
be like a month we started off last October right
end of last Octobers won't be too much longer. We'll
have some at least to us, some fresh names to
throw around and start thinking about twenty twenty five b
siders to be.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
We'll maybe convince ourselves that the twenty twenty four Minor
League season wasn't all awful like we like we thought
it at some point this year.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
No, I've yeah, all right, I gotta save it. All right,
We'll let Chicago Farmer take us out. Be well. Touch
to you next year.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Later, five miles an hour, riding too his head. We
have them down first but the umbonius face. And now
on the very next pitch he up and stole second
things with greatst speed. He wasn't born, He had the dead, Yes,

(01:09:09):
uniforn