Episode 44: 2025 NL West B-Side Selections

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ninety five miles an hour, riding to his head. He
hopping down first with the lump bonius face, and on
the very next pitch he up and stole second face
with greatest speed. He wasn't born.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
He had the bad Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Uniforn, thank you for joining us. Episode forty four of
The Prospect B Sides Podcast, Episode Darryl Strawberry, Hank Aaron,
My friend, Hank Aaron, Even better episode Hank Aaron. As
we continue our off season runnings through of each division,
Matt and I the rook picking out our favorite zero

(00:49):
to one percenters rostered on Fantracks leagues a bat in
an arm from each team that we are wondering. You know,
maybe they're a bit overlooked, maybe they are underrated. Maybe
there's studs already and Fantasy World just hasn't caught up.
Or probably more likely the case, somebody that we are
wondering might gain some more Dynasty utility in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Or that's guys that we like. I mean sometimes it's
that too. Yeah, we do play this game to win,
but there are some guys that we end up just
loving their aesthetic approach and we sometimes stick a flyer
on those guys too.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's true, and sometimes those guys surprised, don't they Matt
correct me if I'm wrong. But when you brought up
Caleb Durban about a year ago from now, I don't
know if you were totally sold that he was a
major leader, but you were a big fan of his definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I think what I said was that I am not
sure that the whole package comes together and he's a
big league regular, but that his combination of contact skills
and ability to manipulate the barrel gave him a real
shot in a way that I think when I originally
looked at this, he had one of the very best

(02:03):
contact seasons at double A ever, at least that we
have data for. He had ran a four point two
percent strikeout rate at double A across a not insignificant sample,
and it was backed up by a four percent swinging
strike rate and a pretty good sense of base stealing.
I mean, he's not the fastest guy, but he's speedy
and can use his legs, and that combination to me

(02:25):
said hey, this could be a utility player. And then
we started to see the Yankees playing in the outfield
and bring training, he got some run. He got some
positive comments from Boone. It was like, hey, maybe he's
gonna get a look this year. And we I know,
we joked down the stretch while he was winning you
in AFL Championship. Maybe the Yankees would have benefited from

(02:46):
his defense and his skill on the bases after their
shockingly poor performance in World Series with respect to some
of the little stuff. And I see people still like
saying this is an AFL driven, exciting guy. For me,
this interest has been much longer than that. And I think,
like you made this point in the Dynasty, I got

(03:06):
discord that it's not about the steals. It's not about
the like, oh, he popped ten homers in three hundred
and seventy five played appearances this year, Like oh, maybe
there's some latent power there. It's really that this guy
has incredibly good contact skills. And you look at the
list of guys who run a sub eight percent swinging
strike rate in the major leagues, Every single one of

(03:26):
those guys is useful. That list is like a who's
who of underrated fantasy contributors to I think, if he
gets some run, he might end up being an above
average hitter up the middle. Chipping in steels, maybe some
multi positional eligibility, so durban, definitely fun esthetics, definitely fun skills,
and I think he's more than more than a flash

(03:47):
of in the pan.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
I don't know what is necessarily driving this map, but
you know that it's getting to be a little bit
more mainstream popularity when you see an increase in his
baseball cards, which is definitely all right. I shared this list,
I don't know, three or four weeks ago my selections
with a couple of people in baseball and started some

(04:08):
conversation that, like you know, with some guys in some situations,
it kind of feels like the public sphere is maybe
a year behind on a lot of guys, right, And
my hope is with this show and our work that
like maybe we can get on board and in line
with some major league clubs and get a year ahead. Right,
That's the whole point of us trying to share. And

(04:29):
will that happen with all of these guys. Absolutely not.
Maybe we can't catch up, maybe we can't get ahead
on some guys. And I'm excited We're going to be
talking about the NL West tonight, and I'm kind of
pumped that this might be. I don't know, the most
exciting list of ten guys that we've touched on so
far for me in a dynasty sense.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Very interesting and we'll definitely dig into this, I think,
But there were some that I kind of struggled to
get excited about.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Now.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Don't get me wrong, there are some dudes in hear,
some guys that I really really like, But I don't
know there was something I was like, I don't I
don't really see it like, I don't. I don't know
if this is if there's a good B side guy
for me in a couple of these spots. But yeah,
let's uh, let's dive in and see see who we
disagree on. I mean, I feel like there's always some
good fodder there for you making fun of my picks

(05:19):
and and me you how inside.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Was never I would never Matt. Well, let's start it
off like this, and then, Matt, who is the guy
that you like the most that you're going to talk
about tonight?

Speaker 2 (05:29):
I like the most.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Maybe that's unfair of me. Maybe I'm asking you to
show your hand because we are going to have a
little competitive draft.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Okay, there are like three or four that I really
like and then there's a bunch that I'm there's something
wrong with them or there's something that like I'm unsure about.
But I'll say the one that I'm most excited about
is is my Arizona bat. And I don't know who
you picked for a little bit, all right, who is it?
My Arizona bat is Tim Tawa?

Speaker 3 (06:00):
No brainer. I'm with this years too. One of my
favorite B siders of this off season for sure.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, I agree, like there's so much to like about him.
But I literally when I was making my notes, Nate,
that is exactly what I said. One of my favorite
B siders this year.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
And if it old's true, like last year the bats
that we were both on the arms too didn't totally disappoint.
So yeah, yeah, it's a good sign.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, I agree. I mean the case for Taua is
I thought pretty obvious, and I'm a little surprised I
haven't heard more about him after digging in.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
No kidding, he's still zero percent on September twenty seventh.
Zero percent.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, And I'm like, you know, we're pretty plugged in.
It's not like we're pounds that are checking every single
ranking or following every single content creator. So maybe there's
some people out there and we're late to the party
on this, But I don't know. The dude just ripped
thirty doubles, thirty homers, and swipe fourteen bags, a full
six hundred and thirteen played appearances in the upper miners.

(07:04):
That's double A and triple A and like, okay, some
of that is in the PCL, which sure we should
take with a little bit of grain of salt. But
he ran just a hair over a hair under a
twenty one percent strikeout rate, comfortably better than average, especially
if you're showing that kind of you know what, what
did he have sixty seven extra base hits on the year?

(07:25):
That's totally acceptable for a twenty one percent strikeout rate.
Almost And I haven't even gotten to the best thing
about him yet, mate, you know what, I'm gonna say what.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
He played literally every position this year except for catcher
and pitcher, and like, I bet he could do both.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Like I don't think he played any short step he did?
Did he he did? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (07:45):
He played every single position this year. That kind of utility,
it's like, sure, is he going to be great at
all of them? No? But given that versatility, given that
they're moving him around and he seemingly is holding his
own I don't know, man, Like, how are you not
kind of interested in this guy? Like I to me,
this was like the easiest pick of the Vanel West.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
For Arizona's bats. I think Caleb roberts was also an
interesting would have been good.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
I call it toe Robertson, but.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Matt twoll So. As far as position, I haven't listened
in order. He played first base, the most corner outfields,
second most, and second base and third base. Struck up
a little bit of a conversation about Tawa with a
MLB front office person, and I was kind of the
thinking because I took some time to watch his defense,
but not a lot, and I was of the thinking that, like,
maybe he doesn't really have a place to play. There's

(08:36):
a difference between being able to play a bunch of
positions and just being tried out at a bunch of
different positions.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
That is true, That is absolutely true, for sure.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
But this person seemed to be a bit more optimistic
in his defensive abilities than I thought he might be,
So take that for whatever it's worth.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
He played two started two games at shortstop, in Double
A this year, so he played shortstop too.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Okay, right, talking about the off season, I'm like, how
can you treat guys ranking in the offseason or how
can you change an opinion? Man, I don't know. Just
sometimes a guy can be like right in your face
and you just don't realize how good he is. Like
the last couple of seasons, Tala has been, you know,
maybe on a short list of a B side selection.
I've watched plenty of him and out on the West Coast,
and he just kind of snuck up. And I think

(09:19):
part of it too, is like his I think big
come up was towards the back half of the season,
so that might be part of the reason. But he
was a twenty twenty one eleventh round pick out of Stanford.
He is Rule five eligible and not yet on the forty.
We'll find out in a week. I got to imagine
he's probably gonna get added, but very viable Rule five

(09:40):
draft candidate if they don't protect its twenty five years old.
This last season, he's listed at six foot That might
be a little bit generous on the height. But man,
what I noticed about Tala just over the last the
transformation of like his body over the last My man
does not miss his lifting sessions. Like, he is strong
and you note and you can see this too in

(10:02):
his swing and like, so you know, we got some
savant stuff from his What was he like in the
PCL for about a month to end the year.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, a little over. He got thirty seven games to
end the year in the PCL.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, so his hardest hit balls during that standard about
one hundred and seven one hundred and eight, well, one
hundred and seven point seven miles per hour. He hit
about five six balls in that range, right, which obviously
isn't elite max CV. But when you take into account
that Taua is always an inch inch and a half
choked up on the bat when he swings, like getting
some more barrel control, I think that's just a testament

(10:36):
to how strong he really is. So I think that's
a bit unique. I don't know if you see a
lot of guys that are choked up walking up there
in loo counts. He's not selling out for max batspeed.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
No he's not. But I do think he does a
pretty good job with his battle ball spray. Yeah, he
pulls the ball pretty well. You know, he's not elite
at it, but he's pulled it consistently more than forty
six percent of time YEP, which is about of average.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Fifty six percent of the time in double A.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
In double A, and that definitely helped. And he hits
a decent number of flyballs. It's not like super dependent
on flyballs. But his swing is really short and compact,
and you can't compare everybody to an Alex Bregman, but
he does some things that remind me a little bit
of Bregman. Bregman is still a little better back to
ball than Tawa, but Tawa I think it has some

(11:24):
things in common there that are are worth noting. The
ability to pull. He gets those pulled balls in the air,
and when he gets into one is he said like
it's they aren't cheapies that he's getting. So while he's not,
I don't think he's going to be a thirty homer
bat in the major leagues necessarily. I think it's very
real that we could see some twenty to twenty five

(11:45):
homer seasons out of Tawai if if he gets a
good run.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Now, I don't totally know what the story was here.
He started twenty twenty four in Triple A. I think
he was there for three series and then went to
Amarillo Double A and then came back up on August twentieth.
From August twentieth on Matt thirty games, one hundred and
thirty two played appearances. He hit ten home runs, he
stole a couple of bags, slash three twenty seven, four

(12:10):
h nine, and slugged six point eighty one.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, that's a pretty good end of the year for sure.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
And I get PC and all that stuff, but he
was swinging the bat pretty damn well. Yeah, I mean
major leagues right around the corner. Potential will play everywhere.
I love that doesn't strike out too much. Good hit tool,
he'll take some walks, he'll hit some home runs. Like
I have a very interesting b sider here that nobody
is rostering.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, definitely. And I don't know if we mentioned this
last week, but you know, Steamer came out with their
twenty twenty five projections and it's a nice sanity check
that I like to see. What what is Steamer? What
does this computer algorithm think of the line that these
guys put up and projection systems are all a little
bit different. I like Steamer because it comes out the

(12:56):
earliest and it's been pretty consistent. It's not like they're
tweaking the methodology there a lot. So you can kind
of compare your over year and see some guys that
are like, how does it project that particular line? And
I like it because it does a better job than
our eyes do at contextualizing performance and then projecting what's
going to happen next. So I think it's a super

(13:17):
useful tool. I was a little surprised that Steamer projected
Tawa for just an eighty six WRC plus next year.
Isn't really buying that he's going to have on base
skills and is definitely bearish on the power production. Maybe
maybe we're slightly overrating some of those things, so you know,
it's worth noting that there is some It's not like

(13:39):
this guy is a slam dunk star in the major
leagues by any means. So and Steamer, you know, eighty
six WRC plus for a corner bat primarily like, you're
probably not excited about rostering that guy unless you're in
the very deepest of leagues. But I don't know, man,
I kind of think that Steamer might be missing on this,
And there actually is a bit more power here.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
With that stuff. I just wonder, like the version of
Taua that was the last couple months of the season, Like,
I don't think we've ever seen him that prolific at
the plate before.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
So, yeah, that is definitely true.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Does that stick? Was that just a blip on the radar?
I don't know. It's kind of fun how a guy
can be right in your view for years and then
all of a sudden you're like, holy shit, he's I.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Mean, he's he's probably not going to run a twenty
eight point six percent homer to fly ball rate. I mean,
that is like an elite level production. But he's been
pretty consistently in the high teens before that, and that
still at you know, the rate that he hits fly balls,
like that's still a really good hitter and definitely poortend.
So what I think is like twenty homer power. So

(14:42):
I don't know. I think that Steamer might be under
underrating him a little bit. But yeah, no, Tim Tawa,
he was my the easiest pick for.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
I agree, who's a no brainer. I'll be sharing videos
of these guys that we talked about tonight on Twitter
at Pitching Specs just watching him right now. Take Randy Vasquez,
you are dead center, one hundred and seven off the bat.
His bad is not without without pop. At the Diamondbacks,
Matt on the arm side, looking at their system, kind

(15:11):
of feel like this the pictures here, this farm like
has gotten a little thinned out. I feel like I
feel like good part of the last three or four years.
You're like, you know, I don't know how great a
lot of them will be, but it seemed to have
a lot of arms, and this year it seemed less
the case to me. But as far as their prospects go,
the ober Diez was their most popular, most rostered back

(15:31):
in September at twenty percent. You min Lynn, it was
fourteen percent, Blake Waltston, who was getting some MLB run right,
was twelve percent, Mania who came over from the White Sox,
was eight percent, and then after that it's all two
percent or less. And the guy that I end up
going with, Matt like you talk about like, I kind
of hate the phrase like, oh, he came out of nowhere,
because often he did not come out of nowhere. He'd

(15:53):
probably been doing some things in the minor leagues for
a little while. But I really feel like Jose Cabrera
came out of nowhere and was like just kind of
destroying the Northwest League down the stretch. Man. I don't
know if you watched or got into any Jose Cabrera
at all.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
I did watch a little bit of him both in
like he popped in some of the other starts that
I had watched and was like, Oh, that's an interesting gun.
And then when I was doing a dive in the system,
I watched the decent amount of him too.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Nice. Yeah, he really wasn't on my radar until the
Hillsborough and Spokane game on August twenty fourth, to watch
a guy we're going to talk about tonight actually as well.
But Cabrera almost threw a perfect game. He was perfect
through eight and a third I believe it was, or
maybe it was eight and two thirds. End up giving
a hit and giving up a run and all that stuff,

(16:42):
and struck out eleven and I'm like, who is this cat?
But finished the year pretty nice. Three out of his
last five starts he threw fqos also against Eugene and
Tri City. And I'm not even sure, man, I don't
even know if I looked at like his pro history.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
He didn't get his SEENI guy, I mean he was
like a DSL guy, ye, a little older, you know.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yeah. I just like looking at like innings and stuff
in his past. I wasn't like this season didn't start
for him until like June, I think, so, I don't
know if he was doing.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
He threw one hundred and seven then a third last year.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Did he okay? Cool? But he's twenty three years old,
righty listed at six ' three. It's funny. He's got
a little bit of h I don't know how do
I say it? Like, you know how like Dontrell Willis
was just kind of like herky jerky.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Like.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Cabrera's kind of like that too. I think he's got
this like funky hitch in his lead foot too. I
don't know if you notice that. I can't say I
know of any other pitchers that kind of stepped forward
like he does. Throws a force three three fastballs, force
Himer's sinker, a cutter. There's a change up. I believe
there's two different breaking balls. I'm not sure necessarily which

(17:51):
one he throws more, because they're kind of hard to
identify and pick apart, especially in the Northwest League broadcast.
But yeah, like you said, from the Dominicans in twenty
twenty one, he got eleven starts in in high A
sixty six innings, a two point three two era point
nine to four whip, a three point nine four x
fIF He struck out almost twenty four percent of hitters

(18:13):
walk just shy of seven percent. They hit one eighty
four against him, pretty low. Babbitt to twenty seven. Ground
ball percentage was about forty four percent through strikes at
a sixty six percent, Cliff, I wish there was more
better angles to watch him from this last year. Vancouver's
really kind of like the only decent angle you get.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Depends on the game. You might get some good ones
in Eugene two. I know, I've I've had some luck there.
Like they just they moved their camera sometimes, so sometimes
it's like a really nice view and sometimes it's a
little more off center. But yeah, the Northwest League is
not the best for Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
I'm wondering if there's something a little difficult going on
for hitters with his kind of attack angle. When he
seems to be like going really well, he's like burying
just a lot of stuff down in the zone. And
and I don't know, that just seems really tough on
the hitters, more so than your usual guy fill in
the bottom of the zone. But I don't know, I
feel like he mixes it up, will execute fairly decently

(19:11):
from what I can tell, and when he's like really
feeling a pitch, I've noticed, like in that almost Perfect game,
I think it was like the cutter and the slider
that were really his main pitches, and he'll just hammer
hitters with those if they if they're not touching it.
Like it's just he's gonna make you the Knights that
he against the Indians. He was not even created in

(19:32):
fan tracks yet.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Matt, So, oh wow, that's fun.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, we're talking about a guy who's who's really kind
of new on the Dynasty scene here. But yeah, so
I'm going with Jose Cabrera this year and let's uh,
let's see some more of this guy and what might happen.
And it was a fairly easy choice for me, giving
the other guys in this system rostered at zero one percent.
Cabrera his last seven starts, forty seven innings, one point

(19:56):
one five ERA point sixty six with twenty seven percent
k percentage five point seventy five walk percentage through strikes
sixty six percent of the time. Not a bad finish.
I got to imagine the upper levels are not far away.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah yeah, no, super nice at a Cabrera. He's an
interesting one to watch, and I did watch a couple
of his starts. I can't say he popped for me
quite as much as he did for you, And I
think for me maybe it was like the breaking ball
execution that I was like, Ah, this bitch is okay,
but it seems to me like this is one that
guys might spit on a bit at upper levels and

(20:33):
then he'd really be like fastball kind of cutter guy,
which is still super useful and there's definitely some skills there,
but it was for me like the finish, you know
what I mean, Like the ability to finish batters wasn't
quite as good as I would have liked to see
at high A. But I do like him a fair
amount and I think he's got some real oomph behind him.
He's a big boy too, which is.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
A big boy is a big boy.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Can you remind me what was Spencer Geesing's roster percentage.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
In September on the second and the twenty second he
was two percent rostered.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
I do like he's saying, I saw him a fair amount,
and I think it's worth mentioning him. He's one that
if you're getting to throw in in a trade, I
would definitely roster him. I think there's some skills there.
He's got some things in common.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
You're talking about him this year some I know.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
He hasn't put the like full but it hasn't put
the full package together. But I think he's done enough
showing and like he threw a lot of innings this year,
which I also really like as y. I think he
was in the top fifteen for minor league innings this year,
and that does tell you something about the big guys workload.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
For me, the biggest thing with Geisting is like he
kind of came into reach the whole new level of
strike throwing this year when he was down in Hillsborough,
and then I think that kind of kind of backed
up a little bit when he moved up, So I'm
a little bit skeptical on just how good the execution
will ever get for him. So that totally fair. I'm

(22:01):
a little bit less back up than I was maybe
earlier in the season.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, it didn't back up to the level that it
was in years previous, so maybe he did unlock something
mechanical and did a little bit of the you know,
he walked what like nine percent, Yeah, eight point seven
percent at double A and that's just you know, better
competition and all of that.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
I just stick with his profile too. He's not going
to be an overpowering guy.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
No, definitely not so.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
I think I think that is more important to him
than maybe some.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
But yeah, but just a fun lefty that i'd keep
an eye on for for those pars and you know,
and if you're.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
A fan of Dylan Ray, like I've liked don right too,
I know he's coming back from injury. He was still
down at two percent. Ricardo jan was one percent, but yeah,
and then everybody after that, Jacob Steinman's was one percent,
Nate Savino one percent, then everybody else was was zero
or not created yet.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Well my pick here, I'm pretty sure was zero percent.
A fun story guy Roman Angelo. Did you watch much
of Angelo this year?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
He's on my list here, so I turned mom, but
I did not make any notes Matt.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
So I got to see him in Hillsborough once this year.
And came away the live look like, oh that was decent,
Like yeah, pretty good, pretty good dude. But Okay, he's
a college guy and a little old, you know, like
old or at level for High A. So I was like, yeah,
you know, it's he had a good outing, but it
wasn't like, oh my god, Wow, I gotta go write

(23:22):
this guy up. But I followed him after that just
because I was like, oh, this was an interesting arm
and I hadn't dived into him before. Well, he was
an undrafted free agent in twenty twenty three, fifth year
guy out of Fresno, and you know, he'd been to
a couple of other colleges I think, and wasn't that
good honestly at any of them, Like didn't pop off

(23:43):
the page. To no surprise, he wasn't drafted totally forgettable
in his seven and two thirds innings to start or
to end the year last year after he got signed,
even to start the year this year when he was
at High or he was at Low A. He was
striking some guys out, but he was walking the house
and he'd had some walk issues in in the past,
but also wasn't striking a ton of guys out now

(24:03):
he unlocked something I saw he popped on a Baseball
America list of the biggest fastball velocity gainers. He's up
almost three miles per hour on average on his fastball.
A big guy, he's like six ' five, kind of
horse looking. He's got a little bit of a short stride.
I don't know. It feels like maybe he could get
down the mound a bit better than he does. But

(24:24):
something about what he unlocked mechanically, it seems between last
year and this it has him throwing a lot harder.
Has a two seam and a four seam, and it
seems like he uses them both pretty well. Like he
keeps the two seam down and gets ground balls as
well as some whiffs, but he'll also throw the fastball
up and get some whiffs up there. You know. He
ran a fourteen point five percent strikeout rate, or a

(24:45):
swinging strike rate in Hia. Struck out a healthy twenty
seven point eight percent of batters, which is quite good,
while limiting walks to just eight point three percent, so
a hair better than average. And he can lose the
zone a bit, especially with his breakers. I don't think
they're sharp, and he'll miss high on the four scene.
But I feel like those are decent misses. It's not

(25:05):
like he's missing to the middle and he's going to
give up loud contact. And that's one thing that he
has not done so far in his short professional career.
He is not giving up a lot of hard contact.
But I think that his best secondary is his change up.
And you'll you'll like this. There was a really nice outing.
I wasn't at this one, but I watched it on video.
In the first inning, is going up against your boy

(25:27):
the Iowa meat truck and throws him this like really
lovely right on left change up, bottom corner of the zone,
swing and miss. Oh one second pitch change up spoted
the exact same spot low and away from Iowa meat
truck with again, oh two, what's he do? Same fucking pitch,
same spot, And it was a swinging miss, like the

(25:48):
exact same pitch three times over, but it had nice fade.
He commanded it pretty well.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
It was.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
It was a really nice sequence. And I love guys
double tripling up on pitches with conviction like that.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Especially like a changeup. But that takes yep, it takes
some stones.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, especially against your boy meat truck. You know, if
you hang that, that ball, that ball's gone.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
So Angelo versus Meat Truck is that's a lot of
LB's and then that's.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Definitely definitely you could you could see there's a combined
they were, you know, five hundred pounds or something like.
It's not a not a small man's matchup there. But
Roman Angelo I think totally free because he has no
pedigree and was bad in his pro debut, wasn't drafted.
But I don't know. I think there's like a real
pitcher here, Like there's multiple pitches. The fastball now seems

(26:36):
to be playing better. I think that with the short
stride sometimes that means that the ball has a little
bit more run to it, like it has a little
bit more distance against which the friction of the ball
to cause it to move. You see that sometimes with
these guys that are a little shorter striders, they want
like there's sometimes more that sinker strider guy rather than
that or sinker slider guy rather than like the I'm

(26:57):
gonna get wiffs with my fastball kind of guy. And
feels to me that Angelo's like that. But anyway, Roman Angelo,
I think he's a real arm. He might be in
my top ten B side arms, like I put serious
consideration behind him. I'm not all in. I want to
see how this stuff plays kind of more appropriate levels.
So hopefully they start him at double A next year
and give him a challenge, because I think he's up
for it, and with a good kind of half season,

(27:18):
I could see this guy going from nobody to hey,
maybe this is a depth starter, a fourth or fifth
guy at peak. So yeah, I like roman Angelo quite
a bit.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Well, the Olberdiez has been the only Diamondback B side
arm in the past, and so he's passing the torch
to Jose Cabrera and roman Angelo this year. Matt. While
you were talking, I was just looking up Diamondbacks roster resource.
For whatever it's worth, they have Tintawa on the bench
right now, that nice major league bench. Nice that matchup

(27:49):
that Cabrera that I was tuning in to watch. This
probably won't be much of a surprise to you, but
the Rocky's arm for me this year is you Hani
or Herrera. We've talked about several times, but that's who
I was tuning in to watch that matchup against Cabrera,
and Herrera was dealing that day as well. It was
probably the best pitching matchup of the minor league season
that I watched. Just a one game sample here, but

(28:11):
remember at the time, Yeah, it was a good one.
Herrera came over from Milwaukee in the Mirrors trade. One
percent rostered in September. I think he was up at
like two percent three percent at one point this year,
but probably got traded to the Rockies and some folks
just said no thank you, which I understand. I think
he was on pipelines top thirty right at the back

(28:31):
end last time I checked. Now he is Rule five
eligible this year, but hasn't been added to the forty
man yet. I'm sure that's coming in a week. Here,
twenty one year old right hander, six to three, good size.
I think the main attraction to Herreras. I think he's
got a pretty good fastball. It's maybe not the hardest
in the world, but ninety five ninety six and he's

(28:52):
got some good life to it. And as we've talked
about this season, the gains that he made on his
breaking ball stuff, I think has been the big uptick
in his outlook. Here twenty twenty three, he had no
idea where the slider was going this year. I thought
executed it pretty well in the good angle looks that
we did get.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
So he started off in Carolina, like four relief appearances there,
moved up to Wisconsin, fifty one innings there, and then
after the trade he got thirty two and two thirds
with the Indians, three thirty one era there, one point
one three whip had some pretty nice outings. I do,
like I've said this before, I do think there's maybe
a little bit of like Herman Marquez in him, just

(29:34):
in the fastball slider game. I don't know how much
you want to make of splits down in the lowers,
but he's got kind of a reverse split guy. Lefties
have a tougher time against him. The righties y. I
don't know. I don't want to get too much into
her Ara. I feel like we talked a lot about
him this year, had a really nice outing his third
to last. He went seven, gave up just two hits,
struck out six, walked one against Hillsborough. That was probably

(29:56):
the best version of him, and I don't mind seeing
the best version of a pitcher. Right at the end
of the season. I got to imagine he'll be in
Hartford pretty dang soon. Here and still quite young at
only twenty one.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
I like Herrara too. I know we talked about this
a bit. I do think he's got a live arm
and some sense about what to do with that, which
I think is a fun thing. And I think you're
right that he's probably outside of the top couple of
arms in the Rocky System. He's probably the best bet.
So I like your pick here better than mine. There's

(30:27):
quite a few interesting guys in the Rocky System. It's
really is a bummer that so many of them are
going to have to contend with cores and that difficulty,
just because you know, you look at Hughes and Dolander
and Jordi Vargas like, you know, those guys are all
super talented and interesting for one reason or another. And
then the set of performers that they had this year.

(30:49):
Sean Sullivan was so good, palm Quist so good.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Gabriel's Hughes is back, looks like he's back. Is there
after TJ he was at five percent Raster.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
All those guys I think are pretty interesting for one
reason or another. You know what he'll be, Yeah, Breck
fypd guy, huge stuff out of Iowa. He's He's going
to be interesting to see how he plays. Feels like
to me he might be more of a reliever type,
but we'll see, you know, they'll definitely give him every
opportunity to start. I had kind of two guys that
I winnowed down to after figuring that Nate was going

(31:22):
to take Herrera. Looked long and hard at Jase Kaminska. Actually,
big dude out of out of what was he Kansas,
Kansas State, Nebraska. It was one of those middle middle
of America places. Yeah, Nebraska, big boy, like not overwhelming stuff,
but he was really great this year.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
In a strike throwing. The strike throwing with him is
like elite, like he is.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, Like he just pounds the zone.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Again, it's in single A and he's.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Twenty two, you know exactly. And I don't think my
notes on him were that it was really fun watching
him pitch at single A because his fastball, curveball combo
was just the way he used it just had the
hitters baffled. And like you said, he's in the zone
all the time and just getting soft contact or wifs
all all over the place. I don't think that attack

(32:12):
is going to play as he goes up like that
was my assessment, but I wanted to just shout him
out because that was a really impressive eighty seven and
a third innings at low A for Jase Kaminska. A
little more impressive to my eye was Blake Adams, and
somewhat of a similar story. Like Adams, he was pretty
bad in college for his first couple of years, like

(32:36):
I think he was at Arkansas. He was a reliever
in his like Era and Fipp were both like above
ten for both of those. His freshman sophomore year he
transferred to KSU Kansas State and was and was fine,
like not great, but he was fine, and then the
Rockies popped him late round, you know, thirteenth round. In
twenty twenty two, he's been pretty good in the miners.
Had a little bit of a rough patch to end

(32:57):
the year in high A last year in Spokan and
I don't think like some of that might have been
run environments, some of that might have been just tired
after a couple of longish seasons. But this year he's
been really, really good. He started the year in Spokane
and was arguably their ace on a team that had
really good pitching performances. Up and down that start of
the year. I remember we talked about that early on

(33:19):
that like he and Sullivan and who was the other
there was someone else who was like Dolander. Yeah, yeah,
we're all really really good. And of those guys like
Blake Adams did almost as well as any of them.
The rest of the year. Wasn't missing bats quite at
the level of a Dolander or some of the others,
but his command I think is substantially more polished. It's

(33:40):
a four pitch mix, but really good control over all
the pitches. I think he is somebody who you can
tell has an approach against righty's and an approach against lefties.
The fastball curve is the primary attack, but he's not
afraid to go change up right on right. He's not
afraid to throw a slider down and into a lefty like.
He'll definitely mix things up with his approach. I'm not

(34:03):
sure that the stuff is gonna hang. But he ended
the year really really well in Hartford, and that was like,
you know, Hartford obviously warms up during the summer months,
like sometimes early in Hartford it's kind of tough to hit,
But towards the end of the year, it's a little
bit warmer, and I feel like the run environment was
a little more unfriendly. But he ran a two four

(34:23):
nine FIP across his five starts there, largely on the
back of not walking anybody. I mean he walked shoot,
what like four percent of batters or something there, No,
not even not even three percent, two point eight percent.
So if that command sticks, and especially if the stuff
ticks up just a hair, there might be somebody worthwhile here,
like who you know. Again, this is cores and all

(34:45):
those caveats apply. But if he can make that work,
there's just a real starting pitcher here, like a major
league quality one. Given the depth of stuff, I'm not
totally convinced, And like I said, I think Herrare is
probably a better bet to like really as a pitcher.
But Blake Adams impressed me, and I think if he
does what he did this year in Double A and

(35:07):
then in Triple A next year, he's going to be
a depth starter for the big club before too long.
So Blake Adams is my b side here for Colorado.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
That's a good call. He was definitely one of my
finalists here. Your boy, I mean, Prosecci came back from injury,
he's still zero percent.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
I really he was solid when he came back.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yep, And I think asaayah, koop it is really interesting
as well.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Agreed.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
I think my biggest thing is he just doesn't feel
like I don't know about the horsepower there long term.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, I mean he threw eighty six innings this year,
like that's not nothing. But I agree with you, like
I saw a bet of that too, even within starts
that sometimes he seemed to flag a little bit late
and he gave up a lot more runs than I
would have expected. But yeah, coope, he's coopit. He's he's
a good one too.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
I mean, Victor Warrez has been around forever. It seems
like he's still only twenty one years old. He still
has moments where very much I him. But nobody wants
to hear about how deep the Rockies pitching farm is,
which is, you know, it might not be super elite talent,
but they just they have a lot of solid arms
in their system, I think. And yeah, hopefully the insect

(36:12):
approach here will work and a couple will survive and
maybe even survive the whole elevation sea level thing and
at least be a good picture for the Rockies. And
that's circumstance.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, I think with those caveats, some of these guys
they've got a chance to be good pictures for the Rockies.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Right right, right, doesn't really equate with the fantasy rulers.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, well, who did you go with? Bat wise? This
was one I gotta say I struggled with a bit.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, I feel like there was a lot more interesting
B side caliber Rockies bats the last several years. But
I went with a guy. I'm not going to be
laying down bets that this is a major leaguer, but
I think there's a chance, and I think the transformation
that has taken place here, and you know, Rocky is
the same one the Rockies who can't develop any bats,

(37:00):
took a bat from a different org and helped him
with his biggest bugaboo. But I'm going with GJ.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Hill Glenn Allen Hill Junior.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Right, formerly known as Glen Allen Hill Junior. His dad
played for the Cubs for a while. Maybe the Braves too.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Right, No Mariners the Mariner a long.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Time Okay, Okay, I did following the Cubs guys back
in the day. Man, So Glen Allen Hill not a
big guy. I think he's listed at five to nine
and that might even be a little generous.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
I don't know, way smaller than his dad. His dad
was a huge dude.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yeah. But back in twenty nineteen, the Diamondbacks picked him
in the fourth round as a California prep and things
did not go well. We're talking about forty percent strikeout
rates for him in the lowers, right.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
And like no power like it was. It was that's
a bad combo, yep.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
And they released him and then he went and played
independent ball last year, and then the Rockies signed him
back in like March or something like that, and much
to my surprise, Bill had a good year. Man eighty
one games, three hundred and thirty six played appearances between
A ball and hi A. As a twenty three year old,
he hit twenty home runs and sold sixteen bases. And

(38:09):
that that strikeout rate, I figured it out independent ball.
So we're talking, like I said, forty percent. Guy who
went to independent ball and was striking about thirty two
to thirty three percent of the time, and he dropped
it twenty three point five percent in A ball and
twenty six point seven percent in high a yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Good for twenty five point three percent on the year.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
That's a pretty remarkable shift. You don't see that every day.
He did get called up to Hartford for their playoff run,
but did not appear game. He's a switch hitter, plays
outfield in second base and that. This is what is
kind of interesting to me is the Rockies. You know
they made that trade Joe rack I don't another guy
who struck out a bazillion time. But point being is
they're kind of after this little profile. They want like

(38:50):
a guy who can play in the dirt and play
center field. For some reason, I don't know, they want
a guy who can play up the middle like that.
I feel like he'll maybe hits that bill a little bit.
He's not. He's not really quite as fast, quite a burner.
He stole twenty sixteen bags on the ear, but I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Man.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Yeah, I wouldn't call him like fast, would you. No?

Speaker 2 (39:09):
No, Nor would I say he is a great bass dealer.
You know, you watch him and like his jumps are okay,
and he's not as aggressive maybe as some guys in
the sas. I mean, he's.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Stealing well bases on pitchers who aren't paying attention.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah, he's not, you know, your braiden Wards. I mean,
I think that's one thing the Rocky system does pretty
well is they give guys the green light. And so
a lot of like your major or your minor league
stolen base leaders or leaders in their league come from
Rocky's orgs. Just going down the list here, Carrig had
fifty three, Amador thirty five, Braylen Wimmer thirty four, Dian

(39:44):
Jorge thirty six, Jake Snyder thirty, Braden Ward fifty, Caleb
Hobson forty six, Greg Jones forty six. Like that that's
they're running, you know. And so I mean I think
all that to say that GJ. Hill he swiped just sixteen,
Like he's not going to be a big burner. I
don't think. I don't know if that's going to be a
big part of his game.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
He ended the season. I mean, he might have been
their the hottest hitter in their system the last thirty
two games in high A one hundred and nineteen played
appearances slash two eighty seven three thirty six with a
six seven six slug twelve home runs over that span. Now,
I will say about the home runs when you talk

(40:25):
about park factor stuff, a lot of them are line drives,
ekeing over the fence in small ballparks. So there's definitely
that is definitely to be noted in my opinion. Like
I said, I don't know major league outlook here, but
just the sort of transformation that he took as a
hitter and the production and what he was doing, like
he's just kind of put himself back on the map.

(40:47):
I think I couldn't believe they signed him. I was like,
what are you doing another guy who strikes out a
bazillion times? Blah blah, But uh, they helped him.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, you said, you said it, well, man, I for
many of the same reasons that you did. This was
my pick. GJ. Hill super excited, especially compared to where
he was as a diamondback prospect. This is a totally
different looking guy, and if he'd been doing this as
a nineteen year old, twenty year old, we'd be pretty excited.
I think, you know, setting aside that he does still
k a decent amount, the power is probably not quite

(41:14):
as good as it showed this year, and he's not
quite a burner. If he had done this two years ago,
I think we both would have been like or I
think everybody would have been like, there's pedigree, he's a
spark plug. He's doing lots of different things, so super
cool to see him turn things around like that. And
partly as an old Mariner fan, you know, I wanted
to get behind old Glenn Allen Hill junior, so hej

(41:35):
Hill for us. I think that's both of ours beside that.
But I will say that one of the things that
made this tough for me was that I didn't like
a lot of the other Rockies hitters, and I feel
like normally they've been a pretty fun b siding ground,
and they've usually had some more mixed league relevant guys
that other people are excited about. But Cole Carrig, obviously
he's way more exciting to like. Lots of folks are

(41:56):
already on him for the kind of well rounded production,
and you know, setting aside his potential maturity issues, he's
a fun one that I'm excited to watch. I'm still
into Adil Amador. I think Ammidor is going to be
really good, and I feel like last year was just
a bit of a blip that he's gonna come back from.
He's up there on that list of who was better?

(42:17):
How do I say that whose second half was so
much better than their first? Like Amador is one of
those guys, He's up there for that. Who else is
on your list? Who else we're even looking at here?
Because I feel like I wasn't pumped about a lot
of these other hitters.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
I think part of it is, I mean, they sucked
up some of the young talent, and in the major leagues,
right the bigger names were rostered more. But down at
this level. Like you you mentioned Brandon Ward, I think
he's interesting as a potential major leader. I don't think
he's like every day or anything like that, but a
guy that we could see on the bench. Perhaps last year,
I don't know if you remember, I almost went with
Zach Kokoska, and yeah, I think he had some injury stuff.

(42:52):
This year, I admit it wasn't quite as good and
hard ford as I hope, but he still hit twenty
home runs, you know.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah strikeout. I just picked up a bit high for
cor Costco.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
Yeah, you know, and they've also just been a nice swing.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
I will say co Costka. I watched a fair amount
of him this year, and I did come around on
his swing. I think that there's some real power there.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
And I think you got to note too that they're
throwing more draft capital at arms the last several years,
which I think you got some of that. But I
did like the look of Jared Thomas this year, their
second round pick from Texas. I think he's pretty interesting
and I don't know, I might be a little bit
more excited for him than I am Condon, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
But yeah, you know what, that's actually a good call out.
I did watch a decent amount of Jared Thomas. There
wasn't a lot, obviously, but I agree I liked what
I saw, and Condon obviously has been among the most
disappointing guys to start considering the draft hype.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Yeah, I agree, this was a the bats are thinner
here at this raster percentage for the Rockets. Yeah, I
was surprised you landed on hill as well. That's all right, Matt.
The San Francisco Giants is always kind of a fun
b side hunting ground because I think they give a
lot of opportunity to guys really like their platoons and
give some different guys run and stuff like that. I

(44:08):
don't know if it's worked out so well for them.
Their lineups have been shuffled through a lot of bats
the last few years and haven't really found all that
great of an offense, I don't think, but.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
And it's going to be interesting to see how that changes,
because they've definitely been a pretty platoon heavy, data forward
thinking organization and man, if you read Buster Posey's lines
so far about the direction of the organization is like
RBI is king kind of stuff, which is like wild.
So it'll be interesting to see what direction the big

(44:39):
league club goes now.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
The bat that I ended up with, I was surprised
to see the roster percentage and is one of my
favorite B side bats for this year. I'm going with
young lizbel Diez, who is only one percent rostered in September, which,
like I said, kind of surprised me because he's I
think some chatter about him. Yeah, but he was an

(45:01):
international free agent Siney out of Cuba just in twenty
twenty three and at eighteen years old ninety played appearances
on the Complex two hundred and fifty five in a
ball outfielder, corner outfielder. I think I don't I don't
even know if he played at any center. But he's a
corner all field. Yeah. Now, his overall production on the
season isn't super noteworthy. I don't think he popped six

(45:25):
home runs. He stole eight bases, walked five point five
percent of the time, struck out eighteen point eight percent
eight percent of the time, which you know, that's pretty
good for an eighteen year old. I think his first
taste full season two seventy nine, three thirty three, slugged
four thirty three actually better than I than I had
thought it was, to be honest, but not too shabby

(45:45):
and not super eye popping a one five five ISO
on a three twenty six babbit, which was good for
a one oh three w RC plus ground ball rate
it was about forty nine percent, pulls the ball fifty
two percent of the time, swinging strike rate of twelve
point two percent of the time. But to me and Matt,
I mean, I like the look of this guy's stroke,
and the finish of his season I think was pretty encouraging.

(46:08):
His last about month twenty six games, one hundred and
twenty eight played appearances three forty two three ninety eight
five thirty nine, with four of his six home runs
just coming at the end.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, he I caught a decent amount of him and
a ball and San Jose, and I think he's good.
Like you said, the line's probably not gonna leap off
the page, but remembering that he's eighteen in full season ball,
more than holding his own, I do think that there's
a real, some real potential here. I think the thing
to watch with him is is the is the power

(46:42):
gonna explode? Is he going to get the ball in
the air a bit more? I think if he, if
he does that, this might be a guy that really
really pops. So I like this pick for you. It's
a good one.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, what his fly ball percentage on the year was
thirty point five percent, And for.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Someone who's gonna play a corner like that, probably got
a has to come up. And I think he's got
the power to make it work or will. I always
thought he was like a pretty strapping young fellow, you know,
at six two to two oh one. But I thought
he had a good look to him, right.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
And I think there's like some good energy transfer in
the swing. I don't I've never caught any like ev
stuff or anything like that on DS have you?

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Yeah, not off the top of my head.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
No, My thought is it's probably nothing too loud, because
if it was, we probably would be hearing about it
from folks who have that probably, But nonetheless, so there's
a very young, very young teenager who howld his own
and looked a part down the stretch.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah, he'll be a fun one to follow. You said
that this was sort of a disappointing group or you
in in San Francisco and as a whole there that's fair.
You know. Bryce Eldridge I think is the real deal.
Like that dude's got massive power and is showing a
totally acceptable k rate for a young guy. So, I mean,
he's super exciting. I think that he's going to be
a stud big leaguer pretty soon. And they've hit some

(48:00):
B side types like Luis Matos is a big success
story for them. Even some of their guys that kind
of were post type sleeper type guys I think have
started to pan out a bit. I kind of hear
you that further down a lot of the guys that
we might normally go hunting him. There were some flaws
like Quinn McDaniel struck out way too much this year
and just hasn't put it all together. Grant McRae, who

(48:22):
showed some flashes in the last couple of years, like
that's not going to play with what he put together
this year. You know, I watched a fair amount of
Justin Wishkowski. You know, they were playing him all over.
I saw him at shortstop a bunch. I never thought
he was like a very good short stop there, but
it was interesting that they were letting him play there,
so wiping some bags. But I don't think the power
is there. Victor Barracotto never really put the power together

(48:45):
that we've seen and that was probably a bit of
a miss for us last year being so on him.
So anyway, a lot of these guys I was just like,
I don't know about you know, Bo Davidson exciting, yeah yeah.
And Bo Davidson, I think is another one that you
know hasn't been fully healthy, but when he has been,
nothing short of electric. So like that exciding guy.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
It was a bummer. He got a little buzz and
popularity at the end of the season there because he
was probably.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Would have been a slam dunk. But yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah for sure. And you know another guy that I
think people have talked about, I don't know if we've
talked about him much, but Diego Velasquez, like he's been
young for the level, been pretty aggressively pushed. I considered
him pretty heavily here because I think he can play
up the middle and yeah, yeah, and I think that

(49:30):
you know, he's got some steals. I just don't. I
shied away because I just don't think the power is
really going to play. And so now you're talking like
a backup infielder guy, maybe a utility type. I couldn't
really give it a full throat and endorsement considering he
was this was his age twenty season and we're still
not seeing much, if any power. So wasn't super in

(49:50):
on that, and I would say the guy that I'm
gonna pick, I also wasn't super in on I saw
him in college. He got drafted by my favorite team,
and I was never like, oh, yeah, this guy is
a note out major leaguer. But Sibn Sabaios, I am
pretty intrigued by the changes that he made after he
came over in the trade for Solaire this year. I

(50:11):
don't know if you followed this, but he got drafted
by the Braves in like the third round I think,
and you know, got underslot. It was like the book
on him was he was probably a plus defensive guy,
had some decent raw power, but maybe wasn't going to
get to it, and maybe the contact skills weren't gonna
quite play out after he was drafted, Like his his

(50:32):
you know, first run with the Braves, a lot of
that I think showed up. Like he played pretty good defense.
The power wasn't anything to write home about, and he was,
you know, making a decent amount of context. It was
like sort of a weird mix, like he kind of
turned into this slap hitting kind of guy. And I
don't know whether he was like trying to follow like
the Nacho Alvarez path or something, but he anyway gets traded.

(50:54):
He's the main piece going back in the Solaire deal.
And man when he and then just starts a murdering
the ball, raise his launch angle, hit way more fly balls,
seem to be hitting the ball a lot harder because
the swinging strike rate and the strikeout rate itself went
up a bit. But that trade seems to work for him,
and he's got good rod juice. Like I would see

(51:15):
him leave the yard in Eugene with ease back in
college at University of Oregon. I don't know whether the
giants just like said, do you big boy, and like
elevate and celebrate, but whatever it was, it worked. He
ended the year on quite a run. And I don't
think it's going to be elite power, but I think
we're looking at average for third base kind of power,

(51:36):
which which will play and he's never gonna swipe bags
or anything, so this is really like a hit and
power and defense kind of play. But I don't know
what I saw this year. Sabios looks to me like
a full time regular if he can keep up what
he did after the trade. If he's somewhere in between,
now you're looking at probably a second division regular if
the glove stays as good as it has been. You know,

(51:56):
he was like a first team Gold Glover in college,
and I think the reports have remained pretty bullish on
his glove as well. Yeah, Sam and Sebios, I think
he looks like a big leader to me. So of
the guys we've talked about so far this year, he
is up there in terms of I am sure he's
going to play in the major leagues and for a
decent stretch, So you know, take that for what you will.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
For a third round pick who was fairly young for
a college that in the draft, right, like, yep, not
a lot of buzz, not a lot of popularity. He
was still zero percent rostered in September. All right, man,
I'm curious who you landed on on the that side
here for the Giants, because I had a tough time.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Man, Yeah, there are arms. I don't know. They weren't
quite as exciting. Again, They've had some interesting ones in
years past. Although I will say my guy last year
for them, Kuy Waitang, maybe my biggest miss of any
take that I had in the last year. He was
just atrocious last year, both in the miners in the majors.

(52:55):
And I'm still hopeful he figures it out because I
still believe in what we saw the previous couple of years.
But it just was super bad this year. But I
don't know, there aren't as like slam Dunk, a guy
that jumped out to me here even.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
On the top net like Carson wizen Hunt twenty nine percent,
Mason Black eighteen percent, Joe Whitman seven percent, like those
are their top three at least popularity wise. Like the
most not the most exciting in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Yeah, I agree with you. I did like two arms
of theirs after diving in a bit. I think you
shared your list, and one of them is the guy
that you picked that I kind of co signed. But
I'll let you talk about him and I'll just talk
about Jack Choate.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
He was one percent in September.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
Got a really fortunate name. I don't know. He does
a lot of things that I really like. For a
picture one, he works really fast, which makes him fun
to watch. You're not sitting there a lot of dead time,
you know, when we're chopping up hundreds of hours of
film and trying to smash it in as much as
in as little time as possible. Really appreciate when I
can hit that fast forward button and the next pitch

(54:03):
immediately shows up. That's this kind of guy. And you
know hat tipp to Choate for working as fast as
he does. He's got a lower slot arm from the
left side, but he makes it work at the top
of the zone. There's something about his hand angle that
makes me think that there's good vertical approach angle and
decent ride. The fact that he keeps throwing it at

(54:24):
the top of his zone and not getting hurt up
there that it's like it's gonna play even if the
velocity doesn't tick up, and I think I heard some
readings that he's, you know, eighty nine to ninety one consistently.
Maybe he gets up to ninety two, but it's not
elite or even average velocity for a lefty. But with
the funk and the low arm angle and the way
that the fastball rides, I think all of those things

(54:47):
round it up to like maybe an average fastball, and
then the rest of his pitches are pretty good. The
change when it's on is dirty. I have seen him
get pretty loose with it at times, but when it's working,
he'll throw that anytime, any count, and it seems to
work quite well. He can lose it a little bit
arm side at times and down, but most of the
time it seemed like that was his most trusted secondary.

(55:09):
He knows how to get lefties out. Again, the arm
angle I think helps it play, and his breaking ball
seems to work pretty well. More of a sweepy. I
couldn't tell necessarily whether it was a curveball that's like
more sweepery or a slider, but a little bit of
a slower breaker that was good without being exceptional, and

(55:30):
the execution for me is what separated him from your guy.
I just thought he attacked the zone a touch better
and still had had decent innings on the year. You know,
he threw one hundred and eleven and two thirds innings,
which tells me that, like, while he's not going three
times to the order every time, it's still a fairly
hefty workload. And maybe there's more here and then a

(55:53):
depth like sixth starter or seventh starter or a long reliever,
but that's probably his meat outcome is long reliever type.
So you know, not a full third endorsement, but I
liked enough about what I saw that you know, he
might throw some innings in the back of a pen
if the velocity ticks up in shorter stints or if
the slider tightens up and maybe he gains a tick,

(56:16):
maybe he can be a back of the rotation guy.
But I liked. I think he had a really good
year and end of the year on a solid run
in double A two. So it's not like we're picking
guys in a ball either. He's he's in the uppers now,
and I think jock joke. He's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
But halfway through the season, I know we had talked
about Dylan Cumming and I was kind of starting to
get a little excited for him. About him, I was
kind of thinking, Okay, this would be my no doubt
choice here for this. But man, the second half of
the year, he just really was unimpressive to me. The
execution just was not nearly as good and reliever they
were trying as a starter, and I think it just

(56:51):
kind of cemented more of like, all right, coming if
he makes it as probably a reliever. I think I
was trying to, you know, search more for starters, but
I end up playing with Dylan Carmacchi And you mentioned
that you were a bit of a co sign here,
so I'm going to ask you for a little bit
of help as well selling me because I was not, like,
I am not super excited about this pick. I just

(57:12):
kind of felt like it was the best of what
was available to me. Carmachi went ninety two innings in
a ball and then a little over thirty innings in
hi A as a twenty three year old who was
a fifteenth round draft pick twenty twenty three out of
Tulane he's a big lefty at six six, kind of
like a I don't know, three quarter, maybe a little

(57:33):
bit more towards the quarter. I thought zero percent rostered
in September, which I think is understandable. He was pretty
good in a ball, just production wise, not nearly as good.
In his seven starts in a ball he ran a
five three four era, a one point five to five whip.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
There, that's that's in Hi A, when yeah, that's in
High A.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
But he did cut the walks quite a bit. He
was at eleven percent and then was down to six
point eight percent in High A. And those strikeouts ticked
up as well. Matt he was almost thirty percent in
his seven High A starts. He was twenty four in
a ball.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
But he was giving up homers like that was the
issue for me. And my notes on him were that
I really liked his funk, like he's a lefty with
some deception, and I thought that that played pretty well.
The part that I was concerned about was the execution
and putting guys away. I tend to think that's something
that can be learned, though, so it might just be

(58:29):
some more reps for him because he's still pretty new
I mean, what was he twenty three.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
The video that I'll share, it's far from far from
like a great pitch execution guy. I mean, things can
get pretty loose on him at times, but yet over
the course of the year, like pretty good strike throwing percentage,
at least the back half of the year, it really
jumped up from his a ball run. Now to me,
the biggest thing with him, like you said, funky, bigger lefty,

(58:55):
that all played into me going with him here, but
his arsenals. I think he's mostly like a aass ball
change up guy. And I think the breaking ball stuff,
the curveball, like I don't, it's not major league quality
at this juncture, so that that puts a big damper
on things for me here. But you know, pitchers, they
can develop, they can change rather quickly. But he was

(59:17):
also a lefty with somewhat of reverse splits. He was
tougher on righties than he was lefties. That's always kind
of interesting to me. So yeah, I don't know, just
kind of He's definitely probably like my bottom five B
side arms for this year. But don't I think was
without you know, some some interest to watch to see
what kind of development developments may take place here, and

(59:38):
if you can get a decent breaking ball going, like uh,
I don't know, maybe you could be a guy of notes.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Yeah, there's room to improve in a couple of ways.
You know. Even his change up, which I think is
his best pitch, it's still he loses it at times.
And I think when he misses with his pitches that's
when they get punished. So you know, he could I
could see him taking a step forward. But neither of
these guys screamed like, must must get for me.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
No, But you know, Carmachri, there's just a bit of
a different watch than the other guys in the system
here and cut me tuned in longer, all right. The champs,
the Los Angeles Dodgers can make for interesting B siding
because they are so popular. Every every guy they signed
their draft is a future Hall of Famer because they're
just such amazing developers of talent, you know, so it

(01:00:27):
can be really tough. They're just truck full of Hall
of famers. I do really really like the bat that
I'm going with here, Matt, and it's Logan Wagner.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Yeah, co sign this is mine too?

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Nice? Nice? The problem I had.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
I mean, I feel like you're still in my thunder
here because I talked about him earlier this year.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Well, you know, I if you can't beat him, you
join them, Matt right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Well plan Logan Wagner. He's really good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Yeah, one percent rostered in September. He was a twenty
twenty two prep selection out of South Carolina. They took
him in the sixth round or six hundred. He is
a switch hitting corner outfielder, first base, third base, listed
at six ' to one. The biggest problem that is
staying on the field, right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yeah, so what's up with this?

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Like, I don't got to say, I don't know what
all the injuries are and stuff, but we're talking about
as a pro two years plus the post draft only
two hundred and thirty seven played appearances. Yeah this year.
His season ended in the end of June. This is
just a really good looking switch hitting bat. Dude. I
love absolutely the mechanics here.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
I mean, the knock on him other than staying on
the field is the strikeouts have thus far been relatively high,
and this is like, go out and try and get
this guy. Kind of an alarm because I don't think
they're gonna stay that way or if they do, it's
gonna be because he's hitting absolute tanks and walking a lot.

(01:01:56):
So he's he's pretty patient. Like you watch him and
he's like he'll take borderline pitches and he at all.
Then the guy makes a mistake because he nibbled, nibbled,
and now it's three to two and he'll just smash
one into the gap and love his simple swing from
both sides. He think I have seen some ev stuff

(01:02:17):
on him and he's one of those like Exiblocity darlings.
So like, yeah, Logan Wagner, this guy can really really hit,
and yeah, because of the strikeouts, he's not yet like
Dodgers level popular for some reason, but he should be,
he says.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
Healthy. Man, he's he's gonna. I feel like he could Mash.
I shared this in the video, Matt, but you see
him just destroy Herman Marquez just dead center home run
when Marquez was rehabbing sick. I love the look at him, man.
I just want to see him play more. I don't
know what else there is to say. The it walks

(01:02:53):
a ton, his his OBP was over four this year.
There's nothing to like nitpick to me. I know, the strikeouts,
like let the man barely into his pro career here, Like, yeah,
he's when he's out there, like he's a dude on
that Rancho team. Man some clutch home runs. I think
he had a game winner that I shared in the
in the video. But uh yeah, Logan Wagner definitely one

(01:03:15):
of my favorite B side selections this year.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Totally co signed like this. He is a he's going
to be a very very good hitter, and like we've
like to talk about before too, he pulls the ball
and does so in the air and does it from
both sides of the plate like he has an approach
up there and it's I'm gonna get my pitch and
then I'm gonna absolutely tattoo it. So yeah, this was
a bit of a no brainer for me. There's some

(01:03:38):
other bats in Dodger system that I think are interesting ish,
but Wagner is the one that's like I could see
him absolutely exploding.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
It's popped from both sides of the plate, like I
don't know, yeah, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
I have him in a couple of places. I think
they're a couple of deep leagues. I grabbed him when
I was starting to talk about a mid season Then
he got hurt and didn't play much after that, and
so I was like, I can't profit off it at all.
But yeah, he's one I'm happy to hold because I
do think there's some real, real talent there.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
Yeah. Just thirty eight games this year, bummer.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
Yeah, crazy, and that's that's his high water mark. That's
like the most he's done in the season. Dylan Campbell,
I don't know if you watched much of Dylan Campbell. Yeah,
he's a little bit younger. He was a younger college
bat that got drafted out of Texas if I remember right,
and was I don't know, like fine in the short

(01:04:30):
stint after his draft year and was fine in college.
You know, he was a fifth rounder like that's or
maybe comp round something like that. You know, he was
a decently high pick but went under the radar a
little bit. I think he had a solid year this year.
Hit ten homers, stole forty two bases, struck out twenty
two percent of the time, walked ten percent of the
time all together. I mean that's just like a one

(01:04:51):
or four WRC plus. And I think the impact in
the bat is probably what's going to hold him back,
and certainly why I would take Wagner over him. I
thought he was a pretty good base dealer in my looks,
and I wondered if there might be a little bit
more power if he matures. He was just twenty one
this year. I think he turned twenty two at the
very end of the season, and that's you know. So

(01:05:13):
he's going into his third pro season just as a
twenty two year old, and he's likely to be in
Double A, and I could see him putting together a
solid year now what I've seen so far, probably not
a big league regular. So we're looking at like a
fourth outfielder skill set, but some decent speed, some decent
contact ability gives him a little bit of a floor.
I just wanted to shout out that I liked a

(01:05:34):
fair amount of Dylan Campbell this year, and if the
power does take a step forward, hey, maybe there's something
more here.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
So I watched a decent amount of like Chris Newell too. Yeah. Shit,
twenty five home runs, thirty one stolen bases this year
between high and Double A. Shoot, if Gotthier can't get
major league run with these guys, somebody who strikes out
thirty three percent of the time ain't.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Yeah, And Gotthier wasn't quite as good this year as
he was last, but still held his own, as you know,
triple A in triple A and I still think he's
going to be a big leaguer for somebody, but probably
not for the Dodgers.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Tough place to bust through here, same story on the
on the arm side for the Dodgers. Tough to be
a good Dodgers prospect in raster zero one percent to go.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
With here because I actually think there are some fun
ones in here.

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
There were River Rhines at the top of their popularity list,
Jackson Ferris, Nick Frosso, Roubleski, Kyle Hurt, Maddox Bronze is
ten percent, Peyton Martin eight percent. I thought there were
a few guys. I know you were talking about Chris
Compost a little bit this year. The guy Okay, sorry,
I'll say that Jared Carros was still only one percent.

(01:06:44):
I'm not huge. I'm not a huge fan. Though I
did like Wyatt Crowell. I don't know if you watched
any of him.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Only a little bit, what'd you like about him?

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Productive? I thought execution was pretty good. I just don't
know if the whole arsenal just seems a little flat
to me major league wise, and evidently when he was
like a reliever in college at Florida State, he was
hitting like ninety eight as his fastball is like ninety
ninety one this year, So I don't know. Maybe there's
some velocity to come or something. I don't know. I'm

(01:07:15):
not sure. He was also a guy that just first
year player draft wise, I was a little interested in,
but I ended up going with teenager. Well, at least
he was during the season. I think he's now twenty
years old. They acquired him in a trade from the
Yankees last offseason, but I went with Christians Azuweta.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Oh, I don't think I watched him.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
Ooh that bottom half of my B side list here
someone I'm going out and getting right away here. But
you know that I love young Mexican pitchers coming out
of the box because I think they just like know
how to pitch as teenagers more so than Americans. Frand
of Max vill Velo and spin rates and all that, right,
So I think there's some of that here was Azueta.

(01:07:55):
He's good, size, six ' three, righty. Like I said,
he came from the Yankees signed him in twenty twenty
two from Mexico. He was zero percent rostered in September.
This year he got just so a brief stint in
the complex and then fifty two and a third innings
in Hia or excuse me, in a a ball rancho
fifty two and a third surface level numbers not real impressive, right,

(01:08:18):
six point three six ERA one point four to one,
whip four one five x fit. But he did strike
out twenty seven point two percent of hitters while walking
eight point six percent. But he too, had a pretty
nice finish to the year, Matt, I think he started
putting some things together his last eight game starts, which
was thirty three and a third innings two point seven
ERA a point nine to nine whip, struck out thirty

(01:08:39):
one and a half percent of hitters walk great. Was
about the same on the year as the year eight percent.
Throwing strikes at a higher clip sixty three percent, gave
up three home runs. But you're talking about, like I said,
a good sized riiety who's probably throwing ninety two ninety three.
I'm thinking, from my takeaways from the broadcast, there's a
good looking breaking ball. Well, I'm not really quite sure

(01:09:01):
how you would categorize it didn't get a lot of
vlos on the breaking ball, so that made it a
little tougher. And then there's a change up. It splits.
Look fine, neither side hit him up. More like just
some of the intangible, intangible stuff Matt like Connor would
talk about, Like, I think there's just like a high
level of compete here, a lot of fiery, a lot
of Like in my watches, I probably watched I don't know,

(01:09:24):
six or seven outings of his like when he really
needed to make a big pitch in a jam or
something like, he'd rise to that occasion, he'd dot something.
You know, don't hate seeing that from a young guy.
But I think there's a blend, a blend of arsenal
and the kind of execution that we like. I could
see him taking off. The Dodgers know how to make
amazing pictures, right, It's all they do. I think there's

(01:09:46):
a nice piece of clay here for the Dodgers and Zazuweta.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
The thing I like the most about him, just in
that short video you're shared, is I love his efficient
kinetic chain. Like you see just how the trunk really
whips and then the arm follows like that that's a
really nice version of kinetic transfer. You know, it's really
pretty Yeah, well you you know who I landed on, yeah,

(01:10:10):
oh yeah. And this is the guy I was trying
to sound the alarm on a bit early earlier in
the year. Chris Campos is my guy here for the Dodgers.
Can't remember when I was first on him. He you know,
he's from the the West Coast Conference. He went to
Saint Mary's and they've had a pretty good pipeline of
solid arm talent. But interestingly, he was a two way guy.

(01:10:30):
He played shortstop for them and was pretty light hitting,
like I think he hit two homers in his whole
college career. The Dodgers, being the geniuses that they are,
said put away that batsn you need to step on
the mound and let that shortstop arm play. And I'm
not saying it's a direct comp And I remain still
a little bit skeptical of these guys long term. I

(01:10:54):
think more often these these shortstop conversions, like it takes
a bit for them to figure it out. It's a
bit more of a slow burn. But I think teams
are getting a little bit better at identifying the guys
for whom this makes sense. Two recent examples that have
really kind of changed my mind about this. Lucas erseg
for the then Oakland Athletics now fucking West Sacramento Athletics

(01:11:19):
and then obviously traded to the Royals. But he was
an infielder with a super lively arm, you know, shortstop
third baseman. He could just rip it across the diamond.
And now he's an elite back end reliever and maybe
they're gonna give him a chance to start this offseason.
I've heard some chatter about that. And then for my
Braves Spencer Schwellenbach, he was a shortstop converted and I

(01:11:39):
guess like a dis Ms Schoffer too, he has a
similar story. He was like a football guy and infielder
and then they made him a starter. You know. With
Schwellenbach in particular, that's the kind of guy who I
he Chris Campos reminds me of a bit. He's not
quite as big, and I think that that maybe holds
him back from getting quite into that swell territory. Who

(01:12:01):
was honestly phenomenal this year. Like the National League Rookie
of the Year race this year was absolutely stacked, But
in other years Schwellenbach. I think should Get would have
gotten a real look at it, neither here nor there.
Campos reminds me of him a bit in the fastball.
Is has that nice flat action like he's a lower slot,
but I think he gets really good ride on it.

(01:12:21):
And this is something that, to their credit, Baseball America
has highlighted a bit. I think that that must have
been where I first saw Campos's name is on one
of the Dylan White's robo scout lists, and then I
watched a couple of his starts and I was like, yes,
I'm so into this. He gets way down the mound too.
I mean, he's listed like five ten, but he has
above average extension from there and that's like I don't know. Again,

(01:12:45):
I'm like, he's not fucking Pedro Martinez, but he reminds
me a bit of that, and just like being a
smaller guy getting way down the mound. Even though the
fastball isn't elite in velocity, with the way that he
places it at the top of the zone, the IVB
that he generates, this is a plus pitch for me,
maybe bordering on plus plus. Like I think that if
this thing sits at ninety four. He's just going to

(01:13:06):
destroy hitters with it consistently. His change up I really
like as a secondary and so you know how I'm
a sucker for that. And I think the thing for
me that is holding him back from being like a
thirty percent strikeout rate in the miners guy and like
in consistent walk or low walk rates. The cut slider
thing that he has. I kind of think he should

(01:13:27):
turn that into two pitches. I think that if he
made like with guys with this kind of ride, if
they get a cutter too, that's just murder. Like that's
just like soft contact for days, and then that fastball
just explodes by guys. I mean, it's almost like a
version of Jose Gonzalez who we talked about last week, right,
Like he's like a cutter first guy, and then the
four seam explodes out of it and they just can't

(01:13:50):
touch it at the top of the zone. But I
feel like if Composts had the cutter, like really tightened
up what is currently his slider and then also had
more of like a sweeper to go with it, I
think he would just destroy No one would be able
to know what was coming. He would raise his strike
at rate from like the you know, twenty six, twenty
seven percent that it's been sitting at pushing thirty. So

(01:14:10):
to me, Compost is a really good pitcher with that sneaky,
sneaky good stuff. Like it's not you know, Jacob Mazarowski
one hundred miles an hour every time. It's like, you know,
Logan Henderson type of elite fastball with a great secondary
and potential if he adds one pitch or keeps tightening
up the execution. I believe in Chris Campos as much

(01:14:31):
as any any starter that I saw this year, So
I'm super excited about him. I feel very, very bullish
about him, and I definitely hear you on the Dodger stuff,
like they get overrated on some of the like everything
they touch turns to magic kind of deal. But they
they are smart and they're really good at a lot
of parts of the game, and developing pictures does seem

(01:14:53):
to be one of them. I mean a lot of
times that just means the pitcher breaks really fast, and
they just have so many of them that they can
run out twenty guys that all could play in the
major leagues. But Compost, to me, he's one of those guys.
He's gonna pitch them innings for the major leagues and
he could even break into a rotation like the Dodgers.
I'm way in on Chris Campos, and I think he's
poised to be a big gainer next year.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
Yeah you were. I mean, you definitely got my attention
when you were talking about Campos this year. I was
turning them on.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
You know, just like with the Dodgers, it's like, oh,
they developed so many good players, and it's like, I
don't think the story really fits, like do they develop,
Like they're very much and I'm not knacking them and
I'm not knacking this process. But it's more about the
talent that they decide to corral and bring in. To me,

(01:15:41):
like they put a lot of resources into what they do.
They're world class, no doubt that ipopping stuff on spreadsheets
and let's get those guys in and hope for the best.
And to me, that's kind of the opposite of development.
Are they really helping those guys develop into good pitch
execution guys? I wouldn't say so in my opinion. To me,

(01:16:01):
pitching development would be more of the opposite. These days,
you're taking guys and maybe have high pitchability, but maybe
don't have the stuff and then you teach them the
pitches or sharpen those tools. Right, I don't know, It's
just a different approach. And I just feel like the
accolades that they get for all of that is just
a little bit backwards from my perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Yeah, and I think to your point when they did
the graph and the World Series of where how were
these teams built? You know, how they do that? You know,
international draft and free agent signings, Like the Dodgers had
a huge amount from free agent signings.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
They had like three guys on the World Series team
that were like Dodger picks or signees and developed by
them or but came up with them.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
Like yeah, and some of those guys, you know, pitch
super importantatings, like Walker Bueler closed it out and he's
a he's a tricky and sure all that, but like
also he was a stud in college and like I'm
sure you know he was. He was super well regarded.

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
But yeah, and huge kudos to them because they do
have a wealth of good talent in their system because
they put the time in, they put the work in,
they do it and I think they do a great
job of then flipping that into assets that they need.
And that's that's not a knock on them, that's yea,
quite the opposite. It's just not everything that they touch
turns to gold.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
All right, well, let's let's go down to down I
five a little bit further. And what do you got
going on in San Diego? I mean, fucking aj Preller
sells anything not nailed down. I don't know how many
prospects he's traded in his tenure, but it's a lot.
And oh no, there's still some interesting cats here. Who
did you who were you intrigued by?

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
I feel like they I think the Padres too do
a really good job of identifying talent and bringing talent in.
Like they're always selling their prospects, but yet there's always
guys that are like showing up too and filling and
they sold all their big names and then it's just
a year later, B side type guys are now names
and there's system. But I went my arm is really

(01:18:03):
kind of go back and forth a lot if I
how much I like him, If I like him, he
was only one percent roster, but yet he's still like
pipelines number seven on their list, Like, I know it's
been thinned out. Young Henry Biaz, Yeah, twenty one years
old this year, pitching what seventy six innings in High
A and fifty innings in Double A. Righty six '

(01:18:26):
three wiry, not real big guy at this point twenty
nineteen siney from the Dominican. One of these guys who
maybe you read just like velocity numbers or pitch grades,
like on that sort of surface level, you're like, oh,
this guy sounds pretty good, but then you like look
at the strikeout numbers or kind of underwhelming, right, I

(01:18:46):
mean struck out twenty four point eight percent in High A,
only fifteen percent during his nine starts in Double A,
walks are under eight percent. But it's this guy who's
like velocity wise, can hit like ninety seven, right. I
think he's a three fastball guy. He's got a breaker,
he's got to change up. I think he does well
keeping the four seamer up and the two seam are down.

(01:19:08):
He might be one of these rare guys. As the
outing progresses, his velocity increases. Notice that on several of
his starts he start off ninety one ninety two and
then we're hit talking ninety five inning three and four,
you know, don't see that often. He's got a change
up that I think has really good velocity separation.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
I thought it was more of a splitter, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:30):
What's that?

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
I thought it was more of like a split and
he has splitter.

Speaker 3 (01:19:32):
Gay, Yeah, yeah, it's a split change I think.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
Change yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:37):
I feel like sometimes when I watch him, I feel
like he's like really close to the type of guy
that we like, you know, lots of offerings, mixes it
up just ultimately just like it's it's not cleaned up
real well. I don't think he's like the most efficient.
I don't think he really knows how to pitch yet.
Sequence well, maybe the offerings don't come out of the

(01:19:58):
hand looking aler enough in the beginning. I don't know,
but it's like there's ingredients herely like this guy should
be better than at least producing better than I think
he is. And I'm not saying that he was bad.
I think he was very impressive for a young arm
I guess he did have a double digit strikeout performance,
but only one on the season, like a lot strikeouts

(01:20:20):
in six innings four two four did have one at seven,
a seven inning outing where he struck out four. Like,
the strikeouts just aren't there. I don't know what you
want to make of that, but I know the Padres
might be a little bit more tough, loving on their
pitchers and kind of figure it out, you know. But

(01:20:40):
you know, this thinned out system, they're already pushing some
young guys up and that's just kind of how the
Padres do it. But I wouldn't be surprised if Henry
Biaz put it together in twenty twenty five, had a
big year, big numbers, being young in the uppers and
gets a lot more popular. I'm kind of surprised he's
not rostered more than he is right now.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
Yeah, I think it's probably the strikeouts, And to me,
it's his secondaries don't really get the whiffs. Like his
fastball I think might not be quite the prettiest in
terms of shape, and so even though the velocity is there,
it's more like generates foul balls and some weaker contact
rather than being a whiff pitch. And so then you
really got to lean on the off speed. And I

(01:21:20):
think his curveball is not good and the splitter, to me,
split change I think it's pretty good, but it's not
quite as nasty as some and so like he can't
finish guys, and he's a good pitcher.

Speaker 3 (01:21:32):
I like him the time of a guy who might
not have the greatest tools or ability to use the
tools right now. And you're still talking about a twenty
one year old who had a er just over three
in Double A and a one point one four whip
in Double A. It's not like he isn't getting results,
just maybe not the results that fantasy owners are after.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
No, I like him a decent amount, and find something
that whiffs just a few more bats than he'd be
really interesting for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:21:58):
Yeah, and he is a rule flave eligible. I don't
think he's been added to the forty man yet. I
imagine he's going to be, though, right I would think.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
I don't know, Maybe I think they've got some room.
I don't know what their plan is. I mean, the
thing about the Padres is that their major league rotation
and pitching staff is pretty good, but it's like super shallow,
and when those guys get hurt, there's not a lot
of depth behind it, and so maybe they at him
for that reason.

Speaker 3 (01:22:23):
Yeah, he's kind of frustrating to watch, frustrating to sort
of analyze too.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
I think, yeah, I get what you're saying. My guy
has some things in common. I feel like he's kind
of Henry Bias. Well, you know, he's different in lots
of ways. I'm going with Omar Cruz, who the Padres
got from the Yankees, oh, Pittsburgh. They drafted him, then

(01:22:50):
traded him in the Joe musker of deal to Pittsburgh,
and then rule fived him back last year, and he's
had an interesting route. I would be so all in
on Omar Cruz if I wasn't pretty sure they're just
going to stick him in the pen next year. They're
really kind of telegraphing that they want to use him
as a maybe two inning reliever rather than start him.

(01:23:14):
And I'm not so sure that's the right move. Like,
I think this guy can be a starter. But like
I said, maybe they're full up in the rotation and
they want another pretty good arm in the pen. So
Omar Cruz, left handed, you know, six foot two ten,
athletic looking guy on the mound, has I think pretty
good shape to his fastball. It's for seem it's a

(01:23:36):
little bit lower slot, not like exceptionally low, but from
where it is, I think that it gets more ride
than hitters expect. So even when he's sitting ninety two
to four, which is kind of what he is when
he's starting, the fastball gets fouled off or get he
gets whiffs at the top of the zone with it.
I think that that fastball can play at that velocity.

(01:23:56):
But when he's in relief, the thing is is that
ticks up to like ninety s and then it's a
real weapon. And I feel like that's what the Padres
are going to do with him, because I also really
like his change up in his curveball. His curveball not
a huge WI pitch, but gets a lot of ground
balls out of it, and I really like his change up.
I think that that's a solid pitch that can get out.

(01:24:18):
We'll have innings where he just loses his command and
walks a couple of guys. And the walk rate wasn't
good unfortunately this year at triple A for about half
his season, terrible walk rate of thirteen point eight percent,
Like that's untenable for a starter. And even though he
was striking out twenty eight point seven percent of batters,
that kind of walk rate like has me really really

(01:24:39):
concerned that it's not going to play at the Biggs.
And maybe some of that was you could chuck some
of it up to the automated zone and whatever. But
he's run walk rates like that before, so it's it's
not out of the question for him. And I think
it's the other reason that's kind of holding him back
from starting. But we've seen stretches of him when he
is commanding his pitch as well. His run at Double

(01:25:00):
A this year was fantastic. He had a couple of
starts in Triple A, not not even starts, but like
piggyback three four innings at a time that were really
really good. I still think that this guy could start
for a major league team. Maybe another team wants to
try and rule five him again because I think he's
Rule five eligible again this year. But I also think
that the Padres might very well pop him on the

(01:25:24):
roster and use him out of the pen. So yeah,
I'm a big fan. I feel like he's had kind
of a roller coaster career.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
Yeah, Matt, I don't know if you've looked at this already,
but if you haven't, I'd say there's no way that
you can name the three most rastered pitching prospects from
this organization and it's at five percent and two percent
got to be the least owned, least rastered a pod
system in the big.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Because they traded so many of them. Right, Well, I'm
going to say, is Johnny Brido on your list?

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):
He's not a prospect anymore?

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Yeah, I guess not.

Speaker 3 (01:26:01):
Jackson Wolf, Jackson Wolf is one of them, yes, at
two percent.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
Jagger Haynes not one of them.

Speaker 3 (01:26:07):
No, No, And actually I'm not even sure if the
five percenter is a prospect. I'm sure he is because
I left him on the list. But Jay Groom.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
Room Yeah yeah, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:26:18):
Even know if he pitched last year? Did he didn't?
Something happen to him? Yeah, yeah, what happened?

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
I don't I forget the story. But it was another
like he's had a fairly long line of incidents.

Speaker 3 (01:26:29):
Yeah that good.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
Another one yeah, not good.

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
No, he's like he's behavioral something right, Yeah, okay, so
take him off the list then maybe wow. But the
the other one, the third one, is the guy that
I really like a lot and could have picked here,
but felt like that was cheating a little bit, but
Victor Lizarraga.

Speaker 2 (01:26:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:26:48):
The other guy who I like that out of the
box is a young Mexican arm, but.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
An Austin Krapp, my guy from last year. He wasn't
quite as good at limiting walks this year as he
was last, but he still had a decent year double
a and I'm still I'm still interested in him as
as a depth kind of maybe fifth starter upside, but
we'll see.

Speaker 3 (01:27:07):
And my pick last year was Isaiah Weo. He hasn't
quite put it together like I was hoping. It might
be more relievery than I had hoped, but he's like
at one percent.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
Okay, yeah, okay last year. Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (01:27:18):
Think it still hasn't it still hasn't loved a ton
of pro innings yet, yeah, full season innings yet. So
we shall see. But an interesting system in that there's
no dynasty love here at the moment anyways.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Yeah, yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (01:27:33):
What some of their first year player draft arms might too.
But Matt the bat side, I don't think it'd be.
I don't think it's going to be a huge surprise
to you. It's also not a guy that I'm like
super in love with or anything like that. He's on
the bottom half of my list. But I'm going with
Romeo Sanabria.

Speaker 2 (01:27:48):
Yeah, I figured.

Speaker 3 (01:27:49):
Yeah, he was one percent rostered in September talking about
a left handed first base type and not the most
physically impressive guy on the planet either. Is not that
he's like not in shape. I don't know if my
man has been hitting any weights ever, but he can
swing the bats. So twenty one year old who made

(01:28:11):
it from Low A to Double A last year. Yeah,
he's in the AFL right now. I don't think he's
doing anything too remarkable. Listed at six three, eighteenth round
Juco pick in twenty twenty two. Doesn't slug a ton, Matt.
I don't know about power and slug and that sort
of thing. Eleven home runs on the whole season as
a first base type, like, eh, not that much fun, Yeah,

(01:28:34):
but does make a lot of contact and did go
on a pretty dang good heater when he first got
brought up to double A. Matt I cut up his
first twenty two double A hits. That's what I shared
in the video. Now, of course there's babbit love there
and whatnot. I don't even know what it was. Twenty
two he was like twenty two for thirty seven or

(01:28:55):
something like that to start double A. But you know,
it doesn't you know, it didn't strike out too too much.
It jumps him when he got to double A, walked
a lot. I don't know, Maybe he has a chance
as a left handed platoon at some point. He's not
very good against the lefties, so I don't know, very
ho hum, don't super love it, but maybe Santa Bria's

(01:29:15):
got a major league chance at some point.

Speaker 2 (01:29:17):
Yeah, he's got a fun, a fun swing, and I
definitely considered him. You know. The lack of impact in
the bats probably the thing that holds him back. But
he did rope thirty doubles and so maybe some of
those turn into some homers at higher levels. But I
mean a decent hitter.

Speaker 3 (01:29:30):
Yeah, one hundred and thirty six played appearances in double
A Slash two seventy with a three seventy five on
base percentage, But that came with a three thirty three
slug you know, point zero six three ISO for that stretch.
So yep, you know, if Santa Bria shows up and
there's the best shape of his life. Tweet at the
beginning of the year I'll take a little note to
that and be a little bit more excited about that

(01:29:51):
than most other players.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
I can't fault you for taking Santa Bria. I think
he's the smart money pick here. There's no tier so
Ornellis this year, who was, like I thought, just the
slam dunkiest of slam dunks. Last year. I went with
a total shot in the dark, like I have no
idea if this guy's actually any good at all. I'm
going Brendan Durfy.

Speaker 3 (01:30:15):
You were talking about Deming last week and how I
thought Beck was beck was actually talking about Brendan Durfy.
Oh no way, Oh okay, he was talking about yeah, yeah, okay,
well either way, so you guys both got there.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
That's funny. Yeah, you know. Durfy was like a fine
college catcher. Ended up at UCSB. I think he was
maybe at a JC before that, and he was okay,
is a big dude catcher. Only I don't know if
he was even drafted, like he might have been just
under after free agent signed.

Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
Fourteenth round fourteenth, he got like no money, right, it's
first year player.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
Yeah, and got like no money right, Like he's.

Speaker 3 (01:30:54):
Don't have the signing bonus in front of me.

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):
I'm pretty sure it's like no money at all to
be had for they no prospect pedigree of note, I
don't think. But he was really good to start his
pro career hit. I think I was turned on him
because I was watching somebody else, one of the other
ALS team or NLS teams, and Durfy just hit a
nuke in this like crazy inning. I think it was

(01:31:19):
like eight runs in the inning. He let it off
with a single, and then nine batters later he hit
a three run homer to make it like thirteen to
one or something like. It was just like everybody was scoring,
but he hit this pitch and just like absolutely nuked it.
But you know, he's like twenty two years old and
or maybe twenty three now. It was a ball. I mean,
this is not a ring endorsement, but he was.

Speaker 3 (01:31:40):
A big dude.

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
He hit great, hit a bunch of doubles to a
couple of homers in a short stint in a ball
coming out of college, so one to watch, I mean,
not quite as electric as like the Dalton rushing performance
coming out of college. And obviously they're very different talents
from college, but there was like some overla app and
how that how that looked to me, just like maybe

(01:32:03):
this guy has a good approach to the plate, doesn't
swing and miss much, and maybe there's some power there.
So Brendan Durfy.

Speaker 3 (01:32:09):
Two eighty eight, four thirteen OBP four seventy nine, struck
out under twenty percent of the time, walked fourteen percent
of the time. You might want to get with Beck,
but I think Beck had gleaned some data. Maybe it
was EV stuff or contact percent Andrews or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
But about it, that's funny. I know a couple of
guys that that we both really liked, Like Nitara was
the other one. He and I were talking about that
the other day on who Samuel and Arror Junior. Oh yeah,
he was into him too.

Speaker 3 (01:32:35):
Yeah, right on. So, yeah, Padres are a little tough
system right now, but I imagine they'll, uh, I bet you
there'll be some first year player draft guys that show
up and do some things and they'll replenish. They always do.
That wraps up the nl West for this year. We
came together on on well how many guys? Three guys?
Four guys?

Speaker 2 (01:32:53):
Yeah, and you were saying you were super excited about
it and I was like kind of down on this group,
and we agreed on three guys. Four guys.

Speaker 3 (01:33:01):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean the three bats
in Tawa, Lizabel Diez, Wagner. I mean that's definitely B
side draft range for me.

Speaker 2 (01:33:10):
Yes, guys, yeah, certain, certainly Wagner and Tower for me.
I think those guys are great.

Speaker 3 (01:33:15):
But AnyWho, that will wrap it up again. You can
follow me and check out the videos I'm gonna post
right when this episode drops on Twitter at Pitching Specs.
We will get together again next week, I think, and
talk another division. I'm not sure which one yet, but
we're halfway there through our selections and having some fun. Mudd,
and thanks for joining us. Yeah, we'll let Chicago Farmer

(01:33:37):
take us out and be well.

Speaker 2 (01:33:38):
All right later an hour riding too his head.

Speaker 3 (01:33:43):
You have them down.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
First with the lump bonus face, and on the very
next pitch he up and stole second face with greatest
He was is born. He had the dirty yes, uniforn,

(01:34:06):
the

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