Episode 49: Game On

Episode 49: Game On

Nate and The Rook discuss some takeaways from the early baseball season, both MLB and MiLB. Nate discusses some full-season debuts from young arms Bryan Balzer, Aiden Foeller, Wei-En Lin, Chase Burns, and Dylan Questad. The two also discuss the state of the future ace and some very early-season successes.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ninety five miles an hour riding to his head. You
have him down first with the lumpbonius face, and on
the very next pitch he up and stole second face.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
With greatst be he wasn't born, he had.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yes, unifor welcome to the prospect. Besides podcast, this is
episode Rex.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
Brother Oh, I like that one. That's a good one.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
I just really just liked the name. You know, who
doesn't love some obscure what ten War relief pitcher from
the Rockies or something. I don't even know. I wasn't
like a Rockies fan at that point, so I don't
really know if Rex Brothers had so he had to
have had a couple of decent years for them.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Yeah, No, I think he did. He was like a
leverage reliever at the back end of the pen for
a bit, and I think had a couple of decent seasons.
If I remember.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Right, that's episode forty nine that you haven't tuned in.
Joined Matt and I. That's Matt Rooke on the other microphone.
What is Rook twenty twenty five? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Yeah, because we're in the twenty twenty five season. Finally,
the Braves number forty nine that popped to my was
John Rocker, and I guess the less set about him
the better, But that was, you know peak my fandom
era late nineties, John Rocker at number forty nine.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Bernie John Rocker is something.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
He was something, you know, something that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
But if you haven't joined us before, this is a
Dynasty Baseball podcast about Oh Matt, what do we do?
I guess we got to do homework and share some
opinions and views on probably less popular baseball prospects.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
Nate does that, he does homework and watches video. I
just talk about my shots in the dark that turned
out to be good picks and crap on Nate's picks,
and talks mack about everybody else except my guys that
are doing well. So that's that's what I do. And
I don't know if I bring a whole lot to
the table other than that, but I'm a pretty face

(02:03):
on on radio here, So let's let's dive in and
talk about all my awesome b siders.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
We did well. I don't know. We did about six
or seven episodes this offseason that as many as I
had wanted to. But we are back. It's good to
talk to you, good.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
To see you YouTube, buddy.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
The season is upon us all levels of minor leagues. Well,
I guess you know. Rookie ball is going, but we
don't watch that anyways because we can't. But we can't
major leagues. Well, we're what about a dozen games in
every team?

Speaker 4 (02:28):
Is about a dozen games now going well for any
of our teams?

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Really, Hey, Matt, you know the best you can do
is win today, right?

Speaker 4 (02:37):
My teams couldn't even do that one of my times.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Did so I'm just not going to let you, you know,
poop on my parade here for my one day parade.
But yeah, that's true. Our major league teams are are
not doing well. I don't know, Matt. We haven't been
doing podcasts, but I have been busy working on a website,
Muddy loooks dot com. I'm trying to have some fun
with that and put up a lot of video and
share some opinions. So I have not been lazy. I

(03:03):
have not been lacking on baseball inputs here. I just
haven't been haven't been talking in a microphone with it.
So I'm glad to do that tonight.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
Me Noo, I've missed that. We've had a couple of
near misses where where you thought the nights were gonna
line up and they haven't. So I'm glad that tonight
worked out.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
I am not a website builder, so I am hacking
this altogether best that I can. But I don't know, Matt,
what do you think any takeaways? There's a lot of
opinions that come about in the first couple of weeks
of season. I don't want to talk about stats tonight, Matt,
or very little, like they don't mean much to me
right now, and throwing out somebody's ops after ten games

(03:40):
just doesn't seem like fruitful endeavor to me.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
Yeah, and people get so sucked into it, right like
that first hot week. It's so seductive. You think somebody's
unlocked something, and because occasionally it does portend some difference
and a guy has unlocked a new talent level or
you think they're actualizing what was in there all along.
But I was talking to our friend Connor, who we've

(04:03):
had on the pod, pitching coach at University of Washington,
and we were talking about how he attacks hitters, what
his plan is, and he was mentioning that you know,
he'll look to the tendencies of a hitter you know,
what's their swing rate average? How do they do against
certain pitches? And you know, I was like that, you know,
that might be helpful, there might be some signal in there,

(04:24):
but the sample sizes are still so small, even in
college and they've played another, you know, fifteen to twenty
game for the pros so far, it's still such small samples.
And especially if you're talking about a guy that's maybe
seen ten change ups all year, and you're like, oh,
he does great against changeups. So I'm going to shy
away from that. Even though my guy has a good
change up, I don't know if I do that. And

(04:45):
I was saying that, you know, in my own analysis,
I would look at that and say, like, it hasn't
changed my mind very much yet. I'm still probably going
by my evaluation from the off season. It's going to
be a while. And I know that sometimes I miss
out on those kind of guys that have unlocked something new.
I think I'm just more of a conservative player, and

(05:06):
I just think that my eyes over a super short
sample are going to lie to me and I'll get
sucked in and make a bad choice, and I should
have just stuck with the guy that I thought was
going to be better. So that's I mean for me,
like a lot of this is early season panic and showcase.
I mostly stay out of it. You know, I'll maybe
try and pick up a guy or two, And I

(05:26):
think I did that some success last year with a
couple of pitchers that showed out really well early on
because probably we hadn't seen them before. You know, I'm
thinking last year for me, it was like Classen and
Jaden Ham, you know, guys that you'd like maybe identified as, hey,
we've gotten a little look at this, it seems interesting.
And then they came out the gates and showed something
really good. But that again was informed by something before that.

(05:47):
But like I don't know, a guy like kyn Paris
bigs for the Angels, like, yeah, he's doing some things differently,
hitting the ball in the air more went to the
swing change guy for Aaron Judges hitting coach. But is
he different? I mean, is that gonna sustain? Certainly not
at this pace, So I don't know. I'm I think
more conservative than many on this breakout guys and don't
really jump too too fast onto the rocket ships.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
I think some of that stuff is probably like league
and format dependent as well too, Like if you're I
don't know, if you're in the NFBC and you're trying
to win like an overall or something like that, that
very much is like a waiver wire game. I think
I'm not an expert de format, but sort of being
on top of and utilizing the flavors of the week,
so to speak, I think is a big part of
winning those kinds of things. But you know, I'm more

(06:32):
of a dynasty like the long game, so I'm kind
of talking about stuff that I don't really about right now.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
But yeah, and even in the dynasty realm, Like maybe
it's your one of your teenage guys that's you're getting
to look at the first time starts looking pretty good,
or a guy that you were fringy on you're like,
but you thought was something interesting maybe that tips it
over the edge, you know, or an st Martinez Junior.
It's one of those guys I think that you were
really excited about, but I don't think you were like

(07:00):
rushing out to roster him this offseason, right Like we
had a couple of fypds and you didn't draft him
in those, and then he shows out for a couple
of weeks and be like, Okay, maybe there is something here,
and then you make a move. And I feel like
that's what a lot of our off season prep has done, is,
you know, we've gotten lists of guys, We've dove in
on a lot of interesting names, and then when we
see a little bit of signal that maybe confirms some

(07:21):
of our suspicions, that might make me more inclined to
buy someone's hot week or two. But even then I'm
still trying not to be wedded to that because it
still can hide flaws and maybe this is just a
hot streak, and I want to believe it because I
thought I saw something there before and could totally turn
into a pumpkin.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Part, you know, yeah, you know, And I like to
think that a lot of our podcast here and the
content that I like to do isn't like it's more
about just like information gathering and bringing about some awareness
on you know, Ryan Bowlzer, who might not have any
track record in full season, and what have you saw
that if names pop up, like we know some stuff
about it. If you listen to this show, you might

(07:59):
know be educated, might be a little bit quicker to
the draw there. But AnyWho I've been sort of focusing
that what I like to do early in the season
is I mean, I think hitting is a bit tough
for the stuff that I like to do because there's
so little sample size. Right, make a video of a hitter.
I want like a hundred plate appearances or something like that, Right,
really get a meaty idea of, you know, the guy's game.

(08:22):
I'm really into like new pictures hitting the full season
guys I've never really seen before, maybe some clips from
the Complex or a little bit in college or what
have So. I've really just been trying to compare last
year's list of all the pictures who had a full
season outing, and this year is which one isn't on
last year's less than I trying to take a peek.
Do you hate pictures? So I'm not sure if you've

(08:42):
been focusing on that side of things too much.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
I also hate pictures because they're so easy, you know,
Like you watch one outing and it's like a week
and a half of a hitter, you know, in terms
of the plate appearances and the units, like just seeing
pitches is going to be a week and a half,
maybe two weeks before a hitter gets one hundred swings
off it. You can see one hundred pitches right in
a night from a pitcher, So in that case, so're
just easy to see those changes and it takes a

(09:06):
little while for the hitting change come through. I don't
know who's potre for you early about some of these
early looks at a pitcher.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
I mentioned them already, so maybe Brian Ballzer I'll talk
about real quickly here. I knew nothing about Matt and
then somebody in the discord, my guy Jay was like, like, hey,
who do you guys want a video of or something?
And he threw his name out, So thanks for that, Jay.
But yeah, the Padres signed Ballser from Japan, so he
was an international free agent, but he's like Japanese American

(09:34):
twenty twenty three. And then he made his full season
debut last Saturday. Fifty one pitches, fifty nine percent strikes,
just three innings. I turned them on and cut them
up a little bit and tried to do some like
some other research. There wasn't much out there that I
could find. Some rumblings that he has touched one hundred
miles per hour with the fastball before I think this
outing it was more like I think the top was

(09:56):
top end of veloscity. He was like ninety six. There
were some moments where things were, you know, a little rocket,
he's only like twenty years old. But then there were
some moments that I thought it really kind of impressed.
He's got kind of a classic You could tell that
he's a Japanese pitcher or an Asian pitcher right with
his operation, the little wad kick in the way that
he balances on his back foot for a second, through

(10:16):
change up, through some breaking balls. Rancho's broadcast you can't
really get all the catcher signs. There's no you know,
stack cast stuff, so you're really just sleuthing trying to
look at some grips, trying to figure out some offerings
and stuff like stuff like that. I think there might
be some like natural cut to his fastball, but again
hard to say for sure, or there's like a completely
separate cutter. I think there was two breaking balls. It

(10:38):
might have just been one. You know how that story
goes with these guys in the Lowers, Yep, that Dodgers.
That Rancho lineup, dude, is like for an a ball team.
There's like a bit of a murderer's row there top
like five that lineup is really good and it's.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
Gonna be some good players in that lineup.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, but I mean he was he was giving those
guys fits. So yeah, I don't know, just a guy
that you know, one look, not going to have like
a huge opinion on him, but like I think, definitely
an arm with with some tentral here. And you know,
if he's if he's throwing ninety six ninety seven, he's
twenty years old and he's putting up gaudy lions and
the lowers, like, you've got to imagine that's probably going
to get some dynasty attention. At least that's how it

(11:15):
seems to go, or at least guys that are on
the East Coast like this, that's how it's emed. But yeah,
I'm definitely gonna pull up another one of his starts
and take a look. I like it. I like it
that outing too. He was going against a bit of
an older guy. I think he was a draftee from
last year. But Aiden Fuller, I think it's how you
say f O E L L E R. Who is

(11:35):
the Dodgers. I think eleventh round pick from last year,
bigger guy would seem to have a real lively fastball.
He threw seventy four percent of his seventy three pitches
for strikes. From Southern Illinois, he looked interesting in me too, Like,
I don't know, I haven't heard much about toler if.
I don't know if you have, but those I have not. Yeah,
but again that that like eleventh round pick is always interested.

(11:56):
That the first pick of the third day I feel
like has produced some at least interesting pitching prospects. Sure,
I don't know about so much about eleventh rownd. Daddy
had a firm slider cutter mixing kind of a I
want to say, like lower. You know, maybe it's just
because he's a taller guy, but the release point like
looks interesting to me. Wonder what the data is on that.
But you know, these guys that throw these sort of

(12:17):
hard fastballs, these hard sliders seem to be in vogue
and had a lot of success. I feel like if
Fuller is pitching like he was this outing, I don't
think he's going to be very long.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
Just looking him up. Yeah, I don't have a lot
to add on these A ball guys. I haven't gotten
much eyes on some of the lowers other than the
highlight here or there. I think for me, most of
the guys that I've watched have been some of the
ones that are knocking on the door, some of our
old favorites, and Zebbie Matthews and Logan Henderson. But I'm
pretty sure that David Festa got the call over Zebbie

(12:49):
Matthews for the open Pablo Lopez spot for the twin,
which is a bummer, just because I like Zebbi in
a vacuum and Zebbie's down there pumping ninety nine and
not walking anybody again, and that seems like it's going
to be a fun George Kirbesque upside kind of pitcher.
It could be pretty good. But I'm curious if you've
watched much of the Double A or Triple A guys, Nate,
I mean, I mean, it's kinds of it. I kind

(13:11):
of passed on like that. I thought maybe they're cooked.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
JT.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
Ginn's really good in the early going. I wondered if
you saw anything new there. Jansen Junk, who has been
kicking around a couple of my thirty teamers on kind
of that those fringy teams that need an extra arm,
and he's often available on the wire and he's looked
pretty good in the early going. You know, I think
those kinds of guys end up being really interesting in
deeper dynasty leagues. Is maybe maybe they did figure something

(13:36):
out in their late twenties and there's something there. But
have you watched any guys in that realm or that class.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Definitely, definitely, I mean especially the first week of MiLB
season was just Triple A, so I was just watching
Triple A. But I mean, maybe not quite the type
that you're referring to here, but I did cut up
and get into Lewinder Avila. Oh yeah, yeah, very much.
Was this kind of like a whole hum guy coming
up in my opinion, like definitely aware of him. Definitely

(14:03):
guy that looked into when we did some of our
B side stuff. He never really never really caught my
attention too much. I mean, the k rates have always
been pretty pedestrian walk rates I don't think have been
real great either or or pedestrian. But I think he
looks a little bit different now in Triple A. I
think the I think the arsenal has got a bit
to maybe significantly more juicy, jumping.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
Up yesterday fifteen point six percent swinging strike rate in
triple A after he hasn't been that high since the
Complex in twenty twenty one, like that, and a tiny
sample with that, so yeah, that's impressive.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, and he's on. He was added to their forty
man this offseason. It's like usually when teams do that,
they have a pretty good reason. He kind of impressed me.
I watched. I think it was just like the first
day of the season. So I watched some Carlos Duran
who put up this crazy good line with Oklahoma City.
I would didn't come away like super super impressed with him,
just more of a thrower, you know. It was very

(14:56):
like I was like focused in watching like his front
foot for a while and it was like very intent.
But he had a good outing and then he ended
up getting traded to the As. Yeah, like I think
like the next day or something.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
But he's another those throwing, hard throwing cats.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I watched it where it's going
big big body, you know, big guy. I watched some
cad Horton, you know, as somebody who has a cad
Horton share the outing. I watched on April his April
third outing. I was pretty as a Dynasty owner. The
velocity of the fastball seems back to where it was. Granted,
I mean it was a short out. I don't remember

(15:31):
when he went three innings or something like that. So
we got to see how it kind of holds. But
made me feel good that that Cad Horton from my
twenty twenty three is still out there. So that was encouraging.
We Ell said, I watched triple your boy Mason Barnett.
I turned him on, but he had a pretty rough outing.
Not that I'm taking too much away from that, but
I think his chance pretty close with A's. Yeah, it's
a little bit of aj blue ball. I don't think

(15:53):
really much has changed my opinion there. You know, I
think his chance is coming pretty quick too. You know,
I think he's he's got a good fast I think
he's got some good stuff, but like you know, with
Darnie or anyone, it's about execution with him. For me,
I watched some Logan Evans watched good looks.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
I was gonna say, it's looked inconsistent so far.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Yeah, I think I had a really good outing last night,
but I didn't turn that one on. I watched the
outing that it wasn't real great. I don't really remember,
or strike myself as much much of a scholar of
his arsenal pitch usage from last year. But as far
as that, that didn't seem too different to me. I just,
you know, I just don't think he was making very
good pitches and executing them very well. It's not the
most shocking turn of events for someone's first start of

(16:35):
the season, especially in the minors. You know, I turned
on our guy Yober a little bit. Again. I don't
think really much has changed there, you know, I think
he's got plenty of good stuff. It's going to be
about executing Mars and Seymour. Have you watched krsteymore much
in the past or.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
In the past, Yeah, Yeah, I've watched a decent bit.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah. I mean he just has like a just super
wicked two steamer right or sinker or whatever. I think
it grades out really well. I mean, I think he's
been allauded for that for quite some time, and I
was kind of interesting. I think I actually took a
share of him in a draft heading into twenty twenty four,
and last year just did not really work out. But
I'm curious to see if she's going to get a

(17:12):
shot relatively soon. Your boy Logan Henderson, watch some of him.
I know he's got what he just got passed over.
They traded for Priester Patrick, your other guy. Patrick's up
there and doing his thing, you know. But Henderson, I
just keep wondering, is it like just cause like the
breaking ball game is still just like I don't know.

Speaker 4 (17:31):
He looked good in one of the starts that I watched.
I think one of the starts he was a little
bit kind of a shaky command, walked a couple more
than he usually does. But the next start out, I
thought he looked great and changeup was incredible, fastball was incredible,
looked like he was still working on the slider. It
wasn't great, but it is a different look, a bridge
look in between those pitches and something news to keep

(17:52):
Righty's honest, but I just think his fastball and changeup
are so good that he's going to get Brighty's out too.
It is interesting saying that they have passed him over
a couple of times, both in the off season and
now when they've had openings for the Brewer crew. I'm
really wondering why I think there's room for Patrick and
Henderson and ac Hunt and held Mizerowski if they want

(18:14):
to try that game sooner rather than later. Just the
Brewers seem like they're they're looking for what's going to
fit in that rotation, and I think Henderson's probably my
pick of that group. Patrick's looked okay and brought his
kind of three fastball look to the the bigs, and
that's fun to see, fun to see that it's mostly working.
I thought his first outing, I think it was he
looked pretty good. Maybe a little bit shakier in the second,

(18:36):
but I still am a real big believer in henderson
breaking ball shape game.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah yeah, I watched a couple couple pretty boys Matt
that I have to say, I am not as big
of a fan of as everybody else or a lot
of other people in Bubba Chandler and Chase Petty. I
have not really ever gotten the Chase Petty love. Like
there's got to be some you know, data that I'm
not privy too, but I see, like, really favorable grades

(19:00):
get put on Chase Petty's fastball ever since he got drafted,
and I'm sorry, I think his fastball game is very
still part So I'm not a big fan of him.
Bubba Chandler obviously super talented. There's some wicked stuff, but
just the inability to like put a breaking ball where
you want to just really keeps him out of the
elite tier. For me, Matt, I might very well look

(19:22):
like an idiot when he comes up and does some
spencer strider s stuff or something, but I'm willing to
bet that that does happen.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Yeah, I kind of agree with you. I do think
the fastball looks pretty good. You know, it's got good
shape and velocity, and he for the most part attacks
it that pretty well. But I in my looks at
him too, I've seen that breaker be a bit all
over the place, and you know, I just don't like that.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
I don't like That's like if that's the penultimate starting
pitching prospect right now, Like I can't I can't go that.

Speaker 4 (19:53):
Yeah, And I don't know when you get to that
like tippy top here where you're talking. This is a
top five arm minor leagues.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
I mean for some he's number one, Matt.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, And even if he's just in that top five, personally,
I like to see a combination of workhorse like has
he put up innings And I think that he checks
that box pretty comfortably for me, so like I like that. Unlike,
you know, maybe job was a little bit undercooked in
that realm Mizerowski for sure, some of those other guys
that kind of get bumped up there, like Chandler at

(20:24):
least has put a hefty amount of innings up, so like,
I think he can handle a big league starters workload.
But the other thing that I like to see before
I actually get excited about a Dynasty pitcher is is
he actually dominating and has Bobba Chandler really ever done that?
Like his run at the end of the year last

(20:45):
year up to Triple A was pretty darn good, you know,
punching out thirty four percent of batters walking nine point
four that's a really good k misbb at the uppers.
But it also came with a slightly depressed babbit, a
little bit of left on base luck, you know, eighty
two percent left on base kept that era really low,
and to me it hid just a little bit of

(21:06):
Like I think some of the luck metrics are all
tilted in his direction in this, which happens sometimes, but
all three of his babbitb his homewer or flyball rate,
and is left on base rate, which are super random
your rear, there's no correlation to like, this is not
a repeatable skill for the most part, and his were
all super favorable and he still wasn't like really really dominant.

(21:27):
I still like him because of the workhorse concerns, like
that he has put up innings and has mostly succeeded,
and I kind of like, for me visually, he's a
guy that I think is going to figure out the command.
Like his delivery looks relatively repeatable to me, so I
think that he's still you know, a dynasty arm that

(21:48):
is a pretty boy that I think is gonna figure
it out. But I kind of think that he's going
to struggle when he gets like I think he's going
to be one of these guys that gets up to
the big realizes his fastball is good rather than great,
and when he has trouble locating his off speed pitches,
that's I think going to compound this situation and that
pretty homer and a fly ball rate that's like sitting

(22:08):
down in the low single digits is going to be
you know, mid teens, and it's going to be a
different proposition, so to me, like Chandler doesn't look like
a guy that I think he's going to come up
and dominate right away. And I don't know if there
are many arms like that in the miners, to be honest,
Like there's just there's a little knit to pick with
all of those guys top end.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
I'm just waiting for Painter, I know.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
But the knit with him is it's going to be
like two frigging years since he's went five innings or something,
three years maybe since he went five innings.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
I think he has a lot of meat left on
his career's bone here, Oh for sure, for sure.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
But how much are we going to see this year?
How long does it take? I was listening to the
Roundtable on the Athletic Do you know that that podcast?

Speaker 3 (22:51):
That's a couple of.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
A couple of beat writers, one from LA one for
San Francisco, and then Sam Miller, who's my favorite baseball writer,
the three of them Mondays and Fridays.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I'm familiar with him.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Yeah, yeah, so great crew. They're all super smart, really funny,
like they just vibe with me super well. But they're
always so interesting because they'll each have a question or
a take that really makes me think about things. Differently,
And I can't remember what it was Grant Brisbee or Andy
McCullough that wrote. Maybe it was Grant, I can't remember.
One of them wrote this article for The Athletic about aces,

(23:22):
So who's an ace? And they surveyed all these people
in the front offices and publish it. And it's like,
you know, as you would expect, a listing of the
best pictures in baseball, but they had a whole ranking
system and grading system for if this many people said
they're an ACE, they're a tippy top tier ace. If
some people said they're in the conversation, maybe they're a
mid tier like maybe an ace, maybe a number two,
you know that kind of thing. So they've got this

(23:43):
like ranking system that they use. But in listening to
their own definition of who's an ACE and who's the
best picture in baseball, the criteria were really interesting, and
one of them was have you done it before? So
if it's your first year and you're showing out, you
can't be the best picture in baseball. So like schmes By,
this definition can't be the best picture in baseball because
he did it one year. Can he back it up

(24:05):
or is he going to go the way of Matt
Harpt and decline after two years of good performance and
then some injury decline, it takes a little longer to
kind of earn that crown. And I feel that way
about pictures in the minor league too, the guys that
come out of nowhere and they're really dominant for four innings,
three innings at a time. That gets my attention, like
I'm interested, but it's hard for that to earn that

(24:27):
thoroughbred racehorse. You know. We've joked about this with Caden
Dana over the last year, that he's a guy who
was putting up a lot of inning and getting really
solid results, especially for his age as he rose through
the miners last year. I had concerns about him for
other reasons, but that like level of can you put
the innings on your arm and your body and build
that resume out It matters quite a bit to me.

(24:48):
And when you're looking at like who are these dynasty
arms that I really want to go to bat for
and I want a roster And it was just interesting
hearing them apply a similar kind of framework to who
are the best pictures in in baseball? Like Strider, he's
one that might have been in the conversation before his
surgery last year, and his sure looks like the best
picture in the minor leagues right now, But he's got

(25:10):
to get back to the major leagues, show that he's
healthy this year, and then repeat it next year for
him to kind of be in that best picture in
baseball conversation, Like according to Grant, Well.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
You know, there's I mean, there's also been plenty of
pitchers who loved the lat of innings dominated in the
minor proved themselves that extent, and then are horrible in
the mage, right, And I think just at the end
of the day, you're never going to know until you
get the major league test where you get a lineup
that you cannot fuck around. You have to be on
your game here. You can get away with a bad

(25:40):
pitch here and there, of course, but like you don't
get the same sort of breaks that you do even
some of the best triple A line right.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, I think we've seen this over and over again.
Like a couple of guys who just popped in mind
for me, Max Meyer and Ryan Weathers. Weathers was one
of the worst starting pitchers when he came up in
San Diego. Like he I think he had a decent
first outing, but then was like terrible walking everybody wasn't
striking anybody out. He wasn't good for multiple years and
then has reinvented himself in Miami and showed something last

(26:10):
year and then looked great coming out this year and
the hurt. Max Meyer dominated the mine came up and
was so good I think for some was the top
pitching prospect when he graduated whatever that year was like
three four years ago, and then hit the majors and
his slider was still plus, but everything else got hammer
and he was bad and then hurt and then bad

(26:30):
and then maybe now he's figuring it out. I think
that kind of early season looks like some of the
pitch shapes are different. Maybe that Miami has helped him
develop finally, but that's a guy that, like he came
up with the Miners and was really really dominant, I
mean along the lines of some of these top pitching
prospects that we're talking about now, and then it took
him gosh five years to really figure it out in

(26:51):
the major leagues. And I don't know. I think that
going to the conversation that we started that we opened
with the hot take nature and the really fat leaps
to judgment that we make, even in the dynasty space
doesn't really allow for the levels of nuance and letting
a guy percolate. I mean, yeah, Like I just looked
up Meyer's stats, and dude was brushing the minor league's

(27:14):
you know, similar numbers in a lot of ways to
Bubba Chandler. Maybe not quite as good as strike out right,
but better ground ball rate, really really good numbers all
the way. He gets up to the majors in twenty
twenty two, runs a six point four to five fit,
negative one war, just one outing, then gets fifty, then
gets hurt, then gets fifty seven innings last year and

(27:35):
runs a five point nine fit. And this was one
of the better pitchers in the minor leagues, and he
built up innings, you know, through one hundred innings one year,
one hundred and thirty innings the next year. Like that.
He was a workhorse that was dominating every level at
a young age, had an elite pitch, came up and
just got port for the better part of three years,
including the injury year, and then now looks like he

(27:55):
really has founded another gear and is showing good on
the promise, but like they think about that as guys
are coming up and struggle. Those are the guys to
maybe invest in as a rebuilding team when somebody's on
the downtick and see if you catch him on the
rise back up as they start to figure things out.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
And that's why I mean, to me, the number one
most important attribute that a pitcher needs to have is like,
you've got to be able to make the baseball do
what you wanted to at a very high end. I
don't really know how we know that or try to
make a guess at that other than watching yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
And watching him helps. I mean, you've made a point
a couple of times tonight, and I think it's a
good one about data and like what can we see?
It is so addictive to be able to see some
of the cool stuff at the stack cast makes available,
and even some of the people that are that are
like turning that into I think more usable things like
stack cast as a website itself, I think has some limitations,
but it's really cool to see some of the more

(28:51):
public stuff numbers and you know, Thomas Nestico, I think
the stuff that he's doing is super cool showing that
you know, Lance bridous birds out tea for how to
pronounce his name, but some of the stuff that he
does to showcase the data that you can pull out
of there. I watched the first couple episodes of the
Red Sox documentary on Netflix, and you know, it's well done,
Like it's fun to get this kind of unvarnished look

(29:13):
at the clubhouse and some good characters in there. I
think they picked the team up. But the coolest stuff
has been seeing Andrew Bailey, the Red Sox pitching coach,
nerd it out with these guys. And you'll see in bullpens,
guys are throwing bullpens and on the screen, they've got
the live track man data showing the spin revolutions and
the orientation. They've got the edgeotronic camera showing super slow

(29:36):
motion finger placement and ball spin as it comes out.
And they've got all of the traditional you know, velocity
metrics and everything else. But then they've also got a
biomechanical visualization. So they and he's saying to one of
the pitchers, your knee is planted right, but it's just
pointed a little bit off to the first base side,
and here's what that's doing. To your whole kinetic change

(29:58):
and like that stuff is it's just so cool to
be able to stitch all of those things together and
see how it then shows up in the pitch. I
say all of that just to highlight that, like, these
teams are so much fucking smarter than we are, and
even the teams that are like still trying to catch up,
you know, your White Sox of the world, your Rockies
of the world. Not to pick it two teams at random,

(30:21):
but those like these teams, they have access to and
so much information, not least of it is is this
guy actually committed to getting better? Is this guy putting
in the work and is he receptive to feedback and
that kind of stuff is like it's so cool to
see and getting a little glimpse of it like in
this in this documentary, but it's also just so frustrating

(30:45):
from my end when or from our end, when we're
like I got a Fangrafts leaderboard amilb dot com that
kind of works sometimes and a stream that's showing a
press box cam and I'm trying to evaluate pitch movement
and like command, you know, like you can't get you
can't It's we're spoiled in some ways. And that's why
it's been fun, I think, in recent years to look

(31:06):
at the Triple A stuff and compare it to Big League,
because it can make that comparison. But look, even the
little bits of info that we get from the Baseball
America guys or from Chris clag like, it's still nothing.
You know, you're not you're not getting anything compared to
what the teams have.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. To me watching it's just execution,
trying to figure out who's good at it or not.
We digressed there. But some other Triple League guys that
I had watched, Matt was like a guy Lazaro Estrata
talk about talk about execution. It was very.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
Terrible outing I watched, so that he got destroyed.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
I know, you know, watch a couple of the Cardinals guys,
nothing really new to say, you know, the new opinions
that I took away from there. But there was one
pretty boy that I was pretty impressed, and I you know,
seen him in college a few times, the clips from
here and there's but never really sat down and watch
a whole outing. And this was an abbreviated debut. But
Chase Petty impressed me. Matt, I like Chase pet and

(32:00):
the broadcast had a great comp I think, and this
comp would have made no sense to me. Oh you
just still didn't like that.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
I think you just said you didn't like Chase Petty.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
Damn it, Chase Burns. I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (32:11):
I was gonna say, I didn't think that's who you're talking.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
No, no, no, I'm sorry. They're next to each other
on my list here, and I screwed Chase Burns. Chase
Burns debut, but the booth and I don't know if
they got it from a coach that pumped him to
Dylan Cease and I would never have like put that
together until I watch. But if you watch, like his
his fastball has two breaking balls and there's change up
to probably not that great like Cease was, is not

(32:36):
that great, but just the pitch shaped and the way
that they sort of go off of each other seemed
very Dylan. So I'm curious. I'm wondering if he's maybe
even still a little bit under underdone. But on Dynasty
lists and stuff like that, but obviously pro career just started.
Lots more to learn.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah, you know, we've talked a little bit about him
and the discord, And you know, I think that his
slider is one of the single best pitches I've seen,
just in terms of velocity, that the outcomes the way
he uses it like it has a legit claim, I
think to one of the very best pitches in the
minor leagues. The thing I was surprised about is doing

(33:11):
a little bit of digging into some non public info,
is that his fastball got hit pretty well in college.
Obviously different for lots of reasons, but you know, in
not even the premiere conference, it still got hit you know,
acc guy instead of the SEC and it still got
hit pretty hard. He still got great results. Don't get
me wrong, Lots of a lot like good shapes, good

(33:33):
IVB's great velocity for sure, but it's something to monitor
with him as he goes up the minor league ladder.
Does he have a little Max Meyer skin him where
he's got an elite slider, But maybe the velocity is
hiding a fastball that maybe is a little bit more
vulnerable than you'd like to see because I think his
like the back shape of the fastball is maybe not

(33:54):
ideal given his arm angle, and he gets good ride,
but I think he releases it a little bit higher,
so it's not quite as kind of flat as like above.
A champ I think has a better fastball ship than Burns,
but I count me as a fan. I think when
I did some research into after Fangrafts published a bunch
of the college data, I looked at, like the previous
seasons and who really stood out and have those dominant

(34:17):
stat lines college translated to Pro Bowl. The answer is
not always. But Chase Burns I think had a pretty
good argument to have the best college pitching season in
the last however many years that it was on that
lat the last four years. So he's good. He's good.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
There's a reason why he, you know, made just as
much or not more money than anybody else.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
In the Yeah, he's a he's a fun one.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Yeah, Like I said, hopping around watching some debuts. But
there was one debut that I have been looking forward to.
I thought maybe we'd get it last year. But Dylan
qstead of yeah it was did you watch it? Yeah?
I did it. Yeah, I cut it up and I
put it on the site and with all the with
all the stat cast stuff side by side with it,
watched a little bit of him as a prep right,

(34:57):
some of the Perfect Game stuff he had, like you know,
firm fast ball from Slider that I thought he could
locate really well like East West, you know, relatively speaking
to other Perfect Game clips, and you know the showcases
and stuff that I that I occasionally watch. But you know,
you watch a guy and you're like, oh, I wonder
if this I wonder if what if this is going
to be kind of like lots of different offering offerings,

(35:20):
kitchen sink, kind of got pitchability, blah blah blah, that
sort of guy. And then he showed up and his
debut was like kind of exactly what I was hoping
to see. And then like more advanced sequencing and mixing
and throwing like everything everybody different counts and all that,
you know, the stuff that we like a lot now right,
the stuff that could could portend to you know, having

(35:41):
successful sure just right right right, yeah right? So I
don't know if anything is gonna ever, and who knows too.
With the Twins man, they got Zemmie Matthews hitting like
ninety eight miles per hour. Now is that twins? Oh? Really?
Is that is that Twins? Is that him? Is that?
You know other coaches that he has outside of the
order they shot. But they tend to have these guys

(36:02):
where they you know, they draft picture and then they
try to sharpen the skill. At least that's what it
seems for me watching a lot of the guys the
last five years. But I like the spot, I like
where he's that. I'm super interested to see how the
rest of his season and career goes, because he could
very well end up being one of the guys he
kind of left.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
All right, all right, good shout. You've had a couple
of them. I mean, I saw yerming Rosario's first outing
was incredible, like if he looked awesome.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
I didn't walk anybody I know and punched out like
eight or something like it was.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
It was a great one. And speaking of guys that
came out of nowhere and didn't walk anybody, Griff McGary
went four innings, punched out eight and didn't walk anybody. Wow,
this guy ever had an outing where he didn't walk
multiple people, Like I genuinely don't know.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
I don't know. I feel like the Phillies do have
had some success with some guys really bumping up their
their command, their their execution strike now, and I think
we had questioned if some of his really bad ability
with that stuff past I had to do with some injuries,
blisters and stuff. I don't bet, dude, Joe Boyle can
go an outing or two that walk a lot, and
then I never really that's the bes thing with that stuff.

(37:05):
I could never really like, holy trust to me, it's like,
once you are that, there's gonna be some of that.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yeah. Yeah, it takes a while to get that out.
I know you've said that with kind of Joe Boyle
when he would showed a little bit of that last
spring training and then hit of course reverted back and
same this spring training, although it maybe has stuck a
little bit more. But yeah, looking at McGary, I just
pulled up his game logs from last year. Mind you,
he was just a reliever last year. He didn't start
a game, and he's going one at a time, one

(37:33):
inning at a time. I think's got maybe two or
three outings that were two innings, but most of these
in reverse order from September last year. Let me read
you his walk numbers zero innings, three walks, one inning,
one walk, one inning, no walks, point two innings, one walk,
one inning, one walk, two thirds of an inning, two walk,
one inning, one walk, one inning, three walks. Like this

(37:54):
is just the fact that he had a multi inning
outing and you know, started a game, went four innings,
no walks. I didn't watch it, but I think I
might have to go back and watch because that's just
like kind of blew my mind that all of last
year he's a reliever, only no idea where the ball's
going and did I saw this line and I was like,
that can't be the same guy. That's not the Griff

(38:16):
McGary that we know and love.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
I'm telling you there's times where, like a few years back,
it was like he was throwing all his offerings in
the same at that and like really putting him where
he wanted. But then it would just go to complete
crap the next hour. And that's why rumor that I
heard about like blisters or whatever kind of checked out
and made some sense. Yeah, he is drastically different from
out in the outing, at least back bending. So yeah,

(38:37):
I don't know, we'll see, Yeah, some fun ones. It
just kind of popped up like that. That's uh, piques
my interest. Yeah, and I don't know. I watched the
cut up Jose Montero from last night, who was my
reds Arms offseason, Dude, I think you would like that
outing quite a bit, talking about a guy who was
just like dominating, throwing eighty four eighty five, not fast balls,

(38:57):
splitters at that speed, some breaking balls at that fastball
that was like ninety ninety one, ninety two. He can't
get it up there more though we saw that last year.
But just talk about just peppering the bottom of his
own dude, and these guys know that the glitter was come,
had no shot. Yeah, heeded in the ground with I
don't know how exciting Montero is gonna get, but he's

(39:18):
he's one of the more intriguing look for me this
early offseason.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
No, that's fun.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
And I saw tyrone Yuli, who was my pick from
two years ago, who had Tommy John got hurt. He's
back at Hudson Valley, but it looks like I think
they got him working as like a real reliever, or
maybe it's just maybe it's just short innings as he
gets back into it or whatever. But homeboys like throwing
like ninety eight. Wow, he was like he was like
ninety four before. TJ Curious there I don't know. Of course,

(39:45):
if he's a relief pitcher, that you know, drains a
lot of dynasty value and interest. But it's a lively
arm with I think some good pitchability in there that
really dominated in stretches at high A before he went.
But I guess that would have been way back in
twenty twenty threes.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
A lifetime ago in dining world.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
Yeah, I know, with two years, it's just oh, one
more guy. I wanted to bring up. New guy made
his full season debut, but Way and Lynn.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, yeah, that one out.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yeah, did you take a look at He's Taiwanese.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
We love a Taiwanese arm, I know.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah, he's a kind of a lanky lefty. Was like
a nice frame. You could see him, you know, adding
some more masks or whatever. But uh, and I think
I think the broadcast said that he had pitched for
their national team in the past, but I didn't know
anything about him. I think he just signed last year.
Good size guys as fastball's probably like it was like
low nineties or something like that. I'd love to know

(40:39):
what his like release point, you know, how a tug
boat has kind of a tugboat's release point. Yeah, I
wonder if Lynn is kind of similar. Okay, but what
he went, I don't have the line up, but you know,
for so kind of maybe a bit of a funky left.
He's got kind of a big swooping slower slurve at
like seventy six or whatever sweeper for to use the

(41:00):
contemporary nomenclature, I guess, but I think it was mostly
like fastball and the and the slur but really just
pounded in zone, putting it where he wanted to do
at a pretty high clip. I gut it. I imagine
could probably put up pretty good numbers in a ball
and maybe get just just a new guy, just a
new guy that call my attention well enough to get
into and I think you would enjoy watching him.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
Put him on the list.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
But how about some bats man talk about the losers?

Speaker 4 (41:28):
What I mean, I gotta say, like I haven't watched
too many or the ones that I've watched, I haven't
put too much stock in it. Sure I will say,
like when I sorted one of my minor league leaderboards
about a week into the season, I was quite encouraged
how many b siders were near the top. Like I'm
not kidding like a ton of these guys at the
top of one of my leaderboards. It was like Trenton Brooks,

(41:50):
who was a last year guy for me, Alex Freeland,
who wasn't a b side guy, but we talked about
him a bunch last year, Tim Tawa, we both loved
this year playing a guy from my last year, Gustavo Campero,
guy of mine last year, Darryl Hurnaes one of year
old guys, Porge Barosa, a dude we've talked about before,
Auto Kemp Cody Freeman is off to a nice start,

(42:11):
like he popped on one of my lists that he
got the k right down and hit pretty well. It
was just funny, Like this leaderboard usually is populated with
a mix of you know, really pretty boy guys and
then occasionally one or two, but it was like of
the top twenty or thirty bath it was like ten
or fifteen or one of hower by side guys from
recent memory, And I feel like that doesn't often happen,

(42:32):
that they all get out to a nice start like that.
You know, Capus was up there, Santa Brio was up there, and.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
It's just like five fifty or something like that. Isn't he.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
Yeah, he's got a three eighteen WRC plus currently.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
I think he did something tonight too, so he's online.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
As as the minor league season goes on, there's always
like one bat at a time that I'm like, that's
the first guy that I just like go to check
to see how he did. And obviously that ebbs and
flows and changes throughout the course of the year. But
my first guy this year is my that's B side choice. Eli. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
Yeah, he's talked too, and that was pretty.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Good start and watching like playing some good defense and yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah, Like all right, that's not like changing my priors
or anything like that. But the thing is, guys like that,
I didn't have a lot of priors. It was just
a brief prodad. But it's been fun to see him
have some early success.

Speaker 4 (43:21):
I don't know, I mean a couple a couple other
guys like my dude from last year, Leo Revos from
the Mariners. He's a big leaguer now, like another B
sider in the BIGS. It took a couple of injuries
and a nice hot start to him, you know, he
had a good first couple of weeks. Who else John
Rave is doing pretty well at Triple A, and I
still think that he might get a shot in Kansas
City just because they've got their outfield is miserable. It's

(43:44):
so bad.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
I want crim Man. I just want to see Krim.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
I know, playing Krim. Well, we'll get him up there.
He's smashing to start the year too. I know if
he had done this start last year, I think he
would have gotten on a run, mistimed, miss timed. But
it's not like a Berger is looking all that great either,
so maybe they shuffle swiping around and get him.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Doesn't Berger have like a forty home run season and
the digs under his belt?

Speaker 4 (44:08):
Yeah, but you know, if he gets hot. Maybe It's
not like Josh Smith has been great either third, So
I don't know. It's it's a tough road to go
as a as a corner guy. I mean that those
first base profiles are tough. Ryan Ritter off to a
good start, Kyle Carros off to a good start.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yeah, Jeros. So Ben Williamson's been hitting to.

Speaker 4 (44:27):
It a right, Yeah he has. I don't know. Hey,
even Victor Lebrona look at him. I had checked in
on him.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
One seventy three WRC plus I love that guy at
double a man.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Anybody in the bigs like kind of getting your attention.

Speaker 4 (44:41):
Well, it wouldn't be a Dynasty dog Got Discord podcast.
I didn't talk about Beef Goodman a little bit, right.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
That sucks because Beef has been the funniest guy to
talk about.

Speaker 4 (44:50):
I love it. I'm not Yeah, I'm not hayting like
I told you. I was like, I know the real
thing here. It's like, it's funny.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
It has been the thing people hear them because he's
talked about them. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
Yeah. For for those of you that are missing the
inside joke here, the real ones on the Discord will
know that Beef Goodman has been quite the hot button
topic on multiple occasions.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
It's like, dude has good four games or whatever, Like
four games later, his numbers are flipped upside down, right,
Why why are we doing I don't understand. Yeah, yeah,
but dude, Tyler Sadistrom, dude, like this is just me
being like a fantasy player. It was like, dude, I
need this guy's guy. I can do good a couple
of my teams. That's huge and so far, so good.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yeah, I mean I saw him. I went to opening night,
dude hit two bombs like he is locked in. He
looks really.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Good, always had the juice, was just hitting the ball on.
But hey, correct me if I'm wrong, Matt. But was
it I thought Sacramento was like fairly neutral part or
was that just like neutral for PCL or.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
Yeah, I mean I think that was the case that
it was like played relatively neutral for the PCL. But
there are differences, right, Like it's different quality of player
playing in that park too, and that impact the level.
Like now you've got big leaders playing there, So I
think I saw some hypotheses that it was going to
raise the level or raise the park factor a bit

(46:13):
just by having big leaders play there.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
A little park have player factors.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
Yeah, I mean, because that's how they build them, right,
It's like how do the players do at those at
those parks? The ones that are crazy to me are
the that the big variation things that you would think
really are affected by the park, like K rate and
walk rate, Like now, really does the park affect those things?
You know what I mean? Like, but there's real effects.
It's not huge, Like the differently the biggest K park

(46:40):
in the lowest is not enormous, just outside of the
crazy ones, what do you think.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Plays in that like lighting shadows.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
The allegedly yeah shadows, the batter's eye, the lighting, Yeah,
I think all of it has they hypothesize has something like.
That's the thing about park factors is they aren't really
telling you why. Like you know, the park factor for
Wrigley is has one number, that's the park factor. But
as you know, as somebody that has spends the time

(47:07):
in Chicago, like it doesn't really matter, really really matters
the day that you're there. Is it a warm day
where the wind is blowing in one direction? Is it
a freezing cold April day where the wind is blowing
in off the lake? Like you don't know? And that's
I think one of the like actual gambling edges that
people use in dfs and in some betting things is

(47:28):
they have better weather models than the lines and most
other betters. And I think that's one of the areas
where people make better than the veig is in those
kinds of edges where the park factor is a super
complicated thing that gets distilled down to one number, but
it's actually quite dynamic and hard to internalize that. But yeah,
the ones that's like have wildly different strikeout rates. It's like,

(47:51):
that's really weird. Like the you know, safe cos or
t Mobile Park and in Seattle is one that's like
that has the highest strike out rate in the league.
And there was that article this off season about how
it was the most extreme park in the major leagues
Coors included. But then the other direction and that effect
seems to be real.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Make any trades yet, I'm.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
Always making trades, mostly little ones so far, like relievers.
I said yes to another thirty teamer that was like, free,
pick up this team and you know, run it because
it was the Braves. And of course the Braves have
been the worst offense in baseball so far, and my
team is like all these Braves. So I got smoked
Week one. But yeah, I've made a couple of tinkery

(48:30):
type trades, and I mostly have done a pretty good job,
I think, either sticking to my guns or picking up
a couple of prospects here and there, guys that I like.
So we'll see. It's early, but it's always nice when
someone in your diynasty league reaches out. It's like, hey,
can I get that guy. That's a guy that you've
had for six months and all of a sudden, now
they're getting a bunch of interests. That's always but it

(48:50):
actually has happened twice literally while we've been on this podcast.
I've gotten dms from league mates about different prospects, and
I'm like, yeah, we can talk about that guy, because
I'm I'm always down to trade my prospects to prove
my team.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
What you got any plans for Saturday for Ryan's Doowe's
first MLB starting.

Speaker 4 (49:08):
I actually don't think I have any plans on Saturday.
But Sunday is a busy day for us. I'm sure
we'll be cleaning. But cleaning around this house is great.
We're putting the kids to work so like they they're
learning how to clean from a young age. But it's
also a time when we could put on like records
and have the music bumping, and then usually put on
some baseball in the background. I've been watching quite a
bit of college baseball lately. That's been fun. I was

(49:29):
telling you that, you know, with my buddy Connor, who's
been on the pod getting the call up to the
Big Ten, it's been fun to follow them and follow.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
A little more of Big Ten.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
Dude, the conference alignment stuff, I've put it out of
my mind because it's so different to how things were
when I last cared about college you know, really cared
about college sports when I was playing. And yeah, so
I can't even really think about it. Like they were
playing Rutgers at Rutgers, and it's like, guys, those are
literally on opposite ends of the country. They're in the
same conferences, and you do the same conference. They're Seattle.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Time never reminds me. I was going to ask you
this earlier when you were playing. I'm going to assume
here correctly if I'm wrong, But you had like off seasons, right,
and I mean so that's what yeah, really and whatever, Okay,
let me be better phrase. Did you have did you
have like periods where you were like sort of thinking
about all right, looking at last year, this is what happened,

(50:28):
looking forward to this year, how can I do better?
And implementing some ideas things change? For me?

Speaker 4 (50:33):
That was yeah, that was the fall, like fall for
us was you know, the college rules have always been like,
you know, trying to be protective of players and not
have overbearing coaches. So there's like limits on the amount
of coaching that they can do. And but we had
access to our facilities all the time, so there was
never really any significant downtime. The most would be like

(50:55):
right at the start of the year. We would come
back and it be a lot more about like this,
At least on our team. A lot of people would
play at summer ball and get fat and out of shape,
like they wouldn't work out anymore, and so the first
like month almost of coming back was like getting your
cardio back and building up any muscle that you've lost,
because you know, we would play one hundred and play
usually one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty games

(51:17):
a year, and that's like games, not on top of
the practices that for us went from like January to August,
maybe even early September. Yeah, that was our that was
our season. And then you come back and like September
was get back shape, you know, start classes and all
of that and have like more one on one time
with coaches and that might be where they would start

(51:37):
implementing new things. And then we'd have fall practices which
were longer and you know, maybe you were implementing doing
stuff there, and then I guess it was really like
after our fall practice and ended that was usually when
you had the most time to like work on your
swing or like you're implementing a change you've been trying
out in the cages, and I think some of our
guys like would ramp up their bullpen. And winter break

(52:00):
was always like for our pictures, especially because when we
got back to school after winter break, it was a
month when the season started, so they had to like
hit the ground running. So I know that for them
and for us too. I mean it was hard to
get good hitting practice going back home for Christmas, but
that was really it. I would say, like fall season
was when you might try some things and you know,
like no shade on my coach, But most of them

(52:20):
weren't really all about like the mechanics or we're going
to do a swing change, or we're working on our
pitch shapes or experimenting in that way. Some guys would
do that on their own, but mostly it was getting
reps and then they were just like a bunch of
fens work or whatever. But I think that now that's
like the prime time is falls when.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
Good Okay, tell me if you think I'm off basy
right my observations of human behavior baseball. I think it
can be tricky. I think it could be hard. I
think it could perhaps go against us that like you know, Okay,
we go into the off season, we get these new
ideas or maybe these new techniques. We come out, we
try them, we're doing them for a while, and then
you know, by the time we get to July, what

(52:59):
have you those things have kind of been forgotten. We're
not used right, Like.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
Yeah, only some of that, like where you had a thing,
you were trying it and then like it didn't work
one day and you reverted back and stayed on the
old thing. And I'll say this, we used to make
like I was always you know, I was never great college.
I was really good in my last couple of years,
but not great. And so that meant I was always worked,
always like hinkering switching things around like I did every

(53:25):
from big leg kick to like standing straight up, different
hand positions, like I was always tinkering, right, And you
would do things that you thought were huge change, like oh,
I'm really pointing the bat because that's helping me with handload.
And now it's going to be so different, And you
could put the video up of like this massive change
that you made, and you're swinging from a week before

(53:45):
when you were doing kind of the baseline barely. This
like the change that feels huge to you. You're like,
I've made this huge, dynamic change. I'm a totally different guy.
I'm up there and you actually put the video up
and the change is pretty subtle. You can see it,
but it's subtle. And I think that that plays into
it too, where you might feel that you've made a
giant pain and some of it might be really different,

(54:06):
but it's hard to see that because it's it actually
ends up being a pretty subtle change and difficult to
view from the outside. That's my That has been my experience,
and I would say it's been my experience with tennis too, Like,
you know, same kind of thing. You just you think
you're making a big change, but it's not.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
Because we like to talk about, you know, guys off
to a fast start or what have you. It's like, well,
there's going to be regression to the mean, right regression,
He's not gonna he's never had a three fifty OBP.
He's always been three hundred. Like it'll come back down, right.
That sort of thing, which is just thinking about numbers, right,
probability statistics, but like I'm starting to think about more.

(54:41):
You know, man, maybe it's because I've been watching some
of these players coming up and now they're in the
big whatever. But like I think there's also just like
a regression to us in our habits. And Mike said,
because like not making this about Covar, but it's just
that I'm watching it. Like he definitely isn't chasing the
slider as much has been a he is taking first

(55:01):
pitches like often. But to me, it's like and however
that affects the stats or whatever, that's not my point here.
It's like, all right, buddy, let's see if you're doing
this in July or June or whatever. Right, does that
make sense? Like my point here, like, yeah, I think
early on you could see some guys making some changes,
but it's like how sticky, how disciplined are they going
to do with im to stand a lot?

Speaker 4 (55:23):
Oh for for sure. And I this might have been
on rates and barrels with Ino Sarah's David Ripper the
other day, but I think they were talking about this too,
about like the arm angle positioning, and that's the thing
that like you see guys drop down start to start
and maybe that's a signal of injury. Maybe it's a
signal of I'm trying something new or or vice versa.
Maybe they're raising their arm angle to get something different,

(55:45):
like I think that that that can be a signal
of something, but it also could be just a regression
back to like something that maybe was their arm angle
in the past or or something like that. I think
the one that was interesting too, that was a fairly
recent revelation was the where people stand in the battle effectively.
Wild had a bit on this a couple of weeks ago,
I think, where they showed that some people really do

(56:06):
tinker and move their position in the box from up
near the front to all the way in the back.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
I just kind of assumed everybody puts their back foot
on the back line now because most people does.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
Most people do, but not everybody. And even like the
position the X access away from the plate too, is
some people stand a lot farther away from the plate
that way, some people stand closer, and some people change
how far away that is. So I think that there
is still tinkering that goes on there, and that's something
that like isn't necessarily a regression right like that can
physically place yourself, place that back foot wherever you want

(56:40):
in the box, and that's where you're going to load from.
But it's interesting to see that guys definitely tweak that
they do still for the most part, sit at the
very back of the box. But it's funny too because
it's not that much more time, like and are you
giving up something on the front end, Like maybe I
don't know that. The research was generally like, yes, being
farther back in the box seems to help, but it
doesn't seem like it helps uniformly. It's not for everybody

(57:03):
getting that extra split second, extra frame or two. So
interesting new data that I'm sure people will continue to analyze.
But another place that we can actively see people experiment
change move back, change move back. Yeah, it's it's one
of those weird tweets that you're never going to solve it,
but you can keep trying.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
I didn't play any sort of high level of baseball,
but like in high schools, like, oh, guy's got like
a good curveball, like moving up. Yeah, I don't ever
see it. Do any hitters move up to the front
of the box.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
I don't think by like per hit but some guys
like I was saying, they have adjusted up to them
like forward in the box or moved around in another direction. Again,
generally it's moving farther back, but not uniformly.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
I don't know, Oh, Matt, I was gonna say, I
think your B side Iraqi's B side on This year
may have had the outing of the year so far
for pitcher Blake Adams nice five almost perfect innings, eleven strikeouts.
I think no walk or maybe one walk or something
like that. I didn't I turned it on briefly. I
did not watch very much, but that shout off to

(58:02):
a good start.

Speaker 4 (58:03):
Jack Chot too, he had a really good first start.
These are the guys I wasn't even that excited about
far down the list.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
Sometimes we'll see, we'll see.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
All of that sticks. Oh and Eric Wagerman, he was
one of my guys. He made the BIGS. I picked
him for the Angels DFA. He's a big leiguer. Now
who's getting some kids? Is playing time with the you know.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
One of the words done anything? Is he know?

Speaker 4 (58:33):
He's been I think forgettable and he isn't playing a
ton I don't think. But I was pumped. I was
pumped and he got picked up, and then like he's
actually getting a little bit of runs. Not it's not
going right for him, but you know, still something.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Right, well, man, unless there's anything else, should we wrap
it up?

Speaker 4 (58:48):
That's wrap it up. Good, good chatting and lots and
lots of fun stuff. It does feel a bit like
the fire hose this early in the season, especially when
all the full season ball kicks off like it did
this week and there's something everywhere. Oh, I did have
one more, one more shout when we were talking about
like that. This is one that popped up in my
off season research and like, he's somebody that I might

(59:08):
write up. I hope that he keeps doing well because
you know me and I love a good story, and
this guy might have one of the best stories in
the minor leagues. Got drafted in twenty and seventeen. So
this guy, he's like not across nobody as far as
I can tell. He doesn't have a profile on Baseball America,

(59:28):
Baseball Spectus, He's got a pretty sparse fangrafts page, and
I found a couple of stories written about him throughout
the years. But so he was originally drafted at twenty seventeen,
didn't sign by the Guardians, didn't sign, tried to go
to college, no college would take him, ended up playing
like Naia for a bit. And I'm forgetting some of
the details, but like I think was out of baseball,

(59:51):
but his coach just loved him so much and like
roped him back in. He signs as an undrafted free
agent in July of twenty three, which was like a
year after he was done in college, if I'm remembering
the timeline right, So he'd been like out of organized basically.
Maybe he went to indie ball, maybe he was playing
like some college summer ball or something. But he gets signed,

(01:00:11):
and since he's been signed, he has been like, honestly
pretty incredible and wild stat line like the guy. His
lowest WRC plus in any level so far is one
fifty four, and that was a pretty small sample in
a ball last year. His overall sample or two years
ago in twenty twenty three, right after signed, His overall

(01:00:33):
WRC plus in the minors is like two eighteen. So
he has just murdered every level that he's been at,
but it has come with like pretty high strikeout rates.
He's also so old, he's twenty six and he's in
High A still, so like that's why he's not a prospect.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
But I just love those guys.

Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
I mean yeah, yeah, Like as twenty six in high
of course he should be crushing. But he's off to
another hot start this year to eighteen w plus so
far this year. His name is Cole Turney. I'm telling you,
nobody is talking about this guy, and I'm sure for
good reason. Like I thought maybe they'd start him at
Double A this year, but they put him back at
High A, which he crushed for a one seventy three

(01:01:11):
WRC plus last year. But he keeps getting hurt.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
He got hurt.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
I was so pumped when I found him in one
of my things. I went and watched like all of
his stuff. He swings and missus all the time. He
walks a lot, but still ran like a twenty nine
percent strikeout rate in Hi A last year at like
twenty nine percent. I think even hired this struck out
a couple times today against tug Boat Wilkinson. So like, again,
he's not a real prospect, but he is a guy

(01:01:36):
that I am like so rooting for him to make
it because this is like nobody wanted guy. I looked
this up. His college numbers were insane. His like Juco
or Nia numbers were absolutely mantrous. So the guy everywhere
he's been has just murdered the baseball. I think he
plays outfield mostly, but I think he's played on first
base too, so he's like a little bit of a
multi positional type guy. But I am rooting for Cole Tourney.

(01:01:59):
So hard to says like, I have never heard anybody
talk about him in any way. The dude does nothing
but crush the ball, and in a super fun way,
just like he's gonna get his hack off and try
and make it work and he'll he'll punch out, but
he walks some and he's got some speed. You know,
I want him to put a full season together here. Fun,
he is so fun.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
I'm well, I wanted to mention too, like mi ILB
dot TV right now, dude, I mean, this happens every year.
In the beginning, I hope it doesn't stick, but there's
been so many outings that like not the usual center
field camera that we get right, or just not even broadcast.
They broadcast for games, but it's just like somebody forgot
to hit record. So yeah, we'llways forget how frustrating that is.

(01:02:41):
Big end of the year, that is, that's happening for sure,
but should only be down now to two teams that
don't Jupiter No, not on beach and ash Wow. Yeah,
I mean considering where that was, like I don't know,
six years ago or whatever, like this huge improvement. But AnyWho,
we should probably wrap this up. If you want to
check out of the videos that some of the guys

(01:03:02):
I was talking about, you can go to Muddy loooks
dot com. You can follow me on Twitter at muddy Looks.
I changed it, changed up my handle there and I.

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
Gotta we gotta get your se o up because I
googled muddy Looks the other day when you're posting about it,
I didn't have a link, candy, and it is not
anywhere on Google.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
I don't even know what that means is.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
We'll work on that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
And I'm on Blue Sky too at muddy stole the same.
But uh yeah, Matt, good to talk to you. Let's
get some of these uh these plate appearances up hitters
here instead of getting into this guys.

Speaker 4 (01:03:32):
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Uh you well and we will talk to you next time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Miles an hour riding to his head. He hopped down
first with the lumpbonius face, and on the very next
pitch he up and stole second face.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
With gretest speed. He wasn't born. He had the dirty
Yes uniform