Episode 50_ Back to School...ing the Rook

After a long break, The Rook and Nate catch up talking college summer leagues, the death of quality starts, a couple All B-Side Teams, and glorious news from space.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ninety five miles an hour, riding to his head. He
hopping down first with the lumpbonius face, and on the
very next pitch he up in stole second face with
greatst beeed he wasn't born, he had yes uniform.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, hey, welcome back to the Prospect B Sides Podcast.
I am Nate Handy. It is Monday, August twenty fifth.
This is episode fifty, episode Jamie Moyer.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Oh love that poll. Yes, those dulcet tones going with
a well traveled mariner, famous Mariner number fifty. Jamie Moore
saw a lot of Jamie Morris starts back in the day.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I bet, and I thought it was fitting. He was
War number fifty for most of his career. A lot
of his career. He was down near fifty years old.
His last start just a few months shy and his
career war that is like forty nine point eight or
something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Oh, I love it. I love it. That's so good.
Although I did hear today, I think that you're not
a big fan of war. The war analysis has passed
you by, and you're old man shouting at the clouds.
You don't believe in war.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's not that like I don't believe in it, like
it exists. It's a thing. But you know, it's one
of those attempts in baseball to have like a magic number,
like one singular thing that measures a player, and I
just don't think it works well. I don't think that
there really is one magic number.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Don't think it works well. Interesting. Interesting. The thing that
I think is funny about war is that they've evolved
it over time, especially with respect to the defensive metrics
part of it. That quote from True Detective where it's
like time is a flat circle, all things that have happened,
all things that will happen to have happened, and it's
happening again or whatever whatever the quote is. But it

(02:00):
used to be that like good reads and jumps in
the outfield like really important right in scouting days, you
know you need to watch a guy be able to
see that he could get a jump off the bat
and make a good catch. And then it was defense
doesn't really matter and it's more about the positioning and
all of that. And then now with the statcast stuff,

(02:20):
the whole defensive conversation has come back around and we're
measuring with really really high levels of specificity. The jump
the route the time that an outfielder might have, and
I think it's just an interesting thing that, like if
you go back and read Moneyball or as the kids do,
like watch a TikTok about Moneyball the movie, there's no
mention of defense at all, and old scouty types like

(02:43):
Nate Handy here would be like, well, I've watched him
a bunch and this guy can go out and get it,
And back in two thousand and one, Brad Pitt would
have told you like, oh, that's stupid, Like why do
you care does he get on base? You know, because
that's the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
I think the reason I like war so much is
that it is a great gut check that summarizes all
of the information out there about a player and puts
it into one number. Now, what that describes is everything
from Louis Arias to Aaron Judge to Trek Scoogle to

(03:16):
Andrew Abbitt right, and guys that you know, like had
scouting reports all over the map and are very different players.
But now you can compare them and then tell the
story of what this is, what their war says, and
then there's like a lot more I think interesting ways
to go about describing how somebody gets to that war.
So maybe the most useful tool in the toolbox, but

(03:37):
it's certainly not the only thing.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well the thing is like it's just it's not like
a well this guy was fifty war this guy was
forty five, Like Mike Drop, he was better. Like it's
and I think it gets kind of used that way
a lot. And that's the part I don't really care for.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, yeah, Like you were mentioning Junior Cameronaro and Hunter
Goodman earlier today, right in saying that the gap in
war like as we speak, junior Cameronaro is like at
thirty nine and he's twenty two. He's having a hell
of a season with the bat, but by war it
says that his defense sucks. He doesn't walk all that much.
So you're seeing a lot of his value just come
from those homers, which is great and a lot and

(04:13):
like I think he's a very very exciting young player.
But Goodman does a lot of other stuff, right, Like,
he is a decent catcher. He's caught a lot this year.
He you know, does get on base a decent amount
and obviously has some power to boot too, and plays
a much harder position. You know, the gap in war
between them is zero point eight or something right now.
And one of the misconceptions about war is that people

(04:34):
because we can get it down to one decimal place
where like, oh, it must be really precise, but the
aerrorbars around that are is still fairly locked, right, Like
you can round up and round down credibly for lots
of reasons. And I think that's what good analysts do.
They don't take it as the end all be all.
They use it to describe more about the person than
just what the number is.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Sure, definitely that's the brook. And I've missed you, my friend.
It's been a couple of months months since we got
missed you too.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
I mean, of course we talk a lot, you know,
chat on the discord and everything, but I missed you.
To my friend, this is long overdue. Very glad to
see you back behind the mic.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yes and apologies. Who are you know? A couple of
fans that have been waiting for an episode. Life gets
a little busy doing some traveling, YadA, YadA, YadA. Everyone's busy,
but here we are and Matt I traveled some this summer.
It was great. Took a lotifacation. But a couple of
the things that I did was I hit up some
summer collegiate baseball, which you participated in as a player

(05:34):
many many, many years ago. I have to say I
definitely got the bug. I watched so much of the
CAPE and the Northwest League via stream this summer, way
more than I thought.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
That I wait, which is there is a Northwest Collegiate
Ball league as well out my way.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
But north Woods League. Attending a couple of Cape games
was it was awesome. Dude like it. You know, people
talk about it, and I like, I was this really gonna,
you know, live up to it? In my opinion, definitely did.
It's just nice a bunch of high school fields with
people pulling up lawn chairs. It's free, and you're watching
you know, very well, could have watched the future first

(06:17):
round pick. You know, the whole aura around it was
really cool. I literally ran into Andy Pettitt in the
men's bathroom the other game I went to, Andrew Fisher
and his family were sitting down next to me. Would
become the Brewer's first round pick a month later or whatever.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Nuggets about Fisher.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, really, I was trying to be respectful and that
like eves drop bug them and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Come on, you're there to hunt for nuggets for our
B side crew. This is the true mutting, is to
make people feel uncomfortable by your personal questions when you
see them live well.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
And also too, I wasn't like totally sure who it
was until after the fact, so it was part of that.
Been watching that and then I got I was in Wisconsin,
hit up all across Wagger's game against Duluth, the eventual
runner up in the league. I know you played there.
I went to college there. But it's changed quite a
bit over twenty years or so. And I'd say you

(07:11):
could speak on this more than me, but lacrosse that
felt much more like a minor league game to me
than that. For stadium, you pay to get in, there's concessions,
you can drink beer and all that stuff. You know.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, and so there's like in college baseball, the NCAA version,
the summer leagues are very stratified in terms of talent
distribution and all of that. But what makes it different,
Like the Cape you're saying, definitely the highest talent level,
that's where the best players go. Draft prospects go guys
like the very best guys from the mid majors go there,

(07:45):
and then a lot of the SEC ACC Big ten
guys end up there, and so it's the highest quality baseball,
but it's on those like crappy high school level fields.
I mean, if you've seen the movie Summer Catch, it's
like that, Like it is just dog shit fields, and
it's very kind of throwback to the old days. But
you'll see a ton of scouts. The Northwoods League is
the next tier down, probably the second best as far

(08:08):
as talent goes. You see lots of good talent or
first rounders there nearly every year. I mean, the list
of really great, you know, Hall of Fame at this
point caliber pros that have gone through those is relatively high.
But the atmosphere is by far the best. It's the
sec tier of summer baseball in terms of the kind
of engagement from the fans. It's like quality minor league parks.

(08:31):
Some of them, I mean, the Madison Mallards outdraw a
bunch of minor league teams like I would. I haven't
looked this up in a long time, but I think
when we played they outdrew like more than half of
the minor league teams, and that's like crazy for someone
like me, who you know, we played in the Northwest
and it was freezing cold during baseball season. We were
lucky to get two hundred fans in a lot of

(08:53):
our games, and the ones that would sell out, you know,
we'd get two or three thousand. But that at in Madison,
it's like eight thousand, nine thousand fans every night, like
a beer like a beer special night, it's twelve thousand
standing room only. People go crazy. It's so fun, so
much fun for the college players.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Nice. So I was kind of sharing some nuggets I
don't even know if I want to call them notes
observations when during my travels on the website Muddy loooks
dot com discord, I'm trying to start a website, check
it out. I'm running into a little trouble because I'm
trying to load a lot of video into this thing,
and I'm reaching limits since they want more money from
me all this stuff. But I'm trying to figure it out.

(09:31):
It's all free right now. But I've been having fun
with that. That was really taking up a lot of
my time too. But back to the summer league to
me watching both those leagues some and whatever. Ethan Surwak,
did I say it correctly? That guy kind of stole
the summer collegiate show for me. Yeah, that guy just
destroyed the north Woods League. He was I don't even know,
eighteen home runs, twenty home runs, whatever.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
It was crazy. That's so high.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
And Duluth too, that's a big stadium. That's another Like,
these stadiums are much bigger than the Cape Stadium, and
they're both.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Big, big stadiums. And Duluth you're playing right on Lake Superior,
Like it's just past the outfield fence as Lake Superior.
And so for half the summer. I mean, I actually
think at Duluth was my first game my first year
freshman year, we were playing Saint Cloud, was playing in Duluth.
I was like, oh, it's summer, Like I don't need
any warm clothes. So I didn't pack any of my

(10:26):
warm clothes. And I had an injury coming in. I
had ended the season with an ankle injury. I missed
one series my freshman year, and it's because I rolled
my ankle. So I was still rehabbing it and so
I couldn't play. And so I'm sitting on the bucket
in like our on the bench in this game, the
first game, and it was like fifty degrees. It was
so freaking cold sitting there. There's a cool breeze coming off.

(10:50):
I like didn't have any clothes. I was literally shivering
by the seventh inning. Yeah, that was That was crazy.
So the fact that Sarawak got what seventeen eighteen homers
and a bunch those were in Duluth impressive.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Eighteen in the season, I think two in the postseason. Yeah,
that's awesome. I don't know how much you watched of
him or what you think about him, but to lay
it out there for folks who aren't familiar, he wasn't
a nothing prep prospect. He was a top one hundred
perfect game guy. I think it's kind of a right
handed hit power kind of guy. I don't know how

(11:23):
great he is defensively at third base. But he went
to Old Miss. He played some got some sec at bats,
but when I went to go try to see him,
he was gone for a few days and then they
announced that he was transferring to Florida. So I don't
know if he was out signing, collecting some nil track
or what he was doing but he was gone of
course when I tried to see him. I mean, I

(11:44):
think he's got a chance to do something in Florida
this year, so that'll be kind of a fun watch
for what it's worth.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Like I think that he had he does a lot
of things pretty pretty darn well. Like even with his
somewhat limited time at Old Miss last year, he struck
out too much, but the dude has off the charts power,
like he was crushing everything. So he still ran a
one seventy four WRC plus and his twenty one played

(12:10):
appearances on the year, and that's hard to do in
a small sample like that. And then of course lit
the Northwoods on fire. I mean, that's one of the
best seasons in Northwood's history. And like I said, there's
some legitate hitters that came out of there, and pitchers especially,
and yeah, he's put up a season that is on
par with any of them.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
I think the only I'm guessing you might be able
to tell me more guessing the only guy that I
saw who can hit the ball harder than him this
summer was Carson Tinny.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Tinny.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, oh it was interesting, Matt, Like I know you
were a little fond of him. He's a catcher from
Notre Dame last year who was transferring to Texas. Is
that right Texas? Yeah? Probably, most would say kind of
had a disappointing summer. I think some folks were wondering
if he was the first round draft pick. And then
I saw like BA put up their like top twenty

(12:57):
guys from the Cape, and he didn't even make that
his number report. But I did see him crush some
very long home runs, so different different types of distance
and evs. Then most of the other Cape cod League
home runs of that, so I did do a mashup
of like the first fifty Cape home runs and put
that on the website.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, the website looks great when you can get everything
to load like those videos. Yeah, awesome. And as usual,
your analysis is so fun to read. I've missed reading
all of your stuff as you've moved away from more
written content. I mean, you got a fun, fun writing
way about you.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Nate.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
I've always been a fan.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, thank you. I'm doing stuff on there, like cutting
up two hundred and fifty swings of a player a
month or two of looks at the plate, different stuff
and pitcher outings and all that stuff and then finding
it a bit tricky because I don't know how to
run websites, how to house all this video and stuff.
So it's it's bogged down right now. But I'm working
on it. But yeah, so Tinny was interesting in a

(13:54):
fun watch, even though maybe he was a little disappointing.
But yeah, I don't know, summer collegiate baseball. I'm going
to be tuning into that much more in the future.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
I think, Yeah, it's so fun and give me an
excuse to connect with some of my old teammates from
those years, you know. The other super cool thing about it.
And this was true in the Lower Miners for a
long time. I'm not sure if it's as true now,
but there's host families for all of the players, Like
so you go and you stay with the family. And
I stayed with this the same family for three summers,

(14:25):
and I was a part of their family, like I invited,
it's my wedding, And I get pictures every year of
the kids and what they're doing. And it's just such
a cool thing that random selection of what team you
end up on and who your host parents are. And
then these are like lifetime connections that you make and yeah,
it's a very cool deal. And the one near me
that is one of the most popular tickets in town

(14:47):
here in Portland, the Portland Pickles. They're the ticket in
town for half the summer. People love it. People get
really into their collegiate summer league and if you've got
one near you check it out. They're very good time.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
The rook is being humble. He is a one time
north Woods League champion.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Indeed, indeed two thousand and seven champion.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah. Yeah, were you the Rocks? Was your nickname the Rocks?

Speaker 3 (15:10):
No, what were the river Bats? It got changed to
the Rocks maybe two or three years after I left,
something like that. That's my last year. Yeah, good times
the Times did.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, I had.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
I had a shot at some records my junior year
because I was like, you know, a three time returner
and was pretty good for for at least two of
those years. My sophomore year I was okay, wasn't as good,
but freshman in junior year I was pretty good.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
I got to go to Fenway too, that was pretty cool.
Hit up the Yankees Red Sox game, and you know,
being Wrigley several times. I was kind of like, eh, whatever.
This is going to be overrated, but it was not.
I thought Fenway was amazing.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, Fenway was. I like the second game I ever
went to was was at Fenway Brave set at Red
Sox and like ninety six maybe ninety seven, something like that.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Nice. I Hadeptimber Rattlers games as well. I'll talk about
a guy in a bit here that I saw that
really got me pulled into him. But yeah, Matt, I
don't know, it's been a long a long time since
we talked and whatever, and there's been a lot of
baseball that has happened.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
So much like exciting stuff to talk about. I mean,
I feel like talk for hours about this, but keep
it to a nice, tight hour and a half format
or whatever. Sure, nice short one for us.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
We'll try. I don't know how you feel about this,
but I've been at you know, so just some exercises,
some daily things, some daily filters and things that I
do the last five minor league seasons. Look at everyone
who threw an FQO yesterday, double digit strikeout performances every
day and stuff like that. Right, and Matt, I started good.

(16:48):
We got a few months deep into this year and
I started like, I'm like, man, there are so less
of these things that I look for every year, and
it's Trueman FQO are like cutting half. Double digits, strakeout
performances are like cut in half this year. I don't
necessarily know what to make of that, but I mean

(17:08):
for me and what I've been trying to do with
this stuff, like minor league pitching is kind of a
lot less exciting this year than year's past.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
I think there's like, I don't know if I would
say at the top that it's less exciting because there
are still some guys that came out of nowhere, came
out like with very little fanfare, and you know that,
you know, some of our B side guys that we've
been excited to follow, some other guys that I think
have been real revelations, and that's fun. But what I
think you're highlighting is the kind of lagging indicator of

(17:39):
the changes to how teams develop pitching, right Like this
is the Dodgers effect, the Red Sox effect, the stuffisation
of the minor league pitchers where you're optimizing your pitch
mix so you might have really loud stuff, so you're
averaging ninety nine and you've got a three mile per

(18:00):
an hour or RPM's slider, but you're going three innings
at a time, four innings at a time at the most,
and so it's very difficult to get double digit strikeouts
in that kind of environment. And that's trickled up, right,
Like you see that we're seeing more injuries to some
of these upper prospects. I mean, some guys that we
were really into that. You know, we would have been

(18:22):
giving daily updates if we were doing our weekly weekly podcasts.
But like Jake Miller sixty day, IL sure looks like
Tommy John and you know, it's not like he's some
stuff is But I think what you're identifying is that
this trend is not going away. We're still going for
max effort, shorter outings, higher stuff. This is one of

(18:43):
those things that I do feel like an old man
shouting at the clouds, like it sucks to remove the
starting pitcher as the focus of as like the main
character in the story of the night. You know, I've
heard other podcasters like Effectively Wild has talked a bit
about this that if you knew who the starting were
for the evening, they you knew that they were going
to be the main characters on one side or the other,

(19:06):
and we're going to sit with them for two plus
hours as they go out and go six, seven, eight innings.
I think, as the data has showed, they're worse when
you do that, when you just throw them out there
to the wolves for that amount of time and teams
are trying to get every edge they can. They're like, nope,
we're going to have a seven eight man bullpen and
we're going to go to them as soon as there's

(19:26):
any sign of trouble. And you lose some of that
and it's harder the top end starting pitchers like they're
still the coolest things around, you know. It's it's incredible
to watch what Schemes and Schooble and Crochet and Zach
Wheeler pre injury and all of those guys were doing.
But it's I think we're not going back. I think
is what I'm saying is that this minor league trend,

(19:47):
there just aren't guys that are building the work course
that they can do this inning after inning, outing after outing,
and we're we're going to see a lot more Mizerowskis
who can and Joe Boyles who can keep the walks
down for three or four innings, but eventually it's coming back.
And all this stuff in the world won't save you
if you can't find the strike zone. And I don't
know if that's a good trend overall.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately you're just kind of
seeing the death of the quality start. But this year,
from this angle, from this minor league angle, it just
seems to have dying exponentially faster.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Certainly a big step down. Like let's frame it that
way that it's definitely a step down from.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
The very very abrupt to be watching tracking that stuff
for four years and all of a sudden, like boom,
cut in half. It's it's kind of wild from my seat.
But Matt, folks come. A few folks come and listen
to this show because they like the mud, right. We
like to talk about guys that are zero to two

(20:50):
percent rostered on in Fantrex leagues right or around there,
who we might be taking a liking to or eye
up on our watch list, paying some more attention to.
And it's been kind of fun, Matt. I mean, we've
been doing you and I have been at this for
a few years. I was trying to do something for
a few years before that, and this season was the
first time that I think you could really do this

(21:12):
and I shared this with you, But you can kind
of put together a whole fantasy offense from nothing B
side selections, right yep. And I don't know, not too
bad of a lineup. I don't think putting together guys
that were just official B side guys that we shouted
out in the off season. Using one of my thirty
team scoring systems, you have about an average team from

(21:33):
just free pickups, right, or at least an average offense.
So I think that's, you know, the gist of what
we're trying to do with this podcast, right unearthed some
guys that might help us that are that are essentially free.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Right, Yeah, So what was that? What lineup looked like?

Speaker 2 (21:48):
So, Matt, you could have Drake Baldwin as your catcher.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
He's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
CJ kafis first base, which, by the way, dude, flowers
to you, because when we did ours your player draft
with that year, you were all about shoving case his
way up your board. Good call, my friend. You could
have Durban, You could have michel Garcia Tobar, Isaac Collins,
Chandler Simpson, Raphaela. I don't know. Maybe you have like

(22:16):
what Wagaman as your ut. You could have I don't know,
Darryl Hernaz, Casey Schmidt, Natchoe Alvarez maybe on your bench,
Edgar Quero out of camp. And then there's you know,
some guys that are in the miners that have gotten
some run and stuff like that. Pitching we haven't been
doing quite as as long, but you could have like
Logan Evans, Logan Henderson, Pearson Old starting to get a

(22:39):
little run. Herder needs to, by.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
The way, I see that. I love that he's been mixing.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
That Herder needs to be able to start. Man, I
don't know what's going on there. You could have him,
uh and you know who knows. I'm anxious to see
what we've been doing pictures for like two years. Let
that get to like the four year mark, like the
hitters are now on the see if rotation can come
from the mud.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, I mean I think that that's part of the
thing too, is that a lot of these guys they're
under owned because if they're you know, lower down the
miners or unheralded, and it takes a little while for
them to catch back up. But I mean, there's there's
some pretty good B side arms coming. I think that
give it a couple of years and you'll have a
pretty solid B side rotation as well.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
I didn't even mention Chad Patrick. Oh yeah, j Patrick's
was a great throwout you last year. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
And believers, Braden Fisher, he's had a hell of a year. Yeah,
that's been a fun one.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Another guy man kind of tracking some of these relievers
and getting a little bit more I don't know, trying
to at least get into more like relief pitching speculation.
It's a tough deal, man, It's a tough deal to
kind of break in and get solidified in a major
league bullpen. Like Fisher was good. He was very good,
performed very very.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Well, julitimately elite for a good long stretch of the year,
and then options because you know he has options. And
as soon as he hit a bump in the road
and they needed to fill in with the guys coming
off the il hipped them.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
Down, even like on the on the herder side, Like,
I mean, dude, he was performed very very well, and
I'm just like, nope, I got to send you back down.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Okay, I said this in the Dynasty dugout Discord the
other day. But like a herder, you know, he's my boy,
Like I love him so much. I wrote that really
long piece on him last year. He was my most
viewed player on Fangrafts last year. I kept going back
to his page when I was writing that thing. But
the dude has done nothing but chop in the major leagues.

(24:36):
He's got one hundred and four innings in the Big
League spread over last year in this year only five starts,
but forty eight appearances, mostly out of the pen, you know,
inning or two at a time, some longer routings. The
guy has a two five to one RA over that time.
And listen, I'm not an RA guy like fIF all
the way. You know, let's look at Sierra. Let's look
under the hood. Those under the hood they're not as good,

(24:58):
you know, three four eight three eight five x fit
not as good. Definitely walking too many this year, which
ostensibly is why he got sent down. But the guy
over the last two years is what did I say,
like sixteenth in the bigs in era minimum one hundred
innings and it's just elite relievers Scooble and Sale maybe

(25:21):
and Wheeler and then Herder like it's it's like, you know,
Edwin Diaz, Like, I mean this list is like the
elite of the elite relievers Herder and the tippy top
of the starters like Skiing Schoogle Sale, you know, it's
like that's it, that's it, and of the top. I
think I had to go down to like number I
was like number ninety five for something that the ninety

(25:44):
fifth best ra over that same two year time span
is the next one that was in the minors, and
I'm forgetting who it is now it's again some optionable
young reliever that they could get option but like, what
the fuck are we doing here? Like yeah, like, oh
my god, he's so good he I did. I mean,
he's taken a little step back in the walk department

(26:05):
this year, but still not giving up homers, striking guys
out lots of ground balls.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
And doing it with like such a bad fastball too
right fastball?

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yeah, yeah, just because it's ninety two from the left
with some sink. Now, he's fun. He's fun, and I'm
happy that he's having some success. And I keep dreaming
that they've sent him down to the complex to like
stretch him out and he's going to be a starter
next year, but I don't know. I'm gonna have to
cut him in a couple of leagues, I think, and
I'm bummed about it. That's like the worst part. He's

(26:37):
been that like sneaky guy that has been super useful,
starter eligible in a couple of these leagues, picking up
some points here and there, but got some il activations
coming up, and I think Herder is going to hit
the wire.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, So Matt, I wanted to give our few listeners
some good mud. That's what they come here for. Let's
do it on the website. Eventually I will have a
top one hundred of zero to one percent or maybe
two percent players at some point, maybe after we do
our off season thing. But I've kind of been playing
with that and keeping a little tally, and so I

(27:10):
was like, hey, I'm gonna throw out some hitters and
some pictures and talk about them tonight. And then I
just kind of noticed that, like, hey, this actually lines
up as like a legit, real like lineup that you
could put together. So I just made our late August
All Mud team of twenty twenty five. I kept my
parameters zero to two percent for hitters and zero to
one percent for pictures. Okay, so I'm gonna throw these guys.

(27:33):
I'll just run down the list, throw some names, and
you tell me if any of these guys strike your
fancy or you've gotten any opinions. All right, let's do it,
all right. Catcher, I went with two catchers, because you've
got to have two catchers. I'm going with Xioplause, who's
at two percent, and a former B side selection of yours,
Christian Serda, who's at zero percent. First base, I'm going

(27:54):
with Manuel Pana, who is listed as a shortstop in
fan tracks, but he is not played shortstops. He's played
the most first base, the most second base is there.
This might be a little weird fringy something, but I'm
going with Adrian Pinto of the Blue Jays, who was
in High A for not very long this year. I

(28:14):
don't know left side of the infield. I'm not sure
which who would play where. I would prefer to have
Jeron Williams of the Astros system at third base, although
he hasn't played any third bases here, but you can,
and then Brewers Eduardo Garcia at Troit. He's actually been
playing some third base, but I don't think. I don't
know either way. Those two on the left side, and

(28:35):
then my three outfielders. I think you can mix and
put them in any position out there, but i'd probably
want p. D. Halpan as my center fielder. And I
went with two Yankees, Dylan Lewis and Brendan Jones. And
then for DH cover your ears, don if you're listening,
because he is old for a prospect has made the bigs,
but I with his new opportunity, I'm gonna throw Blaine

(28:57):
prim In at DH, who still just one percent raster.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
I thought you're going to go like McCusker. I thought
that was the no reference there.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
And then I got six starting pitchers. One was a
b side selection of yours coming into the season. Logan Workman,
a guy that is new to me, and I just
cut up some video and then trying to put it
on the site. But John DeBerry with the Brewers, I
don't know if you've caught him that, but I watched
his I watched his start from the other night and
it was one of the most impressive starts of the

(29:28):
season in my opinion. Leandro Lopez or the Rangers, Adrian
Bajorcz who was a B side selection of mine with
the Twins, Joel Diaz or the Mets, and then new
to the full season seeing Darry Vasquez the Diamondbacks. That
is my old mud team as of right now.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Okay, let me run down this list with just a
couple of couple of notes on some of the guys
that I also really like. Axio Plause, you know, the
power continues to be legit. He's really fun. Sorta sucked
start the year like he was very slow out of
the gates, but hit a really hot stretch through I
think maybe late June through July, and he was just

(30:10):
ripping the ball at double A. And I still think
he can catch quite well. I caught a couple of
his guys that were pitching to him over the summer,
and I thought that he can quit himself admirably behind
the dish. Pinto was one that's fun, like I think
has kind of sneaky underlying data, but because he's kind
of small, I think he gets overall.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
He's like five to five.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Like whatever. You know, that's that's perfectly fine in my book.
Nate and I did a fun exercise the other day
where we were looking at the all short Kings team
in the BIGS, and we put together a really really
good team if we were able to use players five
to ten and under, then we kept it extra extra
short and we went five to nine and under, and
that team wasn't quite as good, but still very strong.

(30:53):
Still definitely would beat the Rockies in a seven game series.
The outfield, I think slaps here Dylan like he was
tailed two halves for him, but getting better as you
go up the ladder, hitting the ball hard runs. He
plays decent defense like he's he's a good one that
we've talked a lot about.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
P D.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
Halpin I think really can get it in the outfield,
so I think the defense is going to give him
a look even if the bat never becomes a star
level like he's he's somebody that's going to play in
the BIGS, I think. And Brendan Jones, like I've loved
him since before the year, right, Like did I did
I pick him as a B side or did I
just talk about him?

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (31:31):
I ended up with a bunch of Brendan Jones shares
in my fypds because I never pick early in them.
I either trade the picks away or don't care at
all and pick him up off Waivers And Brendan Jones
was one of those guys that popp for me late
and I have a three or four teams that have
Brendan Jones on it, and he's been awesome, like power, speed,
a little bit of swing and miss. But I think
he can play a decent outfield and does enough of

(31:53):
the other things really well that I think he's going
to be He's going to be a guy with the
capitol G on the staff side. Can we talk about
Leandro Lopez a little bit. I noticed that you had
added him in the show, right, And I don't know
if we had talked about him before, but I had
added him in another league that same week, and I

(32:14):
might even have had a claim in the show. I
don't know if I bid in the show. But talk
to me about what you like about Leandro Lopez.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, so back in April, I cut up his outing
from four twenty two and put that on the website.
Been a minute ago, but I remember liking I think
just again, just a combination. I mean, I did a
whole write up, so you can go read that on
the side if you want. But I think I just
liked the whole arsenal and pitchability in the way that

(32:42):
he used it. I know he was a guy who
has been slowed because of some injuries. I think they
tried to catch him up a little bit and send
him in the sent them to the Fall League last year,
but you know, since then he was in high at
the time. He's moved up to double A and has
been pretty freaking good, I mean all year and his
numbers haven't really missed a beat in double A. What
is he he's currently I mean on the season between

(33:05):
hygen Double a's struck out thirty point three percent, walks
are at ten point six percent. Are those down a
little bit though in his double lay run and that.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
They air down and the ticked slightly back up in
the double A run, but down from his previous years.
He's a guy that the performance has been awesome. I
think his stuff is really good and I think he
knows how to use it. He gets ground balls, he
gets punch outs, and this year has done a decent
job limiting walks. But that twelve point three percent sticks

(33:35):
out to me in his double A walk rate because
I did a study when apropos of nothing, I think
I was just sitting there watching a Mizarowski start when
he walked three and wasn't around the zone and left
the game after the third inning, and I was like,
why are people so gago over this guy? Like, look
past the hundred milin ur fastball, is he going to
be a good major league starter? And I don't think
so for reasons that we've talked about before. But one

(33:56):
of the reasons is I looked back at every league
pitching season that Fangrafts has on their leaderboard going back
to two thousand and six, and I said, like, the
guy had to have a start in that season, throw
a decent number of innings, just so that we were
filtering out some of the small sample in each season,
and had to have a walk rate higher than twelve

(34:18):
point three percent, which is Miserowski's best walk rate that
he has had at any level in his minor league career.
That's his best. And this list turned up something like
eighteen hundred seasons somewhere in that in that range. So
I'm not quite eighteen hundred pitchers because a couple guys
were doubled up, but call it fifteen hundred unique pitchers
exactly four pitchers that met those criteria ended up turning

(34:41):
into a usable, like mixed league level starting pitcher. Four
out of fifteen hundred. That's not good, not good odds.
And all of those guys had also shown seasons where
they had better walk rates than twelve point three percent,
and again that's Miserowski's best, So I think that Miserowski
is very likely to end up as an elite reliever.

(35:04):
And there were lots of elite relievers that came out
of there that were starters, Felix Batista, Josh Hater, Edwin Diaz.
I think, I forget. It's like the list is like
elite relievers, bunch of dudes that never made it. And
then Ubaldo Humanez, Trevor Bauer, Clay Holmes, and Chris Archer
was the fourth. So you're betting on that kind of season,
and each of those guys like hat ups and downs,

(35:26):
and the highs were high. You know, Bauer went a
cy young and had a couple of really good fantasy ears,
Ubaldo had the two best pitching seasons in Rocky's history,
maybe certainly from a fantasy perspective, and Archer was good
for parts of a few seasons, so not a good
baseline from which and the reason I bring this up
is because Lopez popped on this list because some of

(35:48):
his earlier minor league seasons were quite a bit higher
than that twelve point three percent. I think he was
thirteen percent in the DSL years, almost fifteen percent in
a Ball two years ago, seventeen percent last year in HIA.
But again, he looks like a different pitcher this year,
I think, and so this year he's come under that number.

(36:10):
Ten percent walk rate in high A.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah. In my opinion, my watches and guys that I've
done some content on on and stuff, he's I mean,
I think one of the still most under rostered arms
sort of pop up, new guy whatever this season.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
I think the stuff is going to make him popular
in other lists too. I think he's one that is
likely to pop fits.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
You know my life too of a guy who has
lots of pitches and mixes it executes really well. The
guy that I just turned on the very first time
I've ever watched him was just the other day. But
Jared de Berry, have you seen him? I haven't. I
think you would dig So he was the Brewers' third
round pick out of Dallas Baptist two drafts ago. This
is his first pro season. He's moved up three levels

(36:51):
or whatever. And he just threw an FQO the other
day against Chattanooga, and dude, this guy, I mean it
was ridiculous. He threw ninety three pitches sixty eight strikes,
and I will tell you that he was getting squeezed.
He got ripped off some strikes, eighteen whiffs. And this
guy is doing it primarily with breaking balls's four of them.

(37:12):
He's got a hard slutter cutter high eighties, get some
good horizontal movement. He's got kind of an in between slider,
more horizontal run, probably in the mid eighties. He's got
a slower low eighties sweeper, and then he's got maybe
even a tick slower, more traditional curveball, and he is

(37:34):
just throwing all of these for strikes and mixing them,
and you know, it's funny. The first time through. I
don't think it was very often that he threw the
same pitch twice, and then when he started getting the
second time through, he was like, Okay, this guy doesn't
want anything any of this, So then he started doubling up.
I think end up with what was a seven scoreless,
nine punches, no walks, and then fastball. The fastball is

(37:57):
like a secondary pitch. He does throw a four.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
I love those guys.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, yeah, I know right the broadcast gun one of
his fastballs was up to ninety five, so I think
there is velocity in there. I'm guessing metrically the fastballs
probably aren't anything to write home about, but I don't know.
It's me. It was awesome, dude, this guy just landing
those four varietals of breaking ball. Oh and he's got
a change up. He's got a change with I don't

(38:22):
think I saw him throw it against a righty, but
he got like three maybe four third strike swing and
miss on like four lefties. Yeah, so very intrigued. As
a taller guy six three or so, kind of skinny,
maybe you know there's some more meat to come on
the bones and stuff. But yeah, color me very intrigued.
He was zero percent rostered last night. I happened to

(38:44):
pick him up in rats thirty. He was one percent
this morning. So there are some guys, or there are
some dynasty owners.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
The other thing, just looking at his story, he was
a third rounder last year, and so you're like, oh, okay,
you know that's not nothing. Third round pick from team
that I think drafts quite well. They're minor league acquisition
and development group, and Milwaukee is quite well regarded. Well,
dude got twenty five grand, Like, what was he a

(39:13):
senior sign?

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Like?

Speaker 3 (39:15):
I mean, he's not old. He was twenty one last
year's twenty two this year. I guess almost twenty three.
So he must have been a senior, like a young
senior or something out a Dallas Baptist. But that is
kind of fascinating. I'm gonna have to fire up some
video this guy. This is great.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
I will have one in the video library on the spreadsheet,
kind of a raw, all the pitches cut up and
that you know that all out? Nice? Your boy logan
Workman Maybe not too exciting for some, but you can't
deny what Homeboy's been doing. His last nine starts in
triple A forty nine innings, two point two era, one
point zero two whips, striking out twenty six and a

(39:52):
half percent, only walking five percent, throwing strikes at a
sixty nine percent clip. It's interesting with Workman. I remember
I was getting a little I was watching him some
and then he came up in a fall League one year,
and folks were going on about some fastball metrics with him,
and I don't know if the fastball is really like
the big feature of his game, Matt. I was kind

(40:13):
of wondering if it might be kind of the opposite.
But I was looking at his use, his pitch usage
this year, at least over that stretch, throwing his four
seamer about forty two percent of the time. He's got
a slider, change up and a seldom used cutter, and
the secondaries I mean, had been producing extremely well, not
getting hit. He gets hit up on the fastball a
little bit. But considering the park that he pitches in

(40:36):
and now that's just like a hitter's paradise and the
results that he's having, I got to think that workman
is pretty close to his big league try here. I know,
they finally just gave Ian Seymour like a start, and
he shoved tonight five scoreless, eight k's, gave up one
walk and one hit. His max velocity on a pitch
tonight Matt was ninety three. And I know he throws

(40:57):
a lot of changeups, but it is average offering was
under eighty eight miles per hour tonight and getting twenty
eight percent whiffs on the night. Nice. Nice.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
I've been a Seymour fan for a while.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yeah, yeah, I feel that, But I kind of imagine
Workman might be like kind of the Nets guy like
that for them. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Yeah, I kind of thought so throughout this year, but
they kept giving Joe Boyle starts for some reason, and
I thought that, you know, like, especially once things started
to turn south a bit for the Org, they weren't
at like in the mix in the Al East, and
I thought maybe we'd see some Workman. It's one of
the reasons why I picked him. I thought he might
be one of those guys that looks like depth but

(41:35):
is actually a Chad Patrick esque kind of guy where
he's had so much success in the upper miners. The
stuff doesn't wow you, but he's a really good pitcher.
He knows how to use what he has, doesn't walk guys, still,
strikes guys out, earns a lot of soft contact. Liked
him a lot obviously before the year, and I'm a
little surprised he hasn't gotten a look.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yep, I'm a little surprised. My Twins Choices year, Bjorkaz
hasn't gotten a little more popular than one percent. Drawn
to him because he's got a lot of pitches and
he seems to use them fairly well. But he's also
a young guy when he's just twenty years old, and
his fastball and get up to like ninety eight, so
I thought that might attract some more people. And he's
just been really solid, really good. He's got three games start,

(42:14):
three starts in high now, and I think one of
them you got gave up some runs, but it's been
pretty lights out for two of those. Joel Diaz has
become kind of a favorite mud arm of mine this year.
I don't know how much you've caught of him. Got
a love like the four percent walk rate, he's still
quite young, twenty one. He's got I don't know. I
mean the K numbers and the swing and miss don't

(42:36):
wow you right now, but like watching I kind of
feel like this is a guy you let it bake
a little bit longer, and I think this stuff is
better than those numbers might indicate got some decent velocity
and stuff. I just think, I don't know, maybe just
learning how to pitch a little bit better might get
some more strikeouts. Maybe he's not a guy trying to
strikeout guys I don't know, but definitely a high priority

(42:58):
watch guy for me and could very well be my
met's B side choice this offseason if he stays this
unrastered nice and then dar Askauz. I know I shared
some stuff on the site an outing. I think you
tried to watch it, but the site sucked. He's just
like I see him hitting top thirties. Finally got to
watch a couple starts and you can see why. He's

(43:19):
a big dude. Athletics strong, very lively armed, you know,
can throw gas. So far hasn't been too horrible, so
maybe an upside play there or something of the ilk,
but just an electric arm to dream on that I
didn't think looked too out of control or a walk
machine to be I know the walk rates at what
like twelve point six percent right now as a nineteen

(43:42):
year old between the complex and a ball, but I
think you can squint and see how that gets a
little bit more palatable with him.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
You're a little more forgiving of that than that I am.
I think at the lower levels, like if you have
any stuff at all, the most of the hitters shouldn't
be able to handle it. And if you don't know
where it's going at that age, like, yeah, give yourself
a little time to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
But I get that. But when I watched, right, I
get that. But when I watch like an especially like
a nineteen year old and more of a mode sense,
and he has this outing where like, dude, he's like, sure,
there might have been a couple of non competitive pitches,
but for the most part, like everything is like right there.
That feels a lot better than watching a you know,

(44:24):
a Boil or a Mizerowski or something like that.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
And these were no doubt, no doubt about that, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yeah, for sure, you walk five or six, and then
you go three outings where you walk one or none,
then like, all right, you know, maybe it's not this
chronic thing. Yeah those are my arms.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Well, I was just gonna say, I think that's a
really good selection. A couple of those. You know, I'm
a big fan of a couple of those. I need
to do some homework on. I wanted to bring up
one guy that we had talked about coming out of
the draft and was injured but might be making good.
Alonso Treadwell. Did you watch his strikeout start.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yep, I he was at two He's at two percent now,
so he didn't qualify, but he was.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
I see I see it because I think he was
at one percent before that start, and then that start
was so loud. I think BA might have written him
up to after that. But that, I mean, that was
what we had seen at a UCLA where like, this
guy is really exciting. He went to Houston, who we
both really think they do some interesting things with their pitchers. Yeah,
the last couple of addings, I thought he's back, Like

(45:26):
I forgot it had been a while since I had
watched him live. Just so much of a horse he is.
He's huge, absolutely intimidating on the mount.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Love it, love to see it. I wish it would
have happened a little bit sooner in his pro career,
but hey, it's fine.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
Yeah, you know he's still working back from TJ right,
so this is this is makes sense. I mean, this
is the kind of guy that I think like next year.
To me, he looks like a guy that could be,
you know, a legit tippy Tom kind of pitching prospect
kind of guy.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, banger deal I think right now.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
Is a strata at two percent that's why he didn't
qualify for this too. How the hell do you not
have a B side All Stars with my boy Aaron Estrada,
who has just like, he's looked so fucking good this year. Oh,
he started ticking up.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
I thought we were talking about arm still, so I thought,
you know, oh no.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
No, no, sorry, I was going back to the list.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think dude, no way. Estrada is
at two percent.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
He was at two percent when I went on that
screen about him like a week ago, he was at
two percent. Let me, I'm gonna look right now.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Because I'm looking it up. I got it.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
He's at five percent now, okay, two percent? When was
I was like two weeks ago and I was like,
how how was he at two percent? This is insanity.
He's so good. He's like a legit top twenty five
hitting prospect for me, and like he was two percent
rostered deep into this season. Couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
No, I agree. I think the public is sleeping on
him for the most part. I want to talk about
your boy, Serda. Yeah, just a little bit here. Can't
be like he was way overdue for a heater. I
know you you lotted him for his on base skills
whenever you threw him out there two years ago or
whatever it was. I don't think he's walking quite as
much as he was, but it's still part of his game.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Too, And double A is not nothing like that's impressive.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
I thought he was as something wild though.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Oh he was in the lowers, like he was above
twenty percent. But again, like pitchers don't know where the
ball's going if you like, just don't swing your fifteen
percent walk rate guy, But he was up above twenty
percent in not small samples. But the fact Seamer rests
the season projects him in the majors right now as
an eleven percent walk rate guy, and average in the

(47:38):
major leagues is like eight percent, I think. So that's
saying he's like a standard deviation and a half above
league average right now as a twenty two year old
based only on his mind league performance. Like the guy
has on base skills for sure.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
And I get that he is in the Texas League
right now, he's at Amarillo and that can boost surface numbers,
and several of their bats have been on a bit
of a heater. But even with that said, from June
twenty first to August twentieth two months, forty games because
he's on IL now unfortunately, oh is he But that's

(48:12):
one hundred and sixty seven played appearances homeboy Slash two
eighty eight, three ninety four, six, nineteen but one point
zero one to three ops, which okay, fine, he's in
a hitters league, hitters park, whatever, but nobody else in
that league was doing that. That's better than Jenkins, is
better than wald Schmidt. Legit been on a heater. And

(48:33):
I know preseason, I was watching some spring training of
a Diamondbacks game. I don't forget who it was, but
they were going on about how he super impressed the
coaching staff this year with his catching ability. So at
twenty two years old in Double A, I think we
got a future big leaguer here that does have some
offensive appeal fantasy appeal, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Especially when you're on base leagues like that's I lock
it in. That is a skill. He also doesn't strike
out that much, so it's not like he's doing the
Emmanu or Rodriguez where he's you know, overly passive and
getting behind in the count all the time to earn
those walks. Like he's at Double A just striking out
seventeen percent of the time. Right now, this guy, his
his on base skills are legit, and yeah, I mean

(49:17):
I think that he's a talented, talented cat.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
And his teammate Manuel Piny is a guy who for
a few years now, I've been watching him kind of
wanted to throw out there, as a piece said, but
he's just never really like done it hitting wise, right,
but a lefty who I just thought, technique wise, was
like so pretty and did so many things well in
his swing. But I think it finally kind of busting
out a little bit. His last sixty seven games, three

(49:42):
hundred and one played appearances, he's hit twelve home runs,
but he slashed two ninety seven, three forty nine, five sixteen.
I don't know, not many better in that league over
that time frame again and Marilla and what have you.
But kind of nice to see him kind of popping
now and he's twenty one in Double A. I think defensively,
like I said before, I think they got them mostly

(50:03):
playing first base, but he just played some second base,
some third base, and they tried them out in the
left field, I think too. But an interesting watch there,
at the very least at one percent.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Yeah, yeah, some interesting guys in that Arizona kind of
mid to upper miners.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
And then when I was at a timber Ratlers game,
there's some decent prospects there. Eduardo Garcia really got my
attention just letticism, making some plays, and so I started
looking poking around at his numbers, and he actually just
having a pretty dang good offensive season, at least from
like counting stat wise, right, I think he's.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Yeah, he's been pretty good so far this year.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yeah, let me see May sixth, and this is all
in high eight to August. Second, I think it's like
seventy games. He had twelve home runs, stole twenty nine bags,
and I just think athleticism defensively, him being a guy
who can play on the dirt and center field just
kind of makes for an interesting potential big leaguer. He's
been promoted to Double A, and I know it hasn't

(50:57):
gone that well in his first what like fifteen or
whatever it is. He hasn't really done too much, but yeah,
kind of interesting money guy to me. You know, some
of these international guys, You're like, oh, this guy's been
around forever, but he's like he's twenty three years old.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Yeah, twenty three and he's got like eleven different minor
league seasons on his player page just because you know,
promoted in different years and all of that, because he's
been around a while. You know, my problem with him
is that he strikes out too much, like for what
he's doing, Like that's just a rough hay rate given
his his his level, and no, he could bring it

(51:31):
down into the acceptable range, but he's been living in
the upper twenties and that's tough unless you're bringing real thump.
And he does have some power for sure, but probably
below the line for more of a well guy.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
I'm not like, Yeah, I'm not like, go get this
guy and he's like that, but you know, some interesting
skills and you know those guys who can play the
positions that he can. Yeah, like at a chance, you know,
he kind of feels like maybe the next iteration of
like Ernesto Martin as Dynasty play from the Brewers system.
You know, I don't really know if he's going to

(52:04):
get much of a chance, but if he does, it
could maybe be interesting.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
Can I throw one out? That's like kind of in
a related realm just I mean I didn't double check this,
but I'm fairly sure. This guy is zero percent or
maybe one percent. It's because he's a short king. But
have you watched any Pedro Ramirez this year? You know,
I know you love your cub, your cub's prospects.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
I'm pretty sure Pedro Ramirez was a B side call
of mine. Was he? I think so two years ago?

Speaker 3 (52:29):
I think two years Okay, he's he's been pretty good
this year. I think he's one of those guys that
he doesn't do anything outstandingly well, but the sum of
all of his performance is really I think he's one
of those guys that's like putting it together going up
and level and is doing things really well at each

(52:50):
like you know, walking, striking out not very much, hitting
for some power, stealing some bags, and the whole scope
of his performance. He's like holding serve at every level
and keeping his you know WRC plus at the same range,
you know, one twenty four to one ten kind of
kind of range. And that's hard to do when you're
this young for the level. I mean he's twenty one, yeah,

(53:11):
still a young twenty one and in five hundred played
appearances this year at double A seven homers, which doesn't
sound like much but almost doubled his output last year,
and he's doing it as a twenty one year old
in double a swipe twenty seven bags, walking nine percent
of the time, only striking out fifteen point seven percent
of the time, and he's backing that up with a

(53:31):
five point six swinging strike rate. I I just think
he's a good little player, like all around components. I mean,
he's one that he's popped on a few of my
like strikeout based filter lists and eight level corrections, and
I think he's he's really very interesting and might be
one of your few good B side selections that I'm
going to double up on next year.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Another shortcase, Adrian Pinto Man, can we just get this
guy like to play a season? One of them? Don't?
For one of the most exciting minor leaguers. I think
what he got seventy four at bats in before he
got hurt for New Hampshire this year he had seven
home runs. But this guy is career minor league numbers
two ninety five four to fourteen on base percentage, eight

(54:15):
seventy seven ops, sixteen home runs, seventy six stolen bases
and six hundred and twenty four at bats and he's
like five to four thirty seven.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
He's listed, but he's another Injurgue and cutting short another
potentially exciting year. He's one of these guys that like
just hasn't been bad ever in his minor league career,
Like the two stops where he had under one hundred
WRC plus were combined like thirty played appearances. He's just
everywhere he's been, he has done nothing but.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Rake Toron Williams. I know, I don't know if you've
been too fond of me throwing him out there. The
glove is what first got me interested. You see him
make some like high level of difficulty plays, but then
you look at like some of his just service level
defense stats. He's got a ton of errors this year.
So I don't know what the story is there. But
athletic guy who I think has a really big arm,

(55:06):
and I just keep wondering if there's a little bit
more hit in there, then maybe his surface numbers that
have been what since he came back from the sixty
day June seventeenth to August twenty fourth in double a
slashing two eighty five, three thirty six, four oh seven,
not horrible, strikeout rates pretty low, twenty three strikeouts in
one hundred and thirty seven at bats, only two home runs.

(55:29):
But what's kind of interesting about him that is he's
alrighty and his reverse splits are crazy, like he sucks
against left handed pitching, but he crushes righty. Yeah. That
and some potential defensive you know, prowess on the left,
on the left side and in that system, and as
kind of feels like an Astros guy who's like, okay,
Also he's going to be in the uppers and then

(55:49):
folks are gonna start hopping on. I don't know. That's
maybe my hope as a mudding here. But John Williams
continues to be one of the more interesting watchless guys
for me.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
I've liked some of my defensive looks at him too.
I think he can make the highlight play. I worry
a little bit about the that impact, like is he
gonna have enough thumb? I mean kind of hovered at
that like one hundred iso line, which you really got
to pick it if you're around there. The errors have
dragged him down a bit in that realm that he's

(56:19):
more good than or like the variation is wide rather
than like a JP Crawford who had like an elite
fielding season basically because he made every single play at him,
you know, and it's not clear that that's going to
be enough of a separator. But I love looking at
those kinds of guys, right that it might be a
defensive first profile and can he do enough else to
make it work?

Speaker 2 (56:39):
But it's like also too, like why, I mean, I
guess I'll play along and you know, act like everything's
all right, Like are we even going to be able
to see these guys play baseball next year? We're gonna
see any baseball pass Oh?

Speaker 3 (56:52):
I love it to the we're going to the aliens?

Speaker 2 (56:55):
I mean, what are we doing here? I mean, why
are we even bothering with this stuff?

Speaker 3 (57:00):
I dude, I love this so much, your conspiracy theories.
It's a fucking comic, Like come.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
On, Like, covins don't move like that, Yes, they do,
many of them. Yes, this heart So the Harvard professor
is just full of shit.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Yeah, all the other astronomers are saying this Harvard professor
is full of shit. He just said that a previous
comment was traveling too slowly to be a comment, and
so it had to be alien life, And what was it?
It was a fucking comment.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
This is it's a comment because because I didn't read it,
and so this is the greatest news ever heard all year.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
Yeah, all the other all the other astronomers are like,
what is this psycho doing? Like he's ruining a lifetime's
reputation with his terrible science. And he's been a dick
about it too, I think is the other thing he
keeps like telling other people that they're they're stupid when
like ad Hominem attack. Rather than being like, well, this
is the reason why your scientific conclusions are wrong, he's like,

(57:56):
now you don't know how to know. It just came
out today that that we're gonna yeah, we're gonna know
this just I just saw this. I don't know if
it came out today, but James Webb Telescope they reviewing
some of the latest data from it, and I was like,
it's a fucking comment. It's it's an interesting comment for
lots of reasons, but it's a comment.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
Well I'm gonna drink to that, Matt. That's great.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
As Handy takes a poll of a wine bottle sized beer.
Oh it's a fort of course it is, you midwestern,
Oh man, So Matt who's been your favorite pretty boy
prospect of the year. McGonagall, for sure, guy is electric.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
He's pretty good, isn't he.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
I Mean we were on him two off seasons ago
when you I think it uncovered that like video of
him at tread or driveline or something, and he had
posted like a one to twelve ev because the knock
on him was he's never gonna have power, he's too small. Yeah,
he's got a good hit tool, but and you were like, bro,
just put up a one twelve and like he kind
of can't fake that. Let's see if it comes.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
And his mechanics and technique are just so fucking pretty.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Oh, absolutely ridiculous, like the fastest hands.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Yeah. I have had my son watch so many Kevin
McGonagall swings this last month, and that's like, you know,
you know, we do this this hobby of ours, and
we speculate on guys and we dig around and all
this stuff, and there's always exceptions, right, There's always somebody
you can point at different statistics, and all guys like

(59:32):
this never make it, and everyone's want some of them do.
And like her Aldo Perdomo is like a really good
offensive player, Dude, beginning of his like high a run
or whatever year that was. I wouldn't have bet my
wife that he could hit two hundred in the bigs,
you know. But there's one if there is there is
no no ultimate like quality or one thing that you

(59:54):
can point to that's a guarantee. But if there is
one thing that I want to lay bets, it is
just really good technique at the plate that seems to
hold a lot of weight, I think. And that I mean,
these guys are a professional hitters. Tons of them have
like great technique. Don't get me wrong, but I think
you know what I'm saying. I think you understand this.

(01:00:15):
There are some guys that are just on a different
level with that stuff. And I was watching some Chipper
Jones stuff today because my son is switching in and
putting the time in and I was showing him some
stuff like there are just some guys like if there's
something that I have to bet on, I want to
bet on that and everything else be damned.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Yeah. So you know, I'm a tennis player and I'm
learning tennis right like I came to it late in life.
I love it. I play as much as I can,
and tennis is similar in the execution follows technique and
really good players you basically cannot eat. There is a
limit every time to how good you can be based

(01:00:52):
on your technique. So if you want to get better,
your technique has to get better and you can go.
You can be a competent play with crap technique. You
can even become a pro with kind of suboptimal technique,
but it always it caps your ceiling. But when you
see perfect technique, when you ingrain that you look at
like what's your ceiling? What could you be? It's it's

(01:01:14):
not limited like it's you can do. You can overcome
size or other aren't good on defense, but you have
perfect technique and it can take you a long way.
And that's true in tennis and it is definitely true
in baseball with hitting. The thing about hitting is that
you have no time. It's one of those magical things

(01:01:35):
that there is actually not enough time to consciously do
to predict what the pitches, where it's going to be,
where the bat has to go, and then it all
has to work optimally so that you're hitting it at
the right angle so that it goes and the way
that you can do that the best you can get
your bat swinging the fastest, you can wait the longest

(01:01:55):
so you can make the best swing decisions. You gotta
have good technique, and this is something like this is
something that I struggled with as a player that I
had some natural talents and was really good for a
long time, but my technique was not perfect. I did
not like on that River Bats two thousand and seven team.
Our coach who coached at Cal and a few other
places and now he coaches for the Mariners, bullpen coach

(01:02:18):
for them. I remember this like it was yesterday that
we were talking about one of my other teammates. Two
of them actually, DJ Bellefonte and Tim Wheeler, and the
two of them were lefties, and they both DJ had
an incredible eye at the plate, really pretty swing. It
was just one of those like super calm kind of
hitters where everything was just calm and in sync all

(01:02:39):
the time. Tim ended up being a first rounder. He
was our best player on that team, and his technique
wasn't the same kind of cool, calm and collected, but
he had the same markers that DJ did of just
quiet hands, quiet head, and then absolute explosion and acceleration
through the zone. And those were because of their technique,

(01:02:59):
and it was some that I never really got, like
I didn't have all of those same things. I hadn't
been coached well in that same way to build that foundation,
and it definitely limited my ceiling and it took a
long time to work those fundamental errors out. And so
when you see guys with that like truly special technique,
it's it kind of is the separator between a McGonagall

(01:03:22):
and a Christian Campbell who his technique like he got
better and it put up an incredible season last year,
but his technique was not flawless. There were flaws in
the swing. There were things that you look at and
you're like, hmm, I don't see elite big leaders swing
like that, And you see elite big leaguers swing like McGonagall,
Like that's the it's fucking electric what that kid can do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Another reason why podcasting wasn't a priority the last couple
months is I've really gotten into coaching. I'm trying to
coach help kids, young kids, talking eight nine year olds.
I'm like really getting sucked into this, Like I think
it's so much fun, so fucking cool, met because these
kids learn so much, so fast. It's just like development

(01:04:07):
on Like okay, dude, like a month improvement in some
of these kids is amazing. We're going from springball to
fall ball now, right, And kind of what I've done
is I've kind of taken the kids that probably needed
the most help, right just learning how to throw out,
to catch, how to sweet et cetera. And I been
working putting an extra time with some of these kids. Dude.
And you can see kids shows up at eight years

(01:04:30):
old and he's, you know, more athletic than anybody there
and can hit the ball, you know, and hit the
ball further than anybody else. But like his technique isn't
that great. He's just like a naturally you know, athletic
and can do this. And you start these kids that
don't quite have that naturally and then you start to
teach them some good technique, and dude, in a matter
of months, those guys that were at the worst hitters

(01:04:52):
on the team, they got some good technique going on on.
They're just as good as that kid. And it just
happens in a few months. It's a I don't know,
it's huge to me mechanics technique. Like if you can
try to spy guys that are special in that. Like,
that's what I want to bet.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
On, definitely, and I hear you on the like, just
wild improvements. My two and a half year old. He
changed daycares and is now with a bunch of kids
that are a couple of years older than him. He's
the youngest there, and he's picked up basketball. A lot
of kids love basketball in Portland, you know, major team

(01:05:26):
here and people love their Blazers. But he had no
interest in basketball. We had like a basketball ball, a
small little hoop for him zero inches, didn't care at all,
but went to daycare, saw some older kids shooting, and
he's all about it. Like we put up a hoop
in the backyard and in days he went from literally
not being able to throw it high enough to go

(01:05:48):
into the hoop to now he as he says, shoot
a couple hoops from downtown and he like, is way
the hell back there and just draining.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Kids two and a half.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
I'm like, this is ridiculous, son. To watch the progression
just like from absolutely in a total uncoordination to just
like step step swish, you know, and then him saying
nothing but that that's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
That's awesome. And what I'm finding that with these kids
is that they love to watch video of themselves. So
if you take video of their swings, their pitching motions
and stuff like that, they will eat that stuff up.
And these kids pick up on stuff really like some
of my guys. You can show them like a swinge
and they'll start pointing out stuff that the kids doing
wrong or right, or professional eaving or some other stuff

(01:06:34):
that I've showed them. And if you get them watching
those videos and then you get them coaching each other
or coaching themselves, that's when like the seeds start to sprout.
But it doesn't work coming from you that much. It
works the best coming from themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
I'm a big believer in the show Don't Tell because
think about how many words it takes to describe what
somebody's doing, right, Like you got, like I broke down
that host way to paula video that I put up,
and I was like, people are comparing them to your
Dona Olivres and I'm like, I don't see it. Here's why,
But I needed a bunch of gifts, hundreds thousands of
words to describe it, and you throw up the video

(01:07:10):
next to them, you're like, oh no, I see some
differences there, Like I get it. And I think that's
the same with learning a new skill. I mean, I've
found this with tennis that yeah, you can read tons
of stuff about it, but it's really about watching what
somebody else is doing, watching what you're doing, and then
trying to have that I think it's called propriate reception,
so that body awareness to like I'm now doing what

(01:07:32):
they're doing and I'm trying to copy that. So I
think one thing that I remember from my youth growing
up it was a fun thing, was we had a
coach that would show us swings of major leaguers and
the best. The person who could copy their swing, like
their stance and swing the best like got some prize
or something at practice. But the point was you're learning

(01:07:55):
to see something from somebody that's great at what they
do and then copy it your elf, and that's the
that builds that kind of proper reception tool. So you
might try that, like show some of the videos of
some of the idiosyncratic swings people that look really different
and be like, who can copy this guy the best?
Who can copy this guy the best? And see what
they like that's great.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
That's good, And that's to circle back to the website
muddylooks dot com. That's kind of the principle for me
trying to provide some content like I just want to show,
you know, plot up outings. I want to show guys
swinging the bat and like kind of write and give
opinion less. Yeah, although I mean I do do some
of that, but it's just no, but it's it's so helpful.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
And you know, like the painstaking work that it takes
to chop up that video and to watch all of
that and get it all pulled together, and what we
wouldn't give for synergy access in the minor leagues, you know,
chop anybody up in seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
So nice. Well shit, I'm just glad that I'm not
dying in December, and I might drink some more after
we get done here. Man, I don't know, man, anything
else you want to get do? Or should we wrap
this thing up? What do you think?

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
Yeah, we could wrap it up. Nobody gives a shit
about our playoff hopes and failures and dreams. So you
know we got that coming up. I mean I think
we got to do B side recap show coming up.
Looking going through our picks and who who popped, who
disappointed that kind of thing, and start to do the
homework for next year. I mean, we're already almost at

(01:09:23):
the end of the minor league season, which is sad.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
It's fun. At this point, I'm anxious where like most leagues,
pickups and stuff like that are over for me. So
now I'm just like, I want to get let's get
to the end of the year so I can set
all the roster percentages kind of stone, yeah, and then
get digging at that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
I have a couple of leagues where I can still
do some pickups for for a little while. I mean
a couple of them. I'm still I'm still in the mix,
but those leagues you can pick up until the end
of the end of the year. But it's hard because
I've done a lot of my like digging for my
under the radar guys, and I've I'm like at capacity.
I mean, now I'm getting to the point that because
I did a ton of trading as a trade deadline,
and then I spent a good bit of time post

(01:10:02):
trade deadlines to like who am I going to fill
in and got pretty excited about some guys. So definitely
have a few that are our B side strong B
side candidates. I'd say guys that I'm pretty excited about,
and I've added them in a bunch of leagues. But
now I keep finding like, oh that guy is pretty good,
Like do I want to bet on this guy or treadwell?
You know, like? And so I've had to make some

(01:10:22):
tough cuts, but fun little dance we do.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
I did realize, you know, this summer, I did that
two thousand and thirty Best Ball thing. You can only
draft the prospect who hasn't debuted yet. I think there
was like two thousand prospects. Still wasn't a deep enough draft, Matt.
There were still some guys that I wanted to rest. Ever, ever,
I don't know if it is. I don't know how
deep enough draft exists. I was trying to find out,

(01:10:46):
but still had a handful of guys I wanted, Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
That's funny, that's why you're than that you shared that
that I thought you got some.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
Really find out. Yeah, A long way until they start
accumulating any points that matter, So we'll see.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
Yeah, speaking of other long running leagues, I am absolutely
destroying you in that pitching league. God, that's I look
at that every so often. I lost in the show
of the league that we're in and together, and of
course you didn't make playoffs. I made playoffs and then
and then lost in the first round. It got absolutely
smoked by a red hot Toronto team, and I felt bad,

(01:11:19):
and I was like, God, damn that this team. We
were hurt. We weren't fired on all cylinders. But I
was like, I could squint and see this team making
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
Of a run.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Now we got absolutely crushed. But then I just flipped over. Yeah, definitely, definitely,
And playoff is tough. Like even even extending it out
to the week format like that, which I think is better,
takes a little bit of a randomness out. But still,
you know, it's tough. If your guys aren't hot, you
know you might get bounced. But anyway, I lost in
that league and then flipped over to our eight year

(01:11:48):
pitcher league, where we've got five pitchers and over the
eight years we're trying to accumulate the most points. And
it just so happened that the day that I flipped over,
I had like, I had like ten percent of Nate's
total points in one day because and this league has
been going like two years. But it was because Scooble
had a great start, Frambur had a great start, Hunter
green All had a great start on the same day,

(01:12:10):
and I looked at I was like, oh, I'm just
just destroying Nate in this league. So that made me
feel better.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
We aren't even a quarter of the way through this league.
So did you want your checkered flag? Now you can
take man, but it looks silly.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
I'm like doubling all you guys up in year two.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Wise, you got a long ways to go. You have
some injury regression, dude, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
Yeah, yeah, likely true, likely true.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
But it will be fun to find out.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
Definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Thanks for joining us. Sorry it took us so long
to get a pot out, but we'll be back at
this thing. Yeah for the rook Nate follow me on
Twitter or what's it called blue Sky at Muddy Looks
and on the website at muddyooks dot com. But be
well and we will talk to you next time later.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Dud Ratten two. Yeah, he hoppled down first with the
lump on his face, and on the.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Very next pitch he up and stole second base with
gretest meed he wasn't born, but he had the dirty
Yes uniform