Episode 14: NL Central B-Sides

Not five miles an hour riding too his head. He hopping down first with the lump bonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole second phase with gretest be he wasn't born, he had yes uniform. Welcome to episode fourteen of The Prospect. Besides podcast, I Am Nate Handy joined once again as always the star of the show. Nat aka the Rookie aka grew Nats in my minions, We're coming for you, Nate. How was your holiday? My man who's good? Got a chance to see some family.

We took the cross country flight for us, which was an ordeal, but made it and ended up having a delightful week full of too much food and just enough family to keep it keep it interesting right on fantastic. My highlight was Thanksgiving afternoon. You know, my life, I basically basically lived in sweatpants and scrub pants. So I'll bust out some dress slacks every once in a while, and I did, so they didn't fit me, by the way. You know. I had some like I'm like, oh,

what's in the pocket here? And I had like a washed packet gum. So that was a mess. So I clean that out of the pocket. I feel my back pocket and what do you know, there's like three hundred and sixty seven bucks in that back pocket. What's awesome. Yeah, man, that made that made my day. Yeah, that was probably my highlight. That and just overeating. That's phenomenal, I think, you know,

it was great seeing my family. That was a lot of fun. We went to visit my family for the holidays and went as well as it could could have gone. But I was really jonesing to play tennis. It had been a week and I hadn't played, you know, real tennis. I'd gone out a couple of times just to hit around and practice serving or whatever. But I was like jonesing, and I was like counting down the data.

So I was coming home and like lining up, you know, going to play this day and this day and this day and get back into it. But then I met somebody out there who he was like, ah, yeah, I'm free Tuesday morning. You want to hit And it was so fun. We got to play on a clay court and it was really really nice resort in my family's hometown and it was awesome. So like that was actually low key the highlight of the trip, other than seeing family of course.

Yeah, getting to sneak in some tennis and nice play court which I never get to play on. That was so fun. Yeah, what was that like, sliding around a bunch and stuff. Yeah, slots of sliding around the ball just changes so differently. You know, we did this a little bit in baseball because we would play at place like Arizona and Arizona State which have very very hard desert dirt ground, you know, and real real

grass and the ball. I don't know if everybody knows this, but when the ball comes to the outfield, the ball snakes if you're in if it's in grass, and the grass has been mode in different directions, like if

they do a pattern out there. And when I first I think we played Arizona State at Arizona State my freshman year and I'm out there during warmups, during infield outfield warmups, and I just completely whiffed on the ball to throw home because the ball was snaking so much and I had never seen that before, and so I was just rattled the whole rest of the time out there because like at our field was just only turf and the ball just bounces the

same every time, and so it reminded me of that playing tennis on clay, that it's so different a surface than playing on hardcourt. And I thought about that, like, Oh, it's like kind of the difference between going from our very true bouncy field turf to real grass, where like it hits the dirt and it's concrete and then it hits the grass and its snaking all over the place. It was crazy. Well, so, if you haven't been listening along, Matt and I are getting really really dirty, really muddy,

really grimy. And we have watched video trying to find some prospects that may be worth paying attention to, maybe worth picking up in hopes of perhaps finding a gem, something that will be useful to our major league dynasty clubs or useful on the trade table. We have been going division by division, and today we are going to be talking about the National League Central. Some of the players we did like a little draft the very first episode of this

little process, and we did take some n All Central players. But let's do it, Matt, what team do you want to talk about first? Well, let's go talk about that best team in Chicago, the Cubs. Let's start with them first. Oh, this will be simple, the Cubs suck. They are a bunch of losers. You don't need to roster any other players. All right, what are we doing next? They've got a

couple of guys that are worth talking about. Although I did find that the Cubs and one other team in the Central I found a little tougher to be side. But we've got a couple little nuggets in here. When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, my dad took me to this, like over the weekend baseball camp. Right, it was called the Billy Williams whatever hitting camp or something, right, And not that I ever would have been a good hitter, but I blame that camp for ruining me, or ruining

what could have been. They taught us to literally swing down at the ball, to swing down at the ball because ground balls and line drives are better than popping it up. Right. I had a lot of coaches tell me the same thing. Yeah. So, watching the Cubs minor leagues for the last couple of seasons, particularly in the lower miners, it is like and and I bring up that story because I can't, I can't help not think about it. I mean, it was ran by Cubs coaches at that time.

This is a long time ago, so I don't know if anyone is still affiliated with the organization, But man, these guys hit so many ground balls ground Ball Factory, at least a lot of the guys that I was digging on there, they signed these international guys who hit a lot of ground balls. So I imagine, you know what, you sign a lot of those guys when they're well like fourteen fifteen years older contract they're going to so I mean a lot of their development has got to be influenced by the Cubs.

And then on top of that, I also noticed that they like to draft some Puerto Rican preps in later rounds that also like to hit a lot of ground balls. So I don't know, did you notice that as well, Matt. I didn't notice the ground ball tendencies as much, although a lot of the guys that I washed for on the hitter side for the Cubs were more of that line line, drive oriented set. So I do see.

I do see that a bit, and I think might be a product of like you said, where they're acquiring talent and maybe a bit about the historic approach to minor league development. Perhaps, Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. If that's like how they how they're teaching it, or how they want them. I don't know a little bit of B side history here. I have to say which which is very fitting. The Cubs may

be the most frustrating organization for me. I will not say that I have totally quit him either, but jo Hendrick Pinango has been a favorite of mine for a few years now. The question who's someone who might end up a top one hundred prospect this year? Like he was kind of one of my go tos for that question, and like we were talking about very very good contact skills and strikeout kind of sprays the ball over the place. But the big knack was, well, you know, is he ever going to hit

any home runs? Be cause he not good defensively, He's like left field are at best. Probably he's not very big either. But then twenty twenty two, like the first half I felt like it was happening. He started hitting home runs, He was on par with any other left hand hitter at High A that season, producing the likes of Sadderstrom that year, and then just completely fell off a cliff. I think it was injury related. I

was excited this year and he was awful. He was still awful until I don't know, maybe he turned it around and got respectable the last third of the season. So I don't know what's going on there, Matt. Maybe it was just a bad call on my part, maybe too much wishful thinking. But I still wonder if it's just been an injury, like a risk thing with him. So I don't know. We'll see. So he has

kind of been my Cubs bat B side for a couple of years. I think, well, I guess, uh, well with BJ Murray last year, that turned out okay. He went to the futures game and got a little bit more popular. I don't know what his roster rate is at the moment. He turned into a pretty solid year, and I think his roster rate was above where we generally liked to sit because you know, I liked what he did this year. But you know, I don't have any like

super huge hopes or expectations. But I think he's a corner infielder who could get some major league run yeah, and has some solid skills all around. You know, I thought that was a nice pick. And to go back

to Penango, you sold me on him last year. I think you wrote him up, maybe as a follow up to the previous years b sides, and I was like, yeah, I'd been watching him and he had started the year really well, and so I went to ad him, and that day my main rifle in one of my long dynasty leagues had also added him. So he's been on my shitless since because I was like, I was gonna add him, and then I got scooped and then he wasn't very good the rest of the year. So maybe he did you have a favor.

It's just interesting to me that I will just absolutely rake and then just just struggle at the same level as hard as he struggled. So I don't know, maybe something fishy there, maybe maybe just not gonna happen. Last season started doing pictures and I selected Tyler Schlaefer, who did not pitch at all

this season because of Tommy John he was a part of. It was a very good twenty twenty two Myrtle Beach rotation included Luke Little Porter, Hodge, Louis Devers, and Richard Gallardo. Watching that rotation a decent amount kind of felt like Schlaefer was kind of on par with with all of those guys, like Devers, and Hodge felt a lot of the production was from a secondary in his case of changeup that was really just kind of too good for the

level. And I have been sort of interested in quite a few Cubs pitchers in the lowers the last couple of years, and I think for maybe all of them, a good amount of them, I feel like the game, the success at a ball maybe even high a basically off of having like a really good secondary, and they've kind of just fizzled out some or got traded away, or at least I have not kept up the same level of interest in them as they've moved up. With Schlafler, I don't have any like

super big expectations or excitement, but his fastball did have a little heat, little movement, and I felt like he was kind of maybe starting to spin it better. We'll see where Schlaefer ends up in twenty twenty four and how and how he fares. But I've got a new B side pitcher here that caught my eye, and that's a twenty twenty two undrafted free agent out of Yale by the name of Grant Kip. Have you watched any Kip Matt. I did watch a little bit of Kip Okay, now again, I'm gonna

tempt This is just kind of a watchless guy for me. I ain't going out and getting any shares as Kip anytime soon. But he struck me. You know, he's a big righty six two hundred and twenty pounds. They have him listed ass pretty smooth and athletic actions. He's got the full fastball, slider, changed curveball kit that he can really mix and execute pretty dang good at times. The velocity on the fastball, and I wonder about the quality of it to the shape might be the big limitter here for Pip.

I think the fastball probably only gets up to about ninety one, maybe ninety two. But you know, it's hard. It's hard for me to tell my couch. He did get some whiffs with it, but I wonder that's just kind of more level stuff. And I don't know if that play is quite like that as he moves along, but he does remind me a bit

of a few pictures. I was actually just chatting about last night Bryce Jarvis and Darius Vines and that these guys over the last couple of years have legit pitched some of the prettiest innings, prettiest outings, prettiest at bats I've seen in the minor leagues. Now, those guys have not proven to be consistent with that, but the arsenal, you know, Kip's arsenal probably has less teeth than those guys, but do think he is more consistent with these stretches

of just like really pretty execution. He pitches fairly aggressively and he efficiently, which you know, might explain the rougher numbers as he got promoted to HIA for five starts. You know, that stuff might not play in the zone as aggressively as well against the lower level hitter. But I wonder if Kit hesit in them to get to that sort of execution, that the whole package can play well, and if you might just have a shot to go from

undrafted free agent to a major league starter. I like that. I think he's an interesting follow, like you said, not somebody that wowed me when I got to look at him, but enough interesting stuff there that it'll be interesting to see how he fares as he rises up the ranks a little bit, you know, like I said, just some pretty just landing, some you know, mixing the whole repertoire fairly well and just stretches where he's just

landing this stuff just like right on the edges, you know, Gallon esque sort of sort of prettiness. His numbers on the air well, I don't think there was anything super eye popping in either direction. One point three four whip over like what he got in ninety eight ninety nine innings. Oh, he struck out nine point five eight per nine, walked three point one nine. Now, I know Myrtle Beach is supposed to be a good place for

pitchers to hit, so keep that in mind. And like I said, there's there's been a lot of guys at Myrtle Beach who kind of caught my interests and then it didn't last. Yeah, I don't know Grant Kimp, big, tall, righty, not super powerful, but he might be able to play the whole kitchen sink well and to get good hitters out. You're getting pretty loose with your Gallon comps. I think this is the third guy I've seen you talk about today who might be Gallon. So let's uh,

let's keep let's keep it. Well. I don't like the true major league ace's names out of your mouth a little bit. That's a that's a reason for kip anyway. Yeah, I don't mean, I don't just you know what I'm saying. Well, guys are executing on the edges consistently at a high clip for or at least stretches. I like to call that the George Kirby. But you know your mileage might vary. You know, that's okay,

I can, I can, I can be flexible there. Well, I'm going to go another sort of unherlded direction and go with Brodie McCullough.

Did you watch any McCullough. Don't think so. If I did, I didn't. If I did, I didn't keep them on my little list here. Yeah, McCullough is someone I had pretty serious consideration for our pitcher draft. He was one of my just missed so I know him, kind of in on him. Yeah, a D two draftee. He only pitched one year in college and then got drafted in twenty twenty two in the tenth round. You know, one hundred grand signing bonus dominated for D two wing.

Gate College didn't know when Gate College was a thing, but Bertie McCullough did, and struck out almost sixteen per nine as a starter there really was impressive. Barely pitched after he got drafted last year, you know that makes sense, a grand total of seven innings last year, but the k's seemed to still be there. And then across Myrtle Beach a ball and south bend put up a really strong overall line thirty point eight percent strikeout rate, eight point

eight percent walk rate, both comfortably above average. He runs it up there with four plus pitches and probably plus in the sense of like they're better than most of the other minor leaguers that we see. My notes on him are all of his pitches looked good, which might mean for our purposes that he has three or four major league average kind of pitches, and that that combined is as sort of a sum of its parts. Might play up a little

bit. He did struggle a little more at high a South Bend than he did at Myrtle Beach, As you mentioned, Myrtle Beach a little bit better place to pitch. Overall, the numbers were interesting, and then watching him, I kind of don't really get people aren't on him. You know, he's six' four, runs it up to ninety six, ninety seven I think I caught one or two ninety seven's, but mostly in the ninety two

to five range on the fastball. But it looks like great extension. I mean, just watching him his I don't have the stat cast data on this, but to my eye, it looked like he got all of that six foot four frame down the mound. He's got kind of a longer armstroke, so maybe that plays into the visual evaluation of it too, but with that extension, it looked like even at ninety two, he was getting a ton

of whiffs on his fastball. His main breakers are a slider in the eighty three to eighty five range and then a changeup that's also in the eighty three to eight or five range, but they just go in opposite directions. I

think that helps them both play up with that sort of pitch tunneling. So I really want to see this guy's heat map, you know, from a stat cast view, because to me, what it looks like is he's getting plus extension down the mound, and the four seam fastball looks very straight, kind of true backspin run, and then his two off speeds break from that same point in opposite directions, and I think that it helps all three of the pitches play up. My looks at him too, the command was solid,

you know, limited walks a decent amount. But I also thought he pitched to the zone quite well. If it was his slider when he missed, it was missing off the plate in a place that wasn't going to hurt him. Change up the other side of the plate where it wasn't going to hurt him, and he was trying to locate that fastball up pretty well.

So I actually quite liked him. You know. Again, my hesitation and why I bumped him down my prioritization list when we did our picture draft was just that the walks ticked up and the cas ticked down at high in his first taste. And I expect he'll start there in South Bend again next year. But if we see him next year and the stuff starts to play and

the execution is still there, he could be a quick riser. I really did like what I saw, and for someone that just has no heat, I mean, is not ranked on ba's thirty Chris Clegg zero, no rank for him. You know, it's like these guys are going deep and he's not being talked about. And I actually really liked him as an arm.

What was his walk grade on the season, eight point eight percent. That's not the worst I've ever seen, No, And it was plus at Myrtle Beach three per nine, so, you know, not great, but definitely acceptable. And then at South Bend it was three and a half, so, you know, still in spitting distance of being good. It's just the strikeouts ticked down a little bit. I think he had some batted ball luck

maybe you know, left on base and batted ball luck. We're okay, So had a solid year and I'm really interested to see how he starts out next year because the stuff, to mim, I looked actually good. And you know, me, I'm not really the biggest stuffest out there, but this guy, for someone that has very little helium touching ninety seven getting whiffs on the heater, I was like, this might be a real arm. Yeah, that sounds like I'm actually kind of mad that got by me.

Huh, I'm gonna have to turn on some video. There was the roster percentage, you know or what was it September? Okay, good one there, rook. Wait and he was tall too, man, that's six four strapping line, you know, you were making fun of me, But that's really just on the hitter side. All my pictures are like big beefy boys. So I don't know, I don't know if there if there's any other

pictures you wanted to mention. I kind of watched a little bit of Luis Ruhano and Cohen Moreno, but man, the walks, it's just it's just too much. It's too much for me to care too much about them down in a ball walking everybody. Yeah, similar, still deal with me. The other couple of guys that I looked at, just the walks were out of control and supposedly supposed to be on the cutting edge of helping coach command

these days. So yeah, I don't right. I mean, you look at you, look at Luke, little Ben Brown, Jackson Ferris, like every one of those guys has a walk problem. And I'm kind of concerned about all of those sort of like higher profile arms in the CUB system. You know. The only one that seems to have been better than I thought they were going to be is Horton. And Horton, now, you know, kind of widely viewed as a top five or ten pitching prospect, and

I was not on him coming out of college. I thought he was a little bit overhyped, but he's showed me that I didn't know what I was talking about at all. He's pretty good. Yeah, well, we'll see, we'll see. The only other guy that I wanted to just mention is Marino Santi another a ball pitcher in Myrtle Beach who you probably came across him a little bit. Again, the walks are too much. He's a lefty, and he just has like a wild amount of movement on his slider.

So while I don't think he's got the command to stick in the rotation, he's someone that I think is pretty high probability big leaguer, just like based on that slider alone, Like he's gonna be a lefty guy in the bigs if he can even shave like two percent off of his walks, like they're that slider was nasty. Yeah, it is, it is. I did watch a little of him. All right, let's move on to the hitters,

huh, I had. I don't know if this is really cheating, and I haven't done this yet, You've probably done it a bazillion times, but I'm gonna creep up that I'm kidding about the bazilion times, but I'm creeping up to three percent raster percentage when I pulled it in September because I

just didn't really like a lot here. I watched some like ezekiel' Plagan, Lanel Espinoza, Luis Vasquez, the young Mexican infielder Ravage Garcia, and all those guys are just again it's just the ground ball, just beating everything into the ground and little I'm gonna go with Pedro Ramirez with a teenager Myrtle Beach

second base, third base. Ramirez, nineteen year old Venezuelan signs in twenty twenty one, had a pretty nice season, particularly down the stretch. From July twenty fifth to September fifteen, one hundred and seventy six played appearances. He hit three thirty six four forty nine slugged five twenty five with six home runs sole seven bases during that span. Now, Ramirez, I it's probably definitely more of a you know, contact guy than a slugger's. He's not

very big. I don't know where they have him listed at like five nine, I think, but I did see him hit a pretty impressive opposite field home run from the left side, maybe some power potential. I really liked the look of him just at the plate. Mechanically, he's pretty still and calm, especially from the left side. I didn't watch a whole ton of him from the right side. Didn't strike out very much seventeen percent, he walked twelve percent of the time. On the season, he hit two sixty

six slugged four h four. Like I said, I think he was getting to a little bit more pop down the stretch. Defensively, I can't say I really know too much second base, third base at nineteen years old. I don't know what you want to make of that as far as sticking up the middle. But like I said, as far as all my choices, went about to Pedro Ramirez the most and cheated a little bit to get him on here. No, I think this is a good pick. He was

my runner up, and I agree with everything you said. I think he's got a solid hit tool. I like his swings both of the left side, and I got a few of the right side too, and I thought that it is pretty similar. Just still head, good hands, not a lot of power here, but there's quite a lot in common for me with a guy like James Treantos, who's way more well regarded, but their I

think profile as pretty similar guys. You know, Tiantos probably strikes out even less, but other than that, like they both sort of have limited power, some speed, somewhat questionable defensive home I did get a couple of so I watched quite a few of the Cubs pitchers trying to find someone good, and Pedro Ramirez seemed like a second base only to me, just seemed like the arm wasn't quite there and they weren't playing him at the stop. And you know, I think he's probably a two b only guy, but I

liked him a lot. I think he's a good hitter. Oh no, yeah, so like he too. His ground ball rate was fifty one percent, not the greatest, but I watched him much more during that hotter streak the second half of the season. I don't know, he didn't strike me as as a guy who wasn't hitting the ball in the air, at least not like some of some of his teammates and other guys. I was watching a line line drive rate of twenty two percent, not too bad. Pedro

Ramirez felt significantly more interesting than than the other options. Yeah, No, he's got a good hit tool, and he'd take an infielder with a solid hit tool and dream on a little bit more. Now, I like that pick, but another small Venezuelan that I just want to see hit the ball in the air more like, Hey, we're living this again. Yeah,

and while you're taking a five foot eight, tiny little minion, I'm going for a behemoth, six foot slugger shortstop Luis Vasquez. Oh what is happening. We're going to call you grue after this. But now I'm taking Luis Vasquez here again. I I a lot of what you said. I think the top end of the CUB system is remains really solid, but I think we're going to see all of them graduate in the next year and a lot of what remains not great b side hunting grounds on the hitter side. Basquez,

he does seem like he could stick it short. That's a problem when you've got Dancy Swanson signed for another half decade or whatever it is. But he really I think can pick it. I saw some really nice plays, and I think he's got good reviews from other sources about his defense this year. While he does have a bit of the ground ball problem that you've noted

from other Cubs hitters. He he had a really interesting line at Double A, which was about half of his year, where he struck out a little more and walked a little bit less, typically things I don't like very much, but his batted ball profile was kind of transformed, and he was hitting the ball in the air. He was pulling those balls in the air, and he hit eleven homers in half a season, so that's like a twenty to twenty five homer pace at the big league level, and it seemed real

like it didn't seem like he was overperforming anything. He just like started pulling the fly balls and was being a little more aggressive on that. And I liked that he regressed a little bit to form at Triple A when he spent the second half of the year there, but still put up nine homers and stole six bags and reduced his strikeout rate to twenty percent, which is like

that's solid, especially walking fourteen percent of the time. But he was hitting the ball on the ground a little bit more and still pulling his fly balls. I think that's how he got to his nine home without having a real

plus hit tool or plus power but I don't know. He's a guy, you know, low draft pick that has kicked around their minors for she'sh seven years now and seems like a high probability big leaguer, probably not an impact one, but just with the high probability of playing defensive at the top level and what seemed like some interesting traits, I went with Luis Fasquez. Yeah, I think that's I think that's solid. I'm not super excited about it, you know, but he's he's okay. Yeah, Well, being super

excited about anything. Cubs isn't really a thing. My second team when I was a young lad, the Nasty Boys, Barry Larka and Eric Davis. God, I love those teams. Cincinnati Reds can't say that it's been the most successful B side hunting ground. I know, you and I probably my fault. We're getting a little interest. And Alex McGarry last year, their twenty twenty two Minor league hitter of the Year, just didn't really have a very good season. Started off in Triple A and was struggle bus. I

went back down to Double A and got it back together. But I'm not super excited about Alex McGary's fantasy upside here, but we did have a good success in Julian agu Are with our pitching selection. I think probably out of all of all the pitching selections from last year, I think he's the most exciting of the bunch. Yeah. He really backed up last year with Estellar this year and a Yar is awesome. Yeah, so our big b side

pitching success story jumped from like zero percent to four percent. Woop woop, yep. I'm not going to get into the bat that I picked. I picked Ethan O'Donnell, who we talked about during the hitter draft episode, and maybe I'll talk about him a little bit more during our first year player draft episode. But in part in why I went with the first year of players because I honestly didn't have any Reds bats that I was really super excited about.

I know, trout Wine is a bit interesting and he had I think a pretty decent Arizona Fall League, but overall, I just kind of thought o'donnald's upside was a little bit more exciting. So, so what do you got bat wise for US man? Well, join me in military service here,

because I'm picking Army Zone Jacob. I don't even know how to pronounce his last name be her two beasts. I know I didn't check out preference for this. I feel like I've heard it a few ways, all right, Jacob Hurdabas he was a twenty nineteen draftee. Herd Obies is one of these like guys who is so weird. You watch him hit and you're like,

that can't be a major league or a minor league professional hitter. It's a super stiff swing that seems like he's following that advice that you got for from those Cubs instructors all those years ago, where he's really chopping down on the ball. Doesn't look like an athlete really, you know, he's sort of call him, you know, six foot one eighty, but he looks kind of doey. I'd say, I don't know if that's a fair call,

but he makes it work. Man. I just think that because he's got no power and this swing is so janky, that everybody has sort of overlooked what he does really, really well, and that is control the strike zone. He doesn't swing at balls. He'll swing it strikes, but he'll foul him off and hit line drives. He sprays all over the yard, so unlike a lot of guys that I like who are elevate and celebrate, pull a ball in the air and hit a homer, he's almost the exact

opposite of it. And at times his swing has reminded me a little bit of Jose Ramirez. Now obviously the super different players in a lot of ways, but there's something about the way that he swings that reminds me of that high con contact spray approach that I think of when I think of Jose Ramirez. And he just turned in one of the best hitting lines in the minor leagues last year, and for someone that was what one percent one percent owned last year, I was like, this is an actual find. I think

he had a really good AFL too. Yeah, yeah, I think he was all right. But the guy made it up to Triple A and in his third professional season, splitting time most of the season at Double A and then the end of the year the last thirty six games at Triple A. But he on the year had check out this line three point thirty four seventy nine for eighty two was a triple slotch and that's all at Double A and Triple A. And it's not like he's playing in the PCL for that time.

This is the International League, so it's like not great hitting environments, but he stole forty five bags. So definitely someone that's going to play up the even more in categories or a roto league. But that line is pretty special. Walk seventeen percent of the time and only struck out thirteen point eight percent of the time, good for a one sixty three WRC plus on the year and over four hundred and fifty five played appearances. That's tough to fake.

At double A like that is truly one of the best lines in the minor leagues last year and one percent ownership. So because he's goofy looking, his swing doesn't look pretty and he doesn't hit homers, I think he's just so underrated. But this seems like a guy that they're gonna give run to in the outfield next year or trade him to somebody who has an opening and see if they have can can get something out of him. But Steamer agrees

with me. Projects ninety eight WRC plus again for a one percent ownership. Guy who was a senior draft out of Army three years ago twenty twenty one draft like that is almost unheard of. I would say, like he was also a just missed for my hitters. I think I ended up coin flipping between him and Krim at the end of the draft, and in retrospect, after Steamer's projections came out, I was like, fuck, I should have just gotten because his projection was so good, and but it was because my

looks at him. I got fooled, kind of like everybody else, because he just doesn't look like anything that anybody else does, you know. So I'm kind of on it again. He's one that I'm excited about because it's just so unorthodox and I love it when those kinds of guys perform and produce. So, yeah, Jacob heard a bees. I think he's He's something.

I wish I would have been a little bit more vocal about this, but I had a feeling that's where you were going to go, and I was I did telegraphed this one, did you Maybe maybe you said something at some point. I don't know, but that's why I didn't mention him as some other guys I looked at. But I am one guilty of seeing him seeing he heard a beast, little hurt let's call him the little hurt little

Hurt. I like it. I've seen him on video first before I saw any of his numbers, and I was like, I don't know what this is. This is this looks weird and I didn't even know that he that he didn't hit home runs, but I kind of just rote him off just from that. I was like, this is too goofy for me. Then when he started doing some things in the AFO, I went back and then looked at the numbers, and this was after we had even drafted and stuff, and I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. So

I like that you went here, kudos. I think it's a good call. One hundred and sixty some WRC plus and and a lot of that was on the back of a pretty high babeb you know, his triple A babbitb was well over four hundred. But I still like the twenty one percent walk rate, ten percent Kate Raid at triple A, Like, yeah, knock him down one hundred points of babbit and that's still a pretty interesting line. So yeah, what do they got into it? What do they have them?

Have him listed at size west six foot This is like a giant for you, just because he's got such a busted ass swing that there everybody else ignored him. You have to find the tiny guys to find any edge. But now heard a beast. I'm telling you, I think that this is a guy who's a major league regular and will play a lot for somebody soon, you know. So that's the kind of guy. Like one percent. Would not be surprised if this is like ten percent next year, maybe more.

Yeah. I really came down to two arms here, and that was

Jared Lyons and Hunter Parks. This is very much not my personal style. Twenty two year old right hand pitcher spent the whole season in hya. He was a twenty twenty one eighth round pick out of Junior College. I believe South Carolina well eighty innings this year. No, yes, I think eighty innings this year in twenty two starts. I first started catching him tuning in

to ag you are. They were together for most of the season. But Parks, man, this is such a tease and such a frustrating profile because he is nasty. His whole arsenal just looks ridiculous. But he's wild man. He walks, he hits guys, he throws, and it's usually armside where everything just can get away. So him hit a few guys and get all, you know, have a little hold me back fests. On a few occasions he was six point seven eight walks per nine And I get that

is why I have not watched any of him. Yeah, and I get, and I get how that can just be a non starter, right, guys like this, I'm gonna cap but it can how good it can ever get. But there are stretches where like I'm like, okay, all right, man, you got this. And then for a couple of innings he will completely dominate for a few innings at a time. Now I don't know. Then he comes out next time and everything's on and off again. But

it's interesting because the motion, the whole delivery and everything. And I'm no expert in this, but it doesn't feel like it should be that hard to have better command. And I looked back at some older film with him, and I think the Reds have shortened up his arm action some perhaps to help with all of this. His start on August fourth, he struck out six of his last seven hitters. And this is the thing with him, like

he strikes out a lot of guys, looking I don't know. It kind of seems like with all of his offerings, but particularly the change up, like like guys just don't have a chance, they're just done. And I don't know, Matt, how do you feel about this? I know, hitching ninja and all that stuff. Everyone loves whiffs, but to me, there's something about and a lot of parks strikeouts too. It'll be like three, four or five pitches, probably rarely three pitches, four or five pitches,

and it's not just the last one that they're looking at. I've seen them three looking strikes, different pitches. Something about a strikeout looking, just

as I get older, becomes becomes sexier to me. I don't know, well, I know I personally have an emotional reaction when I see a strikeout looking, especially on a fastball away, because that was our college's two strike approach in quotation marks, which was look for a fastball away as anything else and spoil it and striking out looking was the worst thing you could do. And of course that fastball away the umpires and college are of variable quality.

I remember one time striking out looking on a fastball away at Rice, and this pitch was like nine inches off the plate. Outside. But of course to our dugout, it looked like I just took a perfectly placed strike out, you know, fastball in the outside corner, and I got reamed for this. Our hitting coach, our head coach were like yelling me about benching

me because I took this pitch strike out looking away. And Matt, a lot of these strikeouts looking particularly this outing are right on right change ups too, which ooh, I love that, I know, I know. And his fastball gets to the upper nineties and it holds through the whole outings maybe, and this, you know, this is very unique. There are several outings where the velocity ticked up his last inning. You don't see that a

whole lot. Here's here's my question for you though about parks. You know, the command is obviously of concern, But if the stuff is so good, why only the twenty four point six percent strikeout rate. That's a great question. I was going to bring that up as well. Maybe because guys can just sit there and spin on stuff and know that they're gonna walk. I don't know. Well with with the wildness too, is wildness in the

zone. There was some there was some hard contact at times. You can give up very many home runs, I don't think, but that's I mean, that's a great question. His strike percentage on the season was fifty eight percent, which is awful, but like low, he's got a low eighties slider. Now here's another thing that that ninetieth Percentile podcasts with Jeff Ponts, they were just talking about this, and I couldn't help but think about Parks.

They were talking about sliders with induced vertical break and how some folks are starting to think that this might be pretty good shape of a slider that started throwing, whereas before most folks were thinking that you didn't want that. But

I wonder if Parks has some of that with his slider going on. He's got a seventy six seventy to like seventy nine mile per hour slow you know, hook with curveball with depth, and the change up is you know, after he's pumping ninety six ninety seven change ups coming into like eighty six eighty seven. It's just the whole the whole weapons, the whole tools, the arsenal part of Parks is really why I went with him, even though I'm

very skeptical that he can get it all tightened up and not. But if she did, I could see him really taking off in the Dynasty world. But one thing, one thing about Park though that I do have to note, is I like hate his demeanor on the mound. I find him extremely

immature and stupid, pointing at dugouts after strika That's what I wanted. And he like he walked three dudes or hit a guy, walk two guys, like a two run single or something, and struck out the last two batters and was just like all pumped and pointing at the other dugout about it and stuff. I'm like, dude, shut up, you just sucked man. But anyway, Hunter Parks that's my reluctant choice there. Yeah, Cincinnati was

tough for me. I really didn't like the options very much. I'm going with Brian Cardona, and I don't feel great about it. He's got walk issues, has okay stuff. It's not like dreaming on much. I think his fastball is below average. It's eighty nine to ninety two. He does try and locate it up at the top of the zone and get some whiffs up there, but it's not outstanding. The change up at eighty two to

four. I think was by far his best secondary. His curveball seventy six to nine, pretty loopy, and with the command being so below average, I just really wasn't that excited about it. He did have a few good starts mixed in there that you could dream on, but I think the command has to tick up maybe two full notches for this to be a real arm. So he's honestly wins by default here, just given our constraints. You know, if you want to dream on the stuff side of things, your

guys me Connor Phillips and Andrew Abbott are really interesting. Richardson and Roa are again similar high walk but have shown some flashes, but they're way higher up in level up in tripa A. Petty is like maybe interesting, although people have been talking about his stuff for so long and he just doesn't get strikeouts

with it, and so that's really weird to me. So those are all like the pretty boy names, right, and for the other names like everybody seems to have a walk problem or doesn't strike anybody out or both, just like, yeah, I didn't really love it. We've been talking about some weird swings. Let's get into the Milwaukee Brewers history here, so our bad last year was Tayden Hall, who was a ninth round twenty twenty two pickout

of Junior College, the son of former Big leaguer Toby Hall. Hall's interesting in that he is a big guy six' four two hundred some pounds and he is yet to hit a professional home run. He is noodleback, which is on brand, especially down in Carolina. He's a very different looking hitter. He's toned down some of his his oddness. He is very very open, but I think he gets into a good hitting position and then the weirdness is more just in the start of his stance. But hit two seventy four.

He had an on base percentage of four nineteen. I mean, you love guys like this, mad. I mean he walked nineteen percent of the time and struck out eighteen percent of the time. I like that, I know right now. I think he was drafted as a catcher, and part that was part of the interest initially to me was like, Okay, we got this young teenage sort of catcher slash corner outfielder slash first baseman who looks like he's really disciplined approach and can maybe hit a little and he's big.

Maybe he'll start hitting some home runs, but like I said, didn't, which which really kind of tampers any interest I might have. I don't seems like a lot of just opposite field slap hitting from Tatum Hall. He didn't catch very much either. This big, tall first base man who's gonna walk a lot and hit some singles. I don't really know what that does for

us in fantasy. Not much, not much. But to go a little bit further back in time, I think twenty twenty one went with Ernesto Martinez, who's a big six' five, two hundred and fifty pound Cuban who's twenty four years old. He got up to double A, but he remains a bit interesting to me from a B side standpoint. Brewers just resigned him to a minor league contract. But in some ways Martinez is an interesting watch, as I believe his discipline at the plate has improved, Like I was

surprised to see he got under twenty percent strikeout rate. Now this is this is like very very poor man's homeless man's sort of version of O'Neill Cruz or a big guy who can run and I think does have some pop in his back nothing like like the those guys, but he doesn't really pull the ball enough and get to his power like you like to talk about. But nonetheless kind of an interesting power speed combo from first base potentially who just might still

have major league chance. I don't think he'd be an awful choice to go with this season, but I didn't love a lot of the Brewers' bats down here, mostly because there's so many weird ones Matt there are, I know, to talk about one of them. I cut up that one little video of just one day one lineup with Carolina, and like half the lineup is just his goofy swings and batwaggles and weird toe taps and jed here Arianamo is just like one of my favorites. Yeah, he's super I mean, don't

get me wrong, has produced well. Jesus Torinos has got weird toe tap footstep thing going on, hitting halls weird. So I don't know there, I don't know. I just feel like, okay for me, there's there's other guys at this level that are sort of producing, Like I just don't have to like go with the weird looking one. I don't know, So I went with the I went with jan Baiaz, who is not a nothing

name. I don't think he was at two percent, so that's that's much higher than I usually go. There's a teenager, eighteen year old who really had a nice season on the Complex and then just got a brief I think, like two week taste at the very end. He's not very big either. Look at me picking a little minion. He's yea, I know, right five nine, right hander. The only like I only really saw like

one hard hit ball. I think he was an opposite field. We hit like a double into the gap over those you know, couple of series. You know, it strikes me as a high contact guy. Hit three point fifty one with a three seventy seven on base and did slug five twenty seven. Granted in the complex he struck eleven percent of the time and walked four percent of the time. So an aggressive little guy here, which you know, I like aggressive guys at this level, especially at eighteen years old.

We'll see how this all plays out, but I don't know the one little look. I figured one bias, and he was far less less goofy than anybody. He does have a bit of a of a laid kick, that, you know whatever, I'm not like a huge fan of. As long as you're you're doing it well, it seems to go all right. So I don't know one Bias matt Any thoughts. Yeah, he strikes me as your kind of guy, a little too aggressive for my take, But I

M looking at him. I thought this is an interesting developmental project, you know, Like you said, he didn't get a ton of looks in full season ball, and he's still young, so I think he's got some some developmental road ahead of him. Yeah, but yeah, I liked I liked Bias all right. He seems interesting to follow, and I think I think a guy who I think folks sake has a chance to stick in the dirty played shortstop, third base, second base. So yeah, I don't know,

just kind of an interesting sort of b side watch. Far more raster than I would kind of expect. But you know, people like to jump on these two that do some stuff in the complex. So yeah, I was surprised he was at two percent already considering he's still so young. And yeah, this organization is just funny, all the funny stances and swings. Yeah, it's a it's an interesting organization for sure, No, Wes Clerk was like a little bit interesting to me, especially after the AFL, but

still the strikeouts thirty percent. Just don't like to dance with that if I don't have to agreed, especially for a guy who's going to be a cornerback. I know they list him as a catcher, but he didn't play there that much, and those kids are right on the red line, and while the power is there, the margin for that kind of guy to succeed is just so narrow. I watched a good bit of him too, and I liked his swing, but I think if that's a one bay, if that's

a first base only, I don't know. I liked him more in the AFL catch him some looks of him there than the end season stuff that I saw. Yeah, Xavier Warren was a guy who I kind of had my own a little bit last year, but I think did get a little bit more popular, but he seemed to fall off this year. He did not

have super productive season. Yeah, and my guys like that were Eric Brown Junior, obviously a little more owned I think, who was in like some top thirties for fypds last year, and another another goofy swing, another goofy swing, swing, kind of undersized guy. And matthew Wood was another one that I kind of liked, and then I watched him and I was just like, that's just kind of a goofy swing. I think he's never going

to hit for power. And yeah, for that reason, I was kind of out on him too, So yeah, a bunch of funny swings. I ended up going with Isaac Collins for my pick, and again I don't

love this pick. He's sort of a blow average athlete, maybe is a corner. I mean, he's played second, third, a little bit of outfield. Again, good plate skills, but he just seems like maybe a smarter base runner than actually a good like a plus athlete. You know, he swiped twenty nine bags, which is certainly not nothing. I like his swing. I think the swing looks nice. He's a switch hitter, and it has a nice swing from both sides, with good contact and a little

more power than you'd expect. Although ten homers in three hundred and eighty five plate appearances, it's not like he's a thirty homer bat in the making. If he's just the left fielder, that makes it a little bit tougher to see this sort of profile playing up. But if he sticks on the dirt, then maybe I don't know. I didn't love him, but I liked enough that he's my selection. Isaac Collins. Yeah, I don't know if you watch any of Collins. Did he come from the Rockies? He did?

He did. I was wondering if you remember that. Yeah, they did fade him and he got claimed last offseason. He was like okay in the Rocky system. But again he's another small guy, like he's five to eight. I think, so that's probably part of it. And again I'm a little worried about his defensive position. And if yeah, he really is just a left fielder, then you look at that and you're like, I

don't know. But he got a small cup of coffeet the end of the year at Triple A, and I bet that's where Milwaukee starts him next year. So but I remember correctly, I think he was he was twenty twenty one Fresno for a little bit. Uh huh. I think I think rest of the studio kind of took over his spot, so to speak. Yeah, right, that's interesting, you're gonna say. I think I think i'd cut you off, were you gonna say something else about Arianamo. I just

think his batwaggle. If anybody's listening, you got to watch this guy. It's just like pick a random at bat. He stands up there like he's a normal hitter, you know, slightly open stands, and then right before the pitch is gonna come, he tomahawk chops his bat all the way down to his belt basically, and the ball's like on its way and he's doing It's the weirdest swing I think I saw in the Miners this year. I hate it. And he's like seems like he's late all the time because he's

got a funny toe tap too. He did okay, like turn in an okay line this year, but man, I just think it's such a terrible look, and he's never he just doesn't seem like he's on time enough. And he might want to fix those two things, buddy, I know, right. I mean, imagine how he could produce if he wasn't such a weirdo. Maybe a little better. Are the Brewers like doing this on purpose?

Like is this like a little like running inside joke they have going on or something like just let's just find the weirdest the weirdest looking hitters and put them all together. You know, it might be I mean, honestly, they might just be like looking for that unheralded kind of swing and they might be taking it to the extreme. But yeah, it's weird. Their collection of hitters is by far the weirdest, just in terms of diversity of plate

approach and all the weird things they do in the swing. I thought, for sure I would have bet somebody money that you were going to go with Dylan o'ray. I don't know if you watch it. I thought about it.

I did. I thought about it, But the No Homer thing for me, I was like, yes, you know, decent speed and again kind of a funkier swing, and it's certainly someone that I would put a watch on, especially if you're in category leagues and you don't care about power, because forty four bags and two hundred and eighty five plate appearances is right forty. He was a twenty twenty two third round pick out of Canada. Just FYI, but I thought I saw he swing too. I thought,

yeah, yeah, he does. But I saw the twenty percent walk rate, the thirteen percent k and I'm like, oh, that's going to take him. He's on my list for sure, and you know, honestly, he might end up being more interesting than Collins because he's younger and there's still some time for him to find a defensive home. But the fact they're already moving him around a lot too tells me that like, probably not plus any

of those defensive slots either. He's played second short center, but the speed is real, kind of a goofy swing, and I'm not sure it's going to play at higher levels. I've heard even though he's at zero percent raster. And maybe this is just being around back or something in Brewer talk, but I've heard some talk about Alex Hall, who is up in Wisconsin and he's an Australian guy. But I don't know. I didn't really I didn't really get peel there. Well, if he's a Nausie, you can just

write him off. They're a bunch of terrible folk prisoners over there the other side of the ditch, just a bunch of bunch of outlaws. I think we did well last year on the pitching side, Matt justin Jarvis. I think that worked out fantastically at him roster and he took off, got some popularity, and I traded him everywhere. He's now with the Mats. Of course, I don't know. Maybe knocking on the door with the Mets, I think he's I think he got up to triple A, didn't he?

But long term wise, I don't. I don't have a whole lot of interest there. And then Matt, I don't know how you felt about the Brewer system, but dude, as a whole, I get they have some big names and whatever, but as a whole, I thought this system was so boring, so many, so many soft tossing, just boring guys and older too, like and like, I feel like even the younger guys and maybe throw a little bit harder, like Patricio a Kenyo, like he throws

ninety five, but like he doesn't strike guys out yep. So I don't know. So I was kind of really kind of reaching here, and I

decided to go with a project, like a legit project, and that was Quentin Lowe. Who did you watch him at all? I didn't. Okay, So quinnlo he's from out here, not too far from my house actually, but he was a twenty twenty one thirteenth round pick out of high school I think a little bit older. Oh I guess twenty he's like twenty one now. But he was a two way player and had been that and had been up to up to this season. But I think early in the season

all the hitting stop. If I'm not mistaken, mistaken, and it looks like he's going to be just a pitcher now. People like to talk about the Brewers pitching development a little bit. Well let's let's see what happens here. This is a big test because Low is raw, he is he is rough. But my man throws ninety seven. He's got a nasty breaking ball. He's big at six four two fifteen. Like I said, it's it's

sloppy. He watched seven point nine to nine per nine. But given mind, this is like thirty thirty two innings of a guy who has not been a full time pitcher ever. I did kind of feel like the last couple outings, I think he was getting better. I think there were some improvements being made. But like I said, this this is just this is a reach. This is a real big swing. But if it does, if they can tighten this up, maybe it takes a year. I don't know.

This could be get exciting and get lots of dynasty attention with that sort of velocity in what I think might be some real strikeout upside. He was at what twelve point nine to five per nine in his short thirty two innings or whatever. Yeah, I don't know quinnin Low. I'll have to watch some video of him. I didn't know anything about him. But that's interesting

little developmental project for the Brewers, very much so. But you know, definitely definitely has some juice in there, and let's let's see what happens when he just has to focus on one thing. Well. The Brewers have two guys at the top of their pitching organization that I've long been a fan of in Carlos F. Rodriguez and Robert Gasser. Both are my kind of guys and that they've built up volume, they get a decent amount of strikeouts,

and they aren't overly wild. I like both of them. I have shares of each in a bunch of different leagues, or have had shares and traded them. But they're the kind of guys that I really like in deeper leagues, especially points leaks, just because they're guys that I think come up and are more likely to contribute right away with that floor of innings, and then of course the highest profile name in their org in Jacob Mssierowski, who I

think the stuff is certainly intriguing, but I think Nate agrees on this that we're both pretty skeptical that he puts it together as a starter. You know, thirteen point four percent walk rate and you watch him visually and it's just like the stuff is everywhere, even his like plus pitches, he just misses the zone by so much. It's just like, who are you really fooling with that? You know, Even with all that, he still had a thirty five percent k rate on the year and ended up in double A and

obviously had a really impressive showing in the Futures game. But I like Nate, I think remained pretty skeptical of him and honestly going to take the other two arms at the top of that org over him, and you know, we'll see, we'll see who's wrong. I'm not that's not a popular opinion, but I really like, I don't know a lot of that just feels like the classic sort of dynasty overpay for a guy that's stuff like, And

don't get me wrong, it can't happen. It just is not my it's not my style to to pay premiums on these sorts of guys deal holes and Mizowskis, And yeah, I agree, and deal Hall sins like all those guys at some point just got huge buzz and it's like you guys, I know, I'm sure, I'm sure they're they're blown up the stuff plus spreadsheets and stuff. But deal Hall is a is a like way bigger part of his outcome distribution than most want to admit. And I just am not a

personal buyer of that kind of guy. I just think there's the injury risk seems higher with him. Performance has been good rather than great, and if he's got elite stuff, why hasn't he put up elite performance? And so anyway, all that to say, I'm I'm sort of give me the gimme. Robert Gasser over Mizerowski and Carlo stef Arbriguez the same kind of thing, Like I'm more interested in them. As a guy I actually went to Hold, whereas I'm trading. If I luck into a share or take over a

team that has Miserowski, I'm selling him almost immediately. But I agree with Nate that kind of the rest of this organization. I was just like, there is not a lot here. There's a couple of reliever type guys that might be interesting in Shane Smith and Blake Holob. I watched both of them and thought like, Yeah, these looked like big league relievers to me. A lot of the other starters, I was just like, oh, these are not good. Like just I was not a fan except for one guy,

Nate if I came to him late, like he had missed on my cutoff of deep dives for our picture draft. But I think if I had evaluated this guy before our picture draft, I think it would have taken him. So I'm I'm on this guy, like as in, he's one of my favorite arms I saw in the minors this year, and I'm just not hearing anything about him. And it's Logan Henderson is my guy here. Not

on ba's top thirty. Clegg did rank him at the back of his top five hundred, and you know five twelve when I pulled this, he is two percent rostered. So some people have paid attention because his end of last year was phenomenal, made it up to a ball. I think he repeated a ball. That's right. He made it up to a ball at the end of last year for a small cup of coffee, but Henderson repeated a

ball this year. I think he dealt with an injury early in the year because he really didn't get going until late May, I think, and his first few starts were a little bit up and down. Ended the year on just this hell of a stretch. Let me let me pull this up because it was so impressive. From June fifteenth to the end of the year, through fifty nine innings over twelve starts, struck out eighty one, walked thirteen good for two to nine. ERA gave up six homers over that time.

His whip was like zero point seven over that stretch. Just absolutely dominant and watching him, this isn't a guy who has like a plus curveball that is playing up because of the competition. His stuff seemed legit ninety one to five on the fastball, but it seemed like it played up a bit more. I think I got one start where he was up to ninety six. According to the broadcast. There wasn't a visual gun, but it seemed like there

were round up characteristics here that were really exciting. In that if he threw it at the top of the zone, he was getting a whiff or a pop up on it, you know, ninety one to five, Like that's pretty awesome. His changeup is his plus pitch, and it is nasty, like not quite as good as like, you know, the Devin Williams of the world, but that same kind of shape where it really kind of falls

off to the right. Again, not quite as intense, but he arm looks the same, and he's throwing it to lefties, he's throwing it to righty's and getting whiffs and called strikes, and it's got a nice movement profile, and he really does seem like he has command of it. His slider is his worst pitch, but it seemed like he was developing it this year. I saw some starts earlier in the summer, like late June, early

July, where it looked like he was getting under his slider. But I listened to a home broadcast towards the end of the year, Oh yeah, his last start of the year against Texas's A ball team, and the broadcaster said that he's really been developing that, and he showed a few more where he was actually getting on top of it, and it was moving in the right direction. And in that start against Texas he went six innings, which you and I both love, and punched out out ten no walks and looked

every bit as dominant as that line sounds. He was getting called strikes, whiffs, getting whiffs with all three pitches, but it's especially the fastball at

the top of the zone and the changeup are his weapons. And the changeup is like comfortably plus and with the command that he showed towards the end of the year, I think earlier in the year he had a couple of bad starts that pushed up his walk rate a little bit, but from that point on in the year it was actually elite command and was getting a ton of strikeouts. One of the best kind of sixty inning pitch runs of the of the year. And yes it is just a ball, and yes he's repeating

it, but he doesn't have a long track record. He was a twenty twenty one drafty fourth rounder out of high school by the Brewers and barely last year. Yeah, do you know why he loved only what thirteen innings last year? I don't. I wonder. I wonder if it was related to whatever caused him to start the year slowly and on the shelf. This year, I tried to do a little bit of digging, but I didn't see what it was. This looks great it is I think like I'm like a

good one that I like it actually very very excited. Yeah, he was a community college guy, so not out of high school, you know, a year out of that. I feel like I feel like I heard some talk about him, some buzz about him around that draft, but a name that has gone forgotten in my mind. I don't remember hearing anything about him.

And I came to him late in my evaluation process because I thought the numbers were like solid but not outstanding from when I was pulling stuff in September for this, and so I kind of had pushed him down my list to evaluate and ended up with, you know, names that I was happy with. But when I was digging into this org a couple of weeks ago, and I was like blown away with how good this guy looked and looking at how he put together his outing, I was just continually impressed. And then

his ending the year on six innings ten k's and it was pristine. I mean, like, this is one of those outings. So it wasn't he was not being inefficient. It was just getting strikeouts with every pitch. And that lineup wasn't great. You know, the Rangers a ball team I think as like Glider Fraguero and like that's the only guy who's really of note. But boy, he just dominated on it. It was just a hit three all of that. That's solid. Yeah, July twenty second, August fifth,

and September second, which is the start you were referring to. Yeah, and a guy who only got eighteen starts on the year and has twenty twenty five professional starts total, Like, this is a dude I think in the making. He threw eight that start you reference, he threw eighty two pitches, sixty four of them for strikes. That's what I'm saying. Like he watched it and he even there was a couple pitches that were like clearly

strikes and and didn't get called for called strike threes. And the announcer actually commented about it, who was actually quite good by the way. You know, you listen to a lot of guys who are just veryed not that good, but like, whoever, the Milwaukee ay ball guy is like, kudos, yeah, I agree, but he like was incredulous that these strikes weren't being called because they were just right there. And then twice the next pitch was a swing and miss. He just didn't care that he got squeezed.

He just went back to the same pitch or changed it up and got a strike. Like I mean, I was just like, this is really impressive. Okay, what why did he slip through my cracks? There's there's nothing, there's no marker that would have like eliminated him from my process of watching him, and I didn't. I don't know, just wonder. I just wonder for some people it's the injury and he wasn't a guy and then I guess fourth rounder but injured JC guy. All Right, would you on a

long track record, would you rather Sheriff Henderson or Missowski? Honestly, Henderson after watching him, like, I just think playing the game, Misowski obviously, because I can turn that into something, right, I mean, like, I think is going to make the major leagues and be a starting pitcher. I think Henderson is going to be. Like I'm genuinely he's in my top like five or six arms in the minor leagues of the like non elite arms, you know, like him and Tang and Van Schoder, like those

kinds of guys. Like he's in that top five for me. Okay, all right, I'm gonna have to I'm gonna watch some Henderson after that. Yes, two guys now that damn you, Matt, damn you all right? Just learning here? Yeah, Pittsburgh Pirates, the Buckos. This is where I think we came together harmoniously on the hitter side, did we not? We did? I mean, we already talked about Charles Mann I could do, but maybe we'll talk about him a little bit more during the first

year player draft. I don't know. He was our bat selection, both of our bat selections. The Pirates b side history is really interesting to me. I wouldn't say that we have had like a big success yet, but I kind of feel like there might be some brewing a little bit. Last year selected Chase Bowen, who had another really solid, nice year High A in Double A. He went twenty twenty twenty three home runs, twenty six stolen bases. I believe he cut his k rate once again or stayed pretty

similar as he moved up a level or two. He kind of impressed in the AFL a little bit, but I think he might be turning into I don't know, do you think he's a real prospect in their system though? I do. And he's a guy that you know, independent of your previous selections. I thought merited consideration here, power speed blend, He's a good

athlete place Birthpase. Yeah, I'm pretty interested to see what he does next year, because, as he noted, he has been keeping the Cays on the right trend as he goes up to the minor league ladder, which is very difficult to do. Just a small cup of coffee at double A at the end of the year. But his overall line is quite interesting. Again, I'm a little worried on the swing and miss, but sure if he can keep that under control. There's power speed blend here, and I do

like Bowen. Yeah, I kind of think too, like regardless of how it might go. This was This was a nice twenty nineteen eleventh round prep selection by the Pirates. I think. Yeah, a good little developmental story, I think. And then, man, I'm sure you've probably heard me talk about Dario Lopez in the past. I was pretty excited for his twenty twenty three and then he busted up his knee before it even started and missed the whole year. He's still I don't know. He'll probably start in Higa

again, is my guess. I don't know, maybe at least for a little while. He's an interesting bat with some power and I think good contact skills. I don't know. I've heard that he's awful defensively. I don't know if it's I don't know if I'm quite that dramatic about it. So I don't know where they'll stick him in the infield, if in the infield

at all. But a guy who really you could see evolved from his A ball days of being kind of a spray hitter, more so opposite field, but power to all fields, and then he became more of a pool hitter when he got to a ball or a high A. But I'm really interested to see him this year, and still very much not rostered along with Bowen too. Bowen was at one percent when I pulled him middle of September, and then we did have a former. He's obviously not with them anymore.

But Diego Castillo was a B side once upon a time. He made the big leagues, so maybe McAdoo can keep this nice little, nice little stretch going. What other bats may be caught your mind? Caught your attention, Matt. The only the one I wanted to mention was Trey Gonzalez. Yeah, he's a lefty outfielder for them, and what you do. He made it up to high this year, more speed over power, but interesting plate skills. He's not like a must follow for me, but just again,

like a slightly undersized player with good plate skills, you know. I like that kind of that kind of profile to project on. And I yeah, I don't feel strongly about him. I don't think there's even a regular here just yet. But if he puts on a little more power, the plate skills are good enough and he just needs to advance something else to be really

interesting. But I liked, I like the look of him. Yeah, he was on my short list due the one thing that's nice about the Pirates is that all of their A Ball games are broadcast in that league, so you can kind of watch a lot of these guys. Oh yeah, I watch a ton of Bradenton yep. And it's a good angle to watch pictures.

Thank thank god for Braidenton. Yeah, and like like you said, the angle not only is a good angle from from sort of directionally from setifield, they really zoom in, so like you get pretty good looking than the camera isn't the nicest, it's still you get really good looks at people, and you get like the primo supplement of having some stack cast stuff paired with it. Yeah, as you watch super nice. Yeah, I just I just wish the quality of players would be a little bit better at times.

I know one one of my guys that I kind of fell forward last off season based on some you know, behind the scenes scouting in quotes from Eric Longenhagen, he had said they'd gotten great data on this twitchy tooled out six foot four shortstop named your done Delos Santos for the Pirates. And so I picked him up in like a bunch of leagues and was super excited to see him. Watched him a bunch in Bradenton. He is awful, like maybe there is something still to come, but I could not be farther out on

him right now. He hit one homer on the year. I think I think it was just the one homer, but certainly one that was that was on video, and he like squeaked this pitch out that was middle middle like eighty nine mile an hour fastball right down the minute I barely got it out.

I was like, who, this is terrible. Yeah. Some of the scouts that I casually chat with from time to time, they've like given me some lists sometimes from like the DSL or whatever, like these are who we got as the top fifteen prospects from the DSL something like that, Right, And like, dude, half of those guys maybe even more like the next season can't like hit over two hundred in the complex and you're just like, I don't know what. Okay, all right, well, thanks,

thanks for the thanks for the list. So kind of interesting. I think in the DSL you got to listen to Baddler and kind of nobody else, Like, unless you're in the DSL getting something additional, the numbers are worthless almost. I mean, it's pretty much on par to me, maybe a little bit better. Like, hey, look at this guy down the road in Colorado here, he just hit five point fifty senior year of high school.

Like, okay, it doesn't mean he's good like in a professional sense, you know, but there's a couple other bats that kind of made my short list here for the Pirates. I don't know if I wrote this down wrong. I think I double checked it though. But they have this catcher first base guy who's in the complex and got a little bit run a ball, Omar al Alfonso, who is listed at nineteen twenty years old maybe now, but he was a twenty nineteen undrafted free agent Minnesota High school. Like,

is that the math even add up? Right? There? Is that even a thing? I don't know. Maybe that seems funny, I know, I know, so maybe something is miss labeled there. I don't know. This was more just kind of looking at some complex numbers and then turning him a little video on and he was kind of interesting. When we keep tabs there, I'd like to look at him at the plate. Another first base type that was down there who got promoted to Hya later was Nick Smillell.

He's a little bit older, sixteenth round pickout of Rutgers in twenty twenty two. He's a little bit interesting. He hit. He had eleven home runs in two hundred and seventy five played appearances this season. Gonna watch him a little bit. Another guy that came up from the complex, another first base corner outfield type as Merlyn val does. Interested to watch him a little

bit more. He hit well, He had six home runs in one hundred and eighty two played appearances, hit over three hundred, slugged over five hundred. Kind of liked the brief look of him. And then I wanted to ask you about Emmanuel Terrero, who I think I have him as zero percent roster, but I feel like he's been making some some top thirties. I wasn't like overly impressed. Seemed like a little speedy contact guy, maybe maybe with a little bit of pop, but I probably probably not really really your

type. But I was just curious if you watched him at all. Yeah, I did. You know he had a long run on that Bradenton teams, but the strike out rage just for what he was seemed to touch high. You know, if he was showing a little more power, it might be a little more excusable. But that's like getting close to danger zone. It's sort of about twenty six percent for a guy that isn't going to hit

for a lot of power. It's like probably limits his upside. But yeah, it could be could be an interesting follow Yeah, more more just guys I want to tune into next year sooner rather than later. Arms here last season I went with who did I go with? Oh, Carlos Yemenez, who got my attention down to a ball paired with some interesting stack cast stuff. But he did not pitch this year, so I don't know what the

injury was. No kind of physical right hand pitcher that seemed to have some pretty loud stuff, and I thought he he used it and commanded it fairly well for a I don't know if he was a teenager twenty year old at the time, but he only nine point two innings this season, so I'm interested in watching him. I think most of those innings, if not all of them, were in the complex, but I want to check in on him early next year. They have this guy, Wilburd Dotel who's been interesting

to me the last couple of years. Mid nineties fastball. I've seen him get it up to ninety nine and he's got secondaries that look like they have bite. But this guy just doesn't strike anybody out. I don't know. It's just funny how that works sometimes, Matt, So I don't know. He's just a bit of a mystery, just kind of interesting watch. And then this season, I'm gonna go with a guy who the time in September

was not created yet in fan tracks, and that's nineteen year old Alessandro Ercolani, who was an international free agent signing out of San Marino, which I think is like a country inside of Italy or something like that. But I'm not mistaken Ercolani interesting. Initially he was. He was added to whatever the AFL roster and I had seen I'm guessing that I think it was Baseball America. Somebody had labeled him as having one of the best sliders coming into the

AFL. Now, he never appeared in the AFL. He never appeared in af and I don't think he I don't I don't think. I think he was taking off the roster or something. I don't know, and in part maybe it had something to do with injury. I think injury probably played a role in why he was there too, because he missed a large chunk of the season. He's good size, and think they got him listed at like six two point eight. He's a teenager, but I wouldn't like he's already

kind of bowl physically. I don't know how much projection is left, but like over after he came back from his injury. Over his last thirty nine and two thirds innings eight starts, he had a two ninety eight ERA, one point twenty five whip, eight point ninety five k per nime, two point nine eight walk per nime, three strikes at sixty four percent. He did give up six home runs and thirteen earned runs. Besides all that, I just I liked. I liked the look of him walk right on.

The whole season was a little bit over four per nine, struck out a little bit over the fastball. Put a little bit of stat cast stuff that I was looking at, which isn't a sample of his whole season. There they have his fastball averaging like ninety three ninety four, but I saw him get it up to ninety seven ninety eight per the Bradington broadcast, which I think is fairly accurate. But he throws a couple of different fastballs per back

cast, the curveball, change up, slider they even label harder. But you know who knows with some of that stuff. He left the total of sixty five innings and yeah, I don't know. Man. He's a young, good looking pitcher who they say the slider. The slider is supposed to be pretty quality. Now I know, it's like CSW isn't real crazy on that. But again, that's not like the whole sample. I don't know

if that was taken before the injury or after. But like we were talking about Bradenton, you get a good angle of the looks and you know he's pitching the different sides of the plate and landing his offerings. Now, the fastball, I think he can leave it over the middle of the play a little too often, especially when he's trying to play it up in the zone, which you know is definitely a thing for a lot of pictures as they're

developing. But Alessandro Ercolani not without some excitement here, probably the most exciting picture that I'm talking about tonight. For me, He's not one I watched at all, So that's that's that's a follow for me. I think there was definitely some progression as the season went on, and he doesn't really look nineteen though, But I don't know if Italians lie about their age. There's

something interesting going on with the Pirates pitching development. You know, they've had a lot of success stories, even guys like Quinn Priester, who I've never really been a fan of. I actually think they've turned him into a potentially interesting arm. And you know, he was pretty highly drafted and well thought of, but he had sort of a long developmental curve in the miners where he showed a lot of poor stuff before where he is now, which I

think is like a he might be an interesting major league starter. Their top end of their organization, I think, is full of guys that I would happily roster and dynasty Jared Jones, Thomas Harrington, Anthony Solimento, Burrows, those guys, huh, Mike Burrows. Burrows for sure, I really like, you know, obviously injured this year, but a big fan of Burrows.

And so I wonder if there maybe should get a little more credit on the pitching development side than they do, because that's a lot of guys from a variety of backgrounds that they've turned into what I think of as like actual

major league caliber starters. Yeah, and even when you like like some of the guys I was mentioning, I feel like every time you turn on Braden's in, even if you're not looking to watch a certain picture and you're just clicking around there seems to me there's always somebody you're like, oh, there's a little a little juice to this guy. I feel like there's also good

to identifying some some talent. Yeah. One of the guys that seems to be there pop up Brandenton arm this year was Michael Kennedy, And you know, I know some people just absolutely stuffed him. And for an eighteen nineteen year old arm in high A or low A, I don't really get that excited about those guys, especially when they run a thirteen percent walk rate.

But again, if you look at it in the lens of Pittsburgh's overall pitching development, I wonder if you might round up on that, and maybe that kind of excitement is actually warranted. So he's certainly when to watch, although I think he's already got a little more helium than we usually talk about. But I say all that to talk about a guy that hasn't really wowed statistically

and is one that I'm sure you've heard of, but I think a lot of people haven't really given much thought to. And my selection here is po U Chen. He's a Taiwanese arm and I know you've mentioned you've got a guy who turns you onto the Taiwanese players that come over. And I don't think he's really made any kind of noise in Dynasty circles up to this point. Yeah, I've got him as zero percent owned in Dynasty, not ranked on anybody's list that I could find, And he's been just okay the past

couple of years. He was a international signee in twenty twenty and then didn't throw much in twenty twenty one, and then had a full season in Bradenton last year, ninety eight innings of solid ball there but just didn't jump off the page. But at Greensboro this year, he threw twenty five games, twenty four starts, one hundred and nineteen and two thirds innings pitched, struck out over nine per nine and three point two walks for nine, So solid

K and BB. And she'd think like, Hey, that's not bad and not a crazy babby. You know some grounders, you know, but it's not crazy. Still, nobody's talking about him, and I'm like, huh, this is interesting, And so I watched him pitch, watched a couple of his like mediocre stars arts, of which he has a few, and the reason that people don't really talk about him is he's got kind of a homer problem. His fastball is not plus. You know, he's like maybe

in the low nineties. I don't think I saw a good velocity this year, but last when I when I saw it last year, he was like ninety to ninety three. But it doesn't seem like it plays up really. He commands it, okay, you know, attacks the zone with it, but I think he gets a hit too. But his plus pitch is his split change up, so it's you know, I think he kind of holds it as a split grip, but he rolls over it like a change up. So it's that's his best pitch. But when he misses with it,

people hammer it. So he gave up. I think the most homers in his league this year in HIA among qualified starters. So he definitely had a bit of a homer problem. Like you just go through his name logs, that part doesn't help you there. It doesn't it plays up for and I wondered if that had something to do with it. But he had a homer problem on the road too, Like just reading through his game log his last start homer, second to last start to homers his last start away in Rome,

which it doesn't play well for Homer's gave up a homer. He just like two hommers here, Homer there. It just he gives up so many homers. But watching him, I was intrigued by the skills in and especially the split change, like it's an actual plus pitch. I don't know if I want to hang much if that's his only plus pitch, but if the Pirates can coax anything better out of his slurvy curveball, which I didn't love.

You know, the shape seemed a little loopy to be a real slider, but it wasn't quite as like directionally downward as you would see for a true curveball, so it was kind of like a mid kind of in betweener pitch for me that I didn't really like its shape. But he had some great outings the National's High affiliate in late July, seven innings, seven k's,

of course a homer, but only one walk. He had a short outing against Boston's High team, which had Roman Anthony and a couple of other decent prospects, and he went four and two thirds and punched out twelve with two walks and two singles, so he mixed in a couple of outings that you're like, wow, this is actually pretty good. Again that Boston lineup he dominated in June six innings eight k's, one walk or a homer as well, but he mixed in some good outings here and there. There's just

a lot of homers to this guy, and the control seems middling. Like he did better as the season went on, I think as far as limiting walks and getting his strikeouts, but I think he can lose his command a bit and work deep into counts. You know, too many balls, too many uncompetitive pitches, and really with the one plus pitch, I'm not as excited about him as some of the other arms we've talked about, but it's

he's an interesting guy, and in this organization. I wonder whether we might see the stuff playoff even more as he gets up into double A next year. Well that, uh, that segues kind of nicely into the Cardinals here because my B side arms selection for the Cardinals is also Taiwanese and that's chen Way Lynn who I think that that would make it make it our third Taiwanese

B side selection, right Awesome? Yeah, But I think I'm just gonna he's technically a first year player this year because he signed in July, so I'm just gonna save him for that episode. I did write about him a little bit in the Dynasty dugout history here hasn't been super great. Stuck with a bat I shouldn't have stuck with for too many years who's out of baseball

now. That was Patrick Romery, who was a prep guy that interests me, but uh, in the last last year, I went with Jeremy Reeves, who is a plus shortstop whose bat is not super exciting, but I did see he was in the AFL. I think he did some things at least started off pretty hot. But I don't have a ton of fantasy excitement with Jeremy Reeves. He's still quite young. I just don't know if the bats are going to get very exciting, but I do think he has a

glove that could get him a major league opportunity. And then I went with Alexia Decernia, who we talked about during the draft episode. So I don't know. Maybe I don't really have a whole lot to say here. The Cardinals, the organization as a whole. I think there's some interesting stuff going on here. I like a little more of what's happening on the hitter side,

I think than the pitchers side. Overall, you know guys that were a little bit under the radar, they're sort of turning them into I think, really interesting names that you should pay attention to in Dynasty. Obviously, you know at the top of the list, like Victor Scott the second I

think you know, ninety five steals. He's a plus center fielder. He's gonna play in the bigs, and that steals should definitely make you interested in your categories in rot leagues, especially considering he's not a zero with the bat Otherwise, Mason Win, I think he's going to be a major league shortstop.

I'm not super excited about him for fantasy as far as impact goes, but no, certainly going to I just I'm not sure that he's gonna steal enough to be a threat on the bases and an asset there, and personally just don't think he's going to hit that many homers. Like he might settle into a fifteen to twenty homer bat, but if it's only ten steals at shortstop, like that's maybe interesting, but he's going to play in the bigs, and that, of course is as valuable. He's solid rather than outstanding

for me. But guys like Luken Baker, he wasn't on anybody's radar a year ago and turned in a monster year with a ton of power and it's real. You know, we'll see how that plays as as a corner guy, first base only guy. And he's obviously pretty well blocked in Saint Louis, But it seems like for you power focused guys like he might get some DHT bets for them too, or as as a trade piece, you know, something interesting. So I found a bunch a lot of their arms,

like again just kind of boring. Yeah, a lot of a lot of soft tossers, like they're just searching for late career Adam Waynwright or something. I don't know. I still find Austin Love kind of interesting. Who was my pick last year, but he was another guy who got hurt. Did all did all of my b side arms from this division last year get hurt? I think? So he only loved but he's got kind of a weird, weird different arm action, probably more so more likely a reliever, But

I also like I almost went with Ian Biddell, who I've liked since his college days in Louisville. You know, it's interesting that so you got a college guy who gets drafted in twenty twenty, right, so twenty twenty one should be like his first pro year. I don't know. He pitched for a little while. Then he has, like Tommy Johnson, all of a sudden, you're three years down the road and this guy is twenty four years

old and he hasn't gotten past high A yet. Yep. That might make for a nice B side lack of attention, but I think the Dell is kind of interest in the combination of command and stuff, and that's my B side. Oh sweet nice, I'm glad. Yeah, yeah, he's he's he's my B side arm and I echo what you said. You know, the injury kind of hid or pushed him down any interests that anybody had might

have had coming out of a high profile college program like Louisville. But he reminds me a bit in approach of another guy that I had picked in Pearson Old his stuff. He doesn't have quite the level of precision that Ol does, but he attacks in a similar way. His slider is his main off speed pitch rather than a change up for like ols his, but you know, ninety one to four on the fastball. The slider seems like the gyro variety, you know, eighty one to four, but a lot of sharp

downward action. He also gets some whiffs on his change It's like eighty five to seven on the change up, So I'm not sure it has quite the separation that you like off of his fastball, and maybe that's part of what's limiting his strikeouts. You know, twenty seven percent strikeout at hi A for a guy's you know, twenty four it's like okay, but it's not outstanding. But yeah, I liked, I liked what I saw. It seemed like a picture again, not someone I'm super excited about. You know,

it's all without the like allergy to walks. You know, he had sort of average walk rates as opposed to double plus of old. But I liked. I liked what I saw from him, and also agree that the rest of the system just isn't that exciting for me. But that feels like a feels like a cardinal picture to me, like totally yeah, yeah, he's still just at one percent owned. And again I think he's still just getting going, but he seems likely to be locked into their double A rotation next

year, and you know, we'll see how it comes together. But of the pictures, I think he's on some list too. You know. I was, well, sometimes these guys get on the list but just don't get the popularity. And then that I didn't see. I didn't se him on Ba's right up or anything. So yeah, just looking at my little short list here for other bats, do you kind of let Jimmy Crook's potential to be a major league catcher? I don't know how exciting the offensive profile might

get, but yeah, I mean he had twelve home runs. I don't think he strikes out too much, slugs a little bit. Yeah. Pedro Payes is a guy that I've watched for a few years, and this guy has like massive, massive power, but it just doesn't really get to it too much. I don't have much hope that he's going to be any sort

of major league something. I was curious if you watched any RJ Jaeger Yeager I did, what did you think about He was a twenty twenty two un drafted free agent out of Mississippi State, but he was a little interesting in me, Like fourteen home runs, seventeen stolen bases from a corner infield guy is kind of interesting. I don't think he had two big Yeah, he only struck out thirteen percent of the time time like that. I may I may have picked him if I had not really liked I had Acernia so much.

Yeah, Jager's pretty interesting. He's the one that I worry a little bit about the age to level and position. Yeah, you know, yeah, he's probably first base only the powers like round down, so it's like, you know, he's probably not a twenty five homer guy, and so then it's like you're really gonna play if you don't have power and you're a first base only guy. That was that was my qualm with him. But I but he was alright, undrafted guy like that. He's not like necessarily

shattering the statuet. He's got a lot of guys will have to jump. And this was the thing with the Cardinals minor league organization is it looks like a lot of average kind of guys. And I don't even say that in a bad way, in it like you need these guys to be a real major league team. Unless you're the Braves and you lock up nine stars for

less than their worth for forever. Like you have to fill out a roster like this, you know, not in the Jerry Depoto way where you can like mash two of them together and turn them into a plus player like he seems to be trying to do with five of the Mariners positions. But you need to fill a roster out and give four hundred plate appearances to, you know, a guy like pree To or somebody like Jaeger, if you know

he pulls it together. Like those are the kinds of guys that can fill out our roster really nicely, either on the back of a forty man or as a bench bat, and not be a minus when you put them in there. The Cardinals have a ton of those guys, like a guy that I've long really liked in Buddy Kennedy they signed offseason or traded for. I

forget. He's bounced around from Arizona to Oakland now to Saint Louis, and he's a classic Saint Louis kind of hitter, right, Like he doesn't strike up very much seventeen point five percent of the time, but walks a ton hits a ton of line drives and at triple A this year ran a one twenty four WRC plus with like not good defense, but you plug him in at second or third or first or whatever, and he's gonna not be a

black hole in your lineup. And that is a lot of the Cardinals guys are like this, like Preato, Capriniac done men Linger, Like all these guys are guys who have made it to double A or triple A and seem to project as like slightly below average bats but play a few different positions. And that's sort of like the Cardinals way it seems. As far as development, I don't think any of these guys, with the possible exception of Scott

are going to be a fantasy star. And again, for Scott, it's because he has a seventy or eighty grade tool in his speed and that might like play way up. But everybody else seems pretty like roster filler to me.

The guy that I picked for my B side selection here is Mike Antico made it to double A. He's on the older side. There's a little bit of swing and miss. You know, it's not bad. Twenty three percent and a ten percent walk rate. Again, those are fine, but fifty two steals, which for a guy who also popped eighteen homers, Okay, that might be something, especially in a roto or categories head head league,

Like, I'm not thrilled by it. He's not someone that was really on my short list for like our draft, for example, But fifty two steals is impressive kind of no matter where you are, and when the rest of the approach isn't awful, you look at that and you're like, Okay, maybe there's something here. So Mike Antico, he's an outfielder again, made it up to double A for the Cardinals, But worry a little bit that the impact just isn't going to be there as far as the homers go.

Although the steels do seem seem pretty legit. I just think the bat might not carry him. And obviously, with ten other guys with somewhat similar profiles already in the organization, it might be tough for him to see playing time. And I think that's I think that's solid. I didn't realize. I didn't realize he stole on many bases. Yeah, it's not totally out of character for him, you know, thirty seven oh he hit sixty seven over last year. You know, split between AFL this year or was that

last year that he was that was last year. I don't think he was there this year. I feel like he was. I feel like he was there. AnyWho, I think hence, uh huh, what do you think

the percent chances that he is a major league starter long term? Under five percent? Under five? Okay? Yeah, all right, I mean I'm I don't know, thanks for answering that. I hate questions like that. I don't know how to answer those, but uh yeah, I think I think I'm with you there. I think it's very unlikely. Look, I don't actually have those percent percentages locked and loaded in my head. I chose

five percent to demonstrate my disdain for that kind of picture. Like, I mean, I know that some people love his stuff, and I've watched enough of him, but I'm like, yeah, I kind of get it. Like you can light up the radar gun. You look at how skinny he is and how loose his arm action is, and you're like, oh, there's going to be more or here. But kind of like I asked you about Parks, if his stuff is so good, why doesn't he strike people?

Out and tink Kents has a career minor league strikeout rate of like twenty four percent or something. Yeah, it's like, look, if his stuff is so good, where are the cays He's facing shitty hitters, right, you know, like they're supposed to be so much worse in the minor leagues and he's just not punching anybody out. You know, he's he's doing a little bit better this year with limiting walks. I think the walks were a little bit higher. I guess I was just on the complex where they were

a little bit higher. But yeah, the walks ticked up, but less than a strikeout per nine. It's not a heavy ground ball profile. I just like I watch him and I'm just I don't see what's there. I

don't see why everyone is so in love with it. So, you know, it's like it's like arm talent, right, Like there's so much love for like raw arm talent, and I I'm just not sure it's even warranted there, Like the velocities are good, but the shape or something about it must be minus because he doesn't get whiffs with it, at least not compared to how he should. But that does seem to me like a type that dynasty owners will flock to. And those are the arms that make me the

most nervous. You know. Yeah, he's twenty and he threw ninety three innings this year, so like he's not going to give you any value at all next year for sure, Like best case scenario frame, he goes great and he makes the major leagues, he'll be up for a cup of coffee at the end of the year. Like he's not. He doesn't have the

innings to hold down a rotation spot for any given length of time. And yeah, he was up in double A for a good portion of the year, but it wasn't pretty five fip over that eight seven eight k per nine. I just see that kind of production and I'm like that is so generic. And then you watch him and you're like, okay, well the fastballs running up there at ninety eight, but people are fouling it off or hitting it, Like why are we excited about this? And yeah, Slider's got

a ton of movement, But if he's not getting what's with it? Why do I care? Like either they're seeing it out of the hand or that movement profile is actually not that good even if it looks impressive on occasion, So I'm just way down. Like I think Hence and Mizerowski and a couple of other guys are in in like that same range and sort of the fifties for a number of prospect rankings. I think BA has them in similar ranks.

I think Clegg has them in similar rankings. And you know, I've said before that I just think that that group is way too highly ranked. You know one of them is going to hit, but you do not know which one, and the rest of them are going to be relievers or not make the majors. And that's that's how I feel about hens is that he's in that range. And it's certainly not like for me trying to for a lot of high probability arms. That's not one that I'm ever gonna roster.

Yeah no, Yeah, And like I've said before, I think you've done a really good job of identifying guys that do have a high probability of making the big leagues and potentially locking down a rotation spot. And you've also done a good job of highlighting why dynasty folks probably aren't interested. Yep, I don't know. Yeah, a bunch of steppers and all you all you haters out there, like, uh, maybe you just gotta gotta get a little bit more mature and vanilla, if you will, and take the guys that

are higher probability starters. It's gonna be. It's sort of an interesting experiment that we're running here in the kinds of guys we're both talking about in our approach, and like, I think it will be really interesting to see a year from now or two years from now, what the path for some of

these guys has been. Like just talking about the five arms that I talked about today, Bdell, Chen and Cardona, I think those three like might just absolutely not be anything at all this time next year, Like they go up a level and it actually turns out their stuff isn't going to play, and Keen keeps giving up two homers per nine or whatever it is, and they all are basically done, Like they're not going to make the major leagues. But I feel like one of them is going to turn into a back

end kind of starter, you know. And then Henderson, like I'm genuinely excited about but again he's done it just at such low levels, Like who knows what the higher levels hold. Yeah, but I'm pretty interested to see to see how that grows. It makes me curious, like say a thirty teen points lead, where you have like thirty minor league spots right and starting

pitchers right, there's only so many to go around. I'm just curious how it might work if you just loaded up your whole minor system these guys that you can identify as you know, potentially a higher likelihood of becoming major league starters, and then just using that to supple whatever you need when they started hitting the bigs, because people are always in need of pitchers in those kinds

of leagues always. Maybe I'll experiment and try it somewhere. All right, nah and all central not maybe not quite or at least we didn't get quite as excited as the past divisions about our overall selections. But I don't know, I don't know. I liked my arms in this division, you know, yeah, yeah, by Henderson, but it's like I think he's an actual guy. But I gotta go watch. I was telling you before we started recording that they all had something in common, and it's like a very

change up heavy approach. You know, four of the five of them, their plus pitch is a change up, and even the one who who that's not their their plus pitch in Biddell, it's his slider, but it's still his change up is decent. So it was I was in going through this like that was not on purpose at all, but all of them after watching them, was like, they all have really good change ups and Henderson is by far the best. Like Henderson's I think is already very good and we'll

see, we'll see if he can keep it going. Obviously dominating and a ball is one thing, and continuing to do it as you go up the levels it's harder to do. But I was as excited about him as any a ball arm for sure. This year my theme with the arms pretty much

was really raw. Yeah yeah, really raw with exciting stuff, which isn't really my m O. But when you're talking about potentially free pickups or something like that, I'd much rather take a stab at one of those types down here than you know, Misselerowski's. They pay the premium for Miserrowski here. So that will wrap up this episode of the Prospect. Besides podcast next week maybe we will be doing what al least. You can follow me on Twitter

at Pitching specs. Don't follow gru here. I'll try to turn you into one of his evil doing minions. Hey, you took all the short kings tonight. I did What am I doing? You're rubbing off on me in a bad way here, but uh, we'll talk to you next time. Till then do well. Audio About five miles an hour riding to his head, he hopped down first with the lumpb on in his face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole second face with greatst speed. He wasn't born, but he had the dirty Yes uniform.