Episode 18: First Year Player Arms and Things

Not five miles an hour riding to his head. You have it down first with the lumbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole second face with gradest be he wasn't born, he had yes uniform. All right. Welcome to episode eighteen of the Prospect B Sides Podcast. I am Nate Handy, joined again by the four eyed rook Matt. How are you forget it? I'm even better than the three eyed raven. I'm a four eyed rook. So we're looking into the past, we're looking into the future.

We're prospecting for your B sides. Such a mystic deep cut there, I guess it's not that big of a deep cut. Game of Thrones was like the most popular show on television for like a decade. So yeah, my wife was really into it. I got too confused. It was way too too many characters. Yeah, we loved it. It was a fun, fun watch for us. But the ending was left a little bit of a sour taste. That's what That's what I hear. It seems to be

the consensus opinion there. But AnyWho, first year player Arms, Matt, first year player Arm episode. I think there's a lot of contradiction, at least for me thinking about and how I play this dynasty game, how I play this Dungeons and Dragons baseball, and think about pictures in first year player drafts more so than hitters. Your league format, league size, or the length of your your spec list and things of that nature matter significantly more in

my opinion. Would you agree with that? I definitely agree with that. Like, this is even more than in your hitter evaluations. You got to know your league format really well for this. Yeah, to the point of, like, there are lots of leagues where you should draft no pictures in FYPD, even the ones that are at the very top of the list. To others where like if it's a you know, points league where you've got a ton of minor spots, like maybe you do want to bump up some

of the some of the pictures in your fypds. But yeah, even that I think changes the evaluation of the kinds of pictures you might want to go after too, so very much. It's a big what if you know what, if your league was this, then maybe one arm is more interesting than another. Totally agree, And I'd like to get a little bit more specific with some of that for me. The first thing that you want to know

about is what does your league define as a prospect picture? And in my opinion, there are certain formats and rules with that that kind of make pitching prospecting kind of pointless. Like if you have to have your picture on the roster on your major league roster when they're called up, like forget about it. I think that just totally sort of ruins the demographic. And even more so, I know a lot of leagues probably use the fifty inning pitched rule.

I want to bump that up. I mean, how many guys are would you say, like fully major leaguers after fifty innings pitched. There's a lot of up and down in the beginning process for pitchers. So no, so true. That is so true, And I think is a big part of why I end up fading a lot even of upper miners arms, because in a lot of my leagues, I'm sort of in a competitive cycle where

I want to win every year. And if a guy loses miners eligibility and now I have to carry him on my active roster and he's gonna have some growing pains, isn't going to get a full shot might bounce between starting and relieving. That's not a guy even in really deep leagues that I'm interested in, right, So, I find that the league, like the one that we're in in the show that league, having a much longer leash for your

minor league eligibility is really helpful, especially for evaluating pitchers. You might be more interested in holding a guy for a couple of years, because even on the top pitchers in baseball, a lot of them took a few years to get there. And if that's kind of a fringe guy after promotion to major league status, you know, maybe you let go of them too early, or that's when their value is at its lowest. On the flip side, that's also when you can pounce in trades on those on those leagues too.

I do blame just sort of standard dynasty formats for some of this pitching speculation hate that's out there. Also, I think it's very different if you can pick up prospects or that during the season. I would dare say that in a lot of leagues, especially the smaller types, if you can pick up prospects during the season, I think that greatly reduces at least my motivation to

roster a lot of pitching prospects. I think you also need to pay attention to what the rest of the league is doing, because even in formats like that, even though I may shy away from from rostering a lot of pitching specs, if the rest of the league is shying away from it, like I'm in one right now, I'm kind of a hoarder. I'm hoarding the bigger name pitching prospects that I want to explore a serious relationship with Matt that

I feel comfortable getting into the long haul with. And I think that's something you have to think about too when you're looking at the profiles of what pitchers you're getting into. There's different types that I would want to commit to, and very much high brown names like we've talked about a little bit that I don't want to commit to seriously, I might play some of the game within

the game with those arms, and maybe we'll talk about one tonight. I think you're the league size, like, but if you can pick up prospects in say a thirty teamer, I think that does change a little bit though, because of how massive that league size is. I mean, I found in playing a thirty teamers just kind of completely not doing it. That didn't help me. I found myself very short with pitching options after a year or two, and trading for them can be very expensive, especially in points leagues.

If you're trying to get somebody who's a present day contributor in a thirty teen points league as a pitcher, expect to pay quite a lot for that. And prospects that can be had cheaply a year maybe a year and a half later, if they're now performing in our stalwart in the rotation, you're going to have to give up way more than you would expect given say just your basic prospect dynasty rankings. And then if you're in I am not in

one of these, but I'd very much like to be. But if you're in a large league where you cannot pick up prospects during the season, I feel like then you really need to invest in some I would be very check about which ones I select in those types of leagues, but I think there you have to. That's interesting. Why why do you say that? What's what changes about the format there that makes you place a bigger premium on getting a pitcher in the draft, And say a thirty teamer where you can't pick

up prospects in season, where else are they going to come from. They'll come from trades, right, that's always an option. They'll come from waivers. Now, like you know, say, who would who would be a good example. Let's say maybe Cole Reagan's wasn't rostered last year, and you're in this theoretical thirty I imagine, Well, I guess maybe maybe that's not

the greatest example. Maybe Andrew Abbott would be a better example. Sawyer gives him long as a real example, like he was not rostered late into the season in my thirty teamer and one of my thirty teamers, and I picked him up. But to your point, like in my experience in smaller leagues like that, there's somebody who's holding a large amount of their fab just for

those situations. Mmm mm hm. So I think it's gonna be very, very tough, and there's still a lot of volatility with those those types of any young arm coming into the league. So I think I think a league like that is just more like Major League Baseball, where you've got to try to invest, you've got to try to grow your own I think to stay pace with the leaders of the league. I don't know, do you think

I'm off base there? I don't think you're off base. I was trying to think about it in terms of the couple of leagues that I'm in where you can't pick up prospects during the league or during this season, and that way, sorry, go ahead, Well, just in those leagues where the only way you can acquire them is either in the draft, which is pretty limited in the couple of leagues that I'm in in terms of the number of rounds and the number of minor spots, or when they debut then it's a

waiver game where you can drop a bunch of fab on them in waivers. And in this sixteen teamer that has those rules, so not even that deep of a league it was, and it's a points league, so it really does favor pitching. And that's the league where I really pushed up some of the performing arms last offseason and drafted Fot and Gavin Stone with like my second and third round picks in that league. And I would say it didn't really pan out for me yet, but I wonder if it will in a year

or two. Whereas I don't know, it's just again neither of them was very good in their initial call up, and so maybe the price was down and maybe I could have traded for them. It's hard to say, but I just mean I did place a bigger premium on some arms in that league, partly because it was going to be harder to acquire pitching. I thought, Yeah, I just know that in thirty teamers, kind of no matter what the format, you never have enough arms, and you can always get

something at the trade table if you think you have an extra one. Now, maybe somewhat conversely, in a smaller league where you can not pick up prospects, I would almost maybe never draft a pitcher, or just stick to the very high brow sort of guys like a Skeins or something like that.

You know, I currently roster three pitchers in my sixteen teamer that you cannot pick up prospects in season in my thirty teams, Yeah, and one was inherited and he's just still there now in my thirty teen points where you can

pick up prospects. And this might play into more of the nature of the league and league mates and sort of the way that I have tried to gobble up all of the breakout pictures early, I'm like rostering probably fifty to fifty arms to bats, and to be honest, I would almost like to up that a little bit. That might be a little bit extreme, But I also question, like, is it really that much more worthwhile to hoard more bats than arms? Like, again, it just depends on your league and

one of the components of that. It's not just the format, it's also your other owners. Are they interested in trading? What are their preferences? You know, I just made a trade in one of my leagues where I had a couple of owners really after Ben Brown, who is someone that you and I had both talked about that we were kind of down on. Maybe the Cubs actually think he's a reliever. He had some commands issues last year, some injury issues, and then when he came back after injury, was

only pitching one or two innings in relief. So I was kind of down on him. But because he still was on a couple of top prospect lists, these guys were like, no, this is the key piece in this trade. And I'm like, really, like, I have a bunch of other arms that I think are more interesting than Ben Brown, But man, if that's the sticking point, like yeah, I'll trade you Ben Brown, no problem, and so like that sort of it really depends on are is

there a market for that? Like can you find willing trade partners? Because there are other people in that league who have no interested in minor league arms. They're only interested in high upside DSL or complex league level bats that might turn into the next Acuna or Tatise or somebody with the superstar ceiling, and they don't care at all about the boring back of the rotation types that I

think I end up being drawn more too. So that's another piece that plays into it, is like knowing what's the propensity of your league for trading for that kind of picture? To me too, there's also a real life sort of musical chairs component to it, like what's more numerous, what's more abundant hitters who get real opportunities at an everyday role or pictures with a real opportunity to get into a rotation and stick if they do well. What year was

this, twenty twenty one? I think it was twenty twenty did a little little research where we compared MLB draft histories and NFBC draft histories, and one of the bigger takeaways to me was that there wasn't a huge difference between college arms and college bats as far as reaching, at least one time peaking to certain NFBC ADP heights. The difference was pretty nominal once you got passed. I don't know what was it fifty picks or so or halfway through the first

round or whatever it was. And now, granted, none of that says anything about sustainability, right we see, just generally speaking, on a macro level, like hitters probably sustain their jobs or their value there more so than hitters, or more so than pitchers, right, I think we see a lot of pitchers who can have one bang or season and then kind of kind

of drift off more so than hitters, do you think so? Or even college arms that there ended up, you know, being in the system for a little while and then converted to relief two and then they're right a reliever, even one that sticks around in a cruise war. But you think about a guy like Andrew Miller or somebody like that, who was highly touted arm coming out of the draft, great college career, couldn't really start in pro ball. They gave him a shot game, a shot but then he hung

around for like fifteen years as a reliever. So I think that happens a bit more than with high schoolers, who I think it's more likely that it's

stuff regression or injury and bust and then never make it. Just looking at one of the charts from that research, and it goes from draft pick number one to one hundred, and the sort of curve and the decline of just the probability of making the MLB with college bats and college hitters is pretty much the same, and with prep bats and prep hitters is pretty much the same. But now mind you that this is from MLB drafts, what two thousand and one to twenty fifteen, and I do think I do tend to believe

that things are a little bit different now. When you're talking about like prep pitchers at that time, it would take almost five years until they made the BIGS, whereas college pitchers were at like three. I think we could probably speed that up a little bit now, though. Do you think some teams definitely are I still think there's that kind of standard progression that you see the

teams use. It'd be interesting too to look at it on the international side, because that's where I wonder if that it's even more pronounced, just as they have to make the Major League, so the forty man within six years. Otherwise it's there are free for all, and so I think their bus rate might be higher because some of those guys get rushed. I've seen that theory bandied about before. But I do think some teams are pushing some of

their high schoolers faster. I mean even at the top of the draft with Baltimore and Holiday just last year like that, they've pushed him so fast he's in Triple A already and it's going to be in the major leagues next year. So I think there is a little bit more of if a guy's ready, we're just going to keep pushing him. Atlanta has done this with pitchers too, and they are like, you were drafted last year, Well, we're going to keep pushing you up and see where you make it, Like

Waldrop made it up to Triple A this year. Looking at some of this stuff now, great, So this is very loose science. I wouldn't even use science divining rad type of just rough guestimate idea with a lot of imperfections in the process. But during that time MLB picks twenty one through fifty just kind of across the board. College hitters, prep hitters, college pitchers, prep pitchers all pretty much had the same sort of results as far as peak

NFBC ADP. So I do think that you get to a point in the MLB draft, however, you want to look at that the talent in the draft where it becomes just pretty much even across the four demographics as far as fantasy potentials or as far as sort of a macro sort of sense of odds.

But now I will say there were some demographics that I found doing this stuff that were kind of interesting, Like you're sort of smaller named college infielders were pretty much just as if not a little bit more successful than like your mid first round prep arms of that time period. Your college arms that were MLB picks twenty one through fifty may have been in sort of vanilla, if you will. As far as fantasy success, we're equally good shots as hitters

in that range. And you know from this sample, a prep pitcher drafted twenty one through fifty in the MLB draft had twice reached top twenty five fantasy heights out of one hundred and fifty six. I don't think it's any secret

that folks think that drafting prep pitchers can be very fruitless. But Matt, I dare say, and folks like Jeff Ponce and Trevor Hooth at the time that I did this, we're kind of trying to tell me that they thought things were different now with prep arms, and I tend to agree with them. I am much more likely today to take a shot on a prep arm than I was then, especially this draft class. I don't know if you

took a look, but I shared a little list I got. As of right now, I've got about ten arms that I would think about seriously sort of committing to and getting into a long haul commitment with, and four of those were prep arms. I don't think a list like that has ever looked like that to me, has been split that evenly. Are you more likely?

Are you with me? Or not so much at all. I'm generally speaking just out out on the ideas of drafting a pitcher in FYPD, and I say that mostly from the context of the leagues that I play in, and so my deepest league, this thirty teamer, where we have something like fourteen hundred prospects rostered or something. I was just looking through my pitching staff

minor league pitching staff. It's Julian Agiar, Matt Canterino, David Festa, Jacob Lopez, Cole Phillips, Lion Richardson, Ywander Suarez, Reedban Scooter, Brandon Walter, Ricardo, Jan Christian Scott. I acquired Canterino, Festa, Phillips, Richardson, and I think those are the only ones via trade. All the others were available at some point on the waiver wire in that league.

And again, some of this is like timing when you pick people up and when you're in and so b siding has helped with some of this, like I picked up Suarez, Van, Scooter, and Scott all pretty early on in the year after I was starting to look at like who's kind of rocketing up with a great K minus BB or who has an interesting line in sort of a small sample, and having a few roster spots to be able to do that, I was able to pick those guys up. Agiar,

I think was on your recommendation last year. Those guys are all I think pretty valuable or going to be really valuable. I drafted none of them. So I think that that's my general philosophy is that even in really deep leagues, you're going to be able to find valuable pitchers in your waiver wire, and it's a lot harder, and that they pop up so much faster than hitters. We talked about this a while ago, that it is really hard

to fake being a good hitter. It's pretty easy to see through a high babb a crazy out out of this world homer to flyball ratio, or like, oh, you're having a ton of success, but you don't walk and you're striking out a lot, Like is that power really going to carry you through those things? The things that make really really good hitters are very difficult to fake and for the most part, relatively easy to see. So your

good hitters are easier to evaluate. Like we've said this on B siding before, that it's getting harder to find under the radar hitters because general fantasy community is getting better at saying who is a good hitter and what's valuable, and so are the I think public prospecting lists, especially the folks doing it on

the fantasy side. You know, they think about Jeff Ponce and Dylan White, like the stuff that they've done in BA about taking Jeff's experience in the scouting world and all the depth knowledge that BA has there and applying Dylan's scout the stat line type of formulation. I think they're doing a really good job of identifying some of the under the radar prospects really fast, and then they

aren't under the redar anymore. On the pitching side, though, one offseason at tread or at drive line, one pitch tweak from a smart organization, a change in pitch usage, like it happened so fast, and then Christian Scott pops out of nowhere and was like second in the minor leagues and K minus BB rate last year, and like he wasn't anybody like that, was not on any fantasy lists. He wasn't on an FYPD top one fifty when

his draft year happened. So for me, like Christian Scott's one of my favorite arms in the miners, I think he's going to be a really good major leaguer, top fifteen maybe arm in all of the minor leagues for me, And he was free in this deep, pretty competitive league. So all that to say that in general for fypds, I'm shying away from pitchers, and especially prep pitchers because the opportunity cost is so high, I think. So we definitely have done a lot of work and looked at a bunch of

these guys, so we do have some recommendations. But for me, like, it's unlikely I'm taking any of these guys in any of my draft. That's fair enough. So we'll just understand that you're a chicken and I am not. M Okay. It also has to do with it pitchers are terrible, and you know, hitters are the real athletes here, so well, you know, I dare say or chew on this. I don't think. Maybe I'm just fooling myself, but you know, people will talk about investing

in pitching prospect as being very volatile and all that. I feel like if you really watch a pitcher, I feel like a lot of that risk is mitigated if you really if you sit down and you watch all of Hidden Dana's you know, tublevised starts. Now, granted, who's got time to watch all of these guys, right, that's the hard part. But I feel pretty dang safe with some of my pitching investments because I know exactly what I'm getting into I might not have all the data and all that stuff, but

I know what kind of picture I'm talking about here. I think there's a lot of I don't want to say, maybe lies or untold parts of the picture when you look at spreadsheets of pictures, whereas I think spreadsheets for hitters tell a lot more truth than they do compare to pictures. Do you think

that's fair to say? I think it is because some of the things that are publicly available for hitters still remain really strong markers of success, right, Like even if you don't have their ninetieth percentile exit VLO, you still can get a pretty good sense for how much power is there, and a couple of views of their swing you can see a lot about how are they spraying

the ball right? The things with pictures. I struggle with this because I think, on the one hand, it's still so valuable to know their strikeout percentage and their walk percentage, and that that remains one of the very best predictors at any level for how good a pitcher is this going to be.

You can learn a lot more if you watch them and see how are they getting that, Like what's the pitch shapes, what's their go to pitches, Like you can learn a lot still by watching them, But I still wonder if we're missing some things when we're relying on stuff like how hard are they throwing or what's their spin rate, or like it's almost like, because we're getting some more specific numbers, we're over prescribing how good we think they are.

And I don't know if that's necessarily the right takeaway. And I still think you can find a lot of guys who are just stat sheet darlings as pitchers, and then you watch them and you're like, oh, I'm underwhelmed because the fastball's ninety and the changeup looks okay, he's not getting like crazy whiffs, like pitching ninja style swords, right, But that guy still might be really good because we don't have all of the information that teams do,

or we don't have all of that underlying data that tells us that actually that release point is unique, the approach angle is unique. Is actually getting outlier extension on top of good spin and those things. I think I've described it before with a guy like Reed Van Scooter, who I think just put up one of the best lines in full season baseball and still remains not ranked by a lot of people, and when he is ranked, it's ranked really low.

But I think that what he showed us with nine point eight six k's per nine and two point five walks per nine and a fifty seven percent ground ball rate at a great hitters park, we're missing something about his arsenal that we're he's telling us with the results, you know what I mean, like that k rate, that walk rate, that ground ball rate. Though even though we look at the stuff models that I've seen referenced about him that they're like, oh, it's underwhelming, it's not that good. This is a

back end kind of guy. I think we're missing something still about that, and we should buy into some of those statistics a little bit more. Yeah, fair enough, I know. I mean I've I've said this before, maybe not quite in this way. For me, I value actually watching pictures in games full season ball. And for me, it's like, if I don't feel like you're using your stuff, well I'm not. I'm not interested

in in an investment sort of way. Maybe I'll play some game within the game with that with that picture, but you need to show me that you are using your stuff. Well that's why I've always kind of been a stand offish with Kyle Harrison. Amazing stuff, right, great angle, all of these things. And I now, don't get me wrong, I think he has made improvements, but like early on in the in the Lowers, it was just throwing throwing your your good stuff up there loosely around the plate and

getting results. And like, yes, there is dynasty value on that guy, and yes he could turn into something large, you know, something very useful, very valuable, but that's just not the kind of guy that I'm gonna have a dynasty commitment with. And I'm okay with that, at least as of right now. I think my sort of process with all of that is going well, and I have very much upped my investment in pitching prospects

over the last couple of years. And to be honest, it's the only reason I have a decent team in a few leaks, because I have become relevant on the trade table with a lot of those Just one thing quickly, with that study from a few years ago, just because we're a few years into the future, a little part there was just discussing investing in a prep arm, a first round prep arm, you know, taking the at this time this draft, it was a Nick Bitsko. What is Nick Bitsko up

to these days? Anyways? I don't even know, but he was a popular either. He was a popular prep arm at the time, right, So it's just kind of postulating, Hey, what's a better bet? Do you take a Bitsco or a couple of deeper college arms? This example, I used the what was he the sixty sixth pick in the draft and the one hundred and twenty second pick in the draft. So who would you rather

have? Matt? The idea was take a first round pick, use a first round pick on Bitsco, or use two picks at the end of your draft on these two guys. Right, So what would you rather have right now? Would you rather have Nick Bitsko or Clayton Beeter and Ian Biddell? Definitely Beeter and Banel, Right, And you know, I'm sure there's examples from that draft class that wouldn't look so great as well. But I still do maintain you wrote this like two three years ago, right, Like that's

pretty pretty good. Yea great examples, But and I do think that there is if you can, if you can afford it, if you can make it work. An insect type approach to pitching prospecting that I think can work really well. And this is a small microcosm of how that, how that might go. AnyWho, enough of that, let's talk about some actual players.

Should we tell? Talk about some actual players? I guess I don't know if you saw I did add another tab to that Google back sheet that I had shared last week, forty arms I might draft in the right situation. Forty yeah, now, grants it. I don't know these names. I've got ten arms. Like I had mentioned earlier, that I would, depending on the format, depending on my situation, I would put some sort of value on use, some sort of valuable asset to sign up for the

long haul, just quickly. Paul Sken's noble Mayor, Thomas White, Rhet Lauder, Hurston Waldrup, Alonzo Treadwell, Chase Dolander, which if you want to take him completely off of your list because he's with the Rockies, I will not argue with you. Brandon Sprout, Blake Walters, and Steven Echavaria at Travaria at Travaria, for whatever that's worth. Now, I do not want to sit here and pretend like I am some well scholared individual on all

of these arms. I have ten pieces out of a two hundred piece puzzle. I'm trying to put a picture together here. I have spent a lot of time watching as much as I can. I don't know if what I think we came up with Matt fifty or there fifty six pitchers from the first year from this last draft class that had televised outings in full season ball this season, I watched every single one of those. Good for you, now,

not two great lengths. Some guys I turned on for one or two at bats, some I watched the whole inning, some I watched the whole outing. But now, granted, a lot of these guys put up like twelve innings on the season, so there isn't a lot to watch anyways, but at least just to get an idea, right, is there a Ricky

Titaman out there from a JUCO that got a little glimpse. Now I won't say that I found anything like that, but there are some names that I put on the back of this list of forty arms that caught my attention during that video dive, and a couple of them had already caught my attention. But they're my B side selections Matt that I have not talked about yet. Did you watch any Logan Evans of your Seattle Mariners? I did not.

Well, he is my Seattle Mariners B side selection for this year, so Logan Evans. I am not going to be drafting Logan Evans, but if you're in a very deep league where you feel like you have to invest in some arms, maybe an idea at the very end. He was a twelfth round pick out of Pittsburgh. He racks some killers spects, which I appreciate. He's a righty. He got in three games, twelve innings right, so very little to see. But what we did get to see I thought

was pretty impressive. Matt got a fastball that I think mid nineties, two different breaking balls. He mixes in a change up a little bit. I don't know if I shared gifts of these forearms I'm want to talk about in that sheet. But he gets my guy Cole Fontinelli on what I believe was a fastball slider crew ball slider. But the outings, I think there's two outings I think to watch with him, I just felt like looked like a decent arsenal and had some teeth on it. And that was enough to be

my mariner just watching that gift. Now he's got some nice run on that two seamer, I know, right, yeah, you know he was pitching to both sides of the play. I thought pretty well that outing And yeah, I don't know, like you just talked about the list of arms that you got for free that turned into guys cel Evans looks at the beginning next year, you never know. Let's get into Kaid Morris here. Kid Morris

is on my list that basically right after those ten arms. So if I'm in a deeper league, I might take a shot on rostering Kaid Morris. He was what a third round pick of the Mets this year out of Nevada at the time of the draft. I don't know why or how it came to be, but his name came up, and I started trying to bruise

YouTube and all that stuff and watch a little bit of Cad Morris. But when we talk about like he might just have a lot of qualities that I look for in pictures, right, I think he's got a decent to potentially above average arsenal as a whole sinker that he throws at ninety three A slider eighty two four Steamer ninety two, a change up and a curveball command might not be like, you know, I don't think we're talking towards Kirby here,

but I think there is some potential because he's he's like athletic and even though he's a bit funky, I think somewhat fluid in his funkiness, if that makes any sense. I like the landing spot with the Mets. I think the Mets, especially on the sort of command execution end of things, has had some success with some guys. And I very much liked his what

we got one look. I think in pro ball not the greatest angle at Saint Lucy, but I dig, you know, there's it's funny when you start to dig around on different systems arms, you'll start to see like different profiles and types where you're like, oh, yeah, they're trying to get like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of some cy young guy they had a few years ago or something like that. Right. I feel like the White Sox were always looking for like Chris Sale number two and stuff like

that. And I think there are some characteristics Morris that are are a bit like the Grom not in like necessarily the way that he looks on the mound, but just kind of the profile of offerings and the athleticism sort of letticism, the size that he might have. I watched Kid Morris too, and even found some of his highlight videos from college at Nevada, and I did

like what I saw. He didn't have a great year in his draft year, and the Mets still popped him in the third right, right, that's interesting, you know, mid major college, kind of underwhelming draft year, but still some things to like. You know, almost ten k's per nine walks were okay, And I think that this Arsenal might play up for ground

balls. I think they looking at the kind of sinker curveball. Both of them seemed like they got a decent number of grounders, and that maybe he could play that up as he kind of ownes his craft as he gets up in the levels. But he was one that I was actually I watched a little bit of him, was like, Okay, this might be interesting. He's become a little bit of a cheese ball to me, Like if we're talking about not spending high draft capital and plucking a few college arms at the

end. Cad Morris is kind of on the top of my list there for that sort of demographic and he's only I mean, he's rostered in what not a lot of percentage so low. Yeah, and you know you're still a third round pick. Is not a nothing? Would they pay him like six

hundred K, which isn't the most. Is probably a bit of a money saver in the third round, But yeah, kid Morris, I'm kind of into it as a cheap spec arm that I would draft in, you know, our thirty teen points league if we get to the end and there's nothing that I'm super into. Another first year player that's my official best selection is

Jaden Ham with the Tigers. I don't know if you've watched any Ham. It happened so Ham. The Tigers popped him in the fifth round. He's out of middle Tennessee State paid him about four hundred k. Excuse me, Kate Morris was six hundred and sixty seven thousand. It's a bit more than I had said. But with Ham, he's got the sort of IVB fastball that plays up in the zone really well, and he's got a breaking ball

to play that north south game. I don't know, if you're watching the video of that at all, there's a slider and I think he does tossing a change up from time to time, but I'm not really banking on that being a big part of his game. But we got a nice look at him in Bradenton, and yeah, I don't know, I just kind of

want to thank the Lord for Bradenton. I know, right, we did get a little stack cast stuff there, pretty small sample here, this ninety six pitches, but he threw the four seamer fifty seven times average v LO ninety three point three through the curveball times you lo eighty. Yes, change up was his third most used pitch. I mean in this short sample that

he got plenty of called strikes and whiffs. But yeah, another college arm that I would that I'd feel pretty comfortable with sticking in the back of my draft and trying to play that game. And then the last b side that

we didn't cover. You got to save a Taiwanese arm for the end, right, Matt, Yeah, we do help me with the name. Do you know how to You've talked so many Taiwanese pitchers, Chen Way Lean, Lynn shen Way Linn that right, yep, Cardinals signed him in like July, maybe even later. Yeah, I think it was July. So he's eligible in this year's first year player drafts. He's I think he's twenty two years old now. He got in four A ball outings. I believe it

was pitched the like twelve innings. Nothing too crazy. We want to get into the numbers. Except if you like velocity, Lynn's going to help you out here. His forcing fastball averaged ninety six miles per hour. His sinker that he threw much more often average ninety four. And then there's a slider was his most used change secondary and then there was a change up as well. And he's big too, so he's big, long arms, long legs, he's tall. He's tall, he's six seven, he's lanky. I

think he's far from polished. But if you want to take a little bit of high upside, perhaps a little bit of a project sort of thing, in a deep league where you can't pick up prospects in season, I think we could do worse than Lynn here. I know I played in a thirty team league that had extremely large drafts. You couldn't pick up prospects in season. So a league like that I felt like I definitely had to take stabs at pitchers like this because you weren't going to be able to get him on

waivers, and chances were somebody had them rostered already. Yeah, so those four arms round out are B side selections for the year, Matt, I don't know. Nice. Can we cheers a beer for fully rounding out our B sides? Let's cheers a beer. Let me get one though. One thing that's interesting about Lynn as well is that he's a very Uncardinals like prospect. A lot of stuff, poor command so far. I think that's so

interesting. I wonder if that's like a different philosophy for them, that they're trying to go for a little more upside than they have in the past. I mean, I think that maybe they're learning that only going for guys with number four starter upside probably not the sole winning strategy. Yeah, no, I agree, And it used to be a part of that changing direction. Yeah. Yeah, definitely doesn't feel like a Cardinals pitching prospect for the most

part, have no qualms with your the top of the board. Like if you get down past pick I don't know, eight or nine, maybe then maybe i'd take skiings then and I look, I think Skimes just had an incredible college career. I'm still probably shooting for either more present production from one of the Japanese imports or one of the higher upside bats until maybe about pick eight or nine, where I'd pop Skiins on the back of that like kind

of eight player tier. Then Meyer, louder Waldrop White seemed like another nice chunk where if it's like in the back part of like call it if it's if I had a pick in like the twenties, maybe I would take one of them, like if they had fallen there. That seems like a reasonable spot. And yeah, you know, Dollander was the number one pitching prospect coming into this last year and so sure, bad landing spot in Colorado and not a great junior year, but I still think there's a lot of talent

there and it's worth following Ken Heaver game in form. So I don't know the Walters are Etchivuria very well, but the rest of them, that seems like a pretty solid grouping. Now tread Well I watched a bit of and

I think that that I probably wouldn't include him in that tier, not that I don't think he's good I think he's got some potential. The numbers were not overwhelming in college, and UCLA is usually I would say pretty good at producing decent pitching or getting quite a bit out of their pitchers, and so I think what we saw from him was probably like, that's about what he has at this point. Now. Can Houston coax a little more out of

him? Maybe, but that's He was one that I watched and I think wanted to like a little bit more than I did, so I probably wouldn't put him in that kind of top grouping. I'd put him down more in the bigger bubble of like pick your poison kind of names. He I liked him, didn't love him fair enough. I was kind of a well cheeseball before the draft, and then when the Astros took him, I was, let's go but all and some got like almost a million and a half,

Like he's he's a prospect. He's like a real real prospect. He's already had Timmy John, which might be nice. These ten guys here. I'm not gonna get super serious unless I feel really good about the combination of Arsenal and Execution and our guy Hurston Waldrop. I do have in here, but

I don't feel that great about that. He's the thirteen percent walk rate guy yep in college too, and in pro ball even after they scrapped the kerkball that he had no feeling for. Like I made this point in the Dynasty dugout discord the end of the day, and I kind of stand by it, Like guys that have those kind of command concerns rarely work them out.

The ones that do are the ones that have thirty percent to forty percent K rates to go along with it. Walter could be that kind of guy, and the Braves have had a recent history of coaxing a little bit of extra

out of some of their college arms. But I also think we might be ascribing a bit too much credit because of Spencer Strider, because you look at some of the other arms that the Braves have had, like that maybe have performed a little well, a little better in the minors, but haven't really panned out, like Dylan Dodg, Jared Schuster, even Joey Estes like who you know, I know you love and expect more of, but like it

still hasn't all clicked together in a successful way as a fantasy relevant picture. Just yet how much of this sort of Atlanta is good at unlocking pitching are we saying is actually because Spencer Strider is a unicorn and they got a bit lucky on it, And how much of it is like this is an organizational

thing that they are getting more out of some of these pictures. I think what seems to be happening more is they're drafting pictures, developing them okay, and having them pitch in picture sparks that maybe they know play even better for

pictures than others do, and then trading them away. Because it seems to me like the Braves have used pitchers as the cornerstones of a lot of their trades lately, even guys that were top one hundred prospects, like thinking back to Joey Wentz or Kyle Muller, those guys that also had command concerns, neither really ever figured them out, but they ended up being components of big and small trades. I guess Wentz was just for one of those relievers.

I forget which one, But anyway, like all that to say that I'm less likely to sort of appeal to the authority of the Braves pitching development and project that kind of command improvement on Walder, but I do think that there are real concerns about his ability to throw strikes enough to get major league outs.

All that said, I do think that his stuff is right up there with Schemes and Meyer, like the fastball, the shape, the splitter is maybe the single best pitch in the draft this past year, if he can bring it together, like okay, yeah, you maybe want to dream on

that upside. I think I'm gonna end up with him in one of my leagues where I have the Braves and so you inherit their like top pick or whatever pick you want from them, and I think he's pretty clearly the best pick for the Braves, So I probably will end up with at least one share of waldrop But I'm just flagging some concerns about that profile, and it gives gives me pause. I don't disagree with that at all. If you think you're getting Strider two point zero with Waldrope, like, I'm I can't

get on that train. Could it happen? Sure? Now? I will say, though, did you watch any of his full season stuff this year? Mm? Hm, yeah, I watched most of it. Starts Actually, I kind of felt he was the guy I was thinking was just off my board, not going to really consider. But watching the video, I got a little bit more confident. I felt a little bit safeer that obviously I still kept him here now realistic gonna pop him in my leagues, Probably

not, because he'll probably be long gone before I would do it. I felt a little bit better watching him. Did you still think that, like, I don't know, he didn't seem like wild to me. There were a few that really got away, But uh, I thought he did. I thought he did a good job at least, like a pretty good command keeping keeping stuff south, giving stuff down. Yeah, And I do think

that that is mostly his issue. And part of that is like the splitter, if he doesn't have feel for it, it's just gonna be below the zone every time. The splitter is just a tough pitch for eOne. Really, I mean, look at like Keaton Wynn, that's his name, nasty and kind of just all depends on if he can command that well enough,

well enough or not he's gonna find major league success. But but yeah, yeah, I still felt like the other pitcher pitches for Wilder, he like you'd see the catcher like up up and then it'd be a fastball in the zone and like you look at his like strike percentage and that's like a win for his strike percentage, but it was a huge miss for his command. Or actually, I want the slider off the plate and like just barely and

it's like reaching way off the plate, you know. So you know, I saw enough of those that it was like, and what was his strike percentage in the major in the minor leagues, like fifty nine percent or something. Yeah, that's too low. Now, granted these were I think these were probably all prep guys, but he didn't feel like that to me. It didn't feel like a Joe Boyle to me. Yeah, I agree with

that. And like I said, there, Harris the line x Bruns was the worst command I've ever seen in my wife and that yeah, he's not on that level. And there is enough stuff here that like you can look at this and say, yeah, maybe this was just a debut. The Braves now have an off season to help him get right with the command, and then he's going to do the Tyler glass. Now, just throw everything

in the middle of the plate and let your pitches work. That might work for a guy like Waldrop, and maybe that's what he does next year and he brings the walk right down. But yeah, you know, do you have more confidence that Waldrop could be a starter or Misslerowski. Oh that's a good question. I think Waldrop, like we've actually seen him do it for

a pretty long time, and we've never seen Miserowski do it. So I think with you, I will say though, I would definitely, I would definitely take the first four guys well before Waldrop, Skian's Meyer, White,

and Louder. Talk to me about White that I think that's the highest I've seen anybody on White. Well, it's interesting to me, Matt. I mean, for anyone who's paid attention to, you know, perfect game stuff. Meyer and White have been one A and one B like quite some time. The way that the Marlins worked it is they they drafted them like one A and one B. Meyer was paid four and a half million, White got four point one million. And what dynasty wise, we're looking at Meyer's

thirty seven percent rostered right now, where White's at twenty six. Like, man, if you really want Meyer and you miss out on him, get White a little bit later. And I think both these guys have like really

big upside, these might be the two guys, two prep arms. And maybe it's because I've paid a little bit more attention, but I feel like these these are the two biggest prep arms for me, maybe ever, or at least since I've paid more attention, or maybe Andrew Paynter was just so dang impressive, and I wonder if these two might be able to get to that point. Interesting might very much be wishful saying wishful thinking there, But I like these two kids a lot. So like with Meyer, obviously you

got a righty and a lefty. To me, the only like real separation. Noble's arsenal is a bit smaller. He's like two pitch guy right now, not that he doesn't have a third offering, but White's got like three, I think, really good, Like that's that's there. Am I like just executes a bit better, and White, you know, can can get a little loose at least that's kind of how it's been, or how it was when I stopped paying attention, you know, their last showcase. So

I don't, I don't. I don't think that there's a big difference in dynasty investment there between those two. I'm by that I'm a little worried about what Meyer's shown, just I think that he's got the fringe the beginnings of some command concerns that make Abel who was his high school teammate and drafty a year before, like kind of similar in you know, they're both drafted about the same quote unquote value and both were super highly touted prep guys that have

good stuff. But maybe the command is going to take a little longer to come around. So while I have seen some really glowing reports on Meyer, I'm pretty interested in White. You know, like, as you said, if you like Meyer and miss on him, take White and feel like you got basically the same kind of value. Yeah, I agree, you know, for for whatever it's worth. And granted again, like I'm seeing like just glimpses, flashes, little bits of showcases. I do like to watch

showcases during the year. But I would say I think both of these guys, as far as their execution at that level, I think was better than Painters at that at the same juncture. That's why I mean Painter got with the Phillies and I don't know if it was just physical development, technical stuff, whatever, whatever it was, there there was something that I mean, he just pumped up a whole another couple of tiers with the execution from what

I had seen him on the circuit. If you are in a league where you feel like you have to invest in pitching to some level, the three guys on the top right here, I mean, you do it here, take those take those gambles. In my opinion, here's here's a question for

you, Nate. Where are you slotting Yamamoto and Imanaga amongst this group? Oh? Well, I mean I think you'd have to take Yamamoto first. But even in that, there's like there's some contradiction too to me, because like I don't feel like super confident with Yamamoto in the way that like I don't know that much about him. I know that he's been phenomenal in the second best league in the world. That's a lot of weight. But it was pretty great in the WBC too, Yeah, Yeah, I did see

him then. Looks pretty phenomenal. That's and that's what's dangerous and tricky with Bruce of your player draft stuff too. As you see, I mean, Darius Vines was probably probably had the best showing one day outing of any minor league I've watched in the last like three years, Like it's that make him the best prospects? Does that make him the guy that you should invest in? Like I'm gonna I'm gonna trust that Yamamoto is probably the best bet here.

I would say for me, like you couldn't get me to trade Yamamoto for skens Meyer, White, Louder and Waldrop together. Yeah, I think that's that's for me, Like the fact that a he's going to produce immediately. He's the Dodgers ace right away Hammerglass now, I guess, And he's

got a much longer track record than any of these guys. I place so much value on right away that like even if he wasn't as good as he already seems like I think that that gets underrated in this that he's going to contribute to your team immediately, and in Dynasty people underrate that value, Which gets me to my second question, where do you slot Inmanaga in this? See and Middlely, I haven't really paid much attention to him, I don't.

I know, he's he's like thirty right, so, like I know they're going to be in first year player drafts in a lot of leagues and stuff. But I don't. I don't consider them prospects. They're you know, they're they're newcomers, they're yep, this is you have to make this decision. And a lot of fypds. I know you got to make this decision in fypds. That's why. And it's it's a real question for me

because I've got this one draft coming up. Points league. I traded for the first overall pick, and I have the fourth overall pick as well, and I'm legit wondering if I go Yamo and then in Maanaga at four, Yeah, if I'm in if I'm in a large league, if if I'm in a thirty teamer thirty teen points, yeah, I'm gonna take him. Probably, I'd take him over Louder, I'd take him forth, I'd take

a shot on those other three. Just if he was the same age as Yamamoto, then maybe that would be different, not that thirty years old or anything like that. But I think there is enough length and value there. I'm the leagues that I play in are long standing. They're not going anywhere

putting it in those kinds of terms. For like a guy who's going to slot into maybe your third or fourth best pitcher in your rotation right away, in like in Nimanaga, I just like I think those kinds of guys are worth more than a first round draft pick, most of the first round draft pick. And again like depends on the league and all of that good stuff, but I don't disagree. I now. For for a long time, I've been the guy who I took Kim like second in the first year player

draft over from Korea. Yeah, what was that picture that really actually kind of sucked for the Rangers. The Japanese guy that took over. I picked him over prospects. I shouldn't not have picked him over. He busted, he sucked, his fastball was horrible and got crushed. I took I took. I think it was Yamamoto as well, the guy that the Blue Jays had a few years back. I think he was a came over in like twenty twenty. I took him early in a first year player draft. Uh

Hara, who you're talking about? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so and and I understand that these guys are not the same level picture as I get that, but I have been bloodied by taking the Japanese pictures coming over. And I don't think it was a bad process. I think pick some bad guys that do it with Yeah, I'm really curious about this, and I'm going to return to this question as they get closer to that draft. I'm very very very likely to take a Yamamoto first in that pick. I'm guessing

Langford goes next, and I'd be curious who's third. But sitting there at fourth, if I have to choose between Skins, Imanaga or Cruise maybe or Jenkins, I guess would the other one likely to be there? I might try and trade back, honestly, because I Thinkaga will be around. And maybe it's just the wishful thinker in me, but I can't get down on drafting the thirty year old pitcher over Cruise or one of the guys that would have been a number one overall pick most any other draft years. It's gonna

be interesting. I mean, part of this is that's just that's too much. That's that's too much for me to It might very well be the responsible, smart adult play, So kudos to you for being like that, but I just I don't, I know, I would never click that button when I'm sitting in the draft room. Part of it is is the league like K's get just destroyed. So guys that you think are really really good, if they have a strikeout rate above twenty five percent, they're like not that

good in this league. So that like Akunya was far and away the best player in this league this past year, but it was because he dropped his strikeout rate down to whatever was like eleven percent or something, absolutely insane. So Cruise, I think, is going to have a bit more swing and miss. So even though he's got some power and speed for sure, and I think it's gonna be quite good. I think for and it's gonna be a little while, Like I don't think the Nats are going to rush him.

And that's the other piece is like my roster is fully set up to just compete now, Like I just made a bunch of trades. I was like a tweener, I could go one way or the other. And now my roster is like a bunch of old guys who are good and ready to go. So that's the other reason why I might shove in the Naga my board. But again, like it's one I don't know, I don't know what to do with that one. It's it's one that I'm gonna have to

sit on a bit more. Yeah, no pickups in this league too, So that's the other reason I'm like, I like that format so much. That's putting on your big boy pants format. In my opinion, I want to play more of us. But you know, Matt, if you're like different, I like that. I like that if you're a stuffist, though, Matt, the way that I feel like pitching development is now with all

of the technology and science and labs behind it. Like if you're really if you're really a stuffist, you I think you've got I think you've got to

be willing to draft prep pictures. Why because these kids have such good stuff and when you talk about trying to hunt highbrow offerings and uh, these kids aren't like horrible, wild out of control monsters either like h this class, I don't this class maybe, or just kind of in general, like the high end high school pictures these days are really freaking good in my opinion, way different than I think five six, seven years ago. I don't know,

man, I just I just don't know. Like, looking down the list of performers, it's just such a mix, like you're hunting for stuff. And again, this is like comparing some different eras for sure. But you know, I looked at twenty twenty three auction calculator, who were top performers in a rotal league for pitchers. Garrett Cole, he was I thought the best pitcher in that class to play against him. Blake Snell, Okay

Stryder college guy. That stuff got way better after college. Zach Efflin, Kyle Bradish, Zach Gallon, Leuis Castillo, Kershaw high school guy, Hall

of Famer, George Kirby college guy. Stuff got better in college. I'm just saying, like, I don't think that the high schoolers have a monopoly on using the more modern techniques to improve their No, not at all, but I think But I think major league clubs are getting more confident and wiser and plucking the right ones and getting them before they get to college, more so than when it was just the day of the radar gun and oh Riley

Pint throws really hard. He's the guy. It'll be like what I shared earlier, where there was like, okay, we had like two prep guys picked twenty one to fifty that became like you know, fantasy studs. My gut tells me that in ten years, when you do that same study again, that number is going to be a shit ton higher. Yeah, maybe I'm a little bit jaded by the Mariners and Braves high school pictures from the

past few years. Like looking back on the Mariners past few drafts, every time they took a high school picture early, they haven't really panned out. Yeah, twenty twenty one, Michael Morales was their third rounder, Bryce Miller from A and M fourth rounder, Bryan wu cal Poly sixth rounder. So the one that they popped early was is the one that's by far the worst of that trio. And that goes back to Sam Carlson and whatever that was

twenty eighteen or something. Twenty nineteen George Kirby first rounder Isaiah Campbell turned into something sort of and then their high school guys like didn't pan out. So maybe that's my bias. I don't know. It's like that they're a good pitching devi an organization and their high schoolers have not panned out. I don't know. There was I feel like back in the day there was a big

chase to get Clayton Kershaw, who was an ultimate prep arm story. And I feel like a lot of major League clubs kind of chase that dream. But whatever. Like I said, I think they're just better at it now and I just trust more, especially with Matt, you and I. We just delved through every organization. Right, there's a lot of poop man. Oh yeah, there's a lot of a lot of arms that you zero interest

in having a share of. Right, Yeah, several organizations were was like, man, does anyone here have like a pitch that gets me on the edge of my seat a little bit? Right? Yeah, I mean there's more than the ten prep arms that I have in here from this class. It's like all of those guys, there are more of those moments where you're

just like, whoh okay. Then watching all of the Cardinals organization or all of the Nationals organization, Yeah, there's so and the ten that I sort of picked out and put on my list, those are all guys that real relatively speaking, I feel good about their ability to use that. Plus stuff like like Walters. Walters might have the best sort of execution that I saw,

at least in a little bit of a stint. And his stuff is hard like velocity and movement, like it's a I don't know, he just looks so much more exciting than so many of the dregs that we force ourselves to watch. Man. Well, I'll admit I've been a bit of a downer about pictures in general and drafting them in fipdes. But I did run through and found a couple of arms that I think are worth at least following.

These are guys that I might put on a watch list. Like, again, I'm probably not drafting any of these deeper names, and like I'm probably not getting any of the higher brown names, as Nate likes to say, because I'm gonna wait way longer on them. But I did find a couple of guys that I think are worth at least keeping in the back of your mind. You can see that the names on my on my list here, I mean that'll get you through that whole list, will get you through

the deepest of first year player drafts. I mean there's guys on the bottom there that aren't gonna get drafted even you know. So those are just kind of my different points in the draft, big small, whatever that I would take take a shot at. I think there's plenty of dudes in there that are going to go unknowned in your definitely any leag you're in, definitely, But I popped a couple that either you dismissed her or haven't quite looked at

you. Yeah, So let me let me talk about a couple of these guys. That's what I want to know. So the first one that I think is somewhat interesting is Jayce Stofel. Stofel was an eighth rounder for the Twins this year out of the University of Oregon down there in Eugene. He's a TJ guy. He blew out this year in his draft year, but he looked really good before that. I watched most of his start versus Arizona, which I think was on. He had a really athletic delivery, commanded

pretty well with the fastball, and had a plus change up. I mean, it's definitely plus. It's not like the best thing I've ever seen. It's not like a Logan Henderson disappearing change up, but it's good. It's a good change up and a slider that was solid, and I think he mixed in a curveball as well. I liked his overall package, and it was a bit of a bummer that he blew up. He liked his package, Yeah, I sure did. I sure did. He stuffed it pretty

nice. And he's one that I'm pretty interested in seeing what the Twins in particular can do, because I think the Twins are good at coaxing a little bit of extra velocity out of their pitchers, and if he does that, like he could be a real find for them in the eighth round. Again, he's not going to pitch next year, so this is someone to keep

an eye out for in twenty five. But thought he was interesting. Quinn Matthews, lefty for Stanford, fourth rounder, most famous for throwing one hundred and fifty six pitches in their regional game against Texas or Super maybe that was the Super against Texas. That outing is worth watching just to see that because that doesn't happen at really any level anymore. And I think mostly there's good

reasons for that. And you know, there was a big hullabaloo about him throwing one hundred and fifty six pitches in a game prior to the draft and all of this stuff, and he had some nice quotes afterwards about how, look, I'm a senior guy, I'm not a big prospect. I wanted to do this for my team. I put the team on my back. All super cool stuff that I would have been just so pumped about as his teammate, and like, probably bad for him in the long term, but

anyway, he's still a prospective. Note he's really tall, like six seven, I think lefty up to ninety four, but I saw mostly like eighty eight to ninety two, and kind of a straight fastball rather than like with sink or anything. But his changeup is comfortably a plus pitch, and he's got really good command. He was the best pitcher statistically in the PAC twelve last year by I think some margin. He was. He was pretty good,

and I also liked his sweeper. His sweeper got strikeouts both to lefties and to righty's, and he commanded it all over the zone, which I also liked. He would go up with a fastball even at ninety and get a whiff. His change up lives below his own, and he got swinging strikes from lefties, from righties, from soft contact. Corn Matthews is pretty fun. Yeah, no, I'm with you, I wrote. I felt like he's the volvo of this draft class. Interesting and a guy who you're

not. I don't think you need to draft in a small league but the kind of guy that in a thirty team league you bump way up out of anyone you might feel the best that you're going to get something out of that, out of anyone that you don't have to pay a lot for. You know, an average two points league is money. Bump him way up if you want to be your boring, responsible pitching speculator in a large league. And he went to the car Knowles as well. Who have you know some

history of developing pictures. I think him he is more of their classic type as opposed to Lyin, But I do like him, and he has the chance to move pretty quickly. Harry's didn't pitch in pro ball after incredible usage that he had in college. But he's one that I'm interested to see how the stuff plays in full season involved. I expect he'll start at loway and he might move pretty quickly. I agree. I want to touch on too.

I got I have a personal cheese ball here, Dylan Custed, Wisconsin Prep arm. Now, obviously I'm biased towards Wisconsin guys, but I followed Kusta for the last couple of years and I legitimately like him as a prospect, not just because there's plenty of Wisconsin guys I've followed that I have no

interest in. But he uh and talk about the sort of competitor and guy that I think is just honing and pounding his craft, like I get like Joey ESA's vibes from from Kustad, but like with probably sharper and more dangerous offerings, mid nineties fastball, He's got a really sharp slider. All of those things have gotten better over the last year couple of years. In his

national showcases, he took it to the big boys and dominated them. The Twins popped him in the fifth round for a half a mill large league. You want to have some fun, I would marry Dylan use that idea here,

that's a fun one. Didn't know anything about him, but unlike no, no, no, but like you know, like unlike Esses, who was a prep catcher more or less in the you know, day three pick, You're like, I'm not so sure if the offerings play as he moves along, like I feel like with Houston, it's like, yeah, they those are going to play at least until you know you get to the to the upper uppers. Like his his fastball slider combos it's good made the best

prep hitters. Uh, look pretty horrible. Travis Secora. I think it's

how you say it. I don't know if you've seen any of him. I think it's huge. Yeah, yeah, guy can guy can throw a hundred. I want to say, that's kind of like all his game is. But I don't think the secondaries are horrible. And you're talking about a high school kid. But and he went to the Nationals, Like, oh man, look at Nationals. Now they got a guy who can break glass. Look at this kind of like Lynn right, like, oh, maybe they finally realize they need some sort of power arm or he's just going to

break like Denniburgh did well. And it's not a it's not a one for one. But I want to at least like kind of keep an eye on here, because if you remember Kate, I know he's college guy, but Kate Cavali, I mean he was he was just he was just a big fastball more or less, and he got to the grindstone and he worked on all of his secondaries. So not my classic sort of guy that I would make a bet on and stick to, but I might I might hear in

a larger league like we were talking about hitters. What's the repercussions? Just drop him in somebody else. But he's interested if you like velocity, you want a big power picture out of this prep class. Like he Scora was like the vlo king of this very good class. Not the demographic that I'm interested in playing in. But you know, he could be a guy who he's not like. He doesn't strike me as a like out of control guy,

like a fairly athletic. He's a maybe a little bit of a sort of upper body, but uh, I don't know, Like you watch a guy like that, You're like, Okay, I could see it getting tighter. I could see it tightened up. Some guys you watch, you're like, oh yeah, no, I'm not gonna better on that at all. All Right, I got a couple more here that I think are somewhat interesting.

Lucas Braun for the Braves. He was a sixth rounder out of cal State Northridge. He's listed at six foot, but seemed like maybe he's a touch below that, so a little bit smaller, and I wonder if that's part of the reason why he fell. But he had a solid college career. I think he transferred into north Ridge from either a JC or a D three school, and then was solid in college, but I think was even better after he made it into full season ball. Has a really good slider.

I read the BA draft report on him and they were like, oh, yeah, the slider is decent, But watching it, I was like, this thing is electric. It is more of the gyro slider, some more downward breaking. When he put that at the bottom of the zone, everybody was swinging over it, and he had a couple of really nice outings that were on video in pro ball. So he's one to watch. Fastball I think was up to ninety five and again comes in at a slightly flatter

approach angle. I don't think it has a lot of the plus traits of some of the fastballs that we've talked about, but the plus slider and a

change up that he threw sometimes I thought were interesting enough to mention. And I'm interested because one thing I do think the Braves too well is help optimize pitch mix and pitch usage, and I wonder if they did a little bit of that with him, because the other part of the base Ball America report on Brawn was he was very fastball heavy in college, like seventy percent plus fastballs, and his fastball is fine, and especially in college, but he

reminds me of Tyson Miller in that his slider's way better and he probably should throw that more than leaning on a fastball in the load of mid nineties. So Lucas Brown I thought was pretty interesting. He's a follow for me.

Another one that I saw live actually was Owen Wild for Gonzaga. He got drafted by Tampa in the seventh round, and he had decent peripherals, although his results were more good than great in college, and again, the West Coast Conference is fine. I think often you might see pitchers who kind of

should dominate there, and Wild didn't really dominate. But I did think that his fastball maybe had some of those plus peripherals or plus underlying shape traits, because he was spinning that really well at the top of the zone when I saw him, and guys that usually handle fastballs pretty well were either popping his fastball up or swinging and missing on it. So I thought that was interesting

and I made a note of that. And you know, getting taken by the rays, I think that's something that they prioritize as well as having a plus fastball shape or something interesting about your pitches. Not an overwhelming recommendation for me on Owen Wild, but somebody I think to watch. And I'm curious

what the Rays ended up doing with him? Was he was all right, all right, well, there's a couple of a couple of pieces of some first year player draft arm puzzles there god speed and don't spend too much, and if you do spend a lot or at all, they just make it those top four guys. But and man, I got some questions from twitter verse. Yeah, sure, I guess my better judgment. I asked twitter verse if they had any questions, so very much, assuming that I get

zero responses. But I had three people ask good questions. I think, all right, which one do you want to do first? Brian C at Baseball Fan One? Who are your favorite post injury pitching prospects to make the show or be moving back up boards this year? And who are you out on hmm, I mean Mike Wiser or major League I'm assuming that he was pitching prospects for me. Mike Burrows and Kate Cavally are at the top for guys who are injured should be coming back this year, I think Burrows.

Maybe Burrows doesn't come back this year, but those are my two favorites. I mean, I think I was all about Cavali after just watching the secondary development. He's got a rotation spot waiting for him, I'm pretty sure whenever he's ready. And I think that is a guy who you know, has front of the rotation sort of upside and ability. Mike Burrows. I mean, Burrows was he was creeping in top one hundreds, and then Tommy John just everyone seemed to forget about him. But I like Burrows, yeah,

And you know, I like both. I think Cavali is one that did kind of come into pro bawl with little command and a big fastball, and I think he put it together quite well. So I'm actually quite a fan of his now Burrows coming into last year too, So yeah, he was someone I was really excited to see and was bummed he got to one guy that, uh, he's back from injury. But I'm Jake Eater. I don't have faith in that he's the guy that I'm his whole. He was

a reliever in Vanderbilt. He had like a nice like what twelve thirteen start run to start his pro career and he's never been that. And mind you, he blew out his elbow when they gave him for the first time starter's workload. Like I'm not I'm not making any of that that eater is ever going to be the eater that some had thought before his time job. And I'm still a little down on Max Meyer. I think he's a plus slider and not good anything else, and that I know he had a really nice

run prior to debuting. I just think that's like a at best kind of five starter. Maybe it plays up in relief and they put him in a high leverage relief role, but Myers and of course not excited about him. And of course the the best pitching prospect in the land is recovering from Timmy John right now as well Andrew Paynter. I was going to say, I don't think the advance gooder had a j just kidding. I love Andrew Painter too, He's incredible. We talked about a few guys during our division series

that that were oh man, there's a couple of guys last year. Then oh, I'm curious to see, if you know, if you want to get real B side. Pablo aldonas if he pitches this year. There's a few other former b sides that didn't pitch like at all last year. Yeah, I don't remember off the time I had, but a couple a couple other ones that I'm really interested to see are jar Richie and Cole Phillips. Oh yeah, yeah, good call, formerly of the Braves, but Phillips

now with and Richie still with the Braves. I think both those guys should see a decent number of innings this year, and I'm really curious what they what they look like. I've just seen greeny backfield video and some perfect of stuff. I think Richie can paints a little bit. Yeah, That's what I've heard, and has plus stuff too, So you know, he was one that I was kind of curious of that trio for the Braves was that last year with Murphy, Richie and Phillips. I thought that Richie maybe was

the one that was the most interesting. But yeah, so those guys are once that I'm interested in, and then honestly a bunch of the poor Rockies pitchers that all got interested last year. Jordy Vargas, I think, is

one that I was really excited to see Hughes and didn't. Chris McMahon also get TJ like all those guys I thought were interesting at one level or another and sucks they're all out next year and Candy's just going seven every night, just laughing at him, all right, and then uh Greg at Greg who camp a stuffs. Beyond surface stats, what are one to two things you look for in a pitching prospect in the low levels that could signal a breakout?

I mean, I think it can be my rad of thing, my rad ism I saying that right, no, thank you, and could be a myriad of things. But I think we talked about a lot of those during our b siding. But I also think it's just kind of synonymous throughout any level. I want to see guys with stuff that can miss bats, that can get guys out force week contact, but they know how to use

it and they know how to pitch. Furthermore, in the lowers, I want to see guys like like Joey Estes was and working on the offerings that are not his best and becoming We're working on becoming well rounded pitchers with full arsenals and not trying away from filling up the zone and potentially getting your tits lit from time to time, like comes with the territory if you're if you're going to be a matador or excuse me if you're Yeah, and I said

already in this episode, but strikeout minus walk rate remains the best predictor for sort of the widely available data you know that you can even get for high school kids and college kids. And then you add in the batted ball profile, so ground ball percentage, flyball percentage, in field, flyball percentage, those combine to tell you a lot about what is working for that picture or

what isn't working. So understanding I think the other thing it's not so much the what are the surface stats, it's how does that compare to their peers, So like knowing what are the averages both at that level and at levels that might be successful. So like you look at a guy who's on in the complex or at low A, and if they have a strikeouts per nine of nine and a walks per nine of three, you look at that, and you look at the major leaguers who have that, you're like, oh,

that's pretty good. Like that's a really valuable pitcher who has a strike out rate of nine and a walks per nine of three, just as a baseline, ignoring everything else, that's probably not very good for that level. You look at the guys who now have strike out rates in the major leagues of nine and have walk rates of three. At those levels, it was almost always better. So they actually had a strike out rate of twelve at

that level and a walk rate of two at that level. So I think that's one thing that if you're just scouting the stat line or like checking your box scores for your favorite team, that you can get misled by if you don't have the broader context in mind. Yeah. Also two in the lowers like you, We've talked a bit about this, but you want to be cognizant and aware of pitchers who might be putting up gaudy lines and dominating those

lineups with just like one really good secondary. Think we saw that with Myrtle Beach two years ago, and they had a great staff, a lot of them threw really good change change ups that hitters at that level hadn't seen that sort of quality of and those guys all put up really good numbers. But then it wasn't anything like that as they moved up, So you want to watch even a couple of Royal B sides. Roybert salinis right. I mean he was insane k rates and now you know as he moves up, you're

like, yeah, you know, that's probably a relief pitcher. I don't know, he's he's showed some things. I'm I'm interested in him still, But I was going to say, even a couple of my B sides this year, like I'm thinking of Jose Flury guy has dominated the lower miners, like all those markers that you look at look incredible, but then you watch him pitch and you're like, oh, yeah, it's because he's dominating with

one secondary. That's been true of a couple of my my B side arms that like hats like one pitch is they're really leaning on for their success and that's a lot harder to do the higher you go, for sure. And then I got one last one Matt from my good buddy Steven Porter SPP. He wants us to do a B side version of Shelley V's tweet where she asks one prospect your higher the most, one prospect you're lower the most, and one prospect who will rise up lists In twenty twenty four, now I

want to do this. I'm gonna pick. I'm gonna I'm gonna speak for you and you speak for me. Oh okay, okay, all right, so you know tell me if I if I did well or that. So one prospect that Matt is higher on than most, I'll go with read on Scooter. That's good pick, good pick. Okay? Is that all right? One prospect he's lower on the most is JDP Jess Wade to follow, And one prospect Matt thinks will rise up lists in twenty twenty four. I feel like there's so many that I could say. I feel like that's the

gist of what we've kind of been trying to talk about. But let me go with let me go with CJ kafas good one. I don't think that's who I would have picked. I feel who would you have picked? I want to see more a CJ. I think the one that I would have picked is Yander Suarez. I just think that guy is going to be a no doubt top one HERD pick in six months. And yeah, like I

was just like watching that guy and blown away. I was like, this guy looks like the pretty boys in the draft, and yet he's doing it a double A and nobody cares, like that's what I was going through doing a kind of a top one hundred rank exercise. He's like at forty for me, Like I, I just think that he's going to be there for for a lot of people. Yeah, he's the other one. All right, shit, I gotta do this for you. Well bet that you're higher

on the most and I'm totally with you. Is uh oh shout? What's the dude who caught the soft line drive from JDP in that jan Cel Luis? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yan Cel Luise. I like to I like to look at that that guy's swing too. I think that was a banger call on your part. Yeah. I would swap him in JDP in most prospects, we can swap the league and get something extra. I know. I actually was just trying to trade for Janzel, but we didn't quite line up. And I even though I really like him, I

couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. Okay, you're putting me on the spot here. He's going to rise up. I think Trevor Warner is going to continue to crush in pro ball and that he's going to be a top one hundred fantasy prospects really soon, Zach Decenzo, Graham Paully kind of like ends up at the back end of most public top one hundreds next year. And I think that's one that that you would pick to be a fast riser cool I as far as pictures go, I think I think you're higher than

most on CJ. Culpepper And I'm with you on it. I think that's a really like that's one that I'm not seeing talked about anywhere, and I think he's pretty interesting. Do you see the DA put him in their top ten? Did you see they? Well, maybe I just don't follow everybody else because that's like, and that's a pretty solid system. I think there's some good guys on that system. He still rastered a pretty low percentage.

Yeah, but I like, I liked that pick a lot. That was one when you picked, I was like, hmm, that's a that's a good one. So I see if he needs, like he needs to just like sharpen one of those secondaries to get more miss more bats, I think, and then he can he can be all right in the uppers, I think. And I wonder if it's the curveball that did not get a very favorable grade in BA, but I think they might be selling them a little short. I agree. I thought that pitch actually had some utility, and

I think sometimes that one gets under rated. There are a lot of that you think are overrated. The issue is I think I generally agree with you on a lot of them. Let's go. Well, the easy answer is Colt Emerson that you think is overrated, like that you're your positioning of him. I know you say you still like him, but the way you've talked about it is like, it's cool. I just don't give as high grades for little whimps. You know. That's a funny one. Yeah, I

don't agree with you that one, But is that fair? I think that's a fair one. That like, I don't think I like Emerson, you do, Okay, I don't think he's overall like over it. I just think maybe in some circles I'm not quite as high on him. Yeah, well then I'll go. I'll go Mazerowski because I think you and I agree on that. Yeah, he's a believer and people aren't really living, aren't really reckoning with that fact yet. Yeah, that's fair. Take those all,

right, SVP. There you go. All right, Matt, should we should we wrap this one up? All right? You know, best of fu drafting pictures. Man, it's tough. Matt is a pitching hater. I'm gonna I'm gonna draft some opportunists. Just watch, just watch, sit back. I'll show you. I'll show you how to do this. Matt in the show. Well, feel free to uh follow me on Twitter at pitching Specs. I did share this Google sheet that has a list and

some gifts of arms we talked about tonight and some commentary. Don't follow Matt on Twitter because he's not there, but you can catch him in the Dynasty dugout chatting and uh, you know, hating on some guys and loving on some others, but always bringing some good intelligent thought to it. And uh yeah, I don't know. I'm not really sure what we're gonna do next time, but we'll figure it out. Maybe we'll have a guest our big Like off season homework is like kind of done that kind of grinded a lot

here and I'm going to continue to get into some pictures. I still have about one hundred and fifty arms. I just at least wanted to learn a little bit about somehow read some reports. But uh but yeah, I don't know. We'll have We'll let your Kigo farmer take us out and we'll talk to you next time. Be well five miles an hour riding to his head. You have it down first with the lump bonius face, and on the

very next pitch he up and stole second things with gretest me. He wasn't born, He had bail uniform.