Episode 19: Prospecting Permits?

Not a bad miles an hour riding to his head, he hopping down first with the limbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole second face with greatest be He wasn't born, he had yes, beautiforn. All right, Welcome to episode nineteen of the Prospect b Sides podcast. I am Nate Handy joined me once again as always, rook the consensus. Yeah, rook it, Nate, rook it. How are you, my friend?

I'm good, I'm good. It's like many people, we're experiencing a bit of that arctic blast that has coming through town and hoping that the power stays on tonight. Pretty icy out there. That would make for a poor podcast if you went. Mia, one of my good buddies who lives on the east side of Washington State, he likes to call anybody that lives over the mountains on the west side of Washington or Oregon. He calls us all coasties. Even though you know I live multiple hours from the Pacific Ocean.

He's like, he just calls you a coasty because if you're over the other side of the mountains, but us coasties, we don't experience the winters like you do on the other side of the mountains, especially not like you and the Rockies, Nate. So our our little foray into this version of winter always comes with just terrible driving accidents and lots of power and houses and lives are not set up for this. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that everything

stays on tonight. Well, me too, and we need we need you to stay safe, my friend. I'm excited about this episode, Matt. We're recording Wednesday night, right, it's Wednesday night, No, no Tuesday, recording Tuesday night, and yesterday was the International free agent signing whatever day. Just curious if you had any thoughts on that, if you've been paying attention to any of that at all, I mean paid attention a little bit.

Have read up on some of the reports on the top of the class, you know, read Baseball America and Ben Badler has great work there and are on Chris Klegg had some good write ups too. I My take on this is that you just aren't going to know for a long time, like even the guys at the very top of the class, Like I just don't think you're gonna know for a while how good these guys are. And somebody

brought up in the discord. Like a year and a bit ago, I was doing an FYPD and had some questions between some guys, and I went back and looked at that particular FYPD draft and a thirty teamer, and I got Joe Injury. Vargas was like one fourteen or something in that in that draft, and like, now he might be top one hundred, top fifty prospects for some guys, but like he was a total dart throw and he was at the top of that J fifteen class last year, near the top

anyway, like top five for some people. So I just think that there's such dart throws and you just really don't know who's going to work out that I try not to sweat it too too much, you know, like I'm not out there chasing the next one of those guys. And even someone like Vargas who showed a lot last year, it's like he still doesn't come state side, still hasn't in the full season ball like a lot can happen still

right with that profile. So I generally like it's sort of an interesting thing and borderline creepy, like where we know what these sixteen year olds are doing in the Dominican or in Venezuela. Like I've thought about that a lot. Like I mentioned some of my buddies who are coaches in college, and you know they're like routinely talking to fifteen year olds, Like, man, I was such an idiot at fifteen, Like this is such a weird thing to

care about as an adult person. Yes, I concur you mentioned you had drafted Vargas in the league like otherre certain leagues that you're more inclined to take a stab or not so much? Or how do you play it? You? Where do you line these guys up when you're getting ready for a first year player? I take it opportunistically. I think like in that thirty teamer I And again, are drafts coming up in a couple of weeks. I

have no high picks. My first pick is probably in like the late fifties range, and then I've got a couple in like the sixty to seventy range. And so how am I going to line up whoever falls, because like the top guys in that in the J fifteen class will likely get popped pretty well before I pick. But if it's like a guy who got you know, a million bucks from the brewers or something like, maybe I'll look to

grab them. But I think I'm less likely to do that this year because a We've done so much work in looking at this FYBD class, like the last couple of episodes talking about all the guys, and frankly, that familiar familiar with this class I think makes me more interested in the what I know rather than just plopping a random bet on something that somebody else says, you

know what I mean. So I think in that sense, like I'm even less likely to get an international free agent guy this year than I might have been in previous years, just because I have sort of a mental picture of this class, which I think is pretty strong. The domestic amateur draft class was pretty good, so I think for that reason too, like when I'm down in my sixties, pick hundred, pick one fifty, even, like maybe I'll drop a high upside take and pick one of the J fifteen guys

there, But I gotta say it's probably unlikely for me. Yeah, you know, it's it's a trick. It's a tricky thing. Like you know that there's gonna be some star players that come to major league organizations via this route. That's no secret. But like you, I'm just so much more inclined to, you know, take a gamble on something that I know,

something that I've seen. But that being said that I kind of find myself coming a little bit more back to the idea of taking stabs on some of these names and little Ben Badler blurbs that I have read, I mean interesting, Tell me, tell me why. What's kind of swayed your mind? What has swayed well? Like in the leagues where you cannot pick up prospects

in season, I think I'm more likely too. I think I've mentioned that before, just in part because I just see what some of my league mates are doing with that and having some success getting some studs, and I want maybe a little piece of that, And you know, trying to value and

pick who you might go after is really interesting to me. It's it's really kind of just a throwback to I don't know when I first started getting interested in prospects many years ago, premilb dot tv, where you read a blurb about a player and you made your decisions off of that, off of very little right. Baddler is the FUKA of any J fifteen international prospect opinion really, and I think I'm using that correctly, right, FUKA first, universal

common ancestor, I think is the scientific term. We are all related to some single cell organism that was struck by lightning or something back in the day, right, I don't know it, it's tricky. I'm more likely in those kinds of leagues. And I think there's just like for me, just

two main first year player drafts stories for me involving these players. I took Malcolm Nunez whatever year that was, that he just pore up the DSL at four hundred, slug eight hundred or whatever it was, right, So you play those DSL stats and you know we have seen how that has played out. You can hit some home runs, but you know that's not a win

in me any leagues. And then I think I'm hesitant in leagues where you can pick up prospects in part because like I drafted Jackson Curio round five of a thirty teamer his first year, and I subsequently dropped him a few months

later for Edward Julian. Do I trust myself, but I'm going to really hang on to some of these guys in a league like that, not really that's my That's my other concern with J fifteen guys is I'm willing to be patient on a prospect, but I mostly am interested in prospects so that I can sell them, trade them to get a win now. Piece. I just think that generally speaking, we're still, even in the dynasty world, still way too worried about next year or the year after your contention window.

And with you just keep red paper clipping in and you can turn a prospect that nobody cares about into a performing, you know, maybe average big leaguer, but that that's value in a lot of these big leagues. And look I took last draft season, I took I took some stabs on Ethan Sallas, like thirty second, twenty fourth somewhere in there, grabbed him in a few leagues. And I can tell you right now, I have zero Ethan Sallas shares. Right. I don't know if that was smart at all.

I am very impressed that with that player and what that could be. And I don't know if I made a smart move or not, but he was sitting there and I was trying to contend and get into playoffs and do damage.

And I use that as an opportunity to bolster that. Yeah, I've got Vargas I think in two deepish leagues, one really deep league in one medium deep league, and it is I would be absolutely astonished if he debuts with my team like there's if he keeps doing really well next year when he comes to full season ball, the chances are that I trade him for whatever top tier talent that I can get from a non contending team, and he'll

be one of my top trade chips. It's super hard for me to envision holding on to him for even the three four years of an accelerated timeline for him. You know, I guess maybe two at the very outset, if he follows like a Cheerio kind of route or something. But yeah, I don't really see that happening for me. And so again it's and Salas and Vargas even are the better kinds of outcomes for those international guys like a Sallas

doesn't ever happen. Right. What he did last year was insane, both the Padres deciding to promote him through like four levels as a seventeen year old and sixteen year old and him doing really well at some of those levels. That was crazy and speaks to his talent, like, the kid is going to be, I think, a phenomenal big leaguer, But is he likely to end up on an of my teams? Like? Probably not, because, like you, I probably would have traded them away already at this point.

So that's I think my other point on the that usually it takes a lot longer than that for them to show that value, and so I'd rather use that draft pick as something that is going to, like call it mature faster than a J fifteen prospect would. I don't know if we've ever mentioned David Foster Wallace on this show. Have you read David Foster Wallace? Yeah, oh yeah, big fan. One of my I mean, so many great quotes, but one of my favorites is although, of course you end

up becoming yourself, like know yourself. If you're not going to hang on to these guys and you know you're not going to maybe maybe we don't waste a pick. Yeah, But AnyWho, Matt, let's get into what we're going to get into. I'm pumped for this. We ended the last show taking some listener questions, particularly my guy SPP. He asked us the Shelley v tweet thing, right, someone who's gonna rise, someone who's going to fall, et cetera, et cetera. Right, Well, we answered for

each other, and you just so happened. And I didn't even realize this at the time, but you brought up three players that I had just recently spoke about on a podcast in part I wanted to kind of answer my guy's question a little better here and offer out some other names. Not that your answer was poor, it was just it was a repeat for my guy.

Ah, I didn't even know that. Jesse Severe's Dynasty Sports Life. We talked about eight of our B side selections, kind of the better ones, more interesting ones, And then we had finished the show and you and I had started talking about what we were going to do next, and we brought up the idea of coming up with some hypothetical trades that we might make in that vein someone we might be fading who's more popular than someone we may like

who isn't quite as popular, that sort of thing. Right. Then on top of that, there was an interesting discord conversation in the Dynasty dugout where well, we had started talking about Joandre Suarez, right, or is it Johander is the Jay Silent? I think it's silent. I think it's Yeah.

We started talking about him right, posted some video and you had shared some high praise like you did on on the B Side Show when you started talking about him as your Mets pitching selection, and someone posted a great question in my opinion, and I'm going to paraphrase a little, but it was something like, how can you advise other people to sell a top one hundred prospect for some no name B side guy that we've been talking about? Right?

I think that I think that's pretty much more or less what was said, Right. I think that's an extremely fair and great question, and one that we could probably talk about for hours. We may even sometimes we talk

a lot after we're done recording, too. But I want to kind of answer that, Like, I don't know, what was it twenty twenty I think is when I at first started doing some stuff at Picture List and taking this hobby of mine, just putting more time into it, right, And like part of the reason was I thought I could maybe add some pieces to these puzzles that we're trying to put together with these players that maybe I thought weren't really being thrown out there very much, and you can you can be

the judge of that if I've if any of that's been worth a wick or not. I mean, aside from we always see prospects that are in top one hundreds that fall in and out of that you had mentioned at the end of the show. I had asked a last show, I had asked a somewhat rhetorical question, but I thought your answer was extremely interesting. I'd asked, like, where does consensus opinion come from? Right, And you had and you had in your answer said, when there's a lot of unknown,

folks tend to herd together, right, feel safer that way. I think a lot of opinions start to get you know, piggybacked off of other opinions and that sort of thing. Right, I think that's somewhat just like human nature. Right. We're seeing a lot of that right now with these J fifteen stuff. Right, we don't know hardly anything, and a lot of opinions are gonna breed from that and get bred from that. And like, I almost want to go the other way, right, there is so much

unknown. I want to go and try to find what the herd, so to speak, might be missing. Right, but they might be not paying attention to baseball minor league baseball, is Hugh Mongous. I've mentioned my friend Craig a few times in the prospect One Room. He brings up this great point often, right, Like, think about the major leagues in our fantasy leagues, and think about how much discourse and digging around and numbers and research

that go into trying to order the first round of established major leaguers. There's a ton of different opinions on that, right, and lots of debating. Yet it's interesting that when we start talking about prospects, with so many more gauntlets to run and so many more variable still in play and so much unknown, that like, we are more in line with each other's opinions and there's

less debate on who the top five guys are or whatever. That is extremely interesting to me, Matt, and I think a great point by Craig. So that's part of my answer, I guess to that question. But also too, when MiLB dot TV came about what was it two thousand and eighteen, is that right? I started getting addicted to watching these really crappy broadcasts of minor league baseball, and man, Matt, that was to me,

just very very eye opening in a lot of ways. I had never watched minor league baseball before, and like I just came away with is very different

opinions on some players. Well, my eyeballs were telling me wasn't driving with some of the blurbs, right, I dare say, if you haven't already, if you don't watch minor league baseball, well if you did, if you just set aside top one hundred lists, dynasty lists, didn't pay any attention to them for a year and just watch minor league baseball as obsessively at times that I have, I think when you looked at the top one hundred list whenever you came back to society, you would have a lot of different

opinions. I think sometimes with all of these metrics and so many more, you know, people writing stuff and like, you know, this is blown up big time. There's a lot of content out there, right, But like sometimes I think, like just we all learned about baseball by simply watching it. We all learned about players just by watching. I learned that Eric Davis was one of my favorite players because and that he was good at baseball by just watching as a ten year old kid, or whatever. Right,

you can pick up a lot of things. You can come to some pretty solid conclusions in my opinion. My five year old son, he's seven now, but when he was five he started watching baseball, So, I mean Tim Anderson was his favorite player, right, you want to know how Tim Anderson was doing it? You know, twenty twenty two, Tim Anderson was pretty good. I remember the field I think it was two thousand through the Field of Dreams game when he hit the walk off. Like, my son

was watching that and he loved that. That was an awesome moment. And then last season, as a six year old, he's sitting there and he's watching a White Sox game with me, and he turns and he says, Dad, how come Tim Anderson isn't good anymore? Like my six year old son, who just learned a year ago that when you hit the ball, you run the first base, could pick up that Tim Anderson wasn't doing so well, right, Like I think, sometimes it can be a lot simpler

than we make it as well. Right, we put a lot of time into this, Matt this offseason series that we've done, a lot of hour we have I mean, I don't I don't have much of a life other than being a dad going to work and watch him minor league baseball. Right, That's pretty much where I'm at. It's just it's hard for me. I want to be I'm gonna be honest. I want to be honest.

Right. I can't sit here and watch a you know, they'll say, I say, I really get into a picture I watch a Dylan Ray's a bunch of starts, right, I'm gonna come away with with, Well, what I really want to do is just kind of observe and report for the folks who do have lives and don't get to watch these many starts by Dylan Ray or whatever, and just try to try to do the best that I

can to put that information what I've seen out there. But of course, with all of this, people are gonna want to know your opinion on things, and I just like, I can't watch a guy like that and, regardless of where he might be ranked, tell you a lie and tell you that I don't think he's as good as this guy or as good of a bet, there's absolutely no certainties. I know that a lot of what we talk about on this show people would call like anecdotal, right, it's all

anecdotal. Even if you're using numbers like further, there might be better arguments. There might be some numbers that are more telling than others, but this is not scientific. As many metrics as you want to get into. I've had major league scouts, amateur scouts who man blue collar stuff. Man scouts work a ton and it is a grind, and they have way better tools and resources than we do. Right, anyone in the Dynasty world, And like I had a scout coming up on the twenty twenty two draft just really

not have a very high opinion of Caden Dana, right. I think you had them as like the seventeenth best right hand prep pitcher in that draft class. Like, sure, this is very early and nothing can be can be sett in stony right. These stories have not been written on these players. Stories have not been written on the players that I started writing about in twenty twenty, right, But I mean that doesn't look like maybe what's really happening

right now. I think there's probably not fourteen right hand pitchers from that prep class that you would rather have in your Dynasty league right now. My point is not that he was dumb for that he had great reasons right to me, in my opinion, you have reasons why you might come to some conclusions. Some might be good, some might be shit. Right, I've had both, So that's it. That's all we got is reasons, and I am going to try to share reasons why I've come to some opinions in this

Dungeons and Dragons baseball game that we are obsessed with. So a couple of things nate to what you said. You know you reference David Foster Wallace earlier on and love him as a fiction writer and nonfiction writer. I think I've learned a lot from him, both about writing and also about life and philosophy. And the closest I think that baseball has to David Foster Wallace is a guy named Sam Miller. I'm not sure if you've ever read any of Sam

Miller's stuff, but Sam has written a bunch of places. He was an ESPN for a while. He now has just an absolutely phenomenal substack that I highly recommend any baseball fan should check out. And he was the founding co host of Effectively Wild, one of the all time great baseball podcasts. And

Sam I cannot get enough of all of the things that he wrote. But as you were talking, you mentioned that all of this is anecdotal, and in the absence of deterministic stats, it's we are just kind of scattering about in the dark. And Sam wrote an article about this in twenty seven where he said, could you figure out who the best player in baseball is? Just by watching? So if you had no access to stats, no context at all. So if you show up to a game, who's the best

player? And he, in his typical Sam Miller way, breaks it down in a few different ways. So there's the total anarchy where you might just like watch a guy for a week and you're like, this is the coolest

player I've ever seen. And over the course of a week, baseball players can kind of do anything right, Like you can just have a hot streak, you never miss your have perfect command for that full week, and you look like the best baseball player on the planet, whether you're just locked in, you're in the zone, whatever it is, and over that short time period, maybe you do look like the best player that ever lived. Then

there's the like, who's pretty good at everything? So you want to see somebody who's, oh, they're fast, they can throw the ball really hard. They can hit the ball really hard, and they seem to like hit the ball a lot. Maybe that's the player. It's really good, and you can use that as a heuristic to evaluate. And then there's the wow philosophy, like who's tools stand out so much that it's impossible that they're not

among the very best players in baseball? And we're doing some of that right, Like, we don't do it in those exact terms, but what I think we do try and articulate is the why behind we're interested in somebody. So it might be one standout tool, and I hope we're doing a better job than some about saying why that tool might be interesting because like, you know, yeah, guy throws the all really hard from the outfield. It's like that is a cool play and when I'm at a game, that's one

of the most fun things to watch. But does it help you in this silly little game that we play, Like probably not. So that's less interesting than say a pitcher who has a really weird looking arm angle or an approach to pitching that sets him apart from his peers. And I think that while I certainly do try and lean on the stats, like I think they are trying to tell us something, and they're a good barometer for what our eyes

are easily duped about. It's I like telling the story with both right, Like you want to see somebody that does something exceptional, or you might see an explanation for why their stats look one way or another, and then we're trying to explain that in the best way that we can, perhaps not quite as eloquently as David Foster Welser or Sam Miller, but in our own b side munning way. We're trying to tell that story with the information that we

have exactly what our off season thing. We've talked. We've talked about hundreds and hundreds of players, and just by nath alone, a couple of those guys are gonna pop. Like, in no way do I ever want to try to present that I am some sort of like mystic crystal baller. I've got this thing figured out sort of thing. No spreadsheet has figured it out, no scout has figured it all out. I think some great hits been dead on about some things that have come to fruition. And I've also would

have rather Johandrik Panango over ze Field Tobar a few years ago. I thought Bryce Jarvis was going to that there were reasons and things that I saw that Bryce Jarvis might turn into a stud pitching prospect. Right, You're gonna have hits and misses, and that in part to answer this question why should someone

listen to you, Well, I mean I'm trying to answer that. That's why I track pretty much all the players that we've talked about that I've talked about that I've labeled as B side guys, trying to talking about the thirty three percent hit rate so to speak. Right, I don't know if if anything that I'm doing is special or worthwhile, but all I can promise is that, like I'm putting time into it, and maybe some of that can

be can be useful. So, like I think how I kind of left the little discord discussion was you put the time in, you do your work, you come to your conclusions, and however that might look towards other people's opinions, like so be it. So am I advising you to trade some of these top fifty picks that I'm going to talk about for the players that I'm going to recommend or get into here. No, I'm not advising anything that's for you to decide. You got to take what pieces of all these

puzzles and make whatever kind of picture you think might be there. So I don't advise anyone, but I hope that we do a good job of just shedding some light on some other players out there. I mean, when you and I have talked before, like sometimes the I don't know, I kind of feel like in the Dynasty world, the gap in talent between these guys with high brown names and unless you're named just isn't really as big as is pretended. Sometimes, at least That's what I'm gathering over the last since the

advent of MiLB dot TV. It's also constantly changing, and I think that one of the things that we're trying to come in with is another view. And sometimes it's reasons why we're more interested in a prospect than others are, and sometimes it's why we maybe have some questions. And I think that's a little bit of the spirit of this show, where we're going to talk about some high brow names, as you like to say, and who we might envision flipping them for, not to say that they're bad, not to say

that they're not incredibly talented. Like I shared Fields with these guys, and they were all very clearly better than me then, and they are for sure way better than me now. And I hope that some of that comes through that this is still a lot of appreciation for their talent and they're doing one of the hardest, most entertaining things to do, and we're just trying to

see through the fog. Right, you know, this is fun too, Like, you know, we're playing fantasy to have fun, so let's not let's not forget that, but like and also too on the top, like I don't know, I play in some leaves with some like sharp guys, guys who pay attention, read lists, watch games, And if you want to get ahead of those guys, you want a little advantage of those kids.

That's the name of the game in my opinion. Who's popular, who's coveted by other owners that maybe you don't really care for, And how can you get you know, how can you turn that into a profit for you? So I was thinking, mat like, man, what if we lived in some sort of like authoritarian baseball loving country and they like made you fly to have a podcast or write about baseball prospects, like I mean, look at us any Joe schmos can can write stuff and put out podcasts, right,

And I get that. I get that as a as a listener, You've you've got a lot of stuff to a lot of voices and a lot of tweets to siphon through and who's that coming from and all that sort of jass. So I want to apply for a B side license, Matt. I want to apply for one night, and I'm going to do that by offering up some hypothetical trades that I want to impress the application committee with and hopefully we'll revisit these in a year and kind of see if I maybe you

can earn that license and or at least still remain in consideration. I don't know. I thought I might like it. I like it. I've done my homework a little bit as well. And maybe this is me showing my lack of humility here, but I think I would do all of these trades that I'm going to propose. So you know, those of you in dynasty leagues with me, and if you call me out, if if you want to offer up one of these trades, yeah, let's let's put a little

bit of our you know, money where our mouth is. I mean, we don't have any money, but let's put a show where our mouth is. Like, if there's a day where I'm like, man, mate, you just need to shut up. You're not good at this. One needs to hear your stupid opinions, Like, I'm just gonna I'll shut up, I'll walk away. It's fine by me. I'm trying. I'm seeing, I'm seeing if there's any worth to the time that we're putting into this. It's just it's going to take a while to find out, I think.

But uh yeah, let's put a show where I'm out is man, all right, I'll let I think you might have a few more than me, at least formally set up here, so I'll let you go first. For those of you in the Chris Klegg's Dynasty Dugout discord, this won't be that much of a surprise because I've kind of teased this was my headliner hot take

out here earlier this week. I've seen Walker Jenkins popped as as high as five overall in prospects, not in the class you know, he's taking fifth overall in the real life draft, but I've seen him already vaulted up to number five overall. Even Chris has has him at number six. I think MLB Pipeline might be the low one. They haven't updated their lists, but I think they're the low ones at sixteen. So this is like pretty universal

top tier. This guy not just as a real life stud high schooler eighteen years old out of drafted by Minnesota, but this is a no doubt fantasy like already has sort of won over the fantasy community. And there was a tweet shared, and I'm not going to be able to give correct attribution.

There's a tweet shared in the discord a while ago. Looking at over I think it was just last year, all of the players twenty and under at a ball comparing their swinging strike rate and their ninetieth percentele exitvelocity, sort of good measure of sort of what's your power production and your contact skills. And

there were a lot of really interesting names on this list. I think for another time to dive into some of those, but I was struck by Akar Jenkins name being where it was, which is way below average on the ninetieth percentile exit below and slightly above our average I think, significantly above five percentile just to be ninety fifth percentile to be accurate, Okay, so ninety fifth percentile, and if I'm remembering it right, his ninety fifth percentile was like

one oh two something like that, somebody in that range. So and good swinging strike rate. I think the number that I have for him on that is comfortably plus at nine point one percent is what I have. I'm not sure if that was the same. One on one and a half was one one and a half. Yeah, so one on one and a half was his ninety fifth percent exit VELO four context, that is well below average for major leaguers. I think the average for major leaguers for ninety fifth is closer

to like one oh five. The average MLB average ninety fifth percentile according to this was one O five. Yeah, one O five, one oh five point seventy nine, which is what the data that I have, So way above that. And if you turn that into the scouting grade, that's like thirty, a thirty, maybe even a twenty five on that grade, so like near bottom of the scale for power. So that caused me to start asking some questions like, oh, that's super interesting this guy who is receiving

just near universal dynasty praise after being drafted very highly. That's a pretty low number. I've written before about how I'm a little bit skeptical of the scouting aphorism, like that they're going to grow into their power. I think that the actual power growth is more limited than a lot of people would care to admit. And I know that BA has referenced some of this that there. You can expect it from the teenage years, like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen

up till about twenty one. You can expect some power growth, but it's not huge amounts. I think it's something like two or three miles per hour off of their ninetieth percent ale exit velo. You can expect it to rise, and that's not universal. There are some guys for whom it never rises or they're already showing their max power their power potential at that age, and then there are other guys that can significantly bump it up. I'll believe that

it's certainly a spectrum. But this is a data point that we have, and I think is one that I haven't seen talked about I've seen. I think Baseball America gave Jenkins like a future sixty five grade on his game power output. I've seen others say sixty on the power, and he did pop three home runs in a relatively limited pro sample this year, but that's a pretty low number. And I will note Beck Zach Beck reminded me that he did have a hamdmate injury that he was coming back from, and that is

notorious for sapping power from hitters. So all those caveats aside, I did some other digging into his batted ball profile. So he's got good contact, he doesn't strike out very much, but he swings kind of a lot and doesn't walk either. So I looked at who what's the shape of that production, so kind of ignoring his babbit, ignoring his homer's homer flyball ratio, which are noisy season to season and are huge drivers of your overall weighted runs

created. Plus, if you ignore those things that aren't really sticky that have wild fluctuations year to year, you can maybe learn a little something about who has similar looking production at the major league level. So this is a super simple tool that I like to use to help give context for what does this production translate? How does it look in the big leagues? And with Walker Jenkins twelve point two percent k rate on the year last year and seven point

eight percent walk rate. On the year, he ran a graund ball rate of four forty seven point one percent and a flyball rate of twenty eight point seven percent, and the ground ball rate was well above major league average, and the flyball rate was well below. The guys in the major leagues last year who most resembled those four components were Bryson Stott Okay, not bad,

had a solid year, certainly outperformed my expectations. A lot of that was the value that he returned from his steels, but still pretty good season for stop. But the next three Kevin Newman, Tyler Freeman, and Geo Orshella. That's not good company, I would say, especially for somebody who I think it's fair to say that the speed maybe is average. Like I think he's a pretty athletic guy, but I don't think speed is his calling card.

I have seen him get fifties. I think Fangrafts maybe gave him a forty future speed grade, so slightly below average because he's a big guy and maybe they expect him to fill out a bit. So you're talking about for fantasy kind of rotisseary five by a guy who isn't going to be an impact based dealer. Hits the ball in the ground a lot like those guys. That's a line drive, slap hitting, low strikeout contact kind of guy,

and that's a limited profile for the major leagues. And while he's a big guy and there's great scouting grades on the power projection, I'm a little concerned at a near bottom of the scale first showing in pro ball with a one on one five ninety fifth percentle exit BULO. Even with all of those small samples, I think there's some signal to that noise. One of the books behind me on the shelter you guys can't see is The Signal and the Noise

by Nate Silver. And one of the things that we try and do with looking at the data is what about this is telling us something? And one of it is just noise. And when we say something as a super small sample or small sample size alert triples, it usually means that maybe there's some noise in there, and that is likely true with just what did he have this year? One hundred and fifteen played appearances in pro ball. That's not very many. However, I think it's telling us something, and maybe it's

telling us more than we're giving it credit for. Certainly I would listen to that data and say, maybe some of the pre draft grades were wrong. The scouts get this wrong all the time, and the only thing that ends up mattering is performance on the field. And so I think this is gonna

skew my view of Jenkins a little bit. And I'm going to kind of ignore the one fifty nine point seven WRC plus that you put up this year and say, like, I'm a little concerned about the shape of that profile and looking at some guys that are seemingly universally ranked behind him now, well, one of them is Max Clark, who got taken one pick before Jenkins in the draft, who has maybe double plus speed thing we should care about for fantasy. I think is considered a plus center fielder and had a very

strong showing for his debut as well. And like, again, there are some places that have these two super close. So I'm not saying like you could flip them one for one or even that's the end of the equation. But for Max Clark, his again one hundred and seven plate appearances was only one to eleven WRC plus, so maybe he will draft at him, and they're like, I'm a little soured on that. I was hoping for more, and I think the shape of his production is actually a lot more encouraging.

Even though he struck out a lot more. He hit a lot more fly balls, almost ten percentage points more fly balls, sorry, only six percent percentage points more, but walked a lot more, showed a lot more speed, And the closest comps for Max Clark's shape of his production are Randy A. Rose Arena, Paul Goldschmidt, and Dansby Swanson. Like, that's a more interesting fantasy profile to me in this super simple comps tool than the

ones produced by Walker Jenkins. So I'm like, that's one that I would probably make straight up, and I think a bunch of people seem like they'd be really excited to take Jenkins off your hands and you could get something else

thrown in maybe as well. But another one that I'm even more excited about that I think is farther apart in a bunch of fantasy rankings is Emanuel Rodriguez, who is someone that I've talked about just being so taken in with this, with his plate approach, his power and his speed that especially in an

OVP five by five league. I think Emmanuel or Rodriguez might be the just clear, far and away number one prospect in all of baseball in fantasy baseball coming out of next year, because he actually does seem to have top of the scale raw power and hits an absolute crap ton of fly balls, so he's going to get to all of that power. Takes walks more than anybody in the minor leagues, so he gets on base and is fast. I think, has plus speed and has shown a willingness to steal some bases in

the past. Speed grade is quite high on fangrafts for what that's worth, and the shape of that production I think is just like so exciting to me that that is somebody that I would happily trade one for one over Jenkins in basically any kind of league, and except maybe a league a points league that like just murders strike out right, because Rodriguez his big knock is that he

strikes out way too much. So for my first one, I would say, like I would straight up take Max Clark over Jenkins just in both super limited sample sizes, and would one hundred percent take him in or Rodriguez ever both, and I think that that's a minority opinion, so you could likely get something else thrown in on the side. So that's my first one.

It's not really a surprise, just given I've talked at length about both of those guys in the Dynasty d I got Discord, but that's pretty concerned about Walker Jenkins, and I really don't understand the just lock everywhere that he's a fantasy star in the making. That's an interesting one to put down on your application, sir. I just want to put out there too, these that's a pretty small sample size of battered balls, and there was that injury.

But you know, when we're talking about minor leagues, young players, that's a small sample size, and we're this is a small sample size inside a small sample size. And shoot, I've I've talked about some players that I watched pitch two innings, right, like, that's what we got. So like, at this juncture, how are we gonna take all these these pieces and how are we gonna put them together? Right? And you know,

Matt, we don't have to look back too far to see a very highly touted, very loved by the fantasy community. Prep bat go from where Jenkins is right now, I think roughly to uh where he is now. And that's why I'm just gonna segue into this one. I was gonna do a little bit of a different order, neither here nor there. I was kind of thinking, I'm inheriting a team here and I got these guys, What am I gonna do with them? But I'm gonna trade Drew Jones Matt.

We've mentioned him, I think maybe once. And we're doing this on the eve of Baseball America dropping their new top one hundred, which is just kind of fun, kind of curious to see where some guys that we mentioned tonight might end up there tomorrow. Mean while you're at the time listening to this, But let's see Drew Jones. These are all public lists. BA had him at seventy eight, Clegg had him at fifty three, Pipeline had him at thirty three, which was the average rank of like fifty five. He's

rostered in forty two percent of fan tracks leads. But man, I don't want to. I ain't calling him the B word, But if I had to make a bet right now, very black or white, is he a bust? Or is he not? I'm gonna lean bust, like you had mentioned this a couple of shows ago. But I do wonder if there is something kind of fundamentally broken in his mechanics and in his swing. Now what he got in twelve complex games twenty nine A ball games is very young,

tons of pedigree, tons of talent. Otherwise the Diamondbacks wouldn't have taken him so high. Like I get that, I could look like a total buffoon here given all the things that we know. This is how I'm leaning and what in the complex? Now? Excuse me? The complex wasn't so bad in those twelve games. But his twenty nine A ball games, he hit the ball on the ground sixty one point three twenty six percent of the time. He went opposite field forty eight percent of the time according to fangrafs,

the swing strike rate of thirteen point two percent. He did hit a couple of home runs, he did steal six bases and iso under one. Aside from the numbers, just like I had said, I think he might be broke, and who knows, maybe that can be fixed. But I definitely in not valuting Drew Jones like a top fifty ish bat to me, Jeff Pond said this to me a couple of years ago, and it stuck with me at any given point, like, truly, how many guys you really

want to bet on are like future everyday players? Like how deep does that list really go? And I think he had said something and I kind of said it at like forty to fifty prospects, I think, And of course it's different every year, but that's about the market, like where I think you really want to value these guys, and anything beyond that, I think it gets really dicey. You really want to bet that they're everyday players.

And now, of course that also implies that you're liigning those guys up well in the top forty or fifty, right, Drew Jones Before the BA new Top one hundred comes out tomorrow, I'm going to try to trade them tonight, And I'm gonna this might be kind of ass hattish of me, but I am going for some style points here in these trades. I want to impress if maybe I can just hit one of these, but hit it like in a really great way, maybe this license committee will let me stick around

for a little. I think I got a no brainer here my trades. I talk in my leagues. If you're in a league with me, I like to use the phrase no brainer, no brainer trade is sitting in your box. There's a couple of different kinds. There's a couple kinds, different kinds of no brainers, Matt. One no brainer is you get an offer and you see it and it's you slam accept. There's that kind of no

brainer. Right. There's the kind of no brainer that I'm sending to a guy that I think he's gonna think it's a no brainer, but really it's a no brainer to me. Right, That's the kind of trades that I like to send. My goal here is to send this guy a no brainer. He's gonna instantly slam accept, and I'm gonna feel good about Okay,

So tonight I'm trading Drew Jones for Victor Barracodoo. These are not I tried to keep these hypothetical trades and like what I do these one for one and then I'm but I'm also gonna get an extra piece here, and I tried to keep them similar players. Now, Drewe Jones and Victor Barracotto, I think are pretty different in some ways. But Bearracoto, my giants B side selection heading into this year. Was it this year? Yeah, twenty twenty

three. But man, this guy, I know he gets on some west but and like I find it interesting, he didn't hit ba's top ten, so I think I think a lot of people would slam except on this trade. But my man, he hit what I know, we've talked a little bit about him, but he hit between High A and Double A last year,

twenty seven home runs. He had a slug of five thirty three in High A, four seventy eight in Double A. Strikeout rate was nineteen point four percent in High A. In Double A it jumped a little bit to twenty six point five percent. But Matt, there was very much an introductory period for him at the higher level and when that ended, so what he got in fifty one games in Double A his last forty game, so after a couple of weeks he slashed two sixty seven three eleven five twenty seven with

nine home runs, And that's one hundred and sixty three played appearances. And mind you, Matt, that those half of his games. His home stadium is Richmond, where home runs do not get hit, and he hit one there, so the other eight were on the road kind of makes me wonder what would that home run Tota look like if he was in a better home park. And Cleg, I know, had shared with us some of his

excellent velocity and contact percentage stuff. Barrakota is on par as far as hitting the ball hard with a Yanko Fernandez, who I was going to put on this trade, but I wanted to use all top one hundred prospects in all three lists, and Clegg has is low man there with the he had Yankiole had one hundred and fifty seven, so I didn't think that was quite as stylish of a trade. But I kind of value those two roughly the same.

So what's the knock on Barrakota's junction? Maybe? I know the contact percentage stuff that Clegg shared wasn't like off the charts are great, but it was fine. I don't think he's like a real great defender, but I don't. I don't really know for certain. There's no speed to his game. He's still won base last year. He's not gonna run, so you know it's a it's a power heavy profile, and you know those can definitely be tough. Tough am I sould that Barracodo is an everyday major leaguer.

No, I'm not going to bet on that, but at this juncture, ID of like his chances just as much as Dru Jones. I was just

gonna say that, you're not gonna hear any arguments from me. I think one of my hot takes from earlier this offseason or maybe late last year, is after watching Drew Jones, I was like, I don't think he's going to make the major leagues, which is for our top you know five too prospect in a draft like that's pretty rare for you to make it, which, like I had mentioned, uh when you were talking about Jenkins, like Jones made the same fall in the Dynasty world that you might be getting onto

here with Jenkins. But I get it. But I get an extra piece, right I can. I can get an extra piece for Jones. So I'm not going to get too much into it, but I'm gonna throw Joey Estes as my additional piece here. I'm trading Drew Jones from Victor Barricoto and Joey Estes and we'll talk in a year and see what this looks like.

I like it. I like it, you know, tossing in a picture like that, who is going to give you major league innings, especially in a deeper league that likely has value, and especially looking at the rather large chance, I think that j Jones never turns into anything. I like this

move. I mean it's it's bold, and especially the giving up the potential on the steels and if he does ever figure out his swing, which man, it's so busted, But if he does figure it out, it's a fun profile to to dream on, especially in leagues where steel are rewarded. But yeah, I'm with you. I think Drew dis is a cell.

You think that's fair to say that I would get an instant accept if I offered that to somebody, Or I'm pretty sure with even with Drew Jones really horrible year and falling down prospect lists, I'm pretty sure you're going to get an auto accept on that one. I think folks would slam except the Barracoto's rastered in six percent of leagues, and Joey s This is rastered in twelve percent, And like I mentioned, Jones and forty two percent. Who you

got? What's your next one? Well, on this fictional team that I inherited, I've got a young, up and coming shortstop with a lot going for him. Sitting in my minor leagues, we've got Carson Williams. He

of the plus or or some even say double plus defensive ability. I think Eric Longenhagen called him the best fielding shortstop in the upper miners last year, so he can really pick it. And with an opening in Tampa as their shortstop appears embroiled in quite the gnarly lel situation in the Dominican and their backup shortstop from the last couple of years, Taylor Walls is on the shelf with a back thing. I think so Carson Williams might get a long look this

spring. And he's been really good in the minor leagues. Just last year he ran a one thirty WRC plus end of the year in double A, showing plus power, got quite a bit of speed. There's a lot to like about Carson Williams, and I think fantasy analysts have reflected this. According to our diligent Nate Handy research, he's ranked twenty two at BA prior to their update that's just dropping tomorrow. Our buddy Chris Klegg has him at seventeen

overall on prospects, and MLB pipeline puts them at nineteen overall. So for an average of nineteen and he's roster in forty four percent of league, that's a lot. I'm worried, though, Nate. I have done some digging

into Carson Williams, and the k rate really scares me. He ran a combined k rate of thirty one point four percent last year, backed by a wubbalo average thirteen point three percent swinging strike rate, and seems like he's gotten a little bit of babbit luck, some batti ball luck, as well as some I think concerns about how well his speed is going to translate as far as steals go. So I've got some concerns that this profile is. I

think he's good. Like I'm not saying that Carson Williams is a bad player. I think the power that's there seems pretty real, and unlike some of the other guys that I'm talking about, he hits flyballs. He hits thirty nine percent flyballs, which is decent. It's not out of this world or anything, but it is pretty good, especially for someone who has the kind of power that he seems to have. I like that, but I'm pretty worried that the k rate's going to get to be untenable as he gets to

the major leagues, especially early on in his career. He's the kind of guy that seems to me like he might come up soon because he has such a good defensive floor for the major league team, and then feel like a pretty big bust for fantasy when he's running a two hundred batting average to seventy OBP and isn't getting to show off his wheels on the bases and is popping a homer or two here and there, but maybe even he's getting platooned in

Tampa and now you're like, oh, I have this really high talent minor leaguer that is underwhelming for my team. So I'm worried about the shape of his production, especially for how it's going to translate when he gets to the major leagues. And one just little data point is that Dan Zeborski is rolling out his ZIPS projections for all of the major league teams for the upcoming twenty twenty four season, and he's done most of them. I think there's like

three or four to go. When he rolled out the projections for Tampa, I made special note to look at this. And you know Carson Williams. Oh, he did make it up to triple A last year. I had forgotten that. But his line projects next season if he was plopped in the

major leagues for an eighty, that's zero ops plus. So that's twenty percent below big league average if he played next season, which he might write like, that's sort of the median projection according to Zips, I think that would feel like a bus for someone that is this high, this highly regarded.

So I've got some concerns with Carson Williams, and so I'm out shopping him, And just so happens, there's another shortstop on the East Coast, also with the last name Williams, who I think might be my target here to trade for, and that is Jet Williams of the New York Metropolitans. Jet is universally less regarded than Ben Carson. He's I think at forty eight for Chris Klegg, and I think that's the high man on Jet. I was looking at Pipeline. I think pipeline is even lower on mister Jet Williams.

Part of begets why Jet Williams is a short king. He's listed at five six, one seventy five on MLB pipeline. That's pretty short, and so they've got him ranked as the seventy eighth prospect overall over at pipeline. But Jet Williams, man, did that guy have a hell of the year last year. Made it up to double A at the end of the year, made it up to double A at the end of the year, and his combined line over five hundred and thirty four plate appearances as most of the season

as a young twenty year old. I think he was twenty for a good portion of the season. He's slash well obp of four to twenty five, slug of four fifty one on the year. Jet Williams had an incredible line for the year, good for a one forty four point seven WRC plus on the year as one of the youngest players in High A and then one of the youngest players in all of Double A. On top of that, Jet Williams is fast. But even more than that, he is really good at

stealing bases. So Carson Williams fast, plays really good defense, but I don't think is very good at stealing. Like his his success rate was lower, he was going less. Jet Williams steals a lot and is successful a lot, I think, showing plus skills on the base paths, which we should care about in our rot leagues. And while Jet Williams his reported exit velocities are underwhelming, they're actually well above what we were talking about with Walker

Jenkins. I think his ninetieth percentile exit blow is around one oh three, which is below major league average for ninetieth percentile, but still in the range. So it's like, maybe it's a forty five raw forty five, so just barely below average, call it forty even if you want to round down. But what Jet Williams does really well is he pulls the ball and he puts it in the air. His flyball percentage last year was forty three percent

on the year, which is really good. Even more, he pulled a lot of those flyballs, so that's how he was able to get to as many homers as he did, even though folks are giving him twenty present game power. That's the grade for his game power on fangrafts. I was really impressed by what he did. Now I would be even more in and I would just do this straight up one for one if it weren't for the showing that Jet had in just a very very short sample at double A, his

ground ball rates skyrocketed. He struck out over thirty percent of time, and it was only six games I think at the end of the year, but it showed enough that he was like, definitely looked overmatched there. And given some of the concerns that you should come in with a smaller guy, maybe the exebulos aren't there, it should give you a little bit of pause.

All that said, I am super into Jet Williams and think that I would trade Carson Williams for Jet Williams straight up in most leagues unless the league really really rewards power I and even then I might think about it because Carson Williams hits the ball on the ground a bit too much for someone who has the kind of power that he has, but Jet Williams does not. Jet Williams gets those fly balls and pulls them. I guess I said that wrong.

Carson Williams does hit flyballs decently, he just doesn't pull them in the air quite as much, and so still on balance, he's going to have the better power projection, and I'd be more interested in holding a Carson Williams side say, in one of these points leagues that I play in where power is really really at a premium and we don't really care that much about K's,

but in any K penalty league, I might prefer Jet. Any roto league, I'm almost certainly gonna prefer Jet. And because of the disparity in rank, I think you can get a decent picture thrown in here, and so talking like, it's not crazy to ask for Drew Thorpe or a Christian Scott, somebody that might be more of a statline darling rather than highly ranked on

a prospect list. So I don't think it's crazy to ask for Christian Scott and Jet Williams for Carson Williams and taking a pair of Mets in that scenario and shipping off Carson Williams and his plus glove. I didn't know that you were a Jet Williams guy, right, Yeah, it's I just follow the short kings around and I'm just they're applauding him. I think I've told the

story the story you should have known. I mean six I too, I had Carson Williams on my short list here putting some together, I was close to maybe shipping Carson Williams off too. You know, if we were co managing this team, I'd call you up and we'd have a long talk about whether or not we should target mcconnagall in this trade instead of Jet Williams. But maybe that's a discussion for another time. But another short king, So there's there's that I could try to sell you. But I trust that bat

I think a little bit more than mister Williams. But that's that's neither here nor there. That's a good one that I mean On that one. I

well, maybe perhaps another shorter guy here. But luis anhell Acunya. He was ba's fifty sixth cleg's fifty fourth and Pipeline's thirty eighth ranked prospect just the average of forty nine so considered a top fifty consensus on the public list rostered in forty nine percent of fan tracks leagues. Now, I have long been skeptical of Acunya here, and again, like I mentioned prior this sort of range, you're kind of saying that he's probably an everyday major leader or close

to two. And I cannot get on that train. Tell me why, Well, One, he's not very good defensively, from what I have seen, he might be a fine second basement, But I think to earn a major league everyday roll, the bat will have to warrant that. And I don't know, man, I think that a lot of the value here might be put on speed. Let's see, he slashed two ninety four three point fifty nine, slugged four to ten in five hundred and sixty nine double a

played appearances, most of which were in the Texas League. And when he was traded to the Mets, look at us talking about all these Mets in the Eastern League thirty four games he did not perform nearly as well, slugged to three h four there. Now, when guys get traded in new environs and all of that stuff, I'm definitely giving them the benefit of the doubt here. But you know, he's doesn't strike out too much eighteen point six

k percentage, walks nine point one percent of the time. I do find him to be more on the aggressive side, I think when I've watched him, and I like that. But that was good for a one oh seven w RC plus, so a little what that's supposed to be a little bit better than the league average, right, Matt, is that how that works? Seven percent? In fact? Yeah, Now he stole fifty seven bases, though, but I am skeptical that that translates into super gaudy major league

stolen bases because I don't think he is like a burner. I think he's speedy, quick, and a good base runner, which is nice. You know that's that's not a knock, but I kind of feel like that's a big part of his fantasy hope here, and I'm not quite social sold on that, particularly, like you can't steal a lot of bases if you ain't playing, and I wonder what the future holds there in New York in the

middle infield. So I don't like hate a Kunya. I think he's a fine prospect, But there's a short stop the same age, who was in the same league until he got promoted to Triple A, who is good defensively, who's bat I think I trust just a little bit more. Now. I'm not sold that he is a major league every day, but he's in an organization where he might get a chance fairly soon. And that's former twenty twenty two Orioles b side bat selection Darryl Hernez, who does get a little

bit of love on some list. Clegg has them at two thirty three. He is rostered in thirty one percent of leagues, so just eighteen percent less leagues than Akunya, and I would dare say I would trade these two one for one, but of course I could get more perhaps, But I imagine whoever has Hernes is probably a big fan, or relatively speaking, a big fan. But Herne is in Double A, the same league that Acunya was

in. He slashed eight three ninety three four eighty six. They both hit nine home runs on the season and roughly the same amount of played appearances. Herne has had two hundred and fifty three played appearances in Triple A, Triple A, which you know is the PCL. Right, you should see some

sort of boost. But like he didn't slug a ton, it'slugged four eighteen, hit three hundred three seventy six on base percentage strikeout percentage less than Akunya fifteen point six in Double A ten point seven percent in Triple A. I think he too is a fairly aggressive hitter, and I have a bit more

hope in home run production with her NAEs than I do Acunya. Just from watching him for the last couple of years now, I think he does a pretty good job of maintaining being aggressive but not being out of control, even though he does swing pretty hard sometimes. But yeah, I would feel just as good in a potential everyday short step. Well, I don't think acun is a short stop but middle infielder with hernees as I do. And so I'm not going to ask for too much here, Matt, as my second

piece. Matter of fact, this guy isn't gonna be up for trade because literally no one rosters him on fan tracks because he's not created yet. Maybe I got to pick him up, maybe I gotta get him created or whatever. But I'm going to add my Pirates B side arm Alessandro Erkolini. M okay, interesting slider to my application here. And I feel pretty Dane decent about this one, Matt. I feel like in a year, if any of the three I feel the most confident in, then I'm going to present

tonight here it's this one. This one I feel least confident about. I think of the ones we've talked about so far, my issue with herne is don't get me wrong, like I said, I'm going for some style points here too, Like I feel like I could probably get some more trade return off of this bone, but I think you probably could. I think that two things for me in this one is that while I agree with you that Acunya is, I don't think a burner necessarily. I think he's got,

like Ronald, a real penchant for stealing bases. So even though Acunya is not a top of the scale runner, he's the top of the scale base stealer because he's really aggressive and is quite successful. That's the vibe that I get from Luis on Hell as well, and that in fantasy leagues if he does get regular playing time at second or maybe he shifts the left field at some point or I don't know, I think he's going to be a pretty decent base dealer. So for me, that helps with the floor for the

production. And while I hear you on Herne's like hits the ball pretty hard and has I think quite good contact skills, he also just hits everything on the ground, so I think that's going to limit his upside. You know, he's almost at fifty percent ground ball rate. Her NAEs is and well, Acunya is at forty eight point five percent. Hernas was at forty five

point four percent in the same league. Yeah, that's true, But I think that with like you'r you got to do something better because he's not going to steal more bases, right, so you would want to see like a lot more home runs. I just don't think that's part of Herne's game, is I guess what I'm saying. Yeah, perhaps, but I'm going to bet on I'm gonna take a leaning bet here on Hernae's glove and good enough bat more so than Akunya's if he if you can hit enough to get on

the field and stick with the poor glove and steal you your bases. Yeah, And and this, I think what I'm saying here is not that it's a bad bet. It's when it's an interesting one. But I think you could ask for an even more interesting arm other than a guy that you just had to create. And I agree, you know, I agree, Like that's what I'm saying. It's like, I think there's a bigger gap here

than even your you're implying with asking for Erklani. Yeah, I don't disagree with that, but I'm trying to I'm trying to walk on the wild side here. I like I hit on one of these, look good in the committee's eyes, but I like my chances to hit two out of three here. But who knows. I'll do sort of an honorable mention one here.

It doesn't technically qualify for this because Pipeline actually has them in rank order or at least sort of close that I would do. But I was gonna sub submit that I inherited Kyle Teal, and I was going to trade Kyle Teal away because some folks I think, I think BA has him pretty highly ranked

as well. I know Clegg does too, but Pipeline has Teal at eighty two, and I was going to try and trade Teal and his helium from his really incredible pro debut for Dalton Rushing, someone who have an even more incredible pro debut last year but seems to have fallen a bit out of favor and people aren't quite as high I think, but I still think they should be. But anyway, only Pipeline still has Rushing like forty spots ahead,

so it probably doesn't fit our profile here. So I'm going to hold on that one and really go down that route, although just to say that, I think that Dalton Rushing is going to be a very very good hitter, especially in points leagues. I think he's going to get walks and power and maybe the Dodgers will eventually plan them. I don't know, or we'll get traded out somewhere. But I think he's very good. And I worry about

Kyle Teel's production, largely semming from an unsustainably high line drive rate. I worry about the rest of the shape of his production, although he seems like a plus glove, so maybe he's just going to win that on the back of getting more played appearance. But why did Russian? He seemed like a very popular name, lots of talk about him last year. How come folks

went quiet on him? What happened? So I'm not sure. One thing might have been that he was, you know, so the fortieth overall pick didn't have a ton of collegiate track records, So I think that there was like the fact that he hit the ground running so much last year. I think that there was like maybe people were like, oh, this is a flash in the pan, even this is too good to be true, because I mean it was obviously he ran a two twenty four WRC plus over one

hundred and twenty eight plate appearances. Like that's an insane debut. But it's not like this year was bad. He was at high all year, hit fifteen homers, walked even more almost nineteen percent of the time, kept his strikeout rate, you know, a striker was maybe a touch high, but still showed good power, but had a low babbit So his two seventy six babbit led to a two twenty eight average, so maybe that was part of

it. Still good for a one forty six WRC plus. I just think that he's showing some of the skills that I really value in a hitter. That he takes a walk and if you have power, use it, and I think he does. He gets to that pull fly balls that I really like. So I think for me, like Rushing seems like a guy that is going to be a very very good power hitting catcher at the major league

level. And Teal, I think succeeded in his debut by getting a bit lucky, like hitting a tonnel line drives and that's just not a thing that is sustainable. So that for me is more like just highlighting the difference in their debuts, and it's just interesting that like Brushing's debut was way better than Teal's, and I wonder if the plus defensive reputation from Teal is helping bolster

the overall profile for Teal. But anyway, this one might be a straw man that there's already a divergence of opinion on, so you need to go down that. Let's well, we're at Catchers, my last one here.

Okay, you know, Matt, we're not going to get out of this one without me trading away and there in there. But Harry Ford, he has him, had him sixty first cleg, forty second, pipeline, thirty ninth for an average rank of forty seven. He has rostered in thirty nine percent of fan tracks leagues. Now, he's a little bit different than the other two guys that I'm trading away in that I don't particularly dislike Harry Ford or there's not like these big like red flags or to me or what have

you. I just think he's just kind of overrated in a generic sense. Last year in Hie spent the whole season in hi a right five hundred and sixty three played appearances. He had fifteen home runs. He stole twenty four bases, which, hey, for a catcher or maybe a catcher, that's nice to see. He slashed two fifty seven four to ten, slugged four thirty with an ISO of one seventy three, babbit of three h seven. He struck out nineteen point four percent of the time. He walked eighteen point

three percent of the time. Bad at ball profile. There. There's nice stuff in here, no doubt, but like I said, I'm not totally sold that he's an everyday major leaguer at this juncture, not a guy that I want to put top forty to fifty sort of bet on. And there's a catcher that I happen to like quite a bit that I think is maybe not grossly underrated, but I don't think gets the attention, especially considering his

proximity that he deserves. And so I'm going to swap Harry Ford for a very modest catching prospect here, Ivan Herrera, who has had a little major league run the last two seasons. Cardinals catching situation is interesting at this point,

would not be surprised. My hope here with this trade is that when I get rid of my exciting young catcher here that I'm gonna dream scenario would be I'm looking up at the end of the season and I got the Cardinals everyday catcher who might not wow you offensively, but I think he's a very good contact hitter. Hits the ball the other way a lot, probably too

much. He doesn't get into the power that I think is there ten home runs last year in Triple A and three hundred and seventy five played appearances. Now, even though he grades out really poorly for speed, from what I've seen, I think he's a little bit more athletic and quick than he's given credit for. Now that this is a guy that's going to add stolen bases like Harry fordnite, but he might be able to chip in a few.

He slashed two ninety seven four point fifty one and slept five hundred in Triple A. Of course, that's a well the International League Memphis, that's not it's not the PCL was ISO of two oh three. Defensively, I don't think he's super great, at least from what they say. From what I've watched, she seemed fine, seems decent. Maybe he's got a good arm, or good enough arm, but I think kind of a sneaky play here for some proximity and a guy who's might get you some nice ratios as a

major leaguer, but that is not the meat of my return here. I feel like with that's offer, I can ask for more on the pitching side. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get a guy that I've talked about enough, Cayden Dana. With that, so Harry Ford, Ivan Herrera, Cayden Dana. He's rostered in twenty percent of leagues, where Herrera is six percent of leagues. But I like him, you know, talk about potential arms that are outside of the top one hundred that could be there

at the end of next year. Kind of like that. I like that bet a little bit. He's he's very young, and he's proven himself a little bit in the uppers already. I wrote that piece where I watched a lot of his his outings, and I know what I'm getting into. I think he's maybe just like one or getting a little more polish on one more offering from maybe being a big time pitching prospect. And we know that he's shown some horsepower which could be dangerous. Who knows how the arm holds up

and all that. But uh, I feel good about this, this trade being a maybe sneaky good a year from now, all right, I actually quite like this fun for you, but both being aggressive on the arm ask because I think there's a pretty big perceived gap in there, and I also like Herrera. I think that's a really sneaky buy in a deeper league, especially given I think the legitimate concerns about is Harry Ford going to be a catcher at the major league level. I think that showed at the WBC that

he's not ready I think right now. And I watched a fair bit of him in Hia this year, and I don't think he's a great defensive catcher, really good athlete, but I think struggles with receiving a bit, and that's super important to a lot of teams. So I think he's a candidate, and they've talked about this a bit. I think moving him off catcher at some point, but they're going to keep developing him as one for now. I think the other sneaky thing about Harry Ford, I'm a little worried

about his power. You know, he hit fifteen homers this year, but he did so at Everett, which is one of the tiniest ballparks in all the land, and it's pretty easy to hit homers there. And I, yeah, also just think that there aren't great exit vilas behind it. The shape of his production is still interesting. I just don't think you should expect a Cal Rowley kind of like big time power bat or even a peak GT. Real Muto, which I've heard people throw around, because he's got the

speed there as well. So I think with Harry Ford, if he's a left fielder or a right fielder and is hitting fifteen homers a year with fifteen steals, like that's still a decent player, but it's not sort of a cornerstone franchise catcher, and that's what you might be worried about on the downside. So and Herrera seems like a lock to sicket catcher and did have a sneaky good year. He's had a couple of sneaky good years. Yeah,

I like that. I like that as a target. He kind of fits these profiles that I'm a little bit drawn to, maybe too much, but like a Jordan Diaz at the plate right where yeah, there's a lot of hitting the ball deep on him, A lot of opposite field stuff, a lot of line drives, but yet there still is the ability to pull the ball, and it's monsters. I don't know if that's what those guys will end up being before a young hitter. I kind of like that as maybe

a potential starting point, So we'll see. But I don't chipping off Harry Ford for potential everyday catcher and a pitching prospect that I really like. I feel okay about that, And I also think that you could probably get a lot more for Harry Ford than that. But trying to look good, at least you asked for, like a real created arm. That's good. You're learning, you know, yes, yes for more. Yeah, yeah,

he's actually on somebody's roster, right. The worse you can do is somebody will tell you no, okay, my last real one here, last one

that I sort of fleshed out again. I tease this a little bit in the Dynasty dugout discord. I've inherited Brady House on this team. Top pick Stallion six for tooled out toolshed monster. I've heard all these things describing Brady House, and I gotta say, I like my tooled out toolshed monsters to actually show their tools for someone that has you know, quote unquote plus to

double plus power, he's really not shown that so far. Some of this is probably injury related, He's battled injuries throughout his career, but I think more of it is his swing. I think the power is there, but I think the way he swings limits that upside. And even though he's ranked in the forties, I think by MLB Pipeline Yeah at forty by MLB Pipeline sixty two by Chris Klagg, I'm not a fan here. I think this is a cell high candidate for me for a few reasons. So I did

write about this a while ago. I think this might have been in my piece where I analyze just way to Paula's swing as well. But he he has some of the same markers that justswait Apaula does, and that he seems like he's going for more contact than he should, like he sort of swings around his body and more so than Depaula, Like he swings really fast, like his hands are moving fast. And I think his exit Bilo's back that up. Even as a nineteen twenty year old, I think he was getting

way up there. I think I've seen his exit vilas reported at ninetieth percentiles

at one oh seven, which is comfortably plus. But he hits so many of them on the ground, both because of his pitch selection, like seeing him chase sliders below the zone and pull them, make contact on them, but pull them, or with on fastballs up and away, because again the rotational nature of his swing, he's almost turning too fast rather than like what great hitters do, which is use their rotational force, turn really fast and

then use that to extend their hands through the hitting zone. What it looks to me like his house just keeps turning really fast. So when he gets the barrel on the ball, he might hit it really hard, but that leads to a quote unquote kind of flat around the ball swing, which gives a lot of ground balls. And that is true to his profile. He hits the ball on the ground quite a lot, especially for somebody that has like plus game power. You want to see more flyballs than he's hitting.

He's hits forty five percent of the balls on the ground last year and only thirty one percent flyballs. And that's not as egregious as some of the guys that we've talked about for but for somebody who's really only calling card is his power, Like, he's not going to be a plus hit tool guy.

He doesn't walk. I mean, he ran a full season walk rate like under five percent, or I guess it was seven percent last year, buoyed by his A ball performance, but it was four point four percent at high and four point seven percent at double A in decent stints at both spots. He's not going to be a plus approach guy. And he's not a plus speed guy either. You know, nine steals on the year last year, and I think that's likely to be his ceiling maybe, So he's not a

shortstop. He's a third baseman power only probably some K concerns like twenty eight percent at double A last year. It was okay at high A at nineteen percent and okay at A ball at twenty one point five percent. But I want to see the power production from a big time power bat, and I think both the shape of his swing and his pinch it for hitting the ball on the ground worries me enough that I'm going to try and sell him for a guy that, to Chris Clegg's credit, is ranked right behind him on

his top one hundred and that's Brian Ramos from your Chicago White Sox. He's easy there. Clegg has ranked Ramos quite aggressively this year, but he's a guy Ramos in that I was kind of clamoring for a bit even last year that I thought he was under ranked and underappreciated, and while having guys back to back like they're interchangeable, and even Chris would say this, it's splitting hairs within the tiers, but I think that that isn't a widely held belief.

And everywhere else I've seen has House way ahead, Pipeline has House at what I say, forty, and Ramos isn't in their top one hundred. I'm not sure where Ramos is on ba's top one hundred, but he might not be on it, and I think Brady House is still. So this is a swap that I'm comfortable making for a couple of reasons. Ramos has hit in Pitcher's parks for most of his career, and as such, his like top line production sort of looks a little underwhelming. Ramos also has had

some injury concerns, especially this year. He started late and I think took a little bit to get going and you know, he only hit fourteen homers this year, barely more than Brady House, but his exivulos were good. They were almost as high as Brady Houses, who's lotted for double plus power and ramos. People don't talk about this that much, but I think he has comfortably plus raw power and more than that, he's going to get to

it because Da Da he hits fly balls. He hit fly balls at a forty almost forty three percent rate this year at double A and I and and he pulled the ball a lot, you know, forty four percent pull rate, twenty nine percent center, twenty seven percent oppo. That's the shape of a power production hitter. And it sounds like he might be an option at second base soon for the for the White Sox so plus power at second base.

I'm I'm pretty interested. And I think he's got slightly better contact skills than someone like Bretty House as well, So they're not super far apart in age, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I don't think they're super far apart in age. Maybe six months or something. And I just trust the ramost bat a lot more than I do Brady House. And because of their perceived difference. I think you can also ask for for most people, maybe not in the dneasy dugout, because Chris has them ranked pretty close, and

I think a lot of people are rightly listening to Chris's sage advice. But in that kind of case, you maybe you ask for one of my b side arms that I really like, like an Isaac Coffee, somebody who you know low velocity but has really showed out, I think largely because his approach angle is just so unique that it does not look like anything else any hitters have seen, so like, I kind of don't care that it's only ninety one ninety two because it just looks so different. But I think a lot

of people still really really care about velocity. I think that's a topic maybe that we'll save for another day because we're already two plus hours in here, and I have a lot more to say about about that. But Coffee is a kind of guy that I think might be underrated by people, even though he just had an absolutely incredible season. I wonder if from a lot of people, I might be able to get Brian Ramos and an Isaac Coffee for

Brady House, and I personally would feel really really good about that? All right? Matt? Well, you know I love you and I know you presented some great reasons here, But in this team that we co owned together, I have changed the password and kicked you off of the team. Uh oh, because I am not on board with trading Brady House for Brian Ramos. Tell me why? What what did I do wrong here? Why do

you want to trade Brady House? Who? Mind you? Not? Great hitting environments versus right hand pitchers slash three oh six three point fifty nine four sixty six with eight home runs for a guy who slashed two nineteen three sixteen three sixty one with eight home runs versus right hand pitchers, Like those splits don't don't concern you, No, I mean one, splits take a pretty long time to be predictive of anything, and it would take it would take

a lot for me to be like, oh yeah that even a season's worth of them. It's it's pretty rare for them to be more predictive than than just like a generic righty, you know what I mean, Like than than just having a baseline. So like I, I mostly don't even look at the splits until they're like they've had like a couple of seasons of like bad performance against an arm Okay, well, I don't think Ramos has ever been great versus righties. These are two interesting side by side players here. Ramos

led seven thirty and eighty seven played appearances against lefties. House was six thirty one in just about the same same amount of plate appearances versus lefties. I yeah, I do agree, you know, to your point. Like even though I would start usually by saying, yeah, it's gonna be noise for a pretty long time, but like that's a huge difference. So maybe there is something there to the to the splits. Yeah, I think I think

that's a good player debate though, that's a that's an interesting one. But I I want nothing to do with White Sox anything right now, so we would we would have a discussion about that one. My co owning friend a little short list here of some other consensus of the three list top one hundred guys that I was mowing around trading with Tink Hans, Nick Abel, Carson Williams, Jacob Mizerowski, Sebastian Walcott, Kyle Teel, and Hearson Waldrip or

whatever that's worth. But I liked the three trades that I came up with here to put on my application the most. All right, so how are we how are we grading this? What are we doing? We're just looking to see, like, let's revisit it. We'll revisit a year from now. We'll see if if we're morons, if if any of our reasons here it seems sound or looking good. I don't want to say that I'm gonna be coming out ahead of all three of these trades. I've ideally that would

be the case, but I think I can. I feel good that one's gonna look pretty good, one's gonna look probably once is not gonna look the greatest, And that might be all right if I come out looking and looking good on two of the three, and then I think that's a strong case to get my license. I like it. Okay, So we're shooting for

positive turns. You're not gonna win every trade, but you want to win more than you lose, right, And maybe we can post the the hypothetical trades in the discord and see if we're off base, because you know, it's always hard, like you gotta know your league, you gotta know your trading partners and what works for somebody somebody else might be like, that is a stupid trade. I'm not even interested in engaging. I tried to go like, yeah, I tried to go as far as I could doing good

about it and giving someone an instant slam the accept button. Yeah. But yeah, So you can follow me along on Twitter if you want pitching specs and hey, fill out your own B side license applications send on my way. What kind of crazy, crazy walk on the wild side you got there? What kind of pretty boys are you gonna send for some maybe unheralded guys that you like. And if some of those trades went down, I mean, the V word is gonna get tossed around like I might get. I'm

gonna get vetoed out of that league. You know. I think maybe I had mentioned this once before, but what was that twenty eleven? I think it was. I think that sounds right. I traded a very red hot Tony Songranni starting pitcher. It was a great year in a very very heavy pitching points league for a not super popular prospect by the name of Jose Ramirez, and the league vetoed my trade. Wow. And I never got a share of Jose Ramirez there and i'd be lying if that still doesn't bother me

some. And I hate Vetos, I am with you. I hate Veto's as well. I almost never ever think that it's the right thing to do. Now, it's not going to make the league better, it's not. It's like it's it's also just like let people do what they're gonna do. Like there's I was reading this is right when I was getting into the dynasty game. I'd played fantasy baseball for a long time but had only done sort of limited keeper leagues, and I had never done a full dynasty league.

So I was reading up something about it, and I think there was like a bunch of posts on like maybe the Dynasty Guru or you know, one of those sites. There was like this is you know how things change if you're in a dynasty league versus just a regular keeper league or redraft league. And the article is good, it was, you know, informative, interesting stuff. But the thing that was so fascinating was it was written in like twenty sixteen maybe, and the examples that they were giving of, like this

is a crazy trade that nobody would do. You look back on it and you're like, wow, the prospects are way better in that trade than the major leaguers. And they were like talking about how that would get vetoed in the league, and I was like, man, Dynasty, you just don't

know, right, Like you really really don't know. So you kind of just have to say, like everything goes and you know there are problem owners that you need to replace every year and teams that get abandoned every year, but it's still I think you just got to like let people do their thing and just be mad that you weren't talking to that owner first. When I sit down and edit these shows, there are definitely times when I was like, whoa, whoa, Nate Me, are you sure that's what you really

think? Like this is divining rod stuff. There is only so much confidence that you can have and things and players. Things are never as good or as bad as you might think. I think there's a lot to that idiom And I don't know, Man, you gotta let guys play in dynasty leagues and do their things. Gotta let people have their own evaluations and and like who is trying to get our fake license here? Like who's got the license? Who is the gatekeeper of what's fair and what isn't like, here's the

thing. We are, Nate, We're the ones. We're going to issue our licenses to ourselves. Right, So that all being said, this was a lot of fun. Hope you come out looking all right. We shall see, and uh, you know it's interesting. You know we each sort of like co signed on two of the others others a trade. So that's that's interesting, and some questions about a third. We'll let Chicago Farmer take

us out and we'll talk to you next time. Until then, we have it down first with the lumbonius face, and on the very next pitch he up and stole second face with greatst be he wasn't born, He had dirty yes uniform