Episode 39: Mud Jumping

exercise to get into this episode. But Matt, how are you, buddy?

I hung out with last weekend. I was like, yeah, I watched way less major league baseball these days, just because like when I have a free minute, I'm like, no, let me peruse some minor leagues, and let's catch up on a couple guys that I've put on a watch list because one of my leaderboards has them as interesting. And you know, to build on your point, we're not really talking about the pretty boy prospects. It's pretty rare.

We'll dive into anybody on anybody's top one hundred. We're really trying to identify some of those guys that we think maybe belong in some public top one hundreds but aren't there yet, or we might have an eye on as a riser. But yeah, we're mostly interested in talking about how the pretty boys, as Nate likes to say, aren't actually all that pretty and maybe you can get some discount. Pretty boys wipe off.

Matt eyeballs are faster than spreadsheets or gouting reports. You know, I think we saw that maybe some with some of the arms that we picked this offseason, right we turned on a few innings of a few guys, and we were kind of, you know, interested before they started hitting lists and getting blurbs and whatever. And in the dynasty world, deeply especially, that's the name of the game. We got to beat your opponent to the punch.

would be talking about them. Yeah, you know, just think about how quickly people jumped on some of the hot names early this year, and now some guys are putting up similar kinds of performance, but nobody's really talking about them.

guys hit the bigs just this last week. Matt, think that brings our total up five bad?

He's just like funky and nasty. Yeah, yeah, I feel like that.

have affected it. He posted his highest walk percentage that he ever has, and I feel like he hasn't walked anybody since he's been up in the bigs. Right, like at least the three outings that I've seen, I think he just has one walk and yeah, and they're piggybacking him, but I do wonder. You know, we've talked about Detroit has a pretty good pitching staff and especially upper miners depth as well. But I still like Herder as a guy who's going to settle in as a pretty useful

big leaguer for them. So again, kind of funky lefty with some sink and some change up and some slider that keeps the ball on the ground a lot.

Luis Castillo doesn't really strike my interest too much. He's hit a lot of home runs, but he's kind of a wild, swinging looking lefty. I'm not so sure about, but Bo Davidson man undrafted out of junior college. I think the story is he didn't start playing baseball until a handful of years ago, came back from an injury on July twentieth, and he has just been on fire. Dude, in my opinion. You know, stats are one thing. He's not going to keep running a five point fifty babbit

or whatever it is. Whatever it's been, right, But you saw some of them. I've been watching, and I think the eyeball test piques my interest just as much as those numbers. What do you think, Matt.

ball goes. You look at Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Ronald Akunya, Shoheo Tani, like these guys leave the yard to center and to their pull side and to the opposite field. And one of the things that has been I think separating Bo Davidson for me from some of the other guys that we get excited about at this stage is he's showing that power to all fields, and I think is pretty special. You know, he's a little bit old

for the level. He was twenty one on the complex to start this year coming back from injury, and now he's twenty one in a I.

level thing that I like to look at personally. One is the power projection piece. And I know we've talked about this before. I have some amount of skepticism about when we look at a player as a nineteen year old post draft like and we say, oh, he's super athletic looking and tall, and he's going to pack on the pounds and then the exitbulers are going to follow. My contention, and I've done a little bit of research into this, is that those gains are are somewhat limited

like that we should actually temper expectations there. And so the power projection piece is one part of the age level, and the other is the mental library, Like have you built up the reps of being able to see pitches, make good swing decisions, and then do damage on the pitches that you are swinging at, And that one is way more complicated, and it's one of the reasons that gives me pause about people that are new to the sport. So lots of people like to point to somebody that's

new to some aspect of the sport. So they were a two way player, now they've given up pitching and now they're hitting full time. Or they were a multi sport athlete in high school and really were actually better at basketball, but they picked up baseball and they're going to run with that now, and that's a reason to be optimistic about their development. And I've looked into this a little bit and I'm a little skeptical of that. Like, to me, that's the one flag I have for Davidson.

He's new to the sport and is immediately having success. And so one of the narratives around that is even more will come because he's still learning. He's still like building that mental library, and there isn't a lot to nitpick about his approach so far. Maybe a touch high on the case side. It's not bad by any means, but it's a little bit elevated. But he's got good walks and the swinging strike rate maybe a little bit high, and so maybe he's being smart and passive and letting

the balls come to him. Like I like that kind of hitter personally. As we've talked about before, I do wonder how this is going to go as he starts to get challenged at levels right, and as there are people who have spent their whole lives building up that mental library, Like how much of that discipline piece is

going to stick? So for me, the only like sprinkle of cold water I put on Davidson is that the new to Baseball narrative is one that is actually a minus for me, and it's one that gives me pause about like, maybe this is just a pretty impressive hot streak, and we should expect quite a bit of regression, especially

in things like his plate approach. That said, I have been very impressed by the power piece, and while I haven't seen any underlying data, I don't know if you have, Nate, But I haven't seen any underlying data about his exit bulos yet. I suspect they're impressive, Like I suspect that we're looking at like really good ebs.

a lot of the COLL League. You watch a lot of the Collleague guys when the hit homer is there, like yeah, it's quote unquote of no doubt, but it's like ten feet past the fence, you know, like it's really not they You see these guys, they're younger, they don't hit bombs. And a lot of those parks, at least the ones we have good views for, they're great hitters parks you know, like especially for power. So when he gets into some of these balls and really nukes them,

you're like, Okay, that's impressive power. Like that's kind of the kind of power that we were seeing from Likelzara Montes down there.

you know, early next year. So I'll tell you like, I acted on this in a couple of leagues and snagged him over some guys that like might be helpful for my competing teams because I was like, there seems to be some lightning in the bottle potential here and he was still on the waiver in a couple of thirties, so I was like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna try and scoop him.

best way of what I'm trying to say here. I've seen guys that were taken in the top five, young guys taken in the top five of the drafts before that, I was way worse mechanics than he does, and we're lauded for their athleticism and what could be and what have you. So, and I'm not getting hung up that he is an undrafted guy. We're down to twenty rounds. Lots of guys in the BIGS who were drafted past the twentieth round. Some of these undrafted free agents still

signed six figure signing bonuses. You know, given his story and where he came from, I'm not surprised that not a lot of teams were on him. He's from some junior college that no one has ever played pro ball from before. You know, they have lou Davidson man a bit of fun middle of August early August sort of mud find here. And he's still at I think zero percent roster. I would like to see what that's going to look like at the end of the year. I don't know.

and get into him. And that led to this he is one of these. But I was like curious, I'm like, how many guys have like legit jumped two levels. This year, I've gotten two real promotions. And I don't mean fill in for an injury. I don't mean rehab assignment. I don't mean a guy who was in High A last year or Double A at the end of last year was maybe coming back from something. I mean, like legit moved up two levels. And I think this time of

year is maybe a good time to do that. As a minor leagues start to gear up for the playoffs, you might get some guys that get bumped up just for that little run and go back. You see that, and you see that with the White Sox, I think often with what they do with their Double A and

what have you. So so I just got curious. I scraped every player in the minor leagues that had played at three different levels, and matt that probably returned I don't know, between four hundred and five hundred guys, and then I did the tedious task of vetting all of them. Which ones are legit you know, moved up two levels not you know the other things that I talked about. There'll be some complex guys that'll jump up and fill in for a week and Double A and things of

that nature, and I don't mean those guys. How many bats do you think legit received two promotions this year?

He's in the Biggs now, right. Alex Freelan hya to triple A. Jacob Wilson, of course, he went double A to the Biggs. Trey Morgan started off a ball. He just got to double A. And then Will Wagner was what he was at, like high A, double A, and then the Biggs right after after the trade, and those guys are all on the map, right we know these guys, these guys are fairly popular. And then the guys who aren't roster zero to one percent at o Kemp we've

talked about a little bit. Peyton Elis Eels, who I've seen some buzz around. He was a guy that the Twins signed from Independent Ball, kind of the speedy, top of the order type guy. Uh, he started off in a ball. He's up in triple A now. Philip Glasser, he was a college draft he who maybe kind of started lower than maybe he quote should have, but he was a ball to start the year. He's up to double A now. We've mentioned him in passing a little bit.

And then the guy that started this whole thing off for me, Romeo Santa Bria, who we've passing a little bit. But and I guess maybe there's there's one more guy that I don't know if you really fit this sort of these guidelines, but there's a young I guess, middle infielder with the astros Ja Maal incarnacion. I don't know if you've seen him at all. I didn't really realize what his season story was. But he's played at a

ball for a few weeks at a time. Hiated a few weeks at a time double A and then like back to highest. So I don't know, filling in where they need. But I don't know. I think it's a little bit more than that. He's he's a nice looking player. To me, he's he's speedy. I think he's good with the glove. He's stolen like thirty six bases. He's popped only three home runs and like his ISO and slug is pretty low. But the home runs that I saw

him hit, like dude, they were jacked man. And he's twenty years old, so I'm not you know, this doesn't go rush out, but he's kind of put himself on my radar or something. I'm going to pay attention to him. I don't know if he totally fits this criteria. So I don't know these guys that are still in the mud, I don't ken. What do you got any thoughts on him? He hit pipeline. He's at like number twenty eight for them, and I saw BA named him like the first half

Phillies prospect of the year. I kind of like him in a Yeah, I think this guy has a chance to make the big sort of sense fifteen home runs, seventeen stolen bases on the year. I think there's solid contact ability to slug. I don't know about the defense. I think he plays around several positions in the dirt. But yeah, I don't know. I don't ken you got any thoughts.

that he does have. I think the thing that slowed my role as far as like a full throated endorsement, was the we hadn't seen this kind of performance out of him in his previous two minor league seasons. Especially when I looked at him, he was like a twenty four year old in high A, and I was like, okay, does look good, but given where he has been, it was like, all right, this is kind of underwhelming performs

the last couple of years. I at the time, my evaluation was like this is solid, like somebody that I do think could make the major leagues. But I wasn't. I wasn't thrilled by any anything in the profile that I saw, you know what I mean, Like, to me, he looks like a guy that might end this year at Double A, start next year at Double A, maybe make it up to Triple A. But then it's now

he's twenty five. What makes him difference from a Matt Kruhn or something like we talked about, who was kind of an older guy that had performed for the level and then was stalling out in the upper miners for the Phillies. Right, So he reminded me in some ways of Krune, although a Krune does some things differently than he does. But that was my look is like, hey, there's stuff like here, but I don't know if this is somebody to get super excited about.

but worth noting. You know, he's moved up a couple levels and not a lot of guys are doing that. I was surprised to see that Glasser didn't get a top thirty designation by pipeline for that system. I kind of thought he would fit in the NATS top thirty, but yeah, what do I know. And then Matt I saw some I don't know if it was a tweet or somebody sharing in the dugout, but Peyton Elis was getting I think a lot of love from some sort

of stat based system or something something of that nature. Right, He's twenty four seven home runs, He's stolen thirty bases, he walks fifteen percent of the time, strikes out than that thirteen percent of the time on the season. As a whole, I've turned him on a little bit. My whole thing is like I have gleaned a liking to a few independent ball signees over the years, and it just never really turns into much more than having a

really nice minor league season before they're released. But at least for hitters, this is kind of a I think, Yeah, like I said before, I think top of the lineup sort of guy. Maybe he's a bit slappy, I don't know. I haven't watched a ton of him, but yeah, I don't know. I point being is, I'm not like over the moon that this is some b side gem here. But nonetheless, a guy, you know, doing some things but could very well fall into like a career triple A or I think.

still head and I was kind of surprised. I didn't really even realize that he got you know, he was obviously got promoted to high and then what last week, week and a half ago now he got promoted to double A. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but he scorched his first week with San Antonio saw him rip a double, but he's only twenty two years old. Eleven home runs on the season. He swiped a few bags. Now, I think he's listed as a catcher in places, but

he has not caught this year. He plays first base. He's got an on base percentage throughout his three levels combined at four to twelve. He's slugged four sixty three. I so, you know, maybe we'd like to see that a little higher, but he is. He has had a nice season at the plate. And this is a guy who's jumped three levels and is only rostered in one percent. Pipeline put him number twenty four in the Padre system. Now they've jettison some guys, so there's some room on

that list. But I think Santa Bria is a pretty underrated prospect here, Matt, are you with me or not so much?

And then the first space profile only is one that you should look at with some degree of skepticism, right, like that it's hard to make that position work in the fantasy realm and in real life baseball too, so that like, starting from that perspective as Okay, this guy's really probably only going to play first base for you or you know, DH, I guess you should. He's really got to be showing some other skills that you're into

for you to, like, I think, be excited about rostering him. Luckily, for Santa Bria, I do think he has some of that. He's another one who his played approach and his back to ball skills seem pretty good to me having watched a little bit of him, and I think the numbers

back this up a bit. I don't think he swings and miss misses all that much, and while he can get himself worked into deep counts and then maybe chase because of that, I've on balance thought that his approach was a plus for me, you know, not super elite, but not He's not chasing a ton, he's not being overly aggressive, and I think that that leads into some of the other positives, which is he seems to hit the ball well but at like pretty good angles, Like

I think he's a guy that I don't know. I'm not going to comp him directly to like a Freddie Freeman, but he's got that kind of vibe to me of a guy who's going to run a little bit higher than average line drive rates and he's not going to be like you're kind of elevate and celebrate kind of hitter at least I don't think. I don't think he's like selling out for fly balls or pulled flyballs. He's I think to your point, like you called that, you've

seen him just smoke some doubles. That's kind of what I've seen out of him too. It's not as much over the fence power as it is like he just kind of laces these line drives all over the yard and that leads to you know, slightly higher babbitbs. Like he's run high babbits the whole time in the minor leagues, and right now he's at babbit at double is absurd, Like,

you know, ignore that really it's super super high. But I like him in that gonna run a little higher babb gonna hit lots of line drives and doubles, and I think he's got a pretty reasonable plate approach, and all that to me says that this guy might be a real solid, kind of real life hitter, a little bit like the like the blame crim kind of archetype you know that I have talked about before for the Rangers. Like that, he's just he's not gonna leave the yard

forty times in any season. I don't think that, like that's not the kind of upside. But he does everything else well enough that you're like, this is a big league regular quality bat. Now whether he can sustain this kind of thing and does he stall out at the uppers because he's a first baseman without like that true light tower power, I don't know. I don't know. So I'm I'm round down because of the position inflexibility, but

the rest of it looks pretty interesting to me. And I do think he's a bat to be not fu but like I would add him in places if he were available.

Like he just seems so solid to me. You know, the numbers aren't like gaudy, right, there's not anything over the top. But why is that? I guess is what I want to know? What's missing? Yeah? Yeah?

come down. You might expect some of the other numbers, like, you know, his strikeout rate might tick up a little bit, walker, it might come down a little bit. And then he's a first baseman in double A who's like a little bit younger than average, like twenty two year double a that's still comfortably below average, but that WRC plus now maybe evens out to like one twenty or so after those regressions, and then you're to your point like what what's the thing wires and he leaving the yard, like

what else do we want to see here? So it seems to me that he might be more of a good doubles as kitter than like a corner matcher. The plate skills and the batted ball profile are really strong, so like maybe there is more power coming, or maybe he will run into thirty homers a year at some point. I don't know. That's the part that keeps me interested is that there isn't anything to point to that's like an obvious like, Okay, yeah he's super hot, but this

can't possibly sustain. There's enough here that you're like, you could see him running a three thirty BABP and you could see him running a twenty five percent k rate, but everything else looks really good, and you're like, yeah, that's a good hitter.

household name these days. I've not heard much about him, but he's someone that I wanted to highlight as Like, as you know, I spent a lot of time in a Ball because I'm always really really interested in the guys that we've never seen, whether that's from you know, high school where we've just seen like showcase stuff or college or the Complex or or the DSL, and then

guys that can promote it to a ball. It's like our first view of some of these guys that maybe we've read about or we've seen some interesting lines and first first time to like actually get eyes on guys. And one of the guys this year that I had I think I had him on a Complex watch list when I was just going through like really young guys that had performed well at the DSL last year, and then I was like, I really like to watch all

of those guys. Basically every sixteen year old or seventeen year old that gets at bats in the DSL kind of regardless of how they perform, that they're at young playing at a level. You know. Again, dsls can be variable in quality, but to me that's a good leading

filter that there might be something here. And this guy for the Guardians, Luis Morejo, he had a pretty good DSL last year, popped a couple homers, walked some, didn't strike out very much, but had an interesting flyball prin City that I was like, hmm, that's kind of interesting. Played kind of all over first base third base again, like at the DSL, if you're already playing left field or something, that's like can be a bit of a flag.

But anyway, he was a guy that I thought was interesting and then he was really bad on the Complex to start, like punching out all the time, power wasn't showing up. It was like I was like, Okay, I'm not that interested. And then I forget what I think I did some like complex ret rolling filter, and he showed up as like having a really good couple of weeks,

and then he got promoted to Low. That Lynchburg team had a couple of I think it might have been a couple of weeks ago when they were playing down East or there's another team that I was pretty it might've been down East. That might have been Columbia or something.

They were playing another team, and it was like an interesting bunch of guys that had just been promoted or were like I think you've mentioned this before, like the Carolina League is often really full of interesting guys, and so I turn on this matchup and am watching like a bunch of different kind of like an interesting set of guys on both sides and Morejo just showed out. He had two bombs in the game. He was absolutely scorching the ball. He's this big, framed, athletic looking, you know,

corner guy. They've mostly played him at first base thus far, although I know he's gotten some time in the corner outfield spots as well. And you know, six ' four or something six three one ninety ish to me. But in the first bad of this game against I think it might have been fan Bilt, maybe it was fanfil

this one I was looking at. He takes this slider that's below the zone and right on right, so righty batting slider just below the zone, and he takes this hack and this pitch is definitely like knee level or below, like this is not some hanging ball, but he takes it and just muscles it out to center field and it was like, not the longest home run that I've seen, but it was a really impressive swing on that kind

of pitch. He homered again later in the game. Somebody around this time might have posted some nugget about his exit Bilows being really really impressive. I think somebody might have shared this in the dug out. Maybe it was Maddy Backpack or somebody who I think also really likes somebody that. So he's now eighteen, is in full season ball, has done nothing but hit, and I kind of think there's real power here, and I suspect there's a sneaky athleticism.

So I'm curious what Cleveland's going to do with the defensive position. It's nice that they haven't pigeonholed him just to first base or third base. Even like he's they're already trying him out in different spots. While he's still mostly playing first base. He's playing around the diamond still a little bit, and I think he may have the athleticism to make that work. But the power, to me,

seems pretty interesting. I've made a couple of like small bets on him in a couple of deeper leagues as somebody that I'm cautiously optimistic about for the next year. He's a guy that I could see kind of dominating a ball and maybe even high a next year and then being considered a legit kind of power focused prospect. So Luis Morejo to me is one of the most interesting guys that I've seen at a ball that I hadn't had eyes on before.

you guy was killing abell. He got up to high A. He had a good couple first two weeks and let's go, he's got to go to double A. It's like, eh, slow roll, give it a couple months, and a lot of times a couple months later you're like, yeah, you know he's struggling now, but yeah.

really really care about age to level. There's some gaming the system that I think can happen there, But there's also with the contraction, there's just fewer spots to go around, so like maybe a guy does get aggressively pushed up to double A, but then the double A and triple A lineups are filled with guys that are on the forty man, are almost on the forty man, and there's nowhere else for them to go. And we saw this

with the Orioles. They had a ton of guys that were interesting up and down their system, but the very top of the system, including the major leagues, they just don't have roster spots for all those guys, Like they don't want Tearstad and Mayo and Holiday before he came up the second time and crushed like that. They don't want them just to languish on the bench for four out of seven games in a week, like they want

them seeing reps and seeing at bats. And at some point you have this good problem of like you don't

know where to put everybody. And we've said this about some of like that next tier down of the Orioles prospects, that they're really good, We're really interested in them, and I think they did an awesome job identifying some of the guys to send away to consolidate, Like it was very Dynasty Baseball level trade when they sent you know, et Seul and Horvath and Bonmeister for zach Eflin, Like, yeah, I love that trade on both sides, Like those are

three guys that I think are really interesting and one guy that went healthy looks like a sp number two, although the other effort is hurt now and it's so bad timing I think for you too, Right, you have Efflin in a couple of important places. Yeah, it's brutal.

I don't know what what all the thinking is behind it, but there are a lot of guys that was the end of my vetting road with them was like, well you got released after your little whirlwind of the system. But another interesting part of this, Matt, So I'll just tell you so you know, this is one of five thousand reasons pictures and pitching is so much better than hitting. But there's about twice as many pictures that have had these sort of true double promotions this year, or more

then your dumb hitters. But on the total list, on the total list, Matt, a third of these guys we're from the Houston organization either still with them or traded away and did you see Matt Pipeline and those guys put Houston Houston System at number thirty once again, and.

helm and that's an interesting shift in their approach. I did think that their trade for Kukuchi this offseason was probably not one that someone like Michae Elias would have done. I don't know what did you think about that? Like to me, it felt like a trade I might do in dynasty, where I'm like, these four guys, I think maybe three of them are going to be big leaguers, maybe like a below average big leaguer or two, but they're like they belong on a big league roster, is

what I felt like. But maybe none of them is going to be a star. And Kakuchi's like a good depth arm that I'm happy to roster and plug in as my fourth best starter or whatever. I felt like it was an interesting shift in tactics from the Astros.

But to your point, the point of a minor league system, for if you're really trying to win, is to develop major league assets, and whether you do that by trading them away or turning them into major league assets, I think is part of the trick for a major league team. It's an interesting shift in their surplus value chasing approach. I think right like I feel like under Alias, they really cared about the dollars and cents of it because

they had a strict payroll budget. They were going to be lean until they were sure they had stars and then try and extend them on team friendly deals. And it was an interesting sort of shift, like Kakuchi's a rental and they sent four guys away who have decent shots at being productive mlbers that are all pre orb they're all in their first or second year eligibility right first year right like they sent nobody away that was

It's an interesting philosophical shift. I will definitely agree with you that I think Houston is doing a bunch of things right in the searching for value where other teams still are ignoring, and their player development does seem to be pretty good. Like, you know, we had talked about low Berfido a year ago and we're like, he looks like a pretty interesting guy, and nobody was really on him. And then he had an awesome year this year in the upper minors and I think found himself on the

way to some top one hundreds. I'm still skeptical that he's like a major league average or better player, Like he looks to me more like a one more to half a war kind of player at Steady State. Hey, they netted a good player on them. I don't know. Houston is just a fascinating organization, I think, to both of us. And it's not always for the reasons that you would think.

guys and just keep it coming. And I don't think they gave away anything that they can't live without.

something in the bigs, and that was three. I guess now at seventy eight WRC plus now you know, striking out a time, not walking us like that looks like the guy that we saw just he was on a hell of a heater in in Triple A. So it's it's interesting how that works out.

you know, first round pick whatever. He's moved up three levels, and I gotta say, I think he hasn't really lived up to the first year player draft tight this year, Matt, I would, uh, we got George class, you know, I was traded and now he's up in Double A. First couple of Double A starts, Matt, where's all those strikeouts that that big nasty fastball was supposed to get your boy Logan Henderson, God, I love him, been pretty good.

that's a dude. But I was too late Brandon Sproute, right, he's moved from high A to double A, Triple A. Thomas Harrington. Quinn Matthews, which is a good call by you this preseason. By the way, how many innings has that guy lock now the last two years? Quite a few?

hundred and fifty six pitches or something. But yeah, he's logged quite a few innings, and it's interesting this year that I think he's held his pro velocity games still even if he's made it up, even as he's made it up to double A.

up to the bigs. He got traded to Toronto from Houston, and then Brad Lord the National system started off in hy A's up in Triple A. Now, I don't know how much you've watched Lord, if any this preseason that we were talking about the Nats system in their arms right and how it was just like such a sleeper, like I don't know, grasping to get excited about somebody that wasn't you know, already rostered highly, like you know whoever. And I feel like Lord is just kind of like

the king of that of that sort of profile. Like is that a great season? I don't want to discount his production. It's been awesome. I'm just not so sure there's like stuff there to get too excited about, or any sort of funkiness to get excited about, or deception, lots of flyballs, not a ton of caves. Just kind of overall feels pretty major league lackluster to me unless I'm missing something that I don't.

how to pitch a bit, especially in Sikora's case. I wonder because they had like a few drafts in a row where they took top like fireballing pictures pretty early that maybe had some questionable injury history and I don't know if that worked out for them or they were trying to diversify their risk, but it really made a lot of their system seem kind of boring outside of like the top kind of pretty boy arms which looked

particularly risky to me. So I don't know whether that was a systemic thing or what, but yeah, it's an interesting phenotype that they seem to have.

ball is now in double a right. Story with him, he was mostly a reliever in Mississippi State or exclusively a reliever, I don't know for certain, got drafted in the twelfth round the twenty twenty two draft, but the Pirates did not sign with them. I don't know what the story is there why that was. And then he went and played independent ball and then the Brewers signed him last year. And he's put up some great numbers, right, I don't know, his K minus BB's really good, his

strikeout percentage, all that stuff. Right, I've seen some little you know, wo'd you rather when Casey Hunt and Logan Henderson in the same conversation I'm just like, whoaha, whoa why I can't I can't get on board that. I don't know if you've watched Hunt Matt, but you're talking about I don't know, fastballs like ninety one, ninety two. He's right handed, high seventies. I think it's pretty decent. Furmer slider change up right. He's got he's got the tools,

his good body, good size. He can pitch, you know, although I have to say the outings that I've seen, there's you know, a lot of the catcher calm for something in the location and him him not hitting that, him missing it. But you know, more more so than someone i'd say was pitching real clean right. I wonder if there's like a little Johnny right hander in him. I see the fastball. When there's damage done, it's usually

the fastball. Tend to wonder if his pitchability and his like you know, good secondaries, good use of secondaries, kind of mask what could maybe be a big major league hurdle. Wondering about that fastball quality, and I think he, I don't know what's the best way to say it, Maybe he knows the fastball and like his greatest pitch because he is trying to tuck that thing down and down and the way in the zone quite often. So I don't know. I know some people are really excited about

Casey Hunt. He there's a lot of things that we would like about him, right man. We like pitchability. Guys like guys you can execute a whole arsenal and sequence differently, and I think he's got some of that in this game. I'm I'm just tampering some of my big league dreams with him. But of course he's the type of guy if he comes back next year and he put on a couple of clicks on the fastball or reworked in it's a better quality fastball, you could go Zebbie Matthews esque.

I think so I like it. I like it. I'm just not sure I'm as excited as some I'll.

and I think I have to agree with Clegg. And part of this is some other opinions that are closer to the situation, but I think they really like him, and well he's twenty one on the pipeline list, but I think this is another candidate for like one of the most underrated prospects maybe in all baseball. I still want to see The Rangers for a long time have had tons of interesting arms and the lowers, and then they get to the uppers and they can't get them

over the hump. Like really, Matt Bradford's like the only guy that they have totally developed or has totally come up through their system. Everybody else that's been pitching for them for several years now like wasn't you know. I got to imagine that's a big emphasis for them that they need some of their homegrown arms so they don't

have to pay all these high dollar free agents. But I think Cold Drake, of all the interesting arms that were in Hickory down East this year, and there's been a lot, man, I think he might be the best of the bunch.

I do like Drake, and he's one. It'll be interesting to follow how his promotion to Double A goes. I wanted to ask, have you seen another guy at Hickory and I think he spent most of the year at down East. Maybe good in his first couple of starts in Hickory, and that's David de villov Yeo Deva Leo? Is that that Deva Leo?

interested in him. Like you mentioned, I think there have been some good arms in the Lowers for Texas, but he was one that I hadn't really heard many people talk about. And I think he's a zero percent or one percenter on fan tracks too that I have on a couple of watch lists, like I want to see

a little more. I'm not sure there's the swing and miss to the profile for the long term, but he's shown some really impressive signs and it just seems like UH has has some skills that I like to bet on, including the fact that he's approaching one hundred innings already as a twenty one year old in Low ay to High this year.

but but we'll see. I caught four guys that started the year in the DSL and are now in a ball, So that's a I consider that a couple of promotions. I caught Hayes, who's Flores of the Brewers, nineteen year old, good sized kid. I watched them at Fredericksburg. Now he came in with like one out, bases loaded, got down three to zero, there was a wild pitch and then I think a couple more run score and then he

put three more zeros up after that. I don't know if there's anything to soundbriter alarms too much here, though. He's got like a high eighties fastball and looks like a big breaker and that seemed about it. But curious as to why the Brewers might have him in full season ball right now. They when they've done that with players in the past, the pitchers in the past, they tend to get interesting at some point. Houston kind of

older guy that was in DSL. For whatever reason, they signed him internationally started him there, twenty two year old by the name of Pedro Marquez. I don't think there's anything too interesting there right now. It looks like a kind of classic reliever. The Rangers had another older DSL guy on Hill a Moscow, same thing a couple appearances. I think he's probably a reliever all the way. But then I saw now, I don't know, was this a

highbrow signing or something. Matt Anderson Brito of the Astros is raster and two sent of leagues right now, and I think he's like the number eighteen prospect on pipeline for them right now, which I thought was interesting. He's nineteen. I don't know how many innings he has with them in a ball right now, but.

then they promoted him right to Complex. He had one start the Complex, and then they promoted him to a ball again as a nineteen year old. So I think that was what it was. And I remember this because I picked him up because of that in one league where I had some I think that was right on the trade deadline for me, and I had sent away a whole bunch of prospects to try and shore up a good team for the run, and he was one that I was like, Oh, that's pretty interesting and seems

like there's something there. So I haven't actually watched him at Lowa yet, but the I think the hype came from baseball America.

It was really it was all from like the side, from this weird angle that I've never even seen broadcasts from Augusta. So, Matt, interesting, do you want to talk about my Houston Astros conspiracy theory? They don't want people to know how good their prospects are for some reason.

broadcast Anderson Brito maybe a budding dude. And then the next day one of those other DSL guys pitched, and so I turned that game on and it was back to back to center field camera.

Stateside olimber Santa Santa. I don't think he's quite lived up to the to the hope he did. He started off in the complex this year and now he's in double A. I kind of think though that it sure seems like the track is a reliever right now, or they're just really limiting his innings. I know they, you know, Piggyback, I have a lot of guys they want to try to develop, but he's not even getting like three innings.

He's like it's like two max. So I don't know, I don't know what the whole story is with him there, but well, he's one percent roster and he's number sixteen on pipeline, but then two other guys that are sitting at zero percent. If the Astros are promoting some starting pitchers, I'm definitely going to take notice. But James Hicks and Ethan Pecco went from a ball to double A this year. I don't know if you've watched any of them. Matt James Hicks, I think he was like mostly an SEC reliever.

I think I missed Sippy State. Maybe no at South Carolina started a little bit for them, maybe, But this is kind of when I think of an Astros pitching prospect, or at least what they gobble up in the draft is a fastball that plays really well up in the zone. I think it's better than some of the grades I've seen slapped on it, but it's not super high velocity, low nineties, but I think it's got, you know, movement

profiles at work. I'm not like overly pumped about James Hicks here, but he's a guy that if they I think he does have a good breaker already, but if the stuff sharpens up a little bit or comes up a grade, he could be really interesting. Then Ethan Peco. He's twenty one, big body, fastball breaker, another fastball up in the zone guy. I think he's got with stuff, with stuff that plays, you know, up and down. He's

he's more interesting to me than Hicks. But another guy on in that pitching farm that's that's moving up, So maybe that turns into a good pop up next year. I don't know.

I'm kind of surprised these zero percent roster do you think you know, someone a picture that the Dodgers taking the four or five rounds usually gets some pub from Florida State. I think he's one of these sort of potentially maybe like a tough angle from the left side. He's kind of side armed three fourth a slot. He's funky, interesting that he's, you know, like a funky left y. I think he's got the good breaking ball that could

play well versus both hand hitters. Maybe a guy to keep an eye on him has been a little slept on. He's not like the biggest guy in the world. I think they have him listed a six foot But yeah, I don't know why A Crowel's career is underway, and I think he's had some nice performances. Have you watched him at all? I haven't no My Giants B side arm Trevor McDonald, he really hasn't. Like last year, he didn't throw a lot of innings, but they liked him enough to throw him on the forty man and he

started off in a ball. He's in triple A now. I still, you know, think that there's there's some nasty stuff and there strikeout appeal. I think there's some pitchability with him. I didn't look to see how his tria A run has been going of late. But I think he's still a very interesting starting pitching prospect that's only two percent rostered.

A from him. He started, he went three, four hits, one and run three walks five k's fastball, dry ro slider, and I think he uses pretty well the locates. Well, there's I think there's plenty of developmental meat, you know, still on the bone here, but there's just knowing the rangers and stuff. There's got to be some sort of outlier or weird characteristic with something with him that they

like him. He's been you know, there's a lot of piggyback and there's a lot of arms to get innings to and he's kind of rising above a couple other names that I really like, at least, you know, level wise and getting the three innings. So I don't know, he's just kind of an interesting guy. I might watch a little bit.

name right now. But I reached out to Nathaniel Schultz from Prospect Live, who I wrote like a super awesome, great deep dive on him with video. You know, I love that sort of stuff. That's my kind of prospecting there. But he said that I should pronounce it Chen John Ao June. Oh yeah, with the with the A's what he's from Chinese Taipei? Is that right? But yeah? He just I think it was a Double A debut or maybe his second start with Midland, and he like struck

out nine. Man. He's he's interesting dude. He's got a fastball that's hard and you know you can you could just see eyeballs just rides. He's got a great change up, really nasty change up. But he went like six scoreless against Tulsa. There only two hits. One walk. Wasn't the first time that I turned him on, but it was definitely like a start that got me thinking about him more. And then I read uh Nathaniel's piece and that was

awesome and got me thinking more. He's watched him a lot in Midland, or excuse me, a lot in Lansing. I think his numbers have been really awesome this year. A little bit short on be the K side, and I think that part Matt has a lot to do with breaking ball stuff. His fastball change. Evidently has experimented with a lot of different kinds of breakers, a different cutter, maybe a couple of different cutters, but something of that

ilk right. So I think maybe Nathaniel suggested that part of the lack of ks this season might be from him throwing a lot of breakers and working on that. He's a you know, decent sized guy. I don't think he's real tall, but you know, he's strong looking. I think there's a little bit of funk to his release. I don't know what the height is on it, an interesting arm, and there's system. He's one percent rostered right now. Definitely a candidate for me to be my ASB side

next year if that roster percentage stays down. I think he throws like six or seven pitches right now technically, but I think a lot of that is just trying to find that that third offering, that spin that he's probably going to need, and that's probably going to be the biggest question with him, and the biggest hurdle if he's really gonna take off as a starting pitcher. But Chen Jean al June, I think that's how you say it.

of hitter, but who knows when he moves up. But yeah, I don't know, man, that was probably you do Mutton, and you do these long, tedious processes and stuff, and sometimes there's not a whole lot at the end. But this was the most interesting new new find, so to speak, for me doing this.

that stands out to me. But that sounds like a pretty good recommendation there.