Episode 42: 2025 NL East B-Side Selections

a rise in popularity. Two. I don't know, Matt. I think like this World Series, the Dodgers were so much better at the little things than the Yankees, and that made all the difference, right. And sure, the guys that we talk about probably aren't going to be any foundational piece of your dynasty squads, your thirty teamers, your only leagues, but it is the margins and maybe you can win on some of these margins and turn not much into something.

And so we've spent a lot of time months doing our dives here, doing our digs video numbers, and we're going to start sharing and a series of episodes will go division by division and share our picture here selections for twenty twenty five.

the Dodgers, Wow, such great pitching prospects. Land and Knack and Gavin Stone and River Ryan, all these guys that people loved is pitching prospects, Like none of those guys did anything. I mean, Knack through some important innings, I guess, but Ben Casparius is the one that started Game four. Sure, that's the game that the Yankees won, but I still think that that's indicative of you never know where those important innings are going to come from. Guys like Ben Casparius.

Those are our B siders that do that kind of contribution. We're not here unearthing any sho Heo Tanis. Although he didn't have the best World Series, maybe we're gonna find and highlight some Freddy Freeman's. You know, he was a well regarded prospect, but nobody pegged him as a Hall of Famer even when he came up. I think he was overshadowed by Jason Hayward, and even years into his steady Freddy contributions, folks are still underrating him and he's now World Series MVP.

guys that I have found interesting. I was actually pretty pleased, Matt. I was a little nervous doing this dig this year because of the way the minor league season went and how the opinion is about prospects these days. But I was pretty pleased. I found some guys I'm kind of excited about to see the future here.

me that way. So I don't know, this year, I felt like I maybe was on the back foot a bit with my selections, and Nate's already coming in feeling confident He's got all his guys. He's like, he's going to crush me. I'm nervous, everybody, I'm nervous. I don't know if I'm going to be able to live up to my dominating performance of last year.

arm making some starts for them next year. He is a guy that we did mention this last year. He wasn't my B side pick, but I liked him coming out of the twenty twenty three draft as a guy who hit the ground running and just performed right away. And if you'll remember Nate, that was Lucas Braun. When

I looked, he was zero percent. And again, some of my roster percentages might end up being a little different to Nate's because when I pulled it down, all of the data Fantracks had done their update and so there was a bunch of wonky numbers, and so I've basically only got guys that are zero percenters in my list, but I know some of them are going to be well.

out twenty seven ish percent of batters. He had over twenty percent K minus BB when you combined his levels this year. He threw a lot of innings, which is low key one of my favorite things about him. Through one hundred and forty three innings, like against twenty four

games started. That's a starter's workload. Like that's something that you can look at and say, if the Braves have a couple of injuries Morton retires, say god forbid Chris Sale and Strider I missed some significant time last year, the Braves are really going to need some pitching. Max Fried's going to walk. He's almost certainly not going to

resign with the Braves. There's going to be some innings to be had in that starting rotation and no offense to a J. Smith Shaver and Herson Waldrip, but I think Lucas Braun looks more likely as a guy who can just step right in and take some innings. So Braun for me, is really well rounded in his arsenal. He's got solid command. It's not just strike throwing control, although he does that well, and I think that he

executes his off speed pitches exceptionally well. It's one of my favorite things about him in that he kind of reminds me a little bit of a former B sider of yours, elder Bryce Elder. You really see out of his hand like the slider, the curve, the change. He could throw any of them at any given time, and he commands them all pretty well to the different parts of the bottom of the zone, which I really really

liked in my looks. So Lucas Brown for me, he was a name to follow out of the draft for me last year, and I'm making it my Braves B side arm this year.

or above. Admittedly not my favorite guy that I'm going

to talk about this offseason. Probably in the bottom third of B side arms for me. But I'm gonna go with young Davis Polo. I don't know if you've watched him at all. Polo is nineteen during the season. I think he might may have turned twenty now, righty six to one listed six to one anyways, from Colombia. He threw fifteen games twelve starts at Augusta this year. Maybe know, not crazy good surface numbers. I don't think I struck out twenty and a half percent, walked five percent, just decent.

But what I liked about him, he's a little bit of a I think maybe a Budding like kind of spin spin guy. He throws his slider a lot. I don't know, I don't know necessarily how great that would grade out on stuff. Plus metrics and things like that. No idea probably can't pitch the way that he does when he moves ahead here moves up. I mean he's liable to throw his slider just like six seven times in a row. T but it works at the A ball level because he probably sits about ninety two ninety three,

I'm guessing something like that. I don't think it's a totally dud ninety two or ninety three. I think he mixes in a little bit of a change up too. But a young guy who's getting an opportunity in the brave Zord, you know, having some success. Yeah, I figured i'd take it, give it a watch and see how he may or may not progress here solid.

repertoire wise, it's a little bit different. But the kind of the Whippi way that he comes at you, the arm angle and then the good slider, I think those are all traits that he shares with Iglesias.

But maybe maybe that takes another small step forward. But he worries me in that from a reference. And then with Smith Shov like, he seems like he's got one good pitch and if that pitch isn't on in his fastball, like, if it's not U upper nineties, it seems like he gets hit and he doesn't have good command of the other pitches. So I'm nervous about either of those two kind of big horses working out. But Murphy, Murphy and Richie, to me, both I think have ye a lot.

two percent. But I got a guy that I like a lot, a lot more than most of those arms. And I'm going with young kinder Benitez. I don't know

if you've watched him at all, Matt.

point one two ERA one point two whip. He struck out twenty four point four percent, walked almost eleven percent. You know, lots of decent video of him being down in the newly like well covered Florida State League. I don't know if there's anything like super loud in the arsenal. He's a lefty. He probably throws I don't know, ninety three ish, but he's got like the full kit. There's a slider, there's a curveball, there's a change up. If Clegg was was has been touting him a little bit.

I imagine there's probably something underneath the hood that he's into. But I just think that this is potentially a really solid, like some of all parts, very young prospect here, and what I mean we're talking he could he could maybe be nineteen years old and in Hi, right, I mean, that's that's pretty nice. I know there's there's some walks and stuff like that, obviously, but a younger guy. He's far from from wild to me and out of control. I think he, for a teenager, is trying to execute

a pretty sophisticated plan mixing his offerings. So yeah, I'm gonna go with beneath us, and he's probably like right in the middle of my thirty arms, maybe a little bit to the back half. As far as how i'd line them all up.

in that those guys are all good. Going further down the ownership in this system, I was pretty I struggled a bit and ended up with a guy that I would say is in the bottom ten, maybe bottom third definitely, i'd say of the of the arms that I came up with with a couple of guys in the system, and it's worth noting Austin Roberts. He's a Rule five draftee from I think Pittsburgh, maybe originally that Miami grab

and Roberts. He's a reliever only, but kind of like my arm from the system last year, Anthony Maldonado, I think he's got the chance to be a pretty high leverage reliever. The stuff is, you know, fastballs like mid nineties, but it's a nasty changeup, a decent slider, and it just looks like this is a kind of nasty back of the bullpen guy. Maybe as soon as next year. So again, Austin Roberts, someone to peep for your reliever

specking in those deep leagues. I also really considered Will Schomberg, who was a Mariner's arm. He was really good with the Mariners and I was pretty interested in him, But I forget which trade that was that he got sent to the Marlins for anyway. I can't remember who that was for, but he was like atrocious after he went to the Marlins swing and miss still was there, but he was walking everybody. And it's a small sample, so maybe it was just like new regime having him work

on something. I'm not sure he's one to watch because I was pretty interested in what he was putting up in Seattle and then it just backed up so much in Miami in a way that I hate personally, like the high walk guys, so I stepped away from Schomberg. He might have the most upside of these these three guys that I honed in on. But the guy that I'm going to go with, and again I'm not super excited about it, is Jake Brooks. He's a college righty out of UCLA who I saw a little bit in

when he was there. Kind of feels Johnny right handery

to me, like it's good strike throwing ability. He walked fewer than five percent of guys this year, didn't miss a ton of bats for a college guy in mostly low A. He was still only missing like I think ten and a half percent, And as far as swinging strike rate goes which is pretty low, and it was didn't come with like a super high ground ball rate or pop up rate or anything. You know, He's pretty standard johnny right hander. I did like that he will attack with a solid three pitch mix, goes to his

change up a lot, and it's a decent pitch. The fastball just isn't explosive. I don't think it has great shape, so I can't recommend him a ton, but I liked that he still managed to get pretty solid results even with like a kind of I don't know, subpar, putrid, borderline unplayable strikeout rate. I expect that all to rise a bit unless something significant changes about his pitch mix, and maybe with the new organ there in Miami, they

can mold him into something a bit more in the offseason. Yeah, there's a decent starters foundation, and in terms of the pitch mix here, it's a simple delivery, and he had a couple of pretty nice outings to end the year. There's something there that's like, you know, maybe a sixth or seventh depth starter up and down guy in a year or two, but not a glowing endorsement, but still my guy for Miami this year is Jake Brooks.

my top ten B side arms. I'm going with young Wellington Arisania just how you say it, And man, I know this guy is like so up your ally because he rocked a twenty three percent walk rate and a ball yep. Now mind you that was six outings thirteen and one third innings. But he does have a history and rookie ball of the high walk rates. But Arisenia is six ' three, big righty from the Dominican. He was just nineteen years old this season. You're talking a

fastball that can touch triple digits. I wonder a lot about what his secondary game might end up looking like or being don't think he really has a natural feel for spinning one. I think they gave him a cutter to try to work with. And of course the walk rates, right, that's a big thing. But I was really impressed with a few of his outings that were televised, the video that I'll share that one doesn't look like a guy

who walks twenty four percent of guys or whatever. And if you look at his game logs, it's kind of like walk zero, walk zero, walk zero, walk six, walk six, walk five, walk zero, walk zero. Make of that what you might? I don't know, but you know, I think there's a lot of kind of a big boom here. I watching him, I think of watching like Justin Martinez back in like twenty twenty one. I think there's some similar similarities there, and very curious if there's a similarity

in like the actual shape of fastball. I think there's like some natural cut there. But this is guy and Matt. You know that, I don't like guys who walk a bazillion dudes. I think there might be some hope here. I'm wondering if a lot of the wildness can't just be I don't know, maybe cleaned up with some more consistent mechanics or something like that. I don't know, but like I said. A couple of the looks that I saw,

I was, I was pretty blown away. They have him relieving, you know, some extended three inning outings and stuff like that. We'll see what they do with him. But I got to imagine you got to arm this lively down in a ball. I would think that you would want to give him a shot at starting and see how that

might go. So my hope is that that's the plan and he gets some more extended looks a ball and he harnesses in a pretty nasty powerful fastball and develop some of that cutter or slider, and I think he could he could put up some big time numbers in a ball if that all happens.

of our approaches to this particular exercise. I definitely tend lean towards more like college arms that maybe they've got something there and they could be quick moving. And that's definitely the fish that I tend to shop shop for.

for more. As far as the B sides go. Is the look of a kind of standard righty in that it's mostly a three pitch mix. Think that there's a chance for a little bit more stuff, like like the stuff is more.

a useful pitch. And then I think his go to is a changeup that he'll throw to either righty's or lefties. But he knows how to deploy that arsenal pretty well. And he ended in High A this year, had like kind of split his year half at A ball half at High A, and had a really pretty nice run to end the year there in Brooklyn. His last start in particular, I would suggest people get out and watch. It was six innings of one run ball, ten punch outs, and he was like he was earning these punch outs too.

It wasn't a lot of like called strikes or crap competition. Like he had been promoted into HIGA and National's lineup was okay there at the end of the year, so I thought he looked really solid.

the other one was the opposite. So Weninger what his fastball? It's which one is? Ta? I get them confused in my in my ead.

despite how poorly it could maybe go. So if there's like a big boom guy in the thirty arms that I bring up like he might be it if you want to live on that wild side.

Of the five arms that we're talking about here, I think this guy's my favorite. It's not maybe the profile that I'm usually really wowed by in the I think he's got some issues with control, like he walks a little more than I would like. But I kind of loved his kitchen sink mix. So I'm going with Luke Russo. Did you watch a bunch of Luke Russo?

He's a right handed pitcher, twenty three years old and ended the season in High A he dominated dudes with this curveball, and it didn't matter the count, the location, Like he would get a called strike at the top of the zone, he'd throw it and it looked like it was a middle middle fastball, and then these high

hitters are just whiffing right over it. The curveball was the most impressive pitch, but I think he showed five, maybe six pitches, depending on how the slider is classified, Like maybe it's a slider, maybe it's a slider and a cutter. He looks like he had a fastball, a four seam, but also maybe a two seam and then a changeup mixed in there as well. So had a lot of pitches and punched out twenty nine percent of batters.

I don't know, man, I was pretty excited about the breadth of the approach, Like the fastball even looked like it had some life, like a little bit of east west movement. But he stayed under it too, so I wouldn't be surprised if its shape is like slightly above average.

Maybe you know, he wasn't getting a ton of whiffs on it or anything, but it looked like it was a hard pitch to square up, and like I said, he was a fun pitcher to watch, like he would approach each hitter kind of differently, and it definitely looked like he was a guy that I threw on a few outings in a row, and it was interesting to see that he was very unpredictable. A lot of these guys you just kind of watch them for a little bit and you know, oh, this is how they're going

to approach this guy. This is how they're going to approach that guy. And Russo was not like that at all. He the first time threw might throw a guy only curveballs, and then the next at bat he doesn't show the curveball at all, and then the third at bat he's, you know, coming in with the cutter, away, with the changeup, up with the fastball, and then curveball middle strike three looking because they hadn't seen it in two at bats.

That kind of depth of arsenal and none of them seemed bad to me, has me as excited as really any arm in that system side of Painter. So, he's one that I actually he was my favorite of the five here in the National League East. The drawback for him is the command he walks a little more than I would like. And that's on the control side, you know, nine point five walk percentage this year against the again

the twenty nine percent strikeout rate. But it's also the some of these pitches are all over the place, Like he had outings where I think multiple outings that I watched where he struck out the third batter but it was a wild pitch and they got to first and then he struck out the next batter again, you know. So he did that a couple of times at least that I saw. And his fastball command isn't very good.

So even though shape wise it seems all right and he doesn't give up a ton of hard contact on it, at least that I saw, he also throws it for a ball a lot, and so I think he's a little bit inefficient as well. So definitely still some work to be done there for Luke Russo. But I really liked him. I just thought there was a lot of fun, fun breakers in there, and a diverse mix and a diverse attack, which is just interesting.

This is after Painter Abel Tyler, Phillips, Seth Johnson, McCarry, Moise's, Chase Nade, his Graves, Jean Cabrera. But yeah, Castiania, I mean, he's got a really good fast ball. He's got can be at times just a devastating breaking ball to both sides. Showed some lengthy through some fqos. I didn't notice though, and something that I didn't think about this season. Kind of wonder about his effectiveness versus lefties, especially you know, a major league caliber lefty.

some really dominant performances execution wise. Would I say that he is like the greatest I've ever seen, No, he's still he could still tighten tighten execution, I think with all of his offerings. But I think with that slider being so good at times that you know, he doesn't have to be the most precise guy. But I also kind of think that this is He's the reason why the Phillies had no problem letting Aldegari go. You know,

so we shall see. I'm hoping maybe he gets a chance in the Biggs this year.

I like Cassiano a lot. The strikeouts are there, the execution like it can get a little bit variable at times, but he's a very good pitcher and I think he does have a great shot to contribute to the major leagues and soon. So I think you probably got me beat on this one, but it's I just gave it to you because I knew that he was your guy.

But you know, it's so hard with minor league injuries. We don't get a lot of information, but I'm gonna go with who it might be the same story. I don't even know if we're gonna see my guy this year.

way off base here. But in the in the like pitching evolution tree, he's like a I feel like he's like a cousin of like a like a maybe a distant cousin, but a cousin of like a Herder and Mitchell Parker kind of mix.

They're just like his hand just like looks weird to me. Boy, we're talking like us off toss and lefty right nine ninety two, ninety three on the fastball, maybe ninety three. But he's got I think a pretty good change up. I think he's got two good breakers. I feel like Sullivan kind of fits us that at least the guys that we went with last year.

But I also think he gets pretty good extension. So his fastball played up pretty much when he was throwing that in the zone, like guys weren't hitting it or they were popping it up. It looked like that combo was really tricky for both sides of the plate. But then the slider that he would feature against lefties, like they looked awful against that pitch, I thought, yeah, And then the change up, I agree with you. I think it comes out looking kind of funky.

be major league contributors really soon. Everyone else that is like low ownership and in the NATS system is poop. Like it's so bad.

he's still rasted at zero percent in September. I'd take I'd take him over half those those other guys we just listed.

Jan Heel g Al Yeah, but a young Dominican who got in thirty nine games at a ball. I know there's a couple of Discord members that I think are interested here, but I might be. I mean, I don't want to give away my my draft stuff, but this is one of my more favorite B side selections this year. It's a shortstop listed at six ' one. I think that's probably about right. He's kind of interesting because I think he's way more athletic than the build. Might you know,

aesthetically he might look. Now, I time this on video, so you know, take that for what it's worth. But he had well it's on the video. It's on the video that I'll share. But from out of the box to first or no from from contact to first he had like a four. I think, yeah, yeah, it was. It was super fast. And that was just from the video the video editing timer, So I think he's super fast. I really tried to make an effort more this year Matt to watch defense on guys. I tediously went through.

I can't say there was really a lot to see from him a shortstop. You know, some of his games weren't broadcast. There was a lot of like charging a ground ball, making a nice throw. I didn't find any like diving stops or anything like that. And he didn't hit a home run in a ball. But I did catch a complex game where he hit a home run and there was some like game day stat cast stuff or whatever, and he hit a ball one hundred and five point one four hundred and eleven feet, So you know,

maybe there's a little pop in the swing. But I like the look of him. I like the look of him at the plate. Thought he had some pretty nice at bats, seemed very much in controlled and you know, eighteen year old kid didn't seem like out of his element. In one hundred and fifty nine played appearances, like he only hit two oh four slug two fifty five. You know, nothing out standing there. He struck out twenty three point three percent of the time, he walked twelve percent of

the time. But I think Clegg had noted some some metrics and stuff that he was interested in. But yeah, a young shortstop here that I kind of like the look of, and you know, maybe he can he can pop like some of the young arms did last year. For me, I don't know.

those things are positives for heel and I like him quite a bit too. He's a solid B side pick in this org.

so this is another one. And I kind of considered going for the guy that looked a little bit like that archetype this year in ej Xposito, Like I really flirted with him because he does have that well rounded profile that we like and has some similarities with some of the other guys, like not elite power, but a solid glove, good speed, And I did consider it because I liked quite a bit about Exposito, but I went a different direction, and you know, I'm not in love

with this pick, Like, I don't think he's going to be in my top half and not in consideration for my draft for the bats. Just to tip my hand a little bit, but I'm going with Ethan Werkinger this year.

three slots. I think he can play a decent center field and would be maybe a hair above average in left or right defensively speaking, just from the looks that I got, I think he's pretty fast too. He's a right handed hitter. But I got a sub four second time on when he beat out and infield single to second base. It was like a two hopper did the second basement field of like just just to the shortstop side of second base bag. But he beat the throw like pretty easily, and I got like a three seven

time on that run. But I think there was something weird with how the broadcast cut the video, like it definitely wasn't actually a three point seven second time, but it looked plus, which made me sort of surprise. That he only swiped nine bags in a full season. That was a bit weird to me. So I caught six times and got caught six times, so like maybe he just is a crappy bass stealer. I don't know, but he seems fast to me so and ran a decent

babip too. There's not a ton of power here. He popped twelve homers over five hundred and forty five played appearances, but he spent a lot of time in hya and double A, which for the Braves are horrible parks to hit home runs. We noted that with Drake Baldwin last year, so I think there might be a little bit more power in in the bat. There nuked a homer off of Casey Hunt that I saw, who was really really good. You know, we didn't talk about him a ton this year, but he's somebody that I threw on.

I again, this isn't a stud for me. This isn't a sound the alarm kind of thing. But I liked the well rounded of the approach and think there might be a little bit more under the hood.

of conversion works out swimmingly. But I didn't watch a ton of his defense. I still think it's a bit of a work in progress. But that's not why we're here. We're here because I think this guy can low key rake and his swing is kind of hilarious. I wish we had some of the batted ball like attack angle stuff that they've teased in the major leagues and they have some of that in stat cast, because this guy might have the flattest swing in minor league baseball, and

it's super short. He's a short dude. He's like five to nine. I think he's listed on Fangrafts super short levers.

He is really athletic, looking like almost looks like he should be a running back somewhere, really like deceptively fast and strong and bowling ball. Ass has some in common in that with like Gustavo Campero, because he swipes bags a lot, like he's I think he stole twenty one bags this year, struck out eleven percent of the time across the low A and high A. This year, only hit six homers, so again, like power isn't a big thing for him, but he again swipes bags and he

hit thirty four doubles. That is a lot of doubles in four hundred plate appearances. Yeah, like he is a doubles machine. Because this this motherfucker just like line drive, line drive, line drive and corner to corner. I watched one game. I forget who they are playing, but his first step out of the game was like a two strike slider off the plate and he just hits a laser opposite field past the first baseman like liner, easy stand up double. Later in the game it was like

an off the plate away change up. I think that fooled him and he kept his hands like super short and just still line drive over the third baseman's head and hustle around to for a double. Uh, the exact opposite way. But like line drives, either direction and same result. So dude just like hits tons of doubles and steals bags. Seems like maybe they are gonna let him stick at

catcher because he only caught this year. Yeah, I think it was my favorite guy of this bunch, just because, like I had no he was not on my radar at all before this exercise and has like some ty France, light ty France, but athletic kind of thing to him, Like he's never gonna hit a ton of homers, I don't think, but he doesn't swing a miss. He's pretty aggressive in the zone and just hits line, drives all over the place. So yeah, kind of a fun guy.

But that felt a little I don't know, I didn't really feel b siding to me, like, I think he's a you know, he's probably gonna be roster more than one percent once the new season kicks off and people start catching on, especially now. He's having a pretty pretty hot little run in the AFL right now too. So there's that.

But I can't really argue with the results that he got. I don't think he started an a ball. He end up in Double A twenty three years old. He was their nineteenth round pick in the twenty twenty three draft. From USC five hundred and fourteen plate appearances, he hit fourteen home runs, stole thirteen bases, walked eight percent of the time, struck out eighteen and a half percent of the time two point fifty one three twenty two, four h nine slug a. Playing shortstop again, I tried to

pay some attention to defense. I think he's pretty decent at short He's got a bad ball profile that I don't think looks too shabby. I don't know if I included this in the video or now, but I feel like when he was an able, I got something that he hit pretty hard or fairly hard, but you know, maybe a good balance approach, a little bit of hit, a little bit of pop can play up the middle. Thought I could do much worse. Just maybe close your eyes when you watch him bat. There's I liked.

first year player drafts are over and everything like that, but I figured he was a fourth round pick out of North Carolina State. I feel like fourth round picks don't get too popular, right Kapis was a third round pick. He didn't get too popular right after first year player drafts, so I thought it was safe enough. But I'm going

with Eli Serrano the third Matt. I gotta say, once you'll start to notice a little trend here, once we start getting through some bats that is kind of an opposite of a big trend of ours from last year. I won't spoil it for you. Let's see if you start to catch on a little. But Serrano right field center field this year year. You know, post draft he's a lefty six ' five taller leader guy. He only got more tongue and small sample here. Seventeen games, seventy

two played appearances, not totally new to me. A name that's totally new to me. I think he was fairly highly ranked by Perfect Game coming out of high school. Got I don't even know if NC State was the first school that he went to. I think he might have went somewhere else, but don't quote me on that, but I think, just like Power didn't really show up as much for a bigger guy like this. I don't think he hit a lot of home runs in college, but he did hit two in his short stint here.

I think I shared some of the ex of velocities and stuff like that on the video. He can run a little bit. He's athletic. Well, his walk percentage was about ten percent, struck out twenty two percent of the time. But just like sort of just in game stuff that I liked to Like he slugged four forty four at ISO over zero point two. Just like the look of his swing. It's almost me like I'm taking another shot at like the Gavin Conticello hope, kind of similar, similar

to but probably but probably more athletic than Constell. Like he may legitimately be able to play center field. We shall see. I saw I I on the video. Mat I shared a kind of a fun play. He hits this ball. It's I think it's like the bottom of the ninth or whatever, right or maybe even extra innings, And he hits this ball off the center field wall low and it takes this like really weird bounce. Evidently the camera doesn't get it. I think they were down

by one. They send them and he's going around third trying and inside the parker. They call him out at home but I slowed down the replay and showed it and everything, and I don't think Homeboy was out.

a few of these guys kind of surfaced for me. But I wanted to give a nod to Jesus Bias, who I think we've talked about before. He ended up in Brooklyn and still like a lot about what he's doing. I think there's still some significant upside there as a fairly exciting youngster. I also wanted to highlight Boston Borrow, who I think for the prospect heads out there, he's fairly well known. He was a relatively high dollar signing. I think he was committed to UCLA USC something like

one of the LA schools. Ended up getting enticed into the draft with a pretty big overslot offer from the Mets, and I liked a lot about him and he was pretty close to being my pick. The thing with him that I'm a little worried the power isn't going to show up in any significant way ever. Like his swing, He's a left handed, kind of smooth swinging, pretty athletic looking third baseman, maybe played some second two. Fairly athletic

looking guy. Swing reminds me a little bit of Christian Yelich, but I don't think he hits it nearly as hard as Yelich does, which holds him back a bit. If the power does show up and he remains still pretty young, I think he was nineteen this full year. If the power shows up, like he could be a pretty good second bateman, I think maybe maybe third baseman. But the power, it just had me questioning whether it's it's gonna show up. Just he's still really skinny. He's really just doesn't seem

a ton of impact. But I like the swing, like the swing path, I like kind of the line drive approach. So he's one that I was pretty interested in but ended up shying away from due to the power. But the one of his teammates in h a I ended up really liking, and stop me if you've heard this before, because it's similar to another guy we talked about. He's sort of an really athletic for the position catcher in

Christopher Swaow. He's got strong contact skills, swiped twenty bags this year, but also popped nine homers, threw in quite a few doubles, a few triples. Like he's a legit athletic catcher. There was one game that I watched where he got plunked in the dome, like just right straight to the helmet, like first pitch, fastball, right to the helmet. They like paused the game like hey, are you okay?

He's like yeah, fine, still second base on the next pitch, which I love that kind of stuff, like screw you pitch, like you dumped me up and I'm next pitch steals the bag easy. I don't think it even got to throw off at because he had such a good, good read. Yeah, you know, he's still young, he's twenty. He made it up to high A. He's done nothing but hit in pro ball so far. So Christopher Squearrow, I'm pretty interested. There was one at Bad in particular, where somebody left

a slider that caught too much of the plate. Like it wasn't, you know, hung or anything. It was just maybe a little bit caught a little too much of the plate on the outer half and a little bit too high, and swear Ow nuked this thing to left field, like showed some real power. I wish we'd had EV on that because it got way way out in Brooklyn, And that one was really kind of over my eyes. Like, I think there might be a bit more power there.

an opinion about whether he's going to stick there. But but yeah, Christopher Swerrow I liked. I liked a lot about him. And there were quite a few of these guys in Brooklyn in particular and in the Mets system overall that there's something interesting about them. Yeah, but Swear is my B side guy this year.

the AFL. Has been pretty hot. Most interesting to me, as Clegg and I have been pointing out in the discord of latest he's hitting some hard hit balls in the air, which was something I was wondering about and skeptical that he would do much. Now, of course, this is just Arizona. A couple of weeks, so I'm not going to make too big of a deal about it. So he started off in a ball made it all the way up to Triple A. He hit sixteen home

runs over the course of that season. The majority of them were while in Double A. If I'm not mistaken, and reading is a very hitter friendly home run friend that it is. So that gets me a little bit skeptical about his home run potential here. But he'll steal some bases. He had twenty bags over that, like we've talked about. I think he's perhaps potentially kind of like the demographic profile that you like of a guy who

could do a little bit of everything. He can play in the dirt, he can play in a couple spots, hit for average, perhaps hit for a little bit of power, steal some bases. Undrafted free agent twenty twenty two. Undrafted free agent out of a D two school in California. But yeah, I think he's definitely turned some heads and I think he's a bona fide potential big leaguer who was rostered at zero percent in September.

his swing. I think that he's super balanced from the right hand side. He's another guy that gets to a lot of doubles power but has athletic enough to kind of beat out some infield hits and hits line drives. I actually really like his battleball profile. And I know that you and Clegg have been kind of going back and forth about he needs to hit more flyballs, and I'm not sure that that's his game.

or whatever, which is fine. But what I think has been a little bit noteworthy noteworthy of this AFL is he's hit some home runs one hundred and ten and he hadn't done that. He had done that all year.

cement a spot. One thing I did note he was one triple shy of hitting ten triples this year to go along with twenty some doubles, what was it, sixteen homers and twenty swiping twenty bags Like that's that is super rare that you get double digits across all of those hit types and he was just one triple shy of doing that.

I'm nothing too concerning there, man, I think and we could, like I think Clegg mentioned we could see him in

the big relatively soon, I think. And this seems like a great B side sort of free pick up in a thirty two in like points league or even rot oh or whatever an only league like now, keep an eye out or shoot take him in your in your supplemental draft if you if you want a little infield depth, and shuffle him back and forth if need be in your league allows that, Like, yeah, I think I think Kemp is super interesting, dirty muddy potential fantasy asset.

That was a super impressive year. And even Keaton Anthony I liked a lot of what I saw from him too. It wasn't flashy again, not a lot of power, and I think he basically only played first base. But every time I watch that team of fair amount and every time where was he in? Reading a bit and the fight and fills what's their hi? A film?

contact skills for a little bit more power. Like he's a guy that maybe if he does some off season training with the tread or getting the bat speed up, that might He's the kind of guy that if you see some reports around that, like, I might be really interested and watch his first couple of weeks pretty closely, just because he does the rest of the hitting part

really really well. If he strikes out like twenty two percent of the time, but now a ISO was like two hundred, that could be a big league first baseman. But as is, he's in interesting contact oriented first baseman, which tough path to walk to the bigs. But maybe there's more in there, Like he's got a good frame and everything too.

zero to like one percenters. But I was gonna go with Rafael Ramirez Junior. His dad was shortstop for the Braves for quite a while. And then I don't know if you were playing fantasy back when he was a shortstop, but that just reminds me of like how horrible shortstop was for fantasy. When I first started playing, it was like one or two guys, and then after that it was like Rafael Ramirez, yeah, whatever else. But Ramirez came over from a trade in Cleveland. I don't even remember.

I think I put in the video or something, but I don't remember what the trade was he. I mean, his numbers were awful. Combined his two A ball stops with both teams hit like one eighty three, two ninety nine, three oh six. I think two of his three home runs were broad broadcast. One was awful. One I got a good look at. I don't think he's a shortstop. I think he's maybe a second basement and I think it's because I think he's got like a noodle arm.

Honestly saw him have to make some throws from deep shortstop and stuff, and it was I mean it was rough. But he's very young. Maybe he's got a chance. I can't say that he's totally done for or anything like that, and I don't know. It's interesting to me that the Guardians had him like starting off the season and playing in a ball They got a lot of good young guys that could be playing up the middle for them,

So I thought that was a little bit interesting. And who knows the way that the Nats roll because of his name. Maybe you see him in the futures game and he really probably doesn't deserve to be there. But maybe that gilds popularity, but that's it. That's all I gotta say. I didn't have I didn't have any any guys I really liked here, So throw him out there.

I think, you know, roster crunches whatever. I think I ended up cutting him loose in a couple of places I had him.

as a below average fringy guy. Philip Glasser is my guy. You know, he played some second, some third, little bit of outfield too, you know, so so some utility almost in three hundreds.

he makes pretty good swing decisions too. Has a bit of a hand rock, you know, he kind of starts his hands like almost in front of his face, not quite Luis Kempensano in San Diego, not quite like, but has some resemblance to that from the left side, and you know, he gets some back, but I feel like there might be some more impact in there if he got rid of that like weird rock thing. But his

contact skills, like I said, are quite good. You know, he only struck out fourteen percent of the time this year made it up to double a. Yeah, only eight homers, but he did pop twenty three doubles, so it's like more gap to gap power Again. He looks to me more like a light hitting utility guy who maybe he plays decent enough defense that he'll accumulate a little bit of PA's and the bigs. But I wasn't blown away by this. He's in the bottom ten percent probably of

B side hitter selections. For me, I just think, like, maybe he makes it, but if he does, there's not going to be a calling card. You know, he's swiped twenty three bags, but I didn't think that he was like particularly good at it. So anyway, I'm not super sold on him. This NAT's B side system has been tough for us.

guy I guess throw it out there. All this kind of really stems from the question of like, hey, which guy from this org this list that you made made do you think might pop up this year? And these are my best stabs at it, These are our best stabs at it, I.

I don't think we've decided what division we're going to do next, but we'll do another one and do this five more times, maybe have a little bit of a draft sort of thing, and then we'll maybe get into some first year player stuff this offseason. That sound good? Love it?