Episode 46: 2025 AL East B-Side Selections

think that's a feature, not a bug. But I also think that the discourse around you're not an all time great team unless you win the championship is silly. Like the Braves won in twenty twenty one the World Series, and their teams the past three years have all for sure been better teams than the team that won the World Series, And I think that that's like indicative of

the way that baseball shakes out. They had like a good team that got hot and beat a couple of really good teams in the playoffs, but they were not a great team, and they've had some great teams since. So I mean, I just think that's like.

that are the most talented. Sometimes those teams win in older eras they tended to win a lot more often in our current era, like with the wild card era, that those teams absolutely can lose in a five game series and a seven game series back to back to back. You know, it's like looking at the past decade of the Dodgers, you know, especially before last year, and being like, oh, well, they have one short season championship, Like are they the

best team of the last ten years. Like, they're unquestionably the best team of the last ten years. They've blown everybody out of the water. The only other team that has an even like remote argument for it is the Houston Astros, and they also like cheated the shit out of it for a couple of those years. So I don't think that for me, you would look at the past ten years and argue anybody else other than the

Dodgers as the best team. And they've just now won quote unquote a real world series title, you know, And that's where it's like, I think that's a different definition.

UAP subject still remains classified. Excessive secrecy has led to grave misdeeds against loyal civil servants, military personnel, and the public, all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos.

some more dynasty utility. Sometimes we come to the same player, and that's always kind of fun and neat. But I think that's surmises it all right, right, Matt. Indeed it is so the Al East talk about it's like the prettiest of pretty boys visions, huh, spending lots of money, lots of fans wastemarter fans out here. But I thought this was a fun one, Matt. I think there's some of my favorite maybe my top arm in my top bat out of all the b sides, reside in this division.

he's still under owned. When I looked it was like in your points leagues that penalize K's and especially in row leagues like as a as a speed option, he seems under own still. But that was a good one. I was really hoping that because the Rays are such a deep smart system, that they were going to have some of these underappreciated guys.

assume that the Rays know what they're doing. But I was really struggling to find some good options at those zero and one percent range, especially on the back side.

lots of ways. His line is almost identical to Polanco's. He went to twenty four three, twenty three, three forty four, and he spent the whole year at a ball, so that was all low A as a nineteen year old. He also struck out twenty five percent of the time, which is like kind of high, especially for what I

like to look for. He did walk a decent amount, swiped twenty six bags, popped six homers, but he also didn't hit a homer for like the last two months of the season, which was a little concerning about is there something wrong here? Is the power just really not there? When I watched him earlier in the year, I was like, Oh, this is sort of an interesting teenager. Maybe he's going to get to ten homers. And there's a little more projection left on the bone and it might just take

a little time for him to get there. You know, he's six ' one, reasonably well built. I like some things about his swing, although it seemed like he got eaten up sliders away and so that wasn't that was a little bit discouraging to me. It's more that he's young enough, has shown enough potential that I'm like, and I didn't see anybody else that I wanted to bet on more. So I'm going with Matteo here. Don't feel

great about it. I mean, he's again young, has some talent, and we'll see what he does at Bowling Green next year. But there's definitely some flaws here and it wasn't super exciting.

high probability and as a corner guy, probably not going to play.

This is not a player that I was familiar with as an amateur, but I'm going I'm not really totally sure how to say his name, Matt, but Connor huge sack huge, huge, which really cool, but Connor huge, huge, sick, I think, because how I heard them say it, But it's h u J sak all right, he's an outfielder. How would you say that name?

swiped five bags. I don't really know if stolen bases are gonna be a big part of his future. Of this is just you know, a little wiser baseball player taking advantage of some A ball guys didn't get caught. Walked seven percent of the time, struck out twenty four percent of the time. But you know, decent little debut here to seventy seven three, twenty six, five, eighteen. I know I caught. I'm not even maybe the BA guys.

Last couple of weeks I've been listening to their draft class review podcasts, and I think they noted that there was a couple of evs by him over one hundred and ten during his pro debut. So yeah, I don't know, just kind of caught a guy. But I kind of liked the look of his fairly, you know, simple looking stroke up there. He's got a little bit of a I don't know, how do you say it, a little bit of like a rounded out step, but it's not real big and everything like that. Yeah, I don't know,

and now his home runs. What I say he popped four of them, three of them were in one game.

Nick Bitsko is he even like a professional baseball player anymore? I have no idea.

going with another teenager, Matt eighteen year old and a ball Jose Orbina. Are you familiar.

After he signed, there was like a big growth spurt here, so got much taller and the velocity is like really ticked up. Venezuelan. He was signed for just two hundred and ten K. Last year, he pitched forty eight complex innings and then just seventeen a ball innings, four appearances, four starts eer A five twenty nine but a whip of one point zero six in a ball here four two two x fip struck out just eighteen point two percent, walked six point one percent, which was nice because in

a complex it was at twelve percent. Now, granted, again this is very small sample size, but I did not mind his execution. Now granted, I think his attack was fairly simple, and my watches it was a good fastball and slider. I think he was just kind of generically throwing up in the zone for strikes, but doing that

consistently and doing that well. I kind of wonder I'd love to hear about his slider shape a little bit because I wonder if it's one that kind of gets some ride, like erkulanis that we were like kind of talking about. Yeah, but just playing his ninety five ninety six mile per hour fastball within that firm mid mid eighties slider just up in the zone was just really kind of dominating these guys. He did throw in what I thought was a pretty good looking curveball sometimes and

then there was a change up. I think the change up is very much a developmental pitch at this time. I think the ones that I caught there was like they were executed so poorly. You couldn't even like look at this shape, like it was just like hitting the dirt or something, you know what I mean. So I think that's very much a work in progress. Yeah, yeah, four, start saying at a ball. He went four and three of them five and one. You know, it didn't get really hit up too much. There was one one out he

gave up five to turns, but he earned. But he didn't walk more than two in an outing, struck out three, two, two, and five. And now he did give up some home runs. I know a couple of those were just and he was just trying to get some fastballs up in the zone and he just got him over the meat of the plate. But you can see the operation, like the video that I shared, it's, I mean, it's fairly easy ninety six I think.

so not much higher. But I mean, if you wanted to, if we rewind a year ago, like watching Gary gil Hill like way more excited about her being and stuff than Gary gil Hill's at that time. And we know we know that the rays will sharpen a you know, a lot of times I think they like to focus on on one weapon there, guys, and really get the most out of that one pitch that they can. But I don't know an eighteen year old ball of clay here in this system that I I think could very

well pop up this year. Jose Rbina, It's.

to the big arms here, I'm picking Logan Workman. I think I might have taken Wild if i'd known he was at one percent, because when I looked, I thought it was like three or four. So I might slightly prefer Wild in a vacuum, just a little bit younger, and I think might have a little touch, more touch, more upside in the long run. I thought he was really good, and we talked a bit about him coming out of the draft last year, so don't need to

belabor that. But among the really interesting arms, you listed off a bunch of them, you know, Ian Seymour had a phenomenal triple A run at that ended in Triple A this year. Yaniel Corrett, he was awesome too. Oh and Wild. I thought was a good get from the O's this year. Hi Johnson, Brody Hopkins also in trade. Like they had a lot of good pitchers that had really good seasons too, but Workmen stood out for me as in this B side range, I think he was

either zero or one percent when I looked. He's spent a lot of the year in TRIPA, so we got to see a lot of data on him, and so it was really fun digging into what he had there. His fastballs ninety to ninety five, but it actually plays better than that, I think, And I actually think he got a little unlucky in his results this year based on some of the pitch shapes and the amount of

swinging strikes that he was getting. He really commanded that fastball well and so even though he's like averaging it in ninety two to ninety three, I think that's playing up pretty consistently. He's also got a change up that he goes to and throws quite a lot, and I thought was quite a good pitch. I think he liked it his second most after his fastball, and then he also was a slider and cutter, but those blended a

little bit. For me, I thought they could get a little bit close to each other, and with you know, a little bit sharper execution, he might separate those a bit more. Especially on the slider. I thought that sometimes he would lose the action, so rather than getting that good sharp sweeping bite that it would float, he would kind of get under it, and I think he let

that get hit sometimes. Did also like watching him start to start, especially in Tirpla with the stack cast data, you could see him adjust his approach and his pitch mix from start to start. Whereas a lot of guys you throw them on enough and you're like they're going to be fifty percent fastballs, twenty five percent sliders, ten percent curveballs, and ten percent change ups. Workman start to start he would change how he was attacking hitters and

how he was attacking lineups. He didn't get picked in the Rule five, and he was eligible this year. I thought he had an outside chance to and I think he popped up on ba's Rule five draft prep list that they thought he might get a look from a team that wanted a depth starter. I think that there's not a ton of upside here. He looks like a high probability back end started to me. But it looks good enough that I think he's going to get that shot.

And whether that ends up being with Tampa or he ends up somewhere else in trade or in free agency, I'm not sure. But Logan Workman for me, was my favorite of the one percent arms here, and I do think there's a lot to like about his pitch mix and his approach.

through the year. Yeah, Matt, just one more thing I wanted to say about Urbina, Like, you know, you watch, like I mentioned last week, starting to think more about Like, Okay, I watched these young international teenage prospects, right pitching prospects, and you can kind of watch them side by side with some first round prep arms that could taken and I'm like, man, this Urbina's like just seems so much better to me than some first round prep arms that

have been taken lately, So I don't know for whatever that's worth. I was just kind of thinking about that. I was like, man, this guy would probably be like a first second round pick if that's how it had to be. But what do I know about that stuff?

All right? The Boston Red Sox, their most popular arms are Dick Fitz thirteen percent, well, Wickleman Gonzalez just got traded, so he was at ten percent, where Donnie Manegro ten percent, Luis Paralis eight percent, David Sanlin also just got traded six percent, Jetkson Payez three percent, your boy from last year, Isaac Coffee three percent, and then Elmer Rodriguez Cruz he

also got traded at two percent. Everybody else was zero one percent here, And I will admit that my guy might be number thirty on my thirty B side arms I had if I had to line them all up, I did not come away. I don't know, I'm super

excited about anybody here at this roster percentage. Maybe it would have been wiser to go with a first year player draft arm, but they didn't really have many debut I don't think, and it's always kind of t you to know what their actual roster percentages are going to be after drafts and stuff.

going to keep doing it. But you know, we'll see how that how that ends up as he climbs the ranks, and I'm super curious to see how that goes apparently nobody is buying it, but keeps putting up numbers. So we'll see. Looked at a couple of other guys that I think we've talked about before. Hunter Dobbins. He's one that we looked at last year, and I think some people still like I'm just not I couldn't ever get

myself that excited about it. It seems he was so much better this year than he was better, but it still just looks so back endy to me, like seventh starter. Maybe that's good enough.

really excited about the guy that I ended up landing on, though I'm going with Connolly early. You watch much of early this year.

that really like anchored people's opinions. And I think we see that's true of guys like Isaac Coffee, and I think it is true of lots of guys who like, they flashed ninety nine on the gun and they're like, oh, that's Carlos le Grange is really good, hemer Lalani is really good. Well, they can actually get guys out out, but you know they're they're really good because they can throw hard conn only early to me, it is a good example of this. I think he sits in the

low nineties. It's like ninety one average. Maybe he's a lefty, athletic, kind of six y three, prototypical pitcher looking guy, you know, off the bus kind of thing. You watch him, and if you don't, if you're not looking at the velocity, you're like, none of these fucking guys can hit this fastball. He just keeps throwing it in the middle of the plate. And sure a lot of this was at High A and Double A. He was about two thirds at High A this year and a third at Double A this year.

But he just kept throwing this low nineties fastball that if you're not kind of looking closely, you'd be like, oh, this isn't that interesting, And yet he kept punching people out with it. I think that the arm angle and extension make it play up. I think I saw some note maybe from the BA guys that it's not an IVB monster or anything. It's not like a super spinny

low a super spinny pitch. But because the angle is maybe a little lower then you would expect, it doesn't need to have great iv B to look really different. And that pitch plays like it is really really good, and he also has good command. We're not just talking about a thrower up there. He's especially of his fastball. I thought he commanded that exceptionally well in my looks, and you know, he rounds it out with a couple of different breaking balls. His slider in particular looked pretty good.

I wonder if he has kind of two like a sweepery one and a more curve gyro kind of slider, because it looked like he could go a couple of different directions with it. A change up as well, that really good. Like he got a ton of ground balls with that thing, especially later in the year, it looked like he was using it more to like people would be kind of like, oh, I'm sitting on this fastball that for some reason can't touch, and then he would throw a change up and get a softly hit ground

ball to the left side, easy out. He's really good. He was a fifth rounder out of Virginia, so Uva like big baseball school, but wasn't great there. I think was seen as like kind of a back end developmental project. I don't know whether some of this is the pitch shapes development that the red Sox did this year with Reslo and the new regime, but early to me looked

absolutely phenomenal, and he was doing it with ease. At Double A. He gave up one home run in thirty six innings at Double A, six in sixty seven at High A. Man was sixteen point four percent swinging strike rate at Double A, fifteen point seven at High A. He's punching out thirty point seven percent of batters on the year with an average league average walk rate. You know, he's among the best K minus BB guys in the miners this year, and he was doing it at the

mid to uppers for a pretty unherlded guy. You know, again, I think he was zero percent owned. He was percent Yeah, I had one percent here too. And you know how I mentioned how excited I was about Chad Patrick last week, how the sharpest guy in my favorite league is a buddy of mine. He's got Chad Patrick. Of course, when I was looking and doing my research on this at the end of the season, who has Connolly Early, same freaking guy.

if I had to line them all up, this probably number thirty on my list. But I don't think it's because of lack of talent or lack of something interesting, or lack of a way that it could work and go well. I think all thirty of my guys have

that he's listed at sixty three. He was a twenty twenty three international free agent out of the Dominican time for forty five thousand, forty and a third innings in the complex this last season, twenty three innings over seven starts able at Greenville two point three five era A one whip A three point four to eight x fIF a thirty one point one K percentage to a fifteen point six percent walk percentage ouch, but in the Complex it was nine percent, so not nearly as bad, but

again small samples. At Greenville, hitters hit one eighteen against them, got a good amount of ground balls fifty nine percent according to fangrafs, the swing strike rate of fifteen point seven percent, So like other than the walk rate, there are some pretty nice numbers in his little uh full season debut. But I will say, unlike Orbina or several others that I mentioned, the numbers were a lot prettier

than the video looks to me. But this is arm talent, right, I mean, this is a guy who can get up there ninety five. There's something that he's throwing at ninety there's a breaking ball. Mean yeah, Like the video starts off with like a backed up slider. I think that happened quite a bit. There's a fastball not I hit ninety seven, like a lot of pitchers in their system. There's a splitter being worked one right. There's a curveball, a firmer curveball at like eighty six, but maybe they

call it a slider. I don't know, a breaking ball, what have you. My looks with him is like he could very much look the part for like a batter or half a batter, but like then the non competitive pitches would just come out, you know what I mean. Like it was just way way too much for me to get like two two into him. But again we're talking about an eighteen year old ball clay here. Plenty of arm talent, not anyone that I want to rush out and roster or draft or anything like that, but

definitely one that I will keep an eye on. And yeah, I could see a guy that talented getting it together a little bit and having some more success and getting more polished. I do have to say the Red Sox system the last several years kind of like b side

in front arm. I haven't really loved a lot of guys, but they have they have had I feel like just just young teenagers in the lowers with a lot of arm talent, and they got those guys cleaned up and executing way better than I ever would have bet on guys like Juan Daniel and Canarcion guy today who got drafted in the five draft on hell Bastardo, Like, I think they were way more feral looking. Maybe they were a little bit older, but during their like A ball debuts.

So you know, I think there's some cleaning up that the Red Sox do with some guys. So I don't think that I'm gonna worry too much about his walk percentage and non competitive pitches at this juncture.

kind of bet here, but I think there's some things to like and hope on. He was twenty one last year. Played center field, lefty. Listed at six foot. He was an eleventh round pick in twenty twenty three out of Junior College in Florida. One hundred and one games in A ball, ten games in High A this season. Strikeouts probably the swing and miss stuff probably the biggest, you know, wart Here twenty five point one percent on the season. It was thirty one point seven percent in his short

High A stint on the year. Nothing too remarkable on the surface, numbers two thirty three, three thirty seven, three seventy six slash. But even though he struck out more, that slash plan was much more attractive in his small high sample size two eighty nine, three forty one, five point fifty three eight home runs on the season, stole

thirty three bases on the season. But I think ultimately matt Here is like an athletic guy a strong guy, maybe just a little b side hope on a power speed Brett And I know that I'm not the only stand I think Maddy Backpack is is a Nelly Taylor hopeful too, but real strong, powerful lower half. I think he uses it well in his swing, and I don't know, maybe he was coming into his own just a little

bit down the stretch here. Not anyone I'm rostering, not anyone I am drafting, but somebody that I got my eye on, and if it goes well, I think it go really well.

didn't love any of the options at the low roster percentages here for Boston. I think when Boston's guys blow up, they're either really really good or they get pretty quickly. Yeah, but yeah, No, Taylor's a decent shout. I'm going to Andy Lugo for a lot of the same reasons. He's you know, a level below Nellie Taylor and similarly has decent speed, decent athlete. I'm not sure he has a

defensive home. You know, they played him all over the place already, and he's pretty young and He's played left field, third base, right field, first base, and I don't know if he's that good, and I think he's even played some second I just don't know if he's good at any of them. I watched a little bit of his decent defense, but not enough to make a real strong

case one way or the other. But given he's had a penchant for errors, I tend to think that this is kind of like they're trying to find him a home. Is one of those guys that kind of looks better than his statistical performance. I think, like you watch him swing, he's, you know, six ' two or so, kind of lean. You think maybe there's some projection there. He's still just twenty he'll be twenty one next year and likely and Hi A, I think that's kind of a it'll be

a real statement ear for Lugo. If he starts to hit for a little more power and keeps running like he does, that could be a really interesting bat here. It's pretty aggressive as a hitter, and I think that gets into troublesometimes. But he did hit a decent number of doubles, so I think maybe there's a little bit more power than the three homers and four hundred plate appearances would suggest, but his line of two sixty three, three thirty seven, three seventy one has nothing to write

home about. And like you, I'm not brushing out to roster him. It's more like, let me put a pin in this guy and watch him early next year to see if he's put on a little bit more game power and maybe maybe there's something here.

real five draft. I thought he did. He was one percent. Alex fam Is one was one percent. The guy I'm gonna go with was at zero percent in September, and it's ludicrous. I'm going with Nestor German nice who might be my number one arm might be my number one

pick when we draft, might be my my pick. Now, obviously this is a long shot bet. But if someone's gonna Christian Scott or Zebbie Matthews this year, Meser Germans my pick, I don't know what kind of odds you might give me on that sort of bet, but I might take. I don't know if you've watched a lot of German, which I wanted to say, I wanted to say Herman, but they were pronouncing that German. But he's from up by kind of your neck of the woods.

He went to the University of Sattle. You or Seattle you. Yeah, Well, I'm sorry, maybe he was. Maybe he was one percent rostered in September. My apologies, Matt, Well he was. He was zero percent in the beginning of September, one percent at the end of September. And I know that he's only rostered in one of my leagues when he was twenty two and a half years old. His last start, he's listed at six three. He's a righty eleventh round

twenty twenty three pick out of Seattle. He spent twenty twenty four throwing forty eight and a third innings in a ball and then twenty five and a third innings in high A. Now watching pictures. I don't know if this plays into some of the lack of popularity, but watching pictures in this system and the lowers is a little tough. There's not like great broadcasts to do it,

at least their home broadcasts. So that was a little bit of a trick watching German, but it did not deter me from coming away with some pretty high opinions. I think German is a poster child of sorts for draft a good pitcher and hope that the stuff gets better because the stuff over the course of the season got way better. They added velocity, life throws, a good

firm slider, like, all of it got better. His season nine seventy three and two thirds one five nine ERA a point nine to four whip a two point sixty three x FIP, thirty one point four K percentage of five point nine walk percentage. That's not too shabby, Matt. The very very good hitters hit one ninety three against him, ground ball percentage of almost fifty percent, didn't give up a lot of home runs through strikes at a sixty five percent clip. Now, maybe another part is, you know

he's piggybacking. Was piggybacking? You know they do that in that system. They have a lot of guys they want to get innings too. After he moved up to Hi A, he didn't technically start any game in High A, but he did go three four and two thirds four three and two thirds, four and four innings pitched in those one two three what outings? I think the fastball is probably like I don't know, ninety five ninety six. It

was really good from sledder. Like I mentioned, there's a curve ball as well that I think looks pretty nasty. I don't know if the change up. The change up might be his least developed offering.

a case for that for sure. Hopefully he graduates from the piggyback stage of his development here and full on starter go and he's a guy who I think you could drop and you could drop into the biggs right now. And some of his some of the at bats, some of the sequencing, quality of stuff, quality of the execution, like that's going to give major league hitters a hard time right now. It's just doing it all the time consistently.

Obviously is a big hurdle for a loud guys. But I like the bet and I like the chances that this is a major league This is a dude. Yeah, yeah, No, one's rostering.

a great pick. My one concern about him at this stage is the innings and are they going to let him up into that workhorse or are they going to pen him because looking at the way the stuff plays, the fastball, slider, change up combo as a reliever, like maybe they just want to fast track him to do that because they do have a lot of these like starters that are have really good stuff and have some

innings under their belt. You know, Povich and McDermott and Brandon Young, I think all are big league quality starters. But none of them I think is like that you know, Ace type guy, and so maybe, but they're all ahead of where German is and some of the other guys that we'll talk about. So I wonder if they have seen just how much this stuff plays up. I mean, you're talking like nineteen point seven percent swinging strike rate in high A super impressive. That is up there as

some of the nastiest stuff in the minors. So my one concern is that they stop him starting next year.

a little bit. And I think Brandon Young looks like a you know, number four, number three kind of starter. And what did you say, he's two percent owned? Yeah, Like that's ridiculous to me, Like he's I would take him over most of the pictures in the FYPD draft that's upcoming, Like, I think he's going to be real good.

eleven starts there. The walks ticked up a little bit too, which I don't I don't love, but twenty point six, twenty eight point six came I as BB two sixteen average against really really solid stuff across the board, solid power pitcher. I think that he could follow that kind of McDermott path and like the stuff keep ticking up and if he can keep the walks in check, which historically he's been like more a good strike thrower than

a great one. But Van Luhn is again like German for me, really really exciting, so excited to see what they do next year. And I think would be a great B side pick in a lot of years. But it just it happens occasionally, like maybe once or twice where Nate you get one right, and I think cam Wesson was your one last year that you got right and is the guy that I want to highlight again. So I'm gonna piggyback on that one. Co sign on

German like great pick. Totally agree he's I think he's going to be good and I hope they use him well. Van Luhn is my like like kind of B sides B side, you know that I think he could he could pop off a bit next year. He keeps going on the developmental trajectory that I think he is. I'm

gonna double tap your guy from last year and think that this was just a great pick Weston. For those that don't remember, he was a mid round pick. I think like eighth round out of Michigan. If I recall you had liked his like aggressive pound the zone kind of approach and pitchability and execution that he thought that that was like playing above where people were valuing him last year and hi a last year where he spent

a good chunk of the year. He was quite successful and fifteen point one percent swinging strike rate induced a bunch of ground balls pitched to a two six eight er. I think it was a good call then and then he just did that but better and at higher levels this year. Weston's another one of these guys that he's a low slot slinging righty like. His motion is really fun.

He almost gun slings it from the hip like he separates his hands and then his right hand where the ball is is just hanging out by his hip and then just whips out and around and he gets great sinc on his fastball and change up the slider is really nasty. He keeps everything on the ground. He got fifty seven percent ground balls in Higa this year, and then in a larger sample it fell to forty five percent at double A, and he did start to give up few homers, but still he was limiting walks. The

babip was pretty low. He threw a good number of innings, like he almost got one hundred and ten innings on the air, which I also love, like starting to build that starter's workload. And he was another one that as he went through starts, he kept up the stuff like there was no drop off, unlike some other guys who as they go through the outing they'll change things up. What I like about Weston is that he does the same thing over and over and over again, and guys

can't adjust. To me, that tells me something about the stuff that Like, he just keeps sinking that fastball underneath righty's hands and they keep grounding it out. He keeps throwing the slider down and into lefties and they whiff. It's like they know what's coming and they still can't do anything about it. And I also love his kind of like demeanor and the way that he like is a bulldog out there on that He's like, I know that you're not going to hit this stuff hard. I

know you're not going to get me. And he really has to miss a spot I feel like to get got. I saw him give up a home run early in one outing where he hung a slider into a lefty. Same guy later in the game struck him out on a slider that was actually executed where he wanted it.

You could see him just get fired up about it, like he buried it down and in one two left he swung over it and you know, same pitch that he had hit out when he left it up, but he like, I'm going right back to that same pitch. I just executed it badly, execute it well, strikeout. So Kim Weston, I think he's really really good and for what it's worth. Steamer projects him as a three eight

six er guy in the majors next year. Now they're projecting him as that as a reliever, so take that with some some Usually when they do kind of the lower projections, or if they don't project you, quote unquote as a starter, the eer comes down because you know, shorter outings and all that stuff plays up. But that is still really really good. There are not a lot of even reliever types. They get sub four projections when you haven't sniffed triple A yet, let alone the major leagues.

So that tells me that the computers are also seeing that what he has been doing not only looks sustainable, but it looks like it's gonna play at the higher levels. So I don't always use that as a as a barometer, but I do like it as a as a sanity check one way or another. And that's like a big outlier.

That's a really really impressive projection. So I think they're gonna keep letting him start, though I know they did some of the piggybacking with west End this year as well, but it was still usually you know, four or five inning outings when he was piggybacking in so I think they're going to keep letting him start.

could pop up. So yeah, the Orioles pitching, and I know in the discord and stuff, people are starting to talk about it a little bit more and maybe it won't be quite as unloved a year from now. But you want some b side arms, check out the Orioles. Man, There's there's some of the best least rostered starting pitching prospects out there.

out of USC, Austin excuse me, Austin Overn. I don't know if you're familiar. Kind of fits. I think a search that they've been on. I think they're kind of looking for a speedy center fielder type, you know, and I think he very much fits that profile. I don't know where he might sit right now in the pecking order in their system for that profile. But a former

wide receiver they were saying today. I didn't know that until I listened to the BA guys at USC at twenty one years old lefty listed at six foot that might be a little generous. I don't know. Pro debut was only twenty one games, fifteen in a BL and six in High A, but I thought he was pretty impressive. Walked sixteen point one percent of the time, struck out twenty seven percent of the time two eighty three, ninety eight,

four sixty seven, hit a home run. I don't think he's like a big power guy, but I think he is a guy might hit the right shapes to hit some home runs and has enough in there. Stole sixteen bags in twenty one games. Granted it's in the lowers, but I think speed is going to be a part

of his game. Good enough for one forty six WRC plus in Hi A, pulled the ball forty one percent of the time sixteen point seven percent ground ball rate in his small sample size in Hi A. But uh yeah, I don't know, man, Austin Overn, Maybe you could be a center fielder for them relatively soon. I don't know. I mean, that's a tough tough place to break in, but I kind of the third round picks don't tend to be very popular in first year player drafts.

It's not elite, but it's plus at fifteen percent, so I think that could play, especially that he takes a walk too, so gives himself a lot of chances to steal. And he actually hit some homers this year four homers hit five doubles in eighteen or five triples rather in eighteen doubles two so Bradfield.

of these ones that I think it's kind of a slow burn watching him, and is one where the numbers might be a touch ahead of like the data, like the stack cast and some of the EV data, but I'm going with Aaron Estrada this year. Yeah, he's one percent, I think when I looked.

a little bit bigger than this. Like he's still on the smaller side, but looks athletic, which he good runner, not a great base stealer, you know, watching his steals like a lot of them are close, or he picks some wrong times to go, but he's like I think, working on that. You know, he did still thirty nine bags this year, but I think there's some power there that is a little bit surprising given the small frame.

So that's something that I think could tick up. We might see fifteen or twenty homers next year, which would be really interesting. And he's one of those guys that it's the whole package put together is what makes him interesting. I like his swing. I think he puts it on the ground a touch too much, but I think that the swing still looks really really nice. He's balanced on both sides of the plate. He's a switch hitter, balance

from both sides. I think he's a better from the left kind of guy, but still good from the right. The overall approach, the overall package, to me, is one that it gets underappreciated, right. It's one of those ones that it's going to be kind of the sum of the parts profile, but one that I think is really

really good. And I'm not alone in this Steamer Again, I know I just mentioned this, but it's also fun to look at steamer projections for young minor leaguers because they take just the data that they have access to and say, what would this guy hit in the major leagues. Also removes a lot of the bias things like where was he taken in the draft, or what's his scouting report? Or how tall is he? Like those things don't play

into their algorithm. I don't think last I checked. And so then you get to stack guys up pretty interestingly. So I looked at every guy who had yet to debut in the majors, which you know, for nineteen year olds, there aren't any this year. Quick quiz nate, who's number one on this list nineteen years old? Who's the best hitter according to Steamer as a nineteen year old, best nineteen year old he's in this system?

in the past. Walker Jenkins and Jus Way to Paula, both because they've been very young, have succeeded in the challenges that they've faced and have made it up to the upper minors. So that helps. And the fourth guy is actually another one that I've been a little skeptical of, largely because I don't think he's having a ton of success, but they keep pushing him up high. In Nelson Rada,

so he's fourth and Aaron Estrada is fifth. And considering that, unlike Rada, it's not like he's got shoved up into double A this year. He's been at you know, advanced levels for his age as a nineteen year old. Making up to HYA is good. That's a tough challenge and

he's held his own there. But that means that Aerin Astrada is ahead of pretty boys like Max Clark, Colt Emerson, Ralphie Velaskez, Jefferson, Rojas is a here hope at Chedrie Vargas, Hansel, Luis Robert Klas, George Lombard Junior like and these are the good nineteen year olds, these are the ones that have like done something, and and our plant with Jason Churio, he's just ahead of him. This is not the end all be all. There's huge wide ara bars around this

kind of projection. And I don't use this is like this is who's better than who when slicing these things up, but it is a really strong reminder that age matters a lot, and when someone is kind of holding their own at a level that is way above their paygrade, like like they're playing against way older guys, we really should wait that pretty heavily and suggests to me that Aeron Estrada is borderline top one hundred overall prospect right now,

and nobody thinks he's that good. So I think Estrata is one that you should try and acquire quietly, Like you don't have to make him the centerpiece of a deal, but like if you can find something interesting for the owner that has Estrata or pick him up for free. I mean he's a one percenter, so that I think he has got a chance to be a outperform Max Clark right like, and Max Clark is quote unquote a great player, but could could return you better value than

Max Clark as they rise up the levels. So hop on the erin astrata train. I'm super excited about this some of all the parts player visually it checks out for me. I think the statistical performance has been quietly very impressive, and I'm excited to see what he can do next year.

across Over. And now maybe I was thinking about this stuff too much, but I was thinking about the stature, and I was thinking about the ground ball percentage, and then I was just watching over and I was like, yeah, maybe there's like just some more impact here that I can feel safe about, which I think was the deciding factor for me. But thinking about how you know, the way that you put it, like, maybe I was understelling him a little bit, and maybe I shouldn't have dropped

right on Aeron Estrada. I like it, But was it a tough call for you in this system? Were there other guys that were there was this pretty easy.

was and that's about it. Your guy from last year, Lazaro Estrada, thought he might get picked today in the

Rule five, but didn't. I was still at zero percent. You and I like him a bit, and I ended up landing on another first year player, are Matt.

The Bulldogs and I talked about tonight. He was the ninth round pick, signed for one hundred and ninety eight K. His college career, Matt was pretty unremarkable, I think. But he only had like fifty eight relief innings for Mississippi State over the last two years, and they weren't very productive. Numbers weren't very good, but I know he had a really good cape his last year. There is some savant stuff right because he was in the Florida State League.

So looking at that stuff, here's a four seam fastball that averaged ninety three point one, but he can get it up there higher than that when he wants to. He'll reach back at ninety five ninety six. I know there was reports that I don't know if this is while he was in college or on the cape, but he can like touch ninety nine. The four seam sinker game I thought was pretty interesting with him, Like he mixed those two up, and I thought he like good timing when he chose to throw, you know, was good

at deciding which one to throw. There's a slider, there's a curveball, there's a cutter. And there's a change up. I don't think he threw a ton of change ups, but it's in there. I thought the slider looked pretty decent, but you know, maybe now he's a bigger frame. I have no idea what like the extension is that he gets. I kind of imagine it's probably decent. Maybe there's a little bit like Johnny right hander ish to him, something like he's less funky than a lot of a lot

of our arm picks this year. I just liked the little looks of him, like, and you know, the debut was pretty good production wise, one point a d r a one point one to three whip Now he just struck out under twenty percent and walked almost twelve percent, so you don't love to see that. But he didn't strike me as a guy maybe like the secondary game, but I thought the fastball commands he's like a potentially like a three fastball guy was pretty good. So I

don't know. Obviously the blue Jay saw something in him here wanted to take him second day, and I could kind of see it. I don't know, man, I was just enjoying my looks. I thought it was good mix of stuff and pitchability. Big, strong frame. I don't know. This is why I landed on Kobe Holcom nice.

can develop into next year. I don't like the guy that I'm picking, really like. He's a bottom five maybe

armed for me in the system, but he's near to the bigs. It's Trenton Wallace. He's spent most of the year in triple A. The stuff is like not even stuff that I'm going to defend. You know, it's eighty nine, but it's not like special shapes or anything. He can spin it. Okay, so he still struck out twenty six point five percent of batters, but he has to nibble quite a lot to do that. So I don't think

the performance was all that impressive. And he's seems just like really depth arm material to me, or a long swingman role, eat innings kind of thing. But this is not a strong recommendation by any stretch to the imagination. I don't think he's that good.

he hit like twelve home runs. And this is a guy that I think as an amateur, I don't think home runs were really like a big part of it. So you're like, yeah, you know, this guy's an Everett. You know that ridiculously small porch. So maybe some of that is is a bit bloom, but you kind of continue to hit home runs even when he moved up well, no, now with Seattle, but he hit five with what New

Hampshire right in one hundred and fourteen played appearances. Well, this is a guy that total on the year walked fifteen point seven percent. Now, and that was thirteen point five percent, and combining both his double A stops struck out just a little bit more sixteen point five percent. It was twenty three percent in double A on the year slash two fifty one, three eighty eight, four sixty two with at two eleven ISO and that was on a two seventy four babbit's good enough for a one

forty two WRC plus. Like we talked about, I think he kind of maximizes his home run potential with his bad boss.

he like really a center fielder. I don't know. I think he only had it.

going to have to hit. And I don't think that's like his power baseline. But he's a guy that his game power is I think two grades above his raw. He just is so good at manipulating the barrel that he's going to get to all the power that he's got.

good major league hitter. Alan Roden's another one. I think we've talked about who he's to me, got a lot of the like hitterish traits that I think are underappreciated, even Josh Kasevich. I think he's another one that like is kind of sneaky interesting. And you know, they acquired our boy McAdoo who kept hitting post trades. So think

that there's and Panogo too. You know Panongos, as you had mentioned, he's been caught and cold last year and for you in general, but he still remained somewhat interesting as well.

defense and all that kind of stuff. And I was looking. I watched quite a bit of the J's and explored a bunch of their FSL data and TRIPAA data because obviously we've got stat cast for that, and I thought they had a really interesting set of guys from the draft, one of whom was included in that him and his

trade too, Nick Mitchell. I had just been watching him as I was brushing up on the Jay's system, and then when I saw that Mitchell was included in that deal for Andres him and Is, I was like, oh, yeah, I thought he was pretty interesting as well, good swing decisions. I thought his contact looked good at four homers and his hundred plate appearances stole three bags, like interesting power speed and was decent at Indiana. I was like, well, that's kind of an interesting guy and a very Cleveland

kind of target. And then the other guy that I thought was pretty interesting, another outfielder that they drafted, Eddie Mikletty Junior. Do you watch any of him?

handed swing. So he's another one that I'm interested to see how it goes. But I got sucked in to another of these like super weird guys. Aaron Parker.

Surface numbers were two thirty five three eighty five thirteen, good for a one fifty four WRC plus in a ball and now like college bat coming out of the draft in a ball like you expect them to do pretty decently well, and you know the warts struck out twenty seven percent of the time. That's a lot, especially for a college bat. But because it's the FSL, we've got exit Vilo data and we've also got swing decision data, and Aaron Parker is off the freakin charts on.

and he also walks seventeen percent of the time. And so I started comparing him, and do you know who is like number one comparison is Emmanuel or Rodriguez because they never swing, they walk all the time, they strike out, they have poor contact and elite power. So Aaron Parker is Emmanuel Rodriguez, but just without the steals and plays catcher. I watched him a bit of catcher. It looked fine to me, nothing great, nothing awful.

It's like crazy. He has huge contact concerns, like we're talking bottom of the scale contact in both end zone and overall. The guy never fucking swings so I kind of think it's just not going to matter that much. And when he swings, he is looking to do damage. And again this thing with like short guys and oh we shouldn't like him or whatever. The dude fucking mashes. He hits the ball so hard already, that's the thing you care about, that's the thing you're worried about for

a short guy. Like if he showed that that is in his toolkit. I just don't think his height really matters all that much to me. So he has one big flaw, but a bunch of things that I really really like. So I'm betting on Aaron Parker and this new wave of how you hit is swing lass. I think he's on that train and when you swing and hit it, you hit it really far. So Aaron Parker's

my moonshot guy. That he might be just like an absolute masher ketcher kind of guy, or he might not make enough contact and he might flame out Shrek to me, is the high high probability, great pick. Like Co signed that as well. It's a good, good B side rep. But I'm shooting the moon here and going Aaron Parker.

a ton of pitchers in the first two days. I think maybe all pictures the first two days maybe a little bit older in the uppers. But I think it's just also like a lot of good, tough competition, right,

tough to get developmental innings there. But I landed on a twenty twenty three undrafted free agent.

years old. His last start, which was in High A. There was a Triple A appearance at some point this year, but I think that was just a little brief deal here in High A. Thirty one games, nine starts, eighty

two innings pitched. I think there was like some piggybacking going on, you know, like we talked about an undrafted free agent guy, but I think he maybe has started to maybe he graduated from that sort of status you're talking at two point zero nine ERA, A point ninety six whip, a three four five x fit, thirty point

three K percentage eleven and a half walk percentage. Ground balls at almost forty nine percent, was a swinging strike rate of ten point three percent according to Fangrass, through strikes at a fifty nine percent clip on the season. But Matt, the way that he ended the season was what got me, got me intrigued. His last thirty nine innings, which was his last ten starts, This is when he started starting point nine two ERA A point six y nine whip, thirty four percent K percentage and just a

seven percent walk percentage. Through strikes at a sixty one percent clip. Still not quite the strike throwing that you kind of want to see. Fifteen pitches an inning, gave up one home run over that stretch.

Greensboro in the playoffs. So at the very end of the season, I thought he was just filthy dropping some secondaries that we were just kind of giving these guys no chance. Maybe a guy who's secondary game might be a little bit stronger just as far as execution. But yeah, I don't know. Trent Sellers, man, I was just really impressed with him down the stretch. Think, I don't know, maybe there might be some more opportunity this season in the uppers for a New York Yankee spec arm to

make some noise. And I wouldn't be surprised if Trent Sellers is one of those guys or that guy.

I remember following him a little bit. He does look like a developmental success story to me, like he wasn't this good, certainly in college and even at Oregon State when he took a step forward, I think that he has looked much better. And I do think that this is the Yankees developmental organization philosophy, that they take some of these guys that maybe have some interesting traits and then they kind of throw a lot of information at them and see what sticks and see what changes they

can make. And I think that's what that's what we're seeing from Sellers, and interestingly, what we're also going to talk about with my guy Nice.

lot in common with yours. One long history in the minor or. In college, Ben Shields started out at UMass Amherst in twenty eighteen, got hurt in twenty nineteen, didn't pitch twenty twenty, covid ended the season early, pitched at UMass again in twenty twenty one, had a good year, but it was also shortened I think maybe by injury again.

Then transferred to George Mason in twenty twenty two, and then played for George Mason again in twenty twenty three, So if you're counting that, six seasons in college before he finally left and he didn't get drafted, but the Yankees signed him as an undrafted free agent in like late July. I think of twenty twenty three, he had played on the Cape a couple of times, and I think done decently well in his twenty twenty two stint there, and so maybe he was on some radars from that.

He was good in college. Question Mark like he was mostly a reliever in especially towards the end of his career, and went not a particularly good one at that, So

like totally unremarkable college career. Yankees saw something. I read a long interview with him and his one of his pitching coaches here in pro ball, and they talked a lot about how he really absorbed a ton of information from when they drafted him, and they put him into like the development one of the developmental teams, and I think he just worked out with them a lot and was working on stuff, and they shoved him into HIA to start the year this year again in that piggybacking role.

He wasn't a starter, but he was going two or three innings at a time. His first six outings, he went maybe fifteen innings something like that, two to three outings at a time, or two to three innings each outing, and struck out twenty eight walked eight point five four ERA to start your pro career, Like hard to do better than that to start, And he was clearly just

kind of too much for the South Atlantic League. I mean, he was just like ripping through these guys and it kept going even when they started putting him in as a starter. So after his first six appearances in relief, I think they he started the rest of the year more or less and just kept on doing the same thing.

Across all of his outings this year, he struck out thirty one point one percent of batters, walked, seven point five percent of batters three point four eight ERA and that includes a couple of like pretty big blow up outings too that I'm going to talk about because one of the things that really convinced me, like, I love that line, I love the story. I watched a bit of his low A starts and in Hudson Valley and

I was like, oh, this is pretty interesting. And I watched a couple at Summerset and I was like, this looks really really quite good. But we also have a triple A start. I love the stackcast data. I got so into this guy because he in the triple A data. We only have data on a couple of his pitches. I think it was just four, and it was terrible. In the outing. It was like, uh, let me find it, because it was like it was like a miserably bad start. So they called him up for one start against the

Syracuse with the Mets. Triple A affiliate, and they started him. He went one in two thirds innings seventeen batter's face, gave up eight hits, nine runs, seven earned a homer, and two walks and two hit by pitches. He got a strike out in there, though, But that's awful, right, terrible outing, And even with that outing, he's he's still his full season line was really really good. If you take that outing out, his full season line was electric because that was like the only time he was bad.

Get a couple of other like four run give up starts, uh starts where he gave up four runs one or two where he gave up three, But you look across his game log, especially to end the year, it's like zero runs, two runs, one runs zero zero zero one one three one three two two two two two one, Like he's just not giving up runs in these starts.

And his arsenal is so cool because he's got a sinker, which he uses a lot, a four seam fastball, which is a different shaped pitch, like clearly a different look. He has a gyro slider and a sweeper and a curveball and a splitter and he uses all of those pitches like you watch him like use you see, you know, when the catcher's calling pitches, like he's doing two finger signs to try and tell him which pitch to call, you know, so like it's not just one two three

or one two three four. They're doing like the l for the four seam I think, and they were doing the spinny fastball for the two seam. They were doing like a hookham horns kind of thing for one of his other pitches. I don't even know what that one was, but like he's clearly just got like a huge arsenal and is trying all these different things.

got super unlucky. You watch it a couple of pitches that like could have gone either way. Maybe they could have challenged it. Actually, I don't know if it was a challenge there or not, but anyway that could have gone either way on like strike threes early that I thought maybe he got got screwed on a couple of weird babbit that balls just found holes like it was just a supremely unlucky start. He also didn't look faced at all. He just kept out going out there doing

his thing. But we also get the data on the pitch shapes, and I was so into this guy at this point that I spent like an hour and a half recording every single pitch, the spin, the direction, the shape, the movement, and then comping this to big leaguers. Okay, so this guy, undrafted, free agent, unheralded zero percent when I looked, I don't think anybody. I'm not even sure if he's owned in any of my leagues, and I

played in quite a few deep ones. But Shields fastball is almost a dead ringer for Max Freeds in terms of the run, the velocity, the release point. I think his might be huch higher than Freed's, but other than that, it looks just like Max Freed's, so that's interesting. The other fastballs that are in that same range are Scott

Ferguson and Patrick Sandoval I think is close. So, like, you know, those guys are good in their own way, but like, that's a fastball, that's a major league quality fastball, right and he's averages like ninety three point six with it, which is pretty good, or maybe it's a hair below that, but it's like above ninety three for a lefty. That's pretty good. Then I looked at his slider. It was unclear in the Triple A start, which was early in the year in May, whether he was throwing the distinct

sweeper and gyro. I tend to think that this was mostly the gyro slider that he was throwing and not the sweepy one that he used later on in the year. But also comps almost directly with Max Fried's in terms of velocity and movement profile horizontal and vertical. So like you've got a Max Freed starter kit, and it's not really that much of a coincidence. Maybe that they just signed the Yankees just signed Max Freed too, and Shields might have his like doppelganger there. But then he also

adds a whole bunch of other pitches too. So I'm not saying that Ben Shields is better than Max Freed. Max Freed is so long track record of extremely good success in the major leagues, but I'm saying that his stuff comps almost exactly too Max freedz so Benshields dominated the minor leagues. The stuff looks just like an ACE that just got paid an absurd amount of money and he's zero percent owned, So the stuff seems there. The

results are there. It came out of freaking nowhere. But like this is kind of a sound the alarm kind of thing on this guy. I don't know what else you would want to see from a B sider guy, Like he's He's probably in my top three B side arms that I'm most excited about, has a real shot to just be like the most successful out of them.

The depth of the arsenal, the quality of the stuff that like, I don't know, this is the thing, Like people get hung up on the guy touching ninety nine, but like you don't care when a guy looks just like an ace, Like this stuff backball slider looks just like Max Freed, and you're like oh, but it's ninety three, you know, slider, Like come on, Like, this is why I love comps, and I think that people don't use them because either they don't know like what, they don't

have that context, they don't have that the right pull the right person to compare them to, or they don't use him in the right way. And I credit Jeff Zimmermann, who writes on fangrafts a lot, like he built a tool to compare pitch types to major league pitchers to see like how similar or what are the fastballs that look like this? What are the change ups that look

like this? And that's been a really helpful thing for me to help gut check when I look at a guy and have access to that kind of data, like is that pitch actually going to play? Like? How good is that? What does it look like? Was that pitch also good? For all of the data that I could find for Ben Shields, pitches, all of them comp to sliders, to fastballs, to curveballs that look really good and we would want to see that all in one pitcher. So

I'm honestly as excited about Ben Shields as anybody. And that's absolutely nowhere.

because I was kind of getting into Facundo too. But yeah, Ben Shields, I don't make me. You make me want to go watch him again.

to the bats man. I'll let you go first with the Yankees bats.

lendsed on, I'm actually pretty interested in. You know, the Yankees over the past couple of years have had a real catching pipeline, Like they have developed so many catchers that have gone on to either be good or moved off the position, but are still like pretty good catchers.

he like points his left elbow directly at the pitcher in this weird ass setup. He's got like the Marcelo Zuna, like really pigeon toed leg in. But he's a huge dude, and he's when he swings all of that stuff, all of those like weird ticks that I kind of love from an asthetic perspective. When he lifts this leg, it's so smooth and he is coiled, and then his hands are so fast. He's just like so short for a pretty big guy. He's so short and direct to the ball.

It's no wonder that the dude ran a fourteen point seven percent strikeout rate that is elite. That is so good. I mean it's not like quite Caleb Durban elite, but it is damn close. And considering that he popped ten homers, fifteen doubles, and four triples in three hundred and thirty three plate appearances this year, I think this guy is a real hitter and is like major league quality maybe right now. And if he can play catcher, which I'm

not sure of. You know, they moved him around a lot, I think partly because they aren't convinced he's a good catcher and they're seeing they think his bat might be able to play, and so they're seeing, like, can he play some of these other positions. He's played some third, has a pretty good arm, he's played some first played some left. Yeah, you know, he's bounced around. But I think that the Yankees are looking at him like this

guy's gonna hit. He might be a super utility or maybe maybe their catching development continues and he could be a catcher as well. So Hayes dis Rodriguez is my guy. I think he's gonna be really good. And I was I was pumped to see the Yankees take him and put him on the forty.

Like I was like, I'm not really sure if he's a major leaguer necessarily, but I did talk to a scout that was like, he's the kind of guy somehow, some way, we're gonna see him in the big leagues. And that's rock Regio. This dude is just so much fun to watch you scrolled, go to his MiLB dot com page, scroll down to his highlights, and it's just like one after another. He made maybe the greatest defensive play at shortstop I have ever seen. Most ridiculous play.

He runs out to centerfield and his short fly ball makes the catch, falls over the centerfielder. I think he got hurt on that play too and missed some time, and then just blindly throws the ball over his head to get the guy at the second at second base who needed to tag up, like it was just ridiculous. But and there he steals home. And he's hitting walk off hits all the times, like his WPA is probably high.

I feel like even though even though his you know, season stat line is is not super overwhelming here two twenty one, three forty nine, three ninety seven slash and high a four hundred and eighty played appearances. He was their fourth round pick out Oklahoma State in twenty twenty three. Not a real big guy who listened at five to nine, did hit eleven home runs, He did steal twenty seven bases. That was a one hundred and seventeen WRC plus and

delli strikeout. You know, guy walks a lot fourteen point eight percent, struck out twenty percent. You know, you don't hate to see that. I don't know how much major league impact is necessarily in the bat. I don't even know what the realistic chances of him being a big leader. But this guy is just a gamer man and he's just like one of my favorite as a fan of baseball, just one of my favorite, if not my favorite minor leader to watch.

are just gamers, many good ballplayers. They might not scream out on the spreadsheets or whatever they're looking at, but like they do value that and they do have a slew of guys that are just like fucking ballplayers, man, good baseball players, heads and just the winners. Man. I think he falls into that category for sure.