[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, JJ Cooper Jeff Ponds.

[SPEAKER_01]: We apologize.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are a day later than normal with the prospect podcast in YouTube show.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's for a reason, which is spent all yesterday working on getting posted the top-thirty prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: We updated the top-hundred and now we have farm system rankings for all-thirty teams.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we didn't want to not talk about that this week.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we didn't want to post that before we had all that up at the site.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now if you go to baseballamerican.com,

[SPEAKER_01]: You can check out all the updates, top hundred, top thirties, farm system rankings.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jeff, it feels that there's a little bit of relief on my end.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a little bit of relief on your in and there's a lot of sleep that needs to happen now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think to catch up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is that fair?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a it's a crazy six week period between all the updates and the draft and futures game and

[SPEAKER_04]: And every the trade deadline, you know, and we kind of sprinkle in some additional stuff like complex coverage, you know, depending it's mostly Josh knew in that Cape Codley, there's just kind of so many things going on, so many balls in the air, once we finally get to July and it just kills you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And please understand, everyone, this is not a complaint, but I will tell you as someone who does this year and year out.

[SPEAKER_01]: The relief that comes when the trade deadline passes and you realize that you won't be like at twelve fifteen going to bed and then realize that you're going to be up to one thirty because a trade just came through.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's I that's some part of August that I really do enjoy and I know that they've talked about with trade deadline back and if they do will deal but I do like that part of it but.

[SPEAKER_01]: We want to talk about prospects today as we do always on the prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think we should start.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk really about the farm system rankings today and we're going to talk about some of the teams kind of at the top in the middle and at the bottom.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think that we should start by noting we did also update the top hundred.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is all tied to a top hundred update that we did.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think with that, the key thing that we did with that is we

[SPEAKER_01]: made a point.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say a little bit of a recalibration.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are guys who are added at the back.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some guys came back in who we bumped out for the drafties and we added the drafties and then we're like, you know what, we need to have this guy back in.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was also guys who I would say we added in because we keep getting positive feedback, especially class A guys, complexly guys like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the other thing that we did is is at the very top of the list, Jeff,

[SPEAKER_01]: I think one of the things that we wanted to do was recalibary a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: We realized that after our last update, we were really heavy on very promising prospects, but prospects who predominantly have not passed that double-ite trip lay test.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we still have a number of those here at the top of the list.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we did kind of JJ weatherhold, Samuel Bassayo, come on down and move up some here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Especially, I would say weatherhold, who moved up, I would say more significantly in our list.

[SPEAKER_01]: Weatherhold, you know, is performed AA now triple A. But that's kind of a feel like where we're always doing that balance.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's that balance of maybe there are some middle and field prospects a little bit higher ceiling in JJ weatherhold, not by much, but maybe a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the flip side of it is that there's a little bit less risk with JJ weatherhole because he's past those tests, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that's one part of it is he's so close to the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's been so productive since he's gone up to Memphis and it has based on the numbers.

[SPEAKER_04]: It seems like it's been way longer than it has.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's been a little bit over a month.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was July eight.

[SPEAKER_04]: Excuse me.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, July eight was his first game with with the red birds and another lead off home run last night.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's got seven home runs.

[SPEAKER_04]: That was the big kind of question around the profile is will he be able to make the changes to a swing to get to more that raw power that we knew that he had.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's made those changes.

[SPEAKER_04]: He started to do that.

[SPEAKER_04]: He sacrificed a little bat to ballability.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I think that's fine because he's still a good enough hitter that he's not swinging and missing multiple times in a net bat.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he's still not expanding the zone at a rate that's really concerning.

[SPEAKER_04]: I thought Ellie did a really great job this week in the stack has standouts kind of diving into a little bit of the changes and what's different about weather halt versus the player that we had evaluated as an amateur and I think they've been good changes.

[SPEAKER_04]: Getting to that impact and expanding.

[SPEAKER_04]: you know, how he can impact a game and the type of hitter he can be.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's not really a one or two hitter any longer.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now he's a guy that I think you feel pretty confident in, you know, putting in the middle of your lineup.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is a three hitter that's going to be able to drive in some runs and not just not just with power.

[SPEAKER_04]: He still has the ability to move the ball around, go the other way, move the runner over and do all those little like respect the game kind of things that has always been prevalent in that profile.

[SPEAKER_04]: That said, I think one of the things that gets underrated, he's in above average to plus runner.

[SPEAKER_04]: You will get those times, especially now he's a year past that hamstring injury that really hampered him when he was at West Virginia his last year.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a really good shortstock, you know, probably in above average defender there, because they have Mason Win who's a phenomenal shortstop.

[SPEAKER_04]: He may move over to third base or second base with there or not, depending upon what his offseason looks like.

[SPEAKER_04]: They're past that thirty million dollar balloon payment in twenty five.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a way more movable player now.

[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see if that comes to fruition or not, but he's good enough to fit all around the infield and feel confident.

[SPEAKER_04]: So his skills and his tools.

[SPEAKER_04]: aren't that much less loud than Walcott and Mod A and Devries.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and I think he's actually a very comparable player to Devries in terms of what you'd like to see from Leo Devries in the next two years.

[SPEAKER_04]: You'd like to see him kind of get to the point that weather holds at and I think the A's would be tickled if he got to that point.

[SPEAKER_04]: So when all those things are considered, it made a lot of sense to move him up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two other things as we kind of did some of the reporting for this update that jumped out to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: One is, is that with debris, speaking of debris, who was obviously traded, now A's top prospect Leo de Re's.

[SPEAKER_01]: But his, the defensive reports that I got on him.

[SPEAKER_01]: we're even better than I expected.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it is something where the reports are, you are talking about not just a surefire shortstop, but an impact to fender it shortstop, which that keeps getting better.

[SPEAKER_01]: The offensive performance has been solid, not spectacular, insert what, how the podries push guys so fast, where it's hard to evaluate all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: The other one I would say though is that of these kind of reference are number one prospect, and I think we feel very comfortable about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And kind of reference is having

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, classic, but having, you know, he was a drafty last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's been great at two levels and the biggest question he had coming into the year was the hit tool and he's hitting, you know, three, twenty-five.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think for the year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So again, performance, his performance as the hit tool, the changes he's made all look very impressive.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the other thing that we just keep coming back to of Hasey's mod A over and over is if you said what is Hasey's mod A's,

[SPEAKER_01]: a secret sauce, exceptional skill.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's something you wrote about last year when you was in the DSL.

[SPEAKER_01]: Of all the players we are talking about, these class A middle-in filters.

[SPEAKER_01]: And mod these tools, I would say like he has bat speed.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has all these, I'm like, don't make it sound like we're saying that he's a skills over tools player.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a yes and skills and tools player.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's bigger than you think.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not tiny.

[SPEAKER_01]: But

[SPEAKER_01]: his batting eye, his ability to know the strikes, must be on its better than the umpires in class A that he's that are calling the balls and strikes is I would say two standard deviations at least above what you can expect for a good prospect at those levels.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's usually something that kind of comes along later.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not putting, he's not one soda there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to, I'm not willing to go that far, one soda.

[SPEAKER_01]: One soda, I remember writing about him, like I would love to find the bapers out that we were writing that I was writing about him when he came up that year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, this is the closest thing we're going to see to Ted Williams arriving as a teenager.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you talk about that ability to work counts and draw walks and get on based on all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But mod a, okay, I'll put it this way to you, Jeff.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anyone you can think of at that age with the other?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because again, there's always some guys who are passive.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would describe as, we're not talking about passivity where you just put the bat on your shoulder and you say, I'm gonna draw walks in class A because these pictures will not be able to throw strikes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a hit or who has that understanding of the strikes on that body has worse?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's aggression, but it's controlled aggression.

[SPEAKER_01]: where he's swinging at pitches in the zone, and he's taking pitches out of zone.

[SPEAKER_01]: I struggle to come up with the prospect and elite prospect, elite eight-een-year-old prospect, who kind of fits that group.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think the age thing is what makes it difficult.

[SPEAKER_04]: His teammate Luis Pena probably is somewhere.

[SPEAKER_04]: Not as good.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not as good.

[SPEAKER_04]: His angles are a little bit better.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's what the big difference is between the two.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'd say he's at least in that conversation.

[SPEAKER_04]: McGonagil is not his twenty years old.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I would definitely put Kevin McGonagil into that.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's why he's here.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I think once again, you know, the only other guy that's a contemporary from an approach standpoint,

[SPEAKER_04]: is probably devries and he expands the zone a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's probably a little bit better in terms of basketball.

[SPEAKER_04]: The angles are a little bit better.

[SPEAKER_04]: He does not have the thump that body has.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I would say is, is end of rease and pain you'd really does not have the same.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at their chase, if you look at their swings at pitches in the zone versus swings at pitches outside the zone.

[SPEAKER_01]: bodies at a different level on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, that's again, we'll see, but that's when you were writing about this when you're in the DSL, it's like in one of those things where when you see something like that for a player this young who also has bat speed and athleticism and a frame and can play in the middle infield and all these things, that's what it's hard not to get really excited because that's this tool

[SPEAKER_01]: That can help you unlock all these other things because if you have that kind of, you know, combined with bat to bond again, I would say some of these are guys may have a little bit better bat to ball skills that being.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you can add to that because you're just spitting on, you know, everything you're only hitting good pitches.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and he's a switchhead or two, you know, which, which ups the degree of difficulty.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'd say the other guy throw out there and he's a little older, but they probably have the same number of professional games played as maybe Walker Jenkins.

[SPEAKER_04]: He had outstanding approach really throughout, you know, the early days of his pro career.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's just I think modda has played more games this year than Jenkins has probably played the last two or three.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then for sure, a lot of leg injuries, a lot of little.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's changing now though, where Jenkins has been performing and we're seeing the power showing up.

[SPEAKER_04]: So that's exciting one to kind of watch up there.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think he's a guy that's probably going to move back up, you know, in the off season.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But we also talk about mod a because that's a perfect prep in a segue to our number one farm system is the walkie brewers.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, are there is there anything that the brewers aren't doing the brewers are the hottest team in baseball the best team of the national league.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, especially when baseball you could argue and they have the number one farm system in baseball that's.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's hard to beat, but when we say this is we always preface snapshot in time.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we did this a month ago, we might have a different number one.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we do it a month from now, we may have a different one.

[SPEAKER_01]: It because let's start with this.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you say, why are the brewers are number one farm system?

[SPEAKER_01]: The way we do it, we try to do this based on research in a lot of ways, which is there have been multiple people out there

[SPEAKER_01]: going back over ten to fifteen years that looked at kind of prospect valuation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And every single one of those studies that we found makes it very clear that it's not linear.

[SPEAKER_01]: The top prospects are worth significantly more than the next year of prospects, who are worth significantly more than the next year of prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the key parts of that I would say is a top

[SPEAKER_01]: that those top one, two, three, four, five prospects in the game, are we're significantly more than the twenty-fifth best prospect in the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the twenty-fifth prospect in the game is we're significantly more than the hundredth prospect in the game, because that's where it gets much more muddier, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: If you said,

[SPEAKER_01]: But this team will get to like the Mariners have more top hundred prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: But having three guys in that seventy five to a hundred range is not equal to having one guy in the top five.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like away I'll phrase this to you Jeff like is which it seems counterintuitive but if you said okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I said, hey, hazusmodi is available.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to say, okay, let's just say the mariners for a second, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So the mariners, I say, okay, what about hazusmodi for Michael Arroyo, Ryan Sloan, Harry Ford, and Durangelo, Sintia, which that's four top hundred prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they're not as valuable as hazusmodi.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now, I think this even goes back to Lake.

[SPEAKER_04]: fantasy lead type of analysis where it's like, yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not gonna, I had someone come to me yesterday, for example.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not treating Gunner Henderson for Cory Seeger and Tyler Glasnell, even though those two guys down the stretch might provide more points.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, no, I want the best player in the deal, and it's the same with prospects.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, Hayes Usmati has a significant amount more value, especially when you factor in that, all of these guys are controllable and the audio audio audio.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's at least a discount for a few years.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's the kind of player that you're going to try to get an extension done.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll allow Roman Anthony.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll jacks in Cheerio, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: You're probably not going to do that with Ford and Shentja and some of those other ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the way that's another way to look at this, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Roman Anthony, who was our number one prospect in the game, signs an extension that is really

[SPEAKER_01]: understandably, below market value, what you give up.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to sign an extension during your rookie season, you are understandably saying, I'm not, I'm giving up the chance to get a Juan Soto contract down the road, which Roman Anthony, if you want to get the truly bust the bank contracts, Roman Anthony was set up to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jack's a terrorist set up to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jack's a terrorist, especially.

[SPEAKER_01]: Make your debut as a teenager.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can hit free agency at an age where very few players ever hit free agency.

[SPEAKER_01]: However, those players are the ones who get the like Roman Anthony's deal is going to be, he's, you know, he's going to make over well over a hundred million dollars no matter what happens for him going forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he could make over two hundred million dollars.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those contracts, again, to take Michael Oroyo to top of those guys, top of the guy for top.

[SPEAKER_01]: Michael O'Royo, if he was signing an extension right now, it would be, I would say more in the look at what the Phillies did a few years ago with, I just blanked on the name of Scott Kingery.

[SPEAKER_01]: Scott Kingery, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: That would be the kind of contract you'd be talking about.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, I mean, like Aussie Albee's, now granted this was in, in, twenty-nineteen.

[SPEAKER_04]: And Aussie Albee's toned a terrible contract, which is a seven year, thirty-five million dollar contract and was a better player than I think we think a royal is going to be as flawed as Albee's may be.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, now granted it was below market and was a bad deal, but those are the kind of offers that guys like that are probably going to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what we're saying is, is that, so if you said, well, why are the brewers our number one farm system

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Hazus-Made is our number three prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jacob, Ms.

[SPEAKER_01]: Rowsky, is our number four prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right there.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you said we're done, they would be a top five system right there.

[SPEAKER_01]: The way we do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, okay, if they only had two players in their system, those were the expansion team and those were the only two players we had, we might not rank them top five because if you're all your chips are in on two players, that might be a little tough.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what we mean by that is, is that

[SPEAKER_01]: That.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you throw in that they have Luis Pena, who, as we mentioned, is one of the best prospects in baseball, just not just slightly below paying you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but below money.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then they have a good system behind that six top one hundred prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: That jumps out like the it is somewhat top heavy, but there are some interesting guys who are not in the top hundred for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, not in our top hundred, who are very intriguing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say also I ask you, but like I kind of factor in a little bit also the brewers are a team that has demonstrated time and time again.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always going to when I look at their pitching prospects especially.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to expect them to come closer to their top end outcome in the lot of organizations.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you said, well, why is that?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like because that's what's happened with Chad Patrick.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, the chat Patrick this year to bias Myers last year, you know, we could go through a long list of guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think you were a pretty poor all to, you know, miss your after you rebate.

[SPEAKER_04]: Corbin Burns, I mean, like, there are some names and they've done it for multiple cycles or generations of this farm system, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: If I've been writing prospects up for ten years now, we've seen this a lot over the last ten years.

[SPEAKER_01]: I left out the best one from this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: The pirates are like, Quinn Priester, we will trade Quinn Priester for Nick York.

[SPEAKER_01]: The red socks, who are pretty good as far as developmentally,

[SPEAKER_01]: Had Quinn prester for a month and a half basically and said, nah, I don't think we're going to be able to fix them either.

[SPEAKER_01]: The brewers like that's fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll take them for Yafri Rodriguez and.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be in the pick and the pick.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that was that I will say the pick and the money certainly was okay, but it wasn't as bad as the name I would say right now the brewer one betrayed because Quinn this year immediately without us off season without a spring training or anything the brewers are like magic wand here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is the Quinn priest who was drafted where he was drafted right like he's been

[SPEAKER_01]: a number three starter you could say this year for them with almost no developmental time with them.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's really, again, their organization that does a lot of things very well.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say that also what this is is that even with making a couple of trades, their infield depth looks really interesting and it also fits very well.

[SPEAKER_01]: What this team likes to do, like this is a team that loves athletic infielders and then we'll figure out where to play them, which by the way, they've also Isaac Collins is going to go down in the best minor league rule five picks of all time category.

[SPEAKER_01]: pretty, pretty easily on that list.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, athletic in filter will make them a lot of fielder.

[SPEAKER_01]: He'll be really good at it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you know, they play short stops all around the in-field.

[SPEAKER_01]: Bryce Terrain can play, you know, Bryce Terrain can play short stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: Joey Ortiz is a short stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone they've thrown out this year at third base pretty much is at least semi short stop capable.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just really impressive what they've done, but then you've got like a guy's again, like Luke Adams, Brady evil, Brock Wilkin, Andrew Fisher, they're strapped.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of guys who play in the dirt who are intriguing in this list, in addition to the guy at the top guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'll kick this to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our number two, again, we say top talent is important for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why are the pirates number two in our farm system rate?

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think you look at this farm system and particularly coming out of the draft as well, where I believe just from a BA grade, not factoring in risk, I think Seth Hernandez had the highest grade of any draftee at a sixty-five extreme.

[SPEAKER_04]: The upside's obviously there.

[SPEAKER_04]: You got a seventy-high in public Chandler, and you got a seventy-high in Connor Griffin.

[SPEAKER_04]: It can be honest.

[SPEAKER_04]: We push that grade up to a seventy-five this off season.

[SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't shake my head, wouldn't scare me.

[SPEAKER_04]: Then you have one of the biggest prospect breakouts this season in the lower levels in Edward Florentino.

[SPEAKER_04]: Top Hunter Prospect, top Hunter Prospect, and even behind that.

[SPEAKER_04]: And now there's some flaws in these guys.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's the same as it is with a lot of teams that made some trades that reinforced

[SPEAKER_04]: But the depth in this system and I look at this team now from spring training and all the back field games I watched so I got a really good grip on what the system was like.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of depth here now between the guys they drafted between some of the guys they traded for and there's some interesting names when you go from.

[SPEAKER_04]: twenty one to thirty Carlson reads back there interesting arm Valdez who we saw in the future's game has some interesting power teams were really high on east and car Michael as a catcher that could hit we've heard positive things about jack branagan even recently in terms of the defense with some questions on whether you can hit you know I talked to a couple of scouts about the jitter martina's acquisition people are still really high on that one and feel as if there's just a maturity stuff that they can

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, probably a good reliever, but there's still arm speed and size and stuff they are to believe in.

[SPEAKER_04]: And that's their twenty six strength prospect.

[SPEAKER_04]: And internally, I've heard some really good things on axial plots.

[SPEAKER_04]: that there were some big advocates for him as a pretty good player.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think, and he's a fifty extreme.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a fifty extreme at twenty nine.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is a really good system.

[SPEAKER_04]: So maybe there's better systems from five to twelve.

[SPEAKER_04]: There are.

[SPEAKER_04]: And there are.

[SPEAKER_04]: There aren't many systems better one through four and there's very few systems that have that one through four that also have that twenty one to thirty depth.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's one of the things that kind of brings them up in the rear a little bit that they have these high end guys and maybe that as we said five to twelve isn't as good as some other teams.

[SPEAKER_04]: But from that.

[SPEAKER_04]: thirteen to thirty they're just as good if not better and there's a lot of legitimate prospects in the back end of this list which wasn't the case with a pirates two years ago they've done a good job of acquiring some interesting players and getting more depth into that system and they have some high-end pictures which they've had they have high-end hitters for the first time in a really really long time almost as long as I think I've been doing this

[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing I would say though is yes, it is very much about the top heaviness of this because they have counter-gryphid.

[SPEAKER_01]: Counter-gryphid is our number one prospect in the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: And to what you just said, there is no one, there is no position prospect in the miners right now who has kind of more possibilities

[SPEAKER_01]: for what they could become, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because we are talking about a twenty twenty four first, you know, reasonably high first round pick.

[SPEAKER_01]: But at that time, it was like he could be a short stop, he could be a center fielder, where we, you know, if we've talked about, we're about to hit him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is kind of one of those near unicorn athletes, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't, no one's as unicorn is Ellie Dale Cruz for instance.

[SPEAKER_01]: However, when you talk about a guy like,

[SPEAKER_01]: Connor Griffin could be when we talk about the five tool player, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, five tool gets thrown in a way too often and usually it's thrown around on guys who it's like, no, if you are fifty, fifty, fifty, fifty, fifty, you can call that a cheap five tool player if you want, but that's not a five tool player.

[SPEAKER_01]: Five tool players, someone who you can say, it's six is across the board or better.

[SPEAKER_01]: Connor Griffin could be six hit, six power,

[SPEAKER_01]: six field, six run, six arm, and by the way, I know that there are several there that I've sold short by saying that it's a plus tool, because like his run tool, he would have to really, you'd have to tie an anchor to him to be a six runner.

[SPEAKER_01]: His arm better than a six arm, you know, power should eventually be, you know, could be better than six power.

[SPEAKER_01]: Field, pencil, where you play him, but he could, I mean, put him to set our field.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to be better than the sixth fielder.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a true five tool player where it's all sixties or better.

[SPEAKER_04]: Because I think they hit tool at this point.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like the most the biggest strikeout numbers came in like the first two games in the season.

[SPEAKER_04]: And we talked about this a month and a half ago when he got promoted to high A. He's been running a sub twenty percent strikeout rate.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, with high walk rates, with good angles, with power, every element of the hit tool is there to be a six.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we're not going to cover everyone.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want everyone go to baseballmerica.com, we have all this here.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we are going to pick some teams that are interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Dodgers ranked seventh on our list.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say that we go into this saying, they have the best group of outfielders, like they have

[SPEAKER_01]: I, I would struggle to come up with another team that can match Jose de Paul as the hear hope, Mike Seroda Eduardo Contero.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a four class A out there's couple of them hurt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mike's rose out for the rest of the year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who's way to Paula last I checked with still on the I. L as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: However, that's a great group.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have seven top hundred prospects, Dalton rushing still qualifies for this by our standards, you know, extra than some of the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_01]: Rokey says hockey still qualifies for hoping he gets back on the map.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I know he's on the map, but hopefully in games, I should say, soon.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I would say with this though, like if you said, well, why then are they seven?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the key thing that's kind of worth noting here is his

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of this value, you know, they do have again, Dalton rushing is up, although we doesn't look like he's anywhere close to being a regular for them in the big leagues right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Dalton rushing is up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Alex Freeland is up, but again, this is a Dodgers, so it doesn't look like he's going to be he's more of a kind of a role player.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of this tied into class A players, really good class A players, really intriguing class A, but class A outfielders.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the other thing we would say right now is healthy pictures, healthy successful pictures.

[SPEAKER_01]: In a system that's had a lot of those, that's kind of what's kind of like, I would say a little bit thinner right now, especially after they did make some trades at the deadline.

[SPEAKER_01]: They brought guys in Adam Serenowski in.

[SPEAKER_01]: They got guys out, you know, Eric Swan, Sean Leningen go out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like, they've done a little bit of both.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's where I would say like, they're like, if you're comparing them to, you know, like the mariners who are right ahead of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say that there's where, again, every system has its flaws, but that would be my question probably with the Dodgers.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what do you think?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think you look at the Mariners and, you know, they have guy up top who's within that top, fifteen.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's the difference between nineteen for rushing and, you know, eighteen, nineteen for for rushing and, and to Paula and twenty two at Hope.

[SPEAKER_04]: And a lot of these systems that rank ahead of them is they have multiple top-fifteen guys or like a top-five guy.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's kind of what's pushing them ahead because we talked about what their value was in our previous conversation.

[SPEAKER_04]: The Dodgers to me kind of lack that and I think that a bigger season by DePaul, he's had a very good year and it's been a lot of positive.

[SPEAKER_04]: development for him, but that like monster sort of season alluded him and hope a little bit.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think that monster season would have pushed them into that conversation more securely.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Roder was trying to have it, but he started the year in low a because of the outfit and then he got hurt.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Roder to me had to do it.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's also right because granted it's a it was a small conference guy.

[SPEAKER_04]: He played in the Cape for two years, USA, like he got all the opportunities.

[SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't like, you know, he was outside of that exposure funnel.

[SPEAKER_04]: He had a bad couple of months.

[SPEAKER_04]: It dropped his draft stock.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's had some mix and bruises and injuries over the years, so this isn't totally shocking either.

[SPEAKER_04]: But he was a great development, and obviously this is what the Dodgers do well, you know, in terms of evaluating their own system, other people's systems, and the amateur market, whether it's domestically or international, they do that just about as well as anybody.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's why they have great depth.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think this, this is a system we were just talking about Pittsburgh.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is a system where they're like five to twelve.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's still really good and that maybe even slides into like the nineteen eighteen nineteen twenty range where there's guys like Zach Root and Charles Davelin that probably rank higher in a lot of other systems that are in the top half.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, so they have that going for them.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think you're right, though, about the healthy pictures.

[SPEAKER_04]: They've always had some exciting arms, even some of the guys that they drafted this year, you know, root is a good picture, but there's some questions about the stuff.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's like, all right, where does that go?

[SPEAKER_04]: I think you look at Cam Lighter who

[SPEAKER_04]: has phenomenal stuff might have been a top-fifteen pick had he been healthy and actually pitched to that issue.

[SPEAKER_04]: But there's injury concerns there already walking in.

[SPEAKER_04]: And you see guys like James Tibbs who's been traded twice in a year regardless of how well he's hit out there.

[SPEAKER_04]: There are some questions on some of these guys to that.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think the upside, you know, from a sizzle perspective, this system has a lot of sizzle, you know, if we rank it as like the, you know, the top thirty sexiest systems, maybe this ranks top five, but I think when you put the context of some of the injuries and some of that stuff, and it does push them down a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that leads us to a team that I want to talk about, which is

[SPEAKER_01]: But when I say that we use evaluation system, we've been using the drive line out prospect evaluation methodology in recent years, pretty consistently.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a human factor to this as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And with the human factor, we look at it as a group as a team.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we say like this seems too high, this seems too low.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then we adjust.

[SPEAKER_01]: No team got adjusted more than the mats we moved them that you know their valuation was going to have them a little bit lower and again we also have very into we try to even it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we have some people who's the way they use be a great little tougher than others looking at you Jeff you know so like there's some of that that goes into this you know so but when we do that we so we we move them that's up to nine.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you ask me right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: which organization could we look back on and say we were probably still a little light on with these rankings.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say the Met's might be it and here's why.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I thought they did a great job at the deadline.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know Met's Fanter here in this gun.

[SPEAKER_01]: We did a great job at the deadline.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've been terrible since the brewers are run away with it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, all these things, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought they did a really good job at the deadline of trading what I would describe as manufactured talent, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And that doesn't mean that they traded fabricated prospects were gonna fall apart or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I mean, they didn't trade first-round picks where you're like, in most cases.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know, okay, Drew Gilbert, not theirs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not theirs, but

[SPEAKER_01]: But most of what they traded, they traded a lot of power arms who, when they signed with the Mets, were kind of dime a dozen type players who then got better.

[SPEAKER_01]: And became interesting to other organizations.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of them relievery types, you know, but when you talk about the Ramon Gomez's or the Wellington, Arizona's or the guys like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: Nate don't have a little more star to read, but sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of these guys, they traded those guys, which.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the Mets because they have kind of developed their player development to be a little bit more of a powerhouse now.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're doing really good work there on the pitching side especially.

[SPEAKER_01]: They view that as kind of renewable resource.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we bring in the next guys and then we can turn around and trade that.

[SPEAKER_01]: They held onto the top and why I would say that I think they could be better than where we haven't ranked at ninth potentially as is.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of our top prospects for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now most of them were a lot of them were in double a until this past week because they've just proved, put, you know, pushed a whole group up to AAA.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we know that Nome McLean is coming up to the big leagues for Saturdays start.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they're all upper level guys who've had success in the upper levels of the miners.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's not one of these guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jonah Tong has been the most successful pitcher in the minors this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Strikeouts, ERA, hits him out, all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was doing it at AA at a very not just an age appropriate.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's young for the level.

[SPEAKER_01]: We just talked about McLean's been really good at triplet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Brandon Sprout made some adjustments and just keeps getting better at triplet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Carson Bench has been arguably the best hitter in the upper minors and he got promoted pretty early to AA.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they've got this group of guys who are knocking on the door.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we're seeing it here, they're cracking open the door with the clean, but if you told me, I think almost all of these guys, if there was a need, I would say you're probably the pitcher's especially, but if I'm the meds and I need pitching in September, I wouldn't put Jonah talking to my rotation right now, but if you said,

[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna bring that guy in for an inning.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a weird look that hitters are not used to seeing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're done with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, okay, you're not seeing, he will not face the guy like again, you could pick your spots from right now and say like, you're not gonna, he's never gonna face the hitter in a series twice.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be a tough guy to, that would be a tough guy to deal with.

[SPEAKER_01]: You spoke could absolutely fit in their pen right now, I think, and be potentially useful.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that this is, I want to get what you think, but I think that this is a system that, again, the amount of upper level has already cleared the double I in a make cases, the AAA hurdle.

[SPEAKER_01]: Put them in really good stead.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are all, and again, these are all guys who have real talent, too.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like they're gritty guys who just don't really have a whole lot of tools to go with it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think you, you look at the pictures and you've kind of gone through it, I think.

[SPEAKER_04]: McClain and Sprote seem like fairly fully baked major league starters at this point.

[SPEAKER_04]: Little older on Sprote's part, you know, but they've done a really good job of optimizing these guys optimizing their.

[SPEAKER_04]: their pitch mixes, like, I don't know how much of that has been Eric Jager's influence that he's been in the organization for a couple of years, but it did seem like when they hired him, a lot of the development kind of got some serious horsepower in terms of what we saw from the outputs, et cetera.

[SPEAKER_04]: It seems like they've done a really good job on the hitting side as well that there's a lot of hitting prospects that have come into their own guys like Carson Bench who's very told up was a two-way guy at Oklahoma State.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now that he's committed full time to hitting is one of the biggest breakout prospects in the minors issue.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's been phenomenal.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's been a huge bounce back year for jet Williams after an injury played twenty twenty four.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's really showing sort of that dynamic leadoff skills set that we had anticipated he would lots of walks.

[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe he's not the fastest guy in the bases, but he's a good base dealer.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's got a little bit of power as well.

[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, that approach and everything drives him.

[SPEAKER_04]: He can play some shortstop.

[SPEAKER_04]: He can play some center field.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a really versatile player.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think a winning ball player, a guy that is going to go into that organization.

[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, immediately he's going to fit in and fill a valuable role for them.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think Ryan Clifford is really interesting.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's huge power here.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's been a big name since he was thirteen years old, you know, with USA baseball and all that sort of stuff.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think people knew Gilbert better when that deal was made, but as somebody who was doing the Astros at the time.

[SPEAKER_04]: Internally, those Astros folks were kind of cringing over trading Clifford.

[SPEAKER_04]: That was the one they didn't want them to include in that deal for Verlander.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's the one that stuck around.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a true, a three out, three true outcome kind of profile.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's not the athlete that Spencer Jones is.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's probably a little bit better contact hitter.

[SPEAKER_04]: He approaches better.

[SPEAKER_04]: And it maybe is an eighty power like Jones, but it's probably seventy power with pretty good angles.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a guy that I could see being a really good six hitter.

[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe the batting average is two thirty-ish.

[SPEAKER_04]: But it's walking twelve percent of the time and his peak could be a twenty five to thirty home run kind of guy.

[SPEAKER_04]: While still playing a corner outfield spot and filling it at first baseman needed.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's not a bad player.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think you look at this whole group of guys we talked about, Tom, the claims coming up this week.

[SPEAKER_04]: This was the most talented double-a team in the world.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's now the most talented triple-a team in the world.

[SPEAKER_04]: Sorry, Iowa Cubs.

[SPEAKER_04]: They have overtaken you now.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is a load roster.

[SPEAKER_04]: You don't want McQueen leaving.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is a loaded roster.

[SPEAKER_01]: So to keep Cook just rolling along, now we're getting more to the middle.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you said what team I think that for both of us really jumps out in the middle here,

[SPEAKER_01]: the giant's farm system still a good ways away in a lot of cases.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's more kind of bubbling up at the lower levels of the system that we've seen from them in quite a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they didn't do have, we don't want to say like Bryce Aldrich is a number one prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's backmashing in AAA.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as we've noted, defensively still not great, but better.

[SPEAKER_01]: Which again, I hope so because eighteen errors for a first basement last year is that that gets you a needs improvement on your offseason training report.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like we can't have you cannot get eighteen errors from a first basement and be okay with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he's gotten better.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say that more Jeff of what kind of jumps out and makes us really intrigued is what's kind of in some cases still in the complexes or what's until very recently I should say in some cases.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, I think you look at Joe Swar Gonzalez.

[SPEAKER_04]: He feels like the kind of guy who, you know, on the top one hundred right now, we were aggressive with him, but he's the type where like, eighty five a year from now, we might look back in this last, you know, end of year list or whatever, and be like,

[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe should have been in top thirty, you know, like he has that kind of upside.

[SPEAKER_04]: So he's a player that you can get pretty excited about.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's big upside there, you know, arguably the best player in the DSL this year, and Kudos to Josh Norris for being on top of that very early.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's why we love Josh and all the work that he does in the complexes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Josh has seen in the person.

[SPEAKER_04]: He has Johnny levels another one that we really good reporting on very highly ranked in Josh's ACL rankings.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's now at San Jose in a full season.

[SPEAKER_04]: Josh saw him last night again.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a really exciting player.

[SPEAKER_04]: And maybe a top one, a hundred adjacent kind of guy in between those two.

[SPEAKER_04]: You have Bo Davidson who pop up.

[SPEAKER_04]: found his way onto the top one hundred list here at eighty eight.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a really well-rounded prospect and maybe somebody that was a little bit underrated as a non-drafted free agent.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's another one.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when you say a little bit underrated.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the draft rolled around and everyone said, nah, we're good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a top hundred prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would put it this that like that is a developmental, yes, fouling and developmental home run.

[SPEAKER_04]: A hundred percent person was in hunt between them a guy that's in the big leagues now getting some starts for that for that team.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then we start to look at some of the guys they acquired both in the draft.

[SPEAKER_04]: And via trade guys like Gavin Kelen.

[SPEAKER_04]: One of my favorite college hitters in the draft, he took a massive step forward with a power and a approach this year.

[SPEAKER_04]: He went from kind of a contact guy who looked to put the ball in play to a guy with really well rounded approach, with great bat to ball skills and better power and angles than he had ever had previously seen his career.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I don't think he's like a twenty five homer guy or anything like that, but you know, could probably hit fifteen with a really good average, maybe a lead off or number two hitter type for you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Blade Tidwell will be interesting to see what he becomes probably a reliever, but an interesting name, and then I think you start to go down into some of the guys that you did talk about other complex guys.

[SPEAKER_04]: They have a couple of complex league pictures here, and you know, that aren't on the complex any any longer in Kyama.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right-hander, who's really interesting, I wrote about him earlier in the year, and then Louis, Louis, Louis, St.

[SPEAKER_04]: La Torre, a undersized lefty, who's been really good as well.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's an interesting system.

[SPEAKER_04]: The depth is crazy, but it's also not bad.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of major leaders within this back-end group.

[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, a couple of bright spots and the upside guys that, you know, we're still, we're still catching up on.

[SPEAKER_04]: So overall, it's, it's a pretty exciting group.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of lower level guys that there's always some risk with those, but just based on where they ranked and I dug in and I was kind of like really the giants were ranked that high.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then I started to go into the player by player and to kind of do in your analysis and your head and you're like,

[SPEAKER_04]: All right, I know that that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it was one of those where I was a little shocked and surprised, but then when I did the research and kind of the evaluation, it was like, all right, this makes sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: Insert mean here.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like where you start and then you, you get to the point where like, yeah, okay, a hundred percent.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's exactly what it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this one, I'm just putting back in your court.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we are getting back to the very back of this list.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we have the Astros sitting here at twenty eight.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty low.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is not they don't have a top hundred prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I want to ask the question this way because I will say like there are times where we've had teams at the back where like, oh, there's just nothing here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Damn in the brave, twenty eight and twenty nine.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't hate these systems.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's some things here to be interested in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is not like

[SPEAKER_01]: but we'll get to the potteries in a minute, but this is not where you look around and you're like, wow, this runs out really fast.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we're selling a little short, I just saved from the standpoint of like, I feel like that the Astros do a good job of maximizing what they have a lot of times.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I think that's something that's been a theme with them over the years, because this hasn't been a good system as long as I've been at BA, gaining back to to twenty twenty one.

[SPEAKER_04]: But there's always guys that by the time they're ready to go to the big leagues, we're like, maybe we're a little lower on them than we should have been.

[SPEAKER_04]: It hasn't happened as much in the last couple of years and I think I've done a good job of being on some of the breakouts like

[SPEAKER_04]: Jake Bloss, a couple of years ago, this year Kevin Alvarez and the complex, Bryce Meyer kind of out of the drafts, Joseph Sullivan out of the draft, well, sourced within the organization.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I always feel really good about how my list lines up.

[SPEAKER_04]: But what the ask shows need is they honestly need a couple of guys to really blow up.

[SPEAKER_04]: The one I'm looking at in particular is Xavier Nions, which

[SPEAKER_04]: He was as divisive as a prospect as you got among the top high school hitters in this class.

[SPEAKER_04]: There is a wide range of opinions on his hit tool.

[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody questions the power.

[SPEAKER_04]: Left handed power, bigger body.

[SPEAKER_04]: When I look at Nions, it's a Roman Anthony starter kit.

[SPEAKER_04]: Similar questions to what Roman Anthony have when he came into pro ball.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, our amateur guys, like when he first came in and the hit tool numbers, if you remember in Salem, we're pretty dang good.

[SPEAKER_04]: It was like, where did this come from?

[SPEAKER_04]: He wasn't a great contact hitter.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a swinging miss in the circuit, yada, yada, yada.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if it was as strong as Nian's swing and miss issues were, but I think there's some things there that Nian's when I speak with them internally, they kind of look at it as risky.

[SPEAKER_04]: This guy could either be one of the best prospects in baseball or a guy that constantly teases you with tools, but never really puts it all together.

[SPEAKER_04]: The other one that I think they have to bank on is Kevin Alvarez.

[SPEAKER_04]: Alvarez was a big bonus signing for them.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's in the Dominican Summer League.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's athletic.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's twitchy.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a bigger guy that can play center field.

[SPEAKER_04]: Left-handed hitter with potential above average power and above average hitting ability.

[SPEAKER_04]: Those are two guys next year in full season ball that if the off season work and we always talk about this now, the shutdown periods in terms of when the minor league season ends to when these guys actually get on the field, which is between we'll say mid-September and mid-March in terms of when we actually see them in backfield games.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of growth that can happen, particularly with focus, swing work and all those things and the Astros have typically done a pretty good job of that.

[SPEAKER_04]: If both of those guys come out and have big years, this system will make a pretty substantial jump because I do think those guys have massive upside.

[SPEAKER_04]: But it's not great when you're banking on guys like that to rise your system up because you don't really have

[SPEAKER_04]: a lot of impact players.

[SPEAKER_04]: They may have one of the best groups of forty five highs.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's kind of where the system strength is, but you're not going to rank very high.

[SPEAKER_04]: We in twenty four really good forty five highs.

[SPEAKER_04]: You're just not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because by our nature, by our definition of forty five high makes you a top five hundred to one thousand prospect in the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you can have a lot of the five hundred to a thousand prospects in the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make up for how many of the top twenty prospects zero.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: What about fifty zero?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like quantity of, well, this guy's in the top seven fifty isn't going to make up for it and how we do this when we do our pharmacist rankings.

[SPEAKER_01]: But speaking of that, I don't think anyone's going to be surprised to know that the pod rays are our number thirty.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will say with this,

[SPEAKER_01]: The very top of this system remains intriguing.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you said, they're not going to have anything to trade next year.

[SPEAKER_01]: They'll have things to trade if they want to before the draft next year.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have to wait for the draft.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have to trade their next big international sign in, you know, in, in, in, in, in, twenty, twenty, six, cross school craft.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Gelman does.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ethan Salas, if he can get back and help the and start hitting.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are still very intriguing prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what does stand out with the potters?

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is, we say, they come by this honestly.

[SPEAKER_01]: The depth of this system now is barren.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is because if you are treating anything that's not nailed down, which they did at the deadline again.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you approach your draft and international

[SPEAKER_01]: which by the way is working for them in a lot of ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like if you kind of say, we're gonna go after this high ceiling player and we're gonna make our international class built around this player, which they've done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, Leo de Vries, Ethan Salis, it's worked out when they've done that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you do that, and you say, well, what is the rest of the class?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, there's not much else in the class.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or when you say in the draft, hey, we're going to shift money so that we can pay

[SPEAKER_01]: across, you know, a cruise school craft, you know, we could, when you're trading off to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where I would say is like, when you said like, okay, the Dodgers from five to twelve are really good or the pirates from twelve to thirty are really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Having to just have to update the top thirty for this Padres list.

[SPEAKER_01]: after they traded away, like they traded six prospects in the Ramon, Loriana, Ryan, or her deal.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of those were not top-thirty prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you look around, you're like, oh, I think I had nine or ten guys that I had to replace.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're reaching out the scouts, you know, and it's like, is there anyone?

[SPEAKER_01]: Am I missing someone and all that?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I will just be honest with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wrote up org players.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are players at the back of that list who are one hundred percent

[SPEAKER_01]: Ryan Jackson, who is at Southern Cal, is the prototypical college middle and filter senior sign.

[SPEAKER_01]: College middle and filter does a lot of things reasonably well, not particularly tooled up, not going to be a big league every day, shortstop, he's like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: The kind of guy who, it wouldn't shock you in any way if he made the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you told me that he got fifteen games or twenty games or something like that, but

[SPEAKER_01]: There's also a decent chance that he's just a really goodman, Wesley player for the next, you know, like, oh, he's the guy you keep around to help the other guys, you know, as they kind of acclimate on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: That in most systems, guys, like that aren't top-thirty prospects in the podries list, they are definitely top-thirty prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: any, any Padres thoughts that you have?

[SPEAKER_04]: No, I think that's all accurate.

[SPEAKER_04]: And another system, though, where there might be a couple of guys lurking from this draft class who a year from now, we're talking about a little differently.

[SPEAKER_04]: They do a good job about evaluating amateurs, maybe as good as anybody.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's kind of AJ Prollers' prime ability above all, you know, it's a superpower.

[SPEAKER_04]: So they always do well there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But so that is our look at

[SPEAKER_01]: The farm system rankings, you can check out the full list over at baseballmerica.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we have, you know, write up some all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, you also have the full top thirties updated top thirties prospect rankings for all thirties organizations.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the updated top hundred in addition to we also have, you know, graph rankings, college, we just updated the college top one hundred for next year and things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as we always do, before we wrap up here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, again, we apologize that we're doing this today late, but I hope that we made up for it with what we're talking about here.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as we always do, Jeff, we end with the prospects of boxes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that you've been rare and to go on this one, because I know that this is something that I think you have a story also coming out at baseballamerica.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll remind you on this, as always, prospects of boxes are prospects who are not top one hundred prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is the key thing here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll go into my first, well, my prospect so box here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Not a top one, a hundred prospect at all, but I think one of the better stories that I've heard in my time covering the minor leagues and talking to players.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's an article up on baseball America this morning kind of diving into this a little bit more, but I want to talk about Red Sox right hand in pitching prospect Tyler Oversean.

[SPEAKER_04]: He has

[SPEAKER_04]: an absolutely unbelievable story.

[SPEAKER_04]: So he went to Sharmanard in California, which is a, I think, you know, one of the top schools in CIF, like they compete within the division with Harvard, West Lake and all those.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's difficult to get on those teams.

[SPEAKER_04]: Didn't make his freshman team.

[SPEAKER_04]: was caught straight up, played freshman as a sophomore, played JV as a junior, was put on the varsity team as a senior and pitched a total of under, I think it was seven and a third innings in high school, it's under ten innings.

[SPEAKER_04]: Didn't get any offers obviously because of this.

[SPEAKER_04]: He had been sent in our videos and, you know, applying to a bunch of different schools.

[SPEAKER_04]: He had a great great point average for the highest AT, so he could get into those IVs and those sort of high-end schools.

[SPEAKER_04]: No one comes calling back.

[SPEAKER_04]: He figures his baseball careers over.

[SPEAKER_04]: He enrolls at USC as a business major.

[SPEAKER_04]: Has a couple of roommates, his freshman year, who are former baseball players, big sports guys, they say, hey, why don't we practice?

[SPEAKER_04]: And we'll go try out for the club team.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I find this part of the story to be remarkable.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't tell you where they are because it's going to be part of the story and you guys, I want you to read it.

[SPEAKER_04]: But they went and found a space to practice at night that wasn't next to the D one field because they were embarrassed to practice pitching and doing all these things around a bunch of D one guys.

[SPEAKER_04]: So they try out for the club team.

[SPEAKER_04]: He ends up getting cut by the club team.

[SPEAKER_04]: And this lights a fire underneath, you know, Tyler and his belly.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so he says, you know what, I'm going to lean into this.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to work as hard as I can.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm going to try out for USC's varsity team next year.

[SPEAKER_04]: All right, so he does that.

[SPEAKER_04]: He commits to this.

[SPEAKER_04]: He goes to a training facility where he ubers to the training facility four to five times a week from campus in order for him to throw and train.

[SPEAKER_04]: He goes from sitting in the high seventies to like low to mid eighties, okay?

[SPEAKER_04]: shows up to USC he actually reached us up to the head coach at the time says hey can I try out can I try to walk on at USC says sure have added so he does that he goes to the training shows up this is the first time in his life where he's on a real regimented throwing program with USC throughout the winter so he's thrown he's eighty three to eighty five the next week is eighty four to eighty six but week after that is eighty five to eighty seven

[SPEAKER_04]: Finally, he's more like eighty six to eighty eight, the final week before, you know, the final cut downs.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's up to ninety in games.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: He goes through media day.

[SPEAKER_04]: He gets his custom glove from USC.

[SPEAKER_04]: He thinks he's on the team three days before the season start.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's told that he's cut from USC doesn't make it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: This guy effectively hasn't pitched in six years.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right?

[SPEAKER_04]: There were guys that throw more innings in a game than this guy is throwing the last six years.

[SPEAKER_04]: He doesn't give up the dream.

[SPEAKER_04]: He loves baseball that much.

[SPEAKER_04]: He puts in more work and he says, I'm going to make him pay.

[SPEAKER_04]: Ends up getting an offer to go to Northwestern.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't believe it was on scholarship.

[SPEAKER_04]: He paid his way just to give me an opportunity to go there.

[SPEAKER_04]: Twenty-twenty happens.

[SPEAKER_04]: We get a few starts, makes a really good start against South Carolina, but maybe get some on the radar for some guys, season shut down.

[SPEAKER_04]: Next year, Northwestern's one of these schools, a lot like the Ivy's and the higher education schools, they had a lower tolerance for testing, et cetera, during that COVID bounce back year in twenty-twenty-one.

[SPEAKER_04]: If we all remember, we would plan to go to games, and then they would get shut down four or five hours ahead of time.

[SPEAKER_04]: He also contracts mono that season.

[SPEAKER_04]: So he misses some more time.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, like every hurdle this guy could get he gets.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a scout with the Red Sox their area guy up there, Alonzo right.

[SPEAKER_04]: sees this start from South Carolina when he's working some video stuff during twenty twenty twenty one as I like this kid they do some zoom meetings with a bunch of prospects around the area this is a very common practice for area scouts to get to know all the kids here's Tyler story as I love this kid this kid has stones I believe in this guy

[SPEAKER_04]: So Tyler doesn't think he's going to get drafted.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's telling teams, I will sign as an NDFA, just give me an opportunity.

[SPEAKER_04]: All I want is just get me in the boat.

[SPEAKER_04]: Here's his name called the Ninth Round.

[SPEAKER_04]: Here's from, you know, here's from Zobes, Alonzo calls them, they're both excited.

[SPEAKER_04]: He gets his opportunity.

[SPEAKER_04]: He knows he's going into this as a guy that is just there to play catch with the other guys, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: This certain guys that sign, they know they're not priority.

[SPEAKER_04]: They're not going to be a guy that's going to get pushed up.

[SPEAKER_04]: has a great year in twenty twenty two across the Abel levels.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's jacked up.

[SPEAKER_04]: He goes into the offseason.

[SPEAKER_04]: He really for the first time in his life.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's adding on to his velocity.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's ninety three to ninety five.

[SPEAKER_04]: He adds a sinker.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's got a new slider.

[SPEAKER_04]: He takes that step forward.

[SPEAKER_04]: Last game of minor league spring training.

[SPEAKER_04]: He yanks us change up and he feels a twinge in his elbow.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he knows that he's like.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm hurt, comes out of the game.

[SPEAKER_04]: Everything he thought he was going into that year, his big sort of platform year.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's hurt.

[SPEAKER_04]: They wait to do the surgery.

[SPEAKER_04]: He doesn't get cut until May or June the next year.

[SPEAKER_04]: He effectively misses two years, okay?

[SPEAKER_04]: His last official start was August, twenty, twenty, two.

[SPEAKER_04]: He returns to a mound.

[SPEAKER_04]: In August, excuse me, twenty, twenty, four and August, twenty, three.

[SPEAKER_04]: Almost a year to the day comes back.

[SPEAKER_04]: Goes to the Arizona fall league for forms pretty well.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's once again thinking I'm probably headed back to high A Greenville.

[SPEAKER_04]: He ends up getting assigned to Portland and is there opening day starter and for him, it was like a big deal.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm an opening day starter.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to push it.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to make guys recognize who I am pitches pretty well gets promoted up to Worcester not because he pitched so well because other guys were hurt.

[SPEAKER_04]: Other guys were getting promoted and they don't want to mess with some of the other prospects.

[SPEAKER_04]: So he gets that opportunity, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: He's shoved in AAA.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he pitched last night against Iowa, the only guy that was on him was was Owen Casey.

[SPEAKER_04]: All the runs pretty much came off of Owen Casey's bat.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think we both agree that he's a guy that should be in the major leagues right now.

[SPEAKER_04]: But over nineteen us, excuse me, thirteen appearances with Wester's spanning sixty one and two thirds innings.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's got a three point five OERA in a place that's not easy to pitch.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's got a

[SPEAKER_04]: He's got an eight point four percent walk rate and, you know, he's consistently taking the ball and a variety, you know, you want to throw him in relief.

[SPEAKER_04]: You want to throw him as a middle-ending guy or you want to piggyback him with Kyle Harrison.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's cool.

[SPEAKER_04]: Do whatever you want.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's ready to go.

[SPEAKER_04]: I just think this is, and as somebody who didn't get a job working for BA until it was thirty nine years old, this was a late dream for me.

[SPEAKER_04]: I love guys like this because this dude loves baseball, like I love baseball.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, he should have quit five times.

[SPEAKER_04]: He should have quit after high school.

[SPEAKER_04]: He should have quit when he got cut by his club team.

[SPEAKER_04]: He should have been, he should have quit when USC cut him, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: He should have quit after twenty twenty.

[SPEAKER_04]: There were surgeries, mono, all these things that all these hurdles that he had to overcome coaches not believing in him.

[SPEAKER_04]: He showed up every day.

[SPEAKER_04]: He kept working and now he's in the cusp of the major leagues and I think based on the performance and the type of stuff we're seeing here.

[SPEAKER_04]: If he's not called up and protected this offseason, it wouldn't be shocking if this guy gets drafted in a rule five draft because he's kind of one of those stories and I think if you dig into the story, he might be twenty six.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's twenty one in baseball years.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's five or six years.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of

[SPEAKER_04]: growth and development that happens for guys that perform earlier at seventeen nineteen twenty twenty one that he had to do in his own to even get to that foundational point.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think that just shows I think it's one of the best stories I've ever heard and I've shared it with my parents.

[SPEAKER_04]: I've shared it with my wife and I think it could be a movie.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this is this is great stuff.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like cam booser but in a different sort of way.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: I always, it makes me think of Daniel Nava, who's always, you know, the story that I've told him.

[SPEAKER_04]: It was Daniel Nava, and honestly, I talked to him for forty minutes earlier this week, and then we were text and after, and in my head, I was like, this is going to be my Chris Calabella, like this is the guy that like JJ fell on love with and, you know, indie ball that he followed his career, and it's just always been an advocate.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then I was talking to Alonzo right afterwards and saying, like,

[SPEAKER_04]: What did you see that nobody else saw?

[SPEAKER_04]: Because there were so many people that didn't see it with this guy.

[SPEAKER_04]: And you saw it.

[SPEAKER_04]: And that's what's great about scouting.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's what's great about baseball.

[SPEAKER_04]: That, you know, this guy, you don't have stories like this in the NBA.

[SPEAKER_04]: You have very short few stories like this in the NFL or the NHL.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, this is kind of unique to baseball.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, mine's going to be a little bit more straightforward.

[SPEAKER_01]: My prospects of bucks.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I would say that if you look at one of the things again, this is, we didn't talk about the Orals on our farm system rankings, but it's been a very interesting year because I would say that the Orals, twenty twenty five season is one that everyone's going to want to forget understandably.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a team that at the big league level is the biggest underachiever and baseball probably in in twenty twenty five.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in the minors in the farm system, there are some interesting things that have happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: A couple of guys we did add to the top hundred.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've added actually multiple guys through the back of the top hundred and recent months.

[SPEAKER_01]: including the additions in this most recent top under prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll take a check that out at baseball market.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: Prospect is not close to that yet, but if Nate George is one hundred percent, the best late round pick that the Orioles had last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the best late round pick that anyone had last year, both likely, kind of a high school guy out of Illinois who, you know,

[SPEAKER_01]: When you get a guy who was drafted after, they like the talent.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was drafted in the, you know, if you drafted them in the top ten rounds and you don't sign them, you lose the money.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you drafted in the eleventh round on and you find the money to sign them, then you are, there's less risk if a player doesn't sign, high school player.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the other guy that you should also pay attention to, who was addition to our top thirty for the Orioles is their twelfth round pack pick last year, Andrew Tess.

[SPEAKER_01]: athletic catcher out of, you know, out of clear water, Florida.

[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't date George in the FCO because no one else was Nate George in the FCO.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will say, but he was really impressive and really intriguing for a young athletic catcher who's still a teenager who's now been bumped up to LA.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a name to keep an eye on, like that, that all of a sudden,

[SPEAKER_01]: The Orioles are really deep in catching, because by the way, so they have Cadenboat on me drafted.

[SPEAKER_01]: I Irish, they plan on catching some in addition to him playing all kind of around, but they do plan on him catching some in addition to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: They obviously have Samuel Bessillo.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is all behind Adley Rushment at the Big League level.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they now have Andrew Tess, who's kind of an intriguing athletic catcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say he is very far away.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like he's got a strong arm, but the accuracy's not always there when he's throwing.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has a really good body.

[SPEAKER_01]: You really like what you kind of see from him.

[SPEAKER_01]: What he could be offensively.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's got an understanding.

[SPEAKER_01]: He gets plunked a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: His OBP is a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would describe it as artificially high for now because of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you put it all together and it's really intriguing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a worthwhile guy, especially for a guy who was a twelve round pick in twenty twenty four.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's my soap box up today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Recovered a lot today, Jeff.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's always fun to do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, but we hope you enjoyed this.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you did, check out all that stuff that we have over at BaseballAmerican.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: As we always like to do, thank you to the VA subscribers because you all are what allows us to do what we do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of, like we said, Josh Norris is out there seeing Johnny level right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Josh Norris was in Carlos Clause, that we're just out at Erie, co-game, seeing the top high school prospects in next year's draft class, which looks like a really intriguing draft class.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we have, you know, Haysuz Kano is out at Bridge League and Continuation League.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't know why I said Bridge League and Continuation League, I would recommend that you check out Haysuz's story from earlier this week at BaseballAmerica.com or last week, I should say, that explains why it is, there are actually two leagues out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's the Bridge League and Continuation League and you explain the differences.

[SPEAKER_01]: And all that over at BaseballAmerica.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: For Jeff, I'm JJ.

[SPEAKER_01]: So long everybody.