[SPEAKER_04]: Hey everybody, JJ Cooper Jeff Ponds.

[SPEAKER_04]: Mark Cheerlelly on the baseball America Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_04]: Mark's making the rounds this week.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like we brought him into ESPN to Bristol and he's doing the car wash.

[SPEAKER_04]: He was on hot cheat show and now the Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like once a year I come out from behind Slack and do a couple of these and then scary back into my whole until the last season.

[SPEAKER_04]: You go away for vacation and what do we do?

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's your back.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, hey, you got to be on all these, you know?

[SPEAKER_04]: So, but

[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome, we are glad that you're here today.

[SPEAKER_04]: We are talking prospects as we always do, but today got an interesting topic, I think.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to talk about risk in prospects, because there's virtually hitters risk.

[SPEAKER_04]: Talk a little bit off pictures.

[SPEAKER_04]: Mark's here to talk.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's going to give us a deep dive about by the Chandler, so if you're a pirate's fan, or a prospect fan, stick around for that.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we wanted to talk today about risk.

[SPEAKER_04]: And one of the reasons we're doing that is

[SPEAKER_04]: We're talking about it because we are in the process of prepping for the twenty twenty six prospect handbook for the twenty twenty six off season twenty five slash twenty six but into twenty six season top ten and top thirty prospect rankings.

[SPEAKER_04]: And we have the be a grades with that so we have a grade which is our projected potential role for a player down the road in the big leagues and then a risk factor for that.

[SPEAKER_04]: And we're doing a little bit of audit of that.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're doing a little bit of a look at it and say, maybe are there better ways that we can do this tweaks we can make?

[SPEAKER_04]: But that led us to kind of talking about this and kind of led to a topic, which I think is a good one for this.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jeff will kind of put you on the on the spot first on this because we were talking about safe prospects like, okay, and again, their prospects.

[SPEAKER_04]: When you say safe,

[SPEAKER_04]: Aaron Judge is an AD safe because if Aaron Judge retired tomorrow, he has already put on his resume that he is one of the best players in baseball.

[SPEAKER_04]: Show you, Tony is an AD safe.

[SPEAKER_04]: When we're talking about because he's a top of the baseball player, who's already done it?

[SPEAKER_04]: When we're talking about prospects, obviously even safe, even low risk, still involves risk because they're climbing the ladder, they're going to face tougher competition.

[SPEAKER_04]: But as we kind of start with this Jeff,

[SPEAKER_04]: I do feel like we have some guys at the top of our list this year who fit that category of as prospects go relatively safe prospects low risk prospects as far as their possibility of being very productive big leaders would you agree?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think you know right now there's a really exciting group at the top.

[SPEAKER_03]: We talked about it a lot and I feel as if you know over

[SPEAKER_03]: the last few months, a lot of those guys that were ranked that highly that do have these big tools have performed, the underlying data backs it up, the feedback backs it up.

[SPEAKER_03]: Historically, we've done pretty well.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think at the top of the list generally, but I do have a really high level of confidence within that player group, but they're just isn't a lot of risk at this point in time with those guys.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, okay, Mark, I'll kind of put it this way.

[SPEAKER_04]: Kevin McGonagall, that kind of griffens our number one prospect, and he's a relatively low risk prospect, I would say, but just reached double A, you know, was a year ago, was thought to have questions about the hit to leave, and though he's got a chance to finish, you know, among the leader, the minor league leaders and batting average this year with power and speeding all that.

[SPEAKER_04]: But Kevin McGonagall,

[SPEAKER_04]: I struggled to come up with a whole lot of hitters who check more boxes from a standpoint.

[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, there are guys who could be better than him as the way I would put it.

[SPEAKER_04]: But the tiger shorts dot prospect is hard for me to come up with the, oh, this is the potentially wounding.

[SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't even say fatal flaw, but wounding flaw that is going to keep this player from being a productive big leaker.

[SPEAKER_04]: How do you see it?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a fascinating.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the more that I thought about it too, they're like the inverse of each other, where I still have, I'm interested to see with Griffin once he gets to double it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think we've talked to some folks who still have some minor concerns, maybe about how the swing looks aesthetically.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think anytime someone makes such a

[SPEAKER_02]: rapid improvement with the hit tool over the course of one year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Naturally, I'm very curious to see what it looks like in year two.

[SPEAKER_02]: What happens in sprint training in twenty twenty six.

[SPEAKER_02]: But his supplemental tools, everything around the hit tool is just so loud.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so intriguing that for me, that really lowers the risk to your point.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think with McGonagal, the thing that's really jumped out to me and has changed my perception of him.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's some authority with the contact that he's making this, or even relative to some of the players of his age, or even a little bit older, who are now behind him on the list.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think for me, that's really jumps out.

[SPEAKER_02]: And as you started to, you posed the question, he's maybe the safest prospect since Blank.

[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to ask both of you how you assess safety relative to ceiling.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because when I hear that question, or I think you and maybe when be a reader to hear that question, like inherently, I think safe but lower ceiling.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think that's necessarily what we're talking about with McGonald, but maybe I'm wrong.

[SPEAKER_02]: But how do you guys kind of parse through that juxtaposition as you assess guys like this at the top?

[SPEAKER_02]: Starts off Jeff.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think for me, I'm looking at particularly with hitters, I think number one, it kind of starts with tools.

[SPEAKER_03]: Are there tools here?

[SPEAKER_03]: Is there some level of athleticism?

[SPEAKER_03]: Is there a baseline defensive sort of floor?

[SPEAKER_03]: And that may not be that this guy sticks at short stop or he sticks in center field or even sticks it.

[SPEAKER_03]: catcher long term.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, catchers, that's a little bit more tricky, but we don't see a ton of those guys super high up either.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, I typically have a high level of confidence that like at worst they're going to end up at second base or third base or a corner out field position.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think we've seen that the podries, you know, starting line up at points in the twenty twenty four season, we're kind of the perfect example of that, the culmination of how guys up the middle in terms of when they come into pro ball can move off.

[SPEAKER_03]: positions and still be really valuable defensively other areas.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you start with that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Certainly having some ability to run helps.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just think those baseline of like average to fringe average skills around the tools.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then we start to look at the hit tool, which is honestly the most important part of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: the bats of ballability, is it at a certain level?

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that these are all sliding scales when it comes to kind of the big three.

[SPEAKER_03]: And teams talk about it and look at it like this, they may have another component that's factored into, but there's typically something they're looking at from a bat to ball perspective.

[SPEAKER_03]: Whether it's an analyst or whether it's a scout at a game, writing a pescouting report or turning in his report, he probably has some sort of broken down like contact or bats of ball grade.

[SPEAKER_03]: approach grades and terms of what the swing decisions are like.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, there's a wide spectrum of what can be considered good swing decisions and some of that has to do with what you're hit tool and about the ball abilities like and then what your raw power is like, which is sort of that third component.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think teams are also factoring in now and I know in a lot of my analysis when I break down data and try to do more of the analytic side of things.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking at bad at ball angles and ball flight.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think this is something that people have been doing as analysts maybe even on their own when they're looking at fan rafts pages and check in the line drive rate of a guy and ground ball rate of a guy.

[SPEAKER_03]: and a fly ball rate of a guy.

[SPEAKER_03]: And a lot of the stuff is just like more dialed in, more honed in versions of those that are going to the specific parts of the skills that can potentially scale.

[SPEAKER_03]: So when I see somebody checking a few of those boxes, whether it's power and approach or contact and approach or contact and power, there's usually sort of a profile that fits in.

[SPEAKER_03]: When someone checks all three boxes, I'm very confident that

[SPEAKER_03]: those skills are going to scale up to the major leagues because the contact might go down a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: The power stays the same and I know JJ has some research.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's done recently that can back that up.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then the approach, the approach will probably back up a little bit, but I think you sort of need to have enough leeway enough slack in those numbers to be able to take a little bit of a dip and still be productive and still not get, you know, sort of eaten alive.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think for the most part, when we look at this underlying gout and we look at those other tools and how they support everything,

[SPEAKER_03]: That gives us a pretty high degree of confidence that, you know, that's going to scale.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, that's definitely changed from the times before we had access to advanced data, you know, through sourcing et cetera, which is probably about four or five years ago.

[SPEAKER_03]: There, you know, you kind of had to reverse engineer some of this stuff and maybe didn't even think about it conceptually, but I think we're just way more dialed in and, you know, very specific in terms of how we break down skills now than what we were even years ago.

[SPEAKER_04]: I would agree with a lot of that and what I would say is that, yeah, we used to reverse engineer a lot of it, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Like now we have the ability to get the first level of it rather than the second level, which is, okay, before you would look at batting average, you would look at on base, you would look at walk percentage, strike out percentage power, you know, isolated power, and those were kind of

[SPEAKER_04]: In the dark ages, when I started at BA, and you know, you literally, you couldn't even see the players, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Like you, you would talk to people about the players, but if there was a player playing on the West Coast, a player who went through the Cow League and then went through, you know, the Texas League and then went through

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the the North West League before that, you know, ended up in the PCL.

[SPEAKER_04]: If I'm based in North Carolina, chances that I would actually see that player in person, unless I saw him at the future game or something, it was pretty much that.

[SPEAKER_04]: And back when they didn't really have my LBTV or anything like that, so you would talk to people about players, but then you would a lot of it would be using these

[SPEAKER_04]: more rudimentary stats to try to interpret it.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then you would have to put it through the filter of, yeah, his power numbers look great, but he was doing that at Salt Lake City and Salt Lake City.

[SPEAKER_04]: No power numbers are very different than the IL and all that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now, I think it is a lot simpler where you can say, does he make this a hit or make good swing decisions, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Does he know strikes versus balls?

[SPEAKER_04]: What the hit?

[SPEAKER_04]: What to let go?

[SPEAKER_04]: Can he then does a hit or have back control to make contact when he makes those decisions?

[SPEAKER_04]: And again, those are some of the things that you still can reverse engineers.

[SPEAKER_04]: So if you don't have the data like, if you look at swinging strike percentage, if you look at, you know, just even strike out percentage, there's a lot of analogs there, but those decisions.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then do you have the ability to make impact?

[SPEAKER_04]: If you have those three things, those are to me kind of the cornerstones of the hitter, and especially then we talk about risk to kind of what Jeff said.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you're talking about someone who plays up the middle, even if they're not the toolsiest player to look, Kevin Garner, I don't think is the toolsiest player in the world.

[SPEAKER_04]: You can debate whether he's going to be a short stopper, he's going to be a second base, been a long term or whatever.

[SPEAKER_04]: More inclination, he could probably stay at short, but he might be better to have, you might have someone better, arms probably going to limit him a little bit, all these kind of things.

[SPEAKER_04]: But he's going to be playing an impactful defense position.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's not a first-face man who can barely play first-face.

[SPEAKER_04]: When you have those kind of things, that's what makes you feel really good about it.

[SPEAKER_04]: But to kind of kick it back to you, Jeff, Hayesus Mada, who's number three on our list now.

[SPEAKER_04]: We talk about a lot on this show, I feel like.

[SPEAKER_04]: But what made us comfortable last year, I would say, really pushing him up.

[SPEAKER_04]: We were getting a lot of positive scalp feedback, but on top of that,

[SPEAKER_04]: when it came to swing decisions, that's usually the last, like the tool that often for younger hitters is the kind of the big question mark.

[SPEAKER_04]: You were seeing from him exceptional swing decisions, weren't you that kind of made us feel comfortable that the power and the bat to ball on all are good, but it's the swing decisions that are really kind of where his separator where you could feel more comfortable about him than the normal elite DSL prospect.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think it was, you know, it's always a combination of things too.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not just swing decisions as guys, you know, that maybe get on to top thirties because of that, but certainly, you know, not high up, you know, the top on hundred.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was those swing decisions and it was that balance of really never expanding the zone down there.

[SPEAKER_03]: Which is a great trait to have in the DSL because they give you plenty of chances to swing outside the zone.

[SPEAKER_03]: A higher heart swing rate and a zone swing rate, which is indicative, you know, at least analytically, obviously, you want to watch these players and get a better feel for it.

[SPEAKER_03]: But in the big sample, that tells me that this player is not expanding his own, but when he does see a pitch over the heart of the plate, which is a very hitable pitch, regardless of what your swing type is like, what your bat, bat, path is like, what type of hitter you are.

[SPEAKER_03]: Swinging over and making contact with pitches over the plate is obviously important.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you have that higher rate, and then you factor it in the power.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's still the thing that you see.

[SPEAKER_03]: Even in comparison to Peña, who's had a very good season, the bats of ball skills for those guys are very similar.

[SPEAKER_03]: But then you look at the power for Mauda, it's another delineation up.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then when it comes to the swing decisions, it might be two or three.

[SPEAKER_03]: Mauda has just a, he has this sort of balance of aggression

[SPEAKER_03]: and patients that's just very rare in young players.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in young exciting kind of a revered players too, like he's a big personality.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like you know when he's on the field, you know when he's up at bat.

[SPEAKER_03]: He almost kind of soda shuffles with some of his takes.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of confidence there at the plate.

[SPEAKER_03]: The biggest thing for him is just kind of figuring out and optimizing those angles.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, really big power very rarely chases and it's not like he's overly passive.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's not, you know, like a thirty-five percent swing rate guy or somebody like that who, you know, almost doesn't swing in and kind of juiced his walk numbers to a fault.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's really not the type of player that Monte is.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know, that's what gives us such a high level of confidence and and and be in pretty productive.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, okay, to kind of summarize this, I kind of want to pose the question out there, because we talked about mechanical.

[SPEAKER_04]: Who else, to you, to both of y'all, putting both of y'all on spot in the knowledge or two, but who stands out as when we talk about hitters is to you an exceptionally low risk hitter who's in our top hundred.

[SPEAKER_04]: And we'll answer that right after this quick break.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And we're back.

[SPEAKER_04]: So Mark, you're up first.

[SPEAKER_04]: Who's a hit or who stands out to you as being, again, doesn't mean you have to be the highest ceiling player.

[SPEAKER_04]: But he's a relatively, again, by prospects standards, low risk player to be, because of his hitting ability, especially.

[SPEAKER_04]: But throw it to the end of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: You let off the show by mentioning I was out on vacation.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I missed the most recent top hundred update.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I was extremely thrilled when I got back to see the JJ weather hold was now on the top five because I think he's

[SPEAKER_02]: a perfect example of a lot of the traits that you guys talked about.

[SPEAKER_02]: Pretty much since the moment he's been drafted, he has rigged.

[SPEAKER_02]: He makes great decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: He makes a ton of contact, and now we started to see over last month or so, since he's gotten a triple A, especially that impact is coming.

[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, he, especially among these guys at the top, and I would go on a goal right in the same conversation.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have a ton of questions with whether or I guess a ton of concerns.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm more so eager to see him get to the majors pretty soon.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so whether holds a good one.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we'll see if you took Jeff's answer, not that Jeff doesn't have like five answers, but again, I also like it was.

[SPEAKER_04]: Whether holds going to play in the dirt.

[SPEAKER_04]: I figured I actually, that's what I really kind of never get invited back.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's no way that you're wasn't going to say whether whole because whether whole fits this perfectly to.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he's got AAA experience.

[SPEAKER_04]: I eat checks every box of this.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_04]: But okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: I know though you have one reserve.

[SPEAKER_04]: So who would you also say business?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think and we already we already talked about Kevin McGonagill.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we're going to kind of

[SPEAKER_03]: like throw that one to the side.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going to go with one that I think is probably a little bit of a surprise because he hasn't been on the top on hundred all year long.

[SPEAKER_03]: But Carter Jensen from the Royals, you know, the catching is continued to get better.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's catching well enough to stay at the position for now.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: That's something that we hear consistently with catchers that can hit.

[SPEAKER_03]: It buys them opportunities to sort of learn the position.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he's got Salvi Perez who's a player who really improved his defensive skills kind of later in his career as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so I have a high degree of confidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's probably going to continue to catch.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's going to get some opportunities.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's in AAA.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's performing and the underlying numbers have been really, really good.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, you know, he's he's not a sixty or seventy contact guy like a weather haul store.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm a gonigill might be a plus plus seventy contact guy.

[SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't fall into that range.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it's still above average, really misses in zone, doesn't expand the zone, all that much.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he can be passive at times in zone, but it's not to a fault.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of on that that range when you look at some of these percentage numbers that

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, if he had swung on five or six or seven different pitches that he took over the heart of the plate, all of a sudden, you know, his, his heart swing rate is kind of in that above average range.

[SPEAKER_03]: But when we look at the power, one of six point nine, ninety of percentile exit velocity of fifty five point one percent heart hit rate.

[SPEAKER_03]: He just consistently makes hard contact.

[SPEAKER_03]: all the time, he can put it out to any part of the field, can hit any gap, you know, there's a lot of sort of doubles power in here as well, and does show the ability to pull the ball in the air.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, he doesn't have an outstanding pull rate, but I think if you've watched his BP like JJ and I did during the future's game, he had the most impressive round, there's definitely barrel control here,

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know, you've seen a player who has four or five years of minor league experience now and is really primed for the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, do I think that means, you know, that he's a future, sixty or better probably not, but I pretty comfortable putting him in that fifty to fifty five range and that he's going to be in every day big leagueer and, you know, potentially in above average, one at that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I get third pick here.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: I have to go get some here.

[SPEAKER_04]: I was, I will not touch on Samuel Balsayo, because Balsayo does have some risk factors to him.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think that like Samuel Balsayo, I would say has the impact, has the chance to be of these top ten guys, like who, like batting a whole brunch amp just year after year with exceptional bat, enough bat to ball skills to have surprising batting average get some base because people are scared of him.

[SPEAKER_04]: But there is some chase there, the swing decisions, he's twenty, but the swing decisions are not exceptional.

[SPEAKER_04]: The battle ball is good, not exceptional.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's just the power is absolute top tier barrel rates top tier all that.

[SPEAKER_04]: I hate to kind of keep with the tigers, but Max Clark, when we talk about low risk.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you wanna quibble about Max Clark, you could quibble and say, I don't know how much impact he's gonna have, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: The power is good, it's not great right now.

[SPEAKER_04]: Could get there, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: It could, but it hasn't gotten there yet.

[SPEAKER_04]: You see, I'll let you chime in there Jeff.

[SPEAKER_03]: He hits the ball pretty hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I was, I was surprised.

[SPEAKER_03]: Clark's ninetyth percentile is like one oh five, the hit tool super polished.

[SPEAKER_03]: The angles like could get better, but I mean, he shows enough thump.

[SPEAKER_03]: That, you know, if he improves his angles and gets to a little bit more pull side power, we could be talking about like, twenty five home run power, and I, I don't think we, you know, in scouting reports leading up with the draft, even those that were highest on Clark, it was more like high teen sort of power.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's showing some of the underlying attributes, at least that.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, if the angles do improve, which I think a player that has his barrel control is as young and as athletic and as coachable as Clark is that that might be something that comes along in the coming years that he might have sneaky twenty five home run upside.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, the guy I can't help but think about with that.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm not saying that he's going to do this, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: But if you would turn back the clock on Pete Crow, I'm strong a couple of years.

[SPEAKER_04]: Pete Crow Armstrong

[SPEAKER_04]: in his first full season hit sixteen in a second, he hit twenty and then he hit ten last year, you know, in the big leagues, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: And then this year we see the big power jump.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not saying Max Clark has that in him, but I will say, like it is kind of what if you have all of these other skills.

[SPEAKER_04]: And by the way, Max Clark's swing decisions are better than Pete Crow Armstrong's Max Clark by far.

[SPEAKER_04]: And this is a center fielder.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I should get away from the impact, because really what we're talking about here, the question was, lower risk.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of hard to describe how a healthy Max Clark isn't going to be a useful player, because he does play up the middle.

[SPEAKER_04]: He does run.

[SPEAKER_04]: He does hit for average.

[SPEAKER_04]: He should draw some walks.

[SPEAKER_04]: He should hit for at least gap power.

[SPEAKER_04]: He could be a very good complimentary player to a star.

[SPEAKER_04]: It could be something where you say, and again, this is not saying this is his limit, but you could say he's a two, seventy, three, forty, four, twenty hitter who plays a really good center field.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's an excellent player.

[SPEAKER_04]: What's hard to see is how Max Clark who's now in AA, a healthy Max Clark, because that's always injuries, always our risk.

[SPEAKER_04]: But it's hard to say that a healthy Max Clark is going to start swinging at everything where he's chasing pitches way out of the zone, or he's not making enough contact, or he's getting the bat blown out of his hands.

[SPEAKER_04]: He just doesn't have any of those attributes.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I will say, OK, the other thing, this is where the tigers are really good at this.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think Bryce Rainer would have all still other than the injury, been a really good choice for this as well.

[SPEAKER_04]: And if Hoseway Pursano wasn't a first baseman who probably is not going to catch, he would check these boxes too.

[SPEAKER_04]: The tigers are doing an exceptional job of acquiring and developing hitters who make good swing decisions, who have back control and hit the ball hard.

[SPEAKER_04]: And that's where I want, before we move down from this, I'm sure I go ahead, Mark, and then I'll come back.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I had two questions kind of put you on spot, but what do you attribute that to, like, how much of that is the evaluation of them and amateurs?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, are they coming in with less risk overall than maybe what you see in other systems versus what they're doing with those players once they get to pro ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, what is so specific to the Tigers?

[SPEAKER_02]: that is unlocking, I think you just listed four top one hundred prospects who are low risk, safe risk in this conversation.

[SPEAKER_04]: I would say that they have absolutely emphasized the hit tool in their acquisition, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Like Max Clark, Bryce Rainer to some extent, and Kevin McGonagall, we're all these guys are pure hitters.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then they are doing a good job with helping them develop their power, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: But I'd say that if you're talking about that as a triangle, they have two bases of the triangle when they come in, which is they put bad on ball and they have a good understanding of strikes them.

[SPEAKER_04]: And if you have those two pieces of your base, adding the impact the third part of the triangle is

[SPEAKER_04]: very doable, especially with that speed training with helping guys get into their base, all these things that can kind of go with it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now, there are other organizations, I think that emphasize the power component and the, you know, they have power and they have that control, then they've tried to work on swing decision.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think that there are different ways to approach this.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I did want to ask the one thing to Jeff on this, because you thought, like, we have a fun discussion about this, I think of it as a triangle kind of that we're talking about with hitters.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think you think of it more as for quadrants, because you talk about angles a lot more than I do.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm not that I don't think that obviously South Stewart to me being a perfect example of this.

[SPEAKER_04]: South Stewart is a guy who read's top on your prospect.

[SPEAKER_04]: Third base been in triple right now.

[SPEAKER_04]: South Stewart

[SPEAKER_04]: until this year, until midway through this year, I would say fit the description of a player who had good batteball skills, who hit the ball hard, who made pretty good swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_04]: But if you say, well, why is it not showing up as much in the stat line as you would expect?

[SPEAKER_04]: It would a hundred percent be, as Jeff calls it, the angles.

[SPEAKER_04]: It would be because if you're hitting the ball, if you're never pulling the ball in the air, it's hard to hit, get to a lot of power.

[SPEAKER_04]: Because not the,

[SPEAKER_04]: If you have a lot of wonderful for you, but most guys don't.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I even think hitting the ball in the air up a hard like, you know, hard hit launch angle doesn't discriminate between what field that it's hit to, you know, you could backside those balls and you know, hit it at a team degrees and it leaves the park.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there are guys like,

[SPEAKER_03]: James Wood in particular, his best bat of ball angles were kind of like opo.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's okay to kind of do that and play to different parts of the park.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just a matter of hitting the ball hard in the air and like that secret sauce.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think kind of makes a lot of things work.

[SPEAKER_03]: You got to be able to hit the ball and you got to swing it the right pitches to sort of get to that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I don't know if I necessarily look at it like that as much as it's all sort of

[SPEAKER_03]: like one sort of graph that's built on four different things and like it has to reach a certain point to be successful.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there's all these different components kind of filling up the cylinder.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a mixed drink, you know?

[SPEAKER_03]: You might want the alcohol a little stronger or the mix a little stronger or whatever or the more ice, but all together it has the taste kind of good, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And there's different ways to maybe to get that good taste.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's sort of like there's these different ingredients that come in and they got to sort of work together to sort of make something.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, whether that's a Shirley Temple or I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just going, you know, with nothing else.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's not legal in my stage.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_04]: But so, along those lines, that flips it to the other side of this.

[SPEAKER_04]: Because again, oh, I should say about the angles.

[SPEAKER_04]: And when we talk about ball flight, I would say that to me, that's, to me, that's kind of the cherry on top.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like if you have these other three things,

[SPEAKER_04]: You're probably going to have, unless your swing is really grooved, you're probably going to develop to the ability where they can unlock that down the road.

[SPEAKER_04]: I kind of look at that as like, again, we're not disagreeing on this, like with what Jeff's saying, like, these are all the agrees, but I would say that that's kind of like the grad level class, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, if you don't have swing decisions where you understand what the strike zone is and you can't control the barrel, you know, you swing over the pitch, you swing under the pitch.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you don't have those things,

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't care like if you can get the ball in the air because it's like that didn't then you're going to be okay now you're you're you're a slugger who you know who hits thirty homers but hits one eighty with a you know forty percent strikeout rate and that's not going to work but if you have these other things if again with Justin Crawford for instance

[SPEAKER_04]: Justin Crawford is going to have survival skills at least in the big league level because you could say that you could argue that he doesn't have the impact is enough.

[SPEAKER_04]: But when it comes to the bat to ball and all that, he has those things.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's fast all these.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's up potentially like impactful enough to impact defensively.

[SPEAKER_04]: But he's going to have to add that grad level part at some point, which is his, hey, you know, you have to hit the ball in the air hard at times for it to matter and hitting the ball on the heart on the ground just

[SPEAKER_04]: that singles, those aren't doubles, those aren't heart triples, those aren't homers unless we're about playing on turf from the eighties where if you get it past the short stop, it'll run all the way to the wall.

[SPEAKER_04]: But that leads to the flip side of this, which is, I love how you put it where the ingredients, like you're mixing the drink or you're making the meal or whatever.

[SPEAKER_04]: We also have guys who, one hundred percent, I would say fit the, hey, they have this.

[SPEAKER_04]: but they don't have this.

[SPEAKER_04]: And when we're talking about risk for hitters, I would say that that kind of is where risk comes into it a lot more, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: If you have a significant issue with one of these components, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Where you don't control the bat, so you struggle to make contact in the zone, or you swing it everything, or you can't hit the ball hard at all, it gets a lot tougher.

[SPEAKER_04]: and we're gonna get to that right after this quick break.

[SPEAKER_04]: So Jeff, when we talk about guys who are riskier, even among top hundred prospects, is there one of these components that if you don't, if there's a real issue with it, you look at that as being more worrisome than some of these others?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think it's power.

[SPEAKER_03]: If that is at such a low level that it's tough to even anticipate that we're going to see doubles, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's always a concern.

[SPEAKER_03]: And until it gets fixed, it's also very much a limiting factor in the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think Victor Robles, who's in the news for other reasons recently,

[SPEAKER_03]: I think like his sort of struggles with Washington and then resurgence last year is kind of the perfect example of like he's never going to have huge power.

[SPEAKER_03]: But his lack of power and Washington, especially after his first couple of years, really was kind of dragging down the profile of the point that he get the effect at least.

[SPEAKER_03]: Once he gets to Seattle, it's sort of the makeover of adding that additional power, getting some of that thumb back.

[SPEAKER_03]: And ultimately, that served him to have a really good season in, in, in, in, you know, unfortunately dealt with the shoulder issue this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that's a big one.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then I think the other one is common when we talk about power headers and everybody has an example of this going back, thirty, forty years is guys with huge power that don't make enough contacts.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, if you don't have power and you don't make contact, we're probably not talking

[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't think that's ever something we have to deal with.

[SPEAKER_03]: But even more so than swing decisions, because I think some of that stuff can be improved.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think the bat's of ballability is always the one that can really limit a player where, I think it's been the big question with Spencer Jones.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've seen the sort of contact quality.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there's others that are more extreme examples of this.

[SPEAKER_03]: George Wolkow is kind of a great example of this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is there enough contact there for him ever to be able to get to a consistently?

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, I mean, there's different versions of that player in the monitors.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's versions of that guy that it worked until he got to the majors like a Willy Mopania or somebody like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's the guy that can hit the ball, five hundred feet and hit the most like breathtaking home run you've ever seen in your life.

[SPEAKER_03]: But also, you know, we'll miss against the challenge machine at BP.

[SPEAKER_04]: I want to, so I'm going to give you Spencer Jones as your risk, yes, guy, unless you want a different one because you brought him up.

[SPEAKER_04]: But the thing with Spencer Jones that does jump out is, if he does succeed in the big leagues, I would say that one of two things will have to happen.

[SPEAKER_04]: One, his bat to ball, his bat control, his ability to hit the ball in the strike zone, because major league pitchers can challenge you in the zone.

[SPEAKER_04]: it'll have to get, I would say two grades better, or he would have to be the greatest outlier that we're seeing in the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_04]: Would you agree or disagree with that?

[SPEAKER_03]: I would agree with that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that for this to work, he's gonna have to be the outlier of outliers.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's Joey Gallo.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, and we saw how,

[SPEAKER_03]: that never really fully jelled like they were pretty good.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think if we go down and we kind of break down those years, there's also stretches within those seasons where like if you are a fan of the team that Joey Gauy's playing for the Rangers, whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: There were stretches where you were like, this is an automatic out.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think you just, you see that with players like that at every level, it could be little league, it could be the king, it could be college, it could be the miners where it's like, this guy is stuck in between right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he's either scared to swing and when he does, he's probably going to miss it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's

[SPEAKER_03]: It is, it is a profile that we see a lot of nowadays because those guys, you know, jump out in athletic testing, the EVs get teams to sign them and there's upside.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's, it's a worthy risk and it's a worthy gamble for teams.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think we've seen a lot of these guys when we haven't necessarily seen a lot of them click, playing that style of baseball and hitting that way without some sort of major overhaul in terms of the swing decisions, bat, path, or bat to ball skills, which sometimes they all kind of work together.

[SPEAKER_04]: Mark, like, you do the pirates for us.

[SPEAKER_04]: I would say that the bargain basement version of this is a guy that you, I remember you and I talking about for the, do we keep him on the top thirty last year, which is Tony Blanco Jr.

[SPEAKER_04]: Who?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_04]: By the way, Tony Blanco Jr.

[SPEAKER_04]: hits the ball harder than Spencer Jones.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, if you said, he might hit a heart in the judge.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you said, I was going to say, if you said, give me

[SPEAKER_04]: the best raw power in professional baseball.

[SPEAKER_04]: I would say a healthy stand probably, you know, maybe he's at the very end of this now.

[SPEAKER_04]: But for long as time will stand, I would say now, so Neil Cruz.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, Neil Cruz, who is a pirate also.

[SPEAKER_04]: I would say I wouldn't have stood in person.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like I always said, Joey Gallo would always be my, uh, North Star as far as just raw power.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then I was in Atlanta for the Home Run Derby and a Neil Cruz hit a ball that I'm like,

[SPEAKER_04]: That left the stadium and I don't know how that's possible that he did that, which I think was like, hundred and twenty two mile an hour EV or something like that and it was just like my head exploded.

[SPEAKER_04]: But that's Tony Blanco Jr.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's like we're talking one eighteen one nineteen

[SPEAKER_04]: in the FSL, I mean, where you can see games where no one hits up all over a hundred and five, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Like he's at three to four standard deviations above most FSL players.

[SPEAKER_04]: But there's a little of an asterisk here.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're talking about him, like we were debating, we were debating whether you keep him in the third, not in the top hundred, but in the third, because

[SPEAKER_04]: That's the carrying tool for him, and he doesn't have the bat to ball in the swing decisions to go with it at least yet.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but

[SPEAKER_02]: And it took literally a week of games for me to like, you know, I might need to get this guy back on my three, like, how do you let something like that straight so far away?

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, with Spencer Jones too, like, he demonstrates value in other areas where Blanco, I think it's straight de-age, maybe he plays for a space.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like the path for him is just so fraught from here to the majors, but short, like that is like the outlier of outlier that keeps you intrigued.

[SPEAKER_04]: I would say with that, and I'm gonna get, I'm gonna tee you up the mark for your who's the riskiest guy, but I just want to add one more thing of Spencer Jones to kind of to Jeff's point with Joey Gallo, but it kind of's true of Spencer Jones.

[SPEAKER_04]: Spencer Jones in Triple A, we just said, he just had one of the all-time heaters where he had a, he had a stretch there where it was like they were throwing, you know, beach balls to the plate, and he was exploding them pitch after pitch.

[SPEAKER_04]: But that said, even with that, like if we just look at his AAA numbers, not his AA numbers, just AAA, where again, he just had one of the great stretches you'll ever see a professional hit or had.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a thirty-one percent, courting of synergy sports, a thirty-one percent swing and misrate in the zone, and a thirty-four percent swing and misrate on fast balls in the zone.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is a rate that is extremely high period.

[SPEAKER_04]: And to be doing that while you are still also having like, you know,

[SPEAKER_04]: But the way I would put it is, is that he has eighty eight plate appearances over that time, you know, and in zone pitches, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Sorry, he has two hundred seventy nine in zone pitches.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's hit eleven homers on in zone pitches, because he's hit someone out of zone pitches too.

[SPEAKER_04]: But he's also swung in miss sixty eight times in the zone on that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, we're talking about, like, just from a pure, yes, you only need one pitch out of three before you strike out that you put in contact and drive.

[SPEAKER_04]: But you're putting so much pressure on everything else because your art, you are going to take strikes sometimes.

[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes you're going to wisely take strikes where you go, that's not a pitch I can do anything with.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not two strikes.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm letting that one go.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's where there are these concerns.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I wanted to add that a little bit there, too, but along those lines, Mark, who is your riskiest hitter that jumps into you in the talk?

[SPEAKER_02]: I took this in a little bit of a different direction.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think the YouTube did.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was thinking about risk relative to expectation or risk relative to your position on the board.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I kept coming back to Jordan Lawler to keep Jeff's ingredients analogy going.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is a great example of the ingredients getting close to feeling stale.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you guys have had a lot of

[SPEAKER_02]: good conversations earlier in the year about the orials and like you reach this like inflection point as an organization, when you have to make decisions on guys, whether you know, they need major league time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you need to trade them?

[SPEAKER_02]: I think with Lawler, we're approaching that point and I'm still a little concerned with what I'm seeing about him.

[SPEAKER_02]: meeting the expectations that might accompany a guy who's been floating around the back of the top ten of our list for most of the year, especially when you think about what the Diamondbacks might need him to lead.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's a third baseman in the long run.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think Roldo Perdomo's a five-win player this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And F- four, like I don't think Lawler's moving him off of shorts up.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, not now, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's an availability piece with Lawler as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's around like four hundred.

[SPEAKER_02]: So at that, so with three AAA season, you know, it hasn't played a ton.

[SPEAKER_02]: His brief cup of coffee has not gone well in the majors.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you start to peel back some of the underlying data.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the, the ninety, if percentile EVs are okay, they're, I think they're one, four, the swing decisions are solid.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's all, it's all pretty good.

[SPEAKER_02]: But if this is your third basement of the future, I'd like to see them on the field.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I have some questions about both the impact and how they adjust the build on defense to move around, whether it's third base, second base, et cetera.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a guy for someone who has been near the top of our top one hundred for so long.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think you're arriving at a point where you either need to see it regularly beyond the field and show that impact.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then he's ready for an extended look in the majors.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then as you

[SPEAKER_02]: kick it forward into the offseason.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think there are still reasonable, reasonably significant questions on whether, like if you'll comfortable trusting Lawler every day next year for a team that I think has pretty big aspirations of turning things around quickly.

[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, relative to where he is on our board, Jordan Lawler, there's a lot more risk than I think he might expect given his pedigree and how long he's kind of been in this position.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to go in a little different direction.

[SPEAKER_04]: A little guy a little further down on the top hundred, but also one has been notable in headline recently.

[SPEAKER_04]: And this is the perfect example to me of like when we say there's risk here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Do understand this.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're not saying these guys are doomed or anything because one of my adages that that I've kind of become annoyingly repeating a lot in discussions lately and on the conversation that I have is it's like the game has to teach you

[SPEAKER_04]: The game has to teach you and until you hit that point as a prospect, where you struggle, it's really hard to change things that are working for you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Again, just in Crawford's example, you use a lot for that because he's hitting three hundred AAA.

[SPEAKER_04]: You can say you need to change your swing, you need to change your setup, all these things.

[SPEAKER_04]: because it's not going to work for the big leagues, but it's never not work for him.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, Yadira Ernoma, Ermano, who just was traded to the race from the brewers, I know he needs to chase less, but at the same time, it's hard to learn to chase less when you want a batting title in the first league you were in two years ago in full season ball, and you've been a second in batting in the next league you were in.

[SPEAKER_04]: Those kind of things it's harder to do those, harder to teach those.

[SPEAKER_04]: Eduardo Tayi, who was a Philly's prospect, just traded to the twins in the, you're on derand trade.

[SPEAKER_04]: Tite has exceptional, when we talk about the ability to impact the baseball, he hits the ball really hard, especially for a player his age.

[SPEAKER_04]: He has good bat to ball skills as well, bat can barrel control, he can hit, he can drive the ball on pitches that maybe sometimes aren't the best pitches to drive.

[SPEAKER_04]: So he's got, when we talk about, you know, I talk about the triangle here that I think of it as, he's got two of those components.

[SPEAKER_04]: He chases outside of the zone at a frightening rate.

[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're watching us on YouTube, though I'll have a little graphic here that just shows all the pitches that he swung at outside of the zone this year.

[SPEAKER_04]: The thing that stands out with that, though, is when I say that the game has to teach you the lesson in A-ball so far, it hasn't taught him a lesson.

[SPEAKER_04]: He has kind of the bat to ball skills.

[SPEAKER_04]: Hector Rodriguez to use another guy who came up through the FSL in the red system.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's not only these guys who was extremely aggressive, but Hector Rodriguez didn't get taught in A-ball to ever take a pitch because he hit three hundred while hitting all those pitches and driving them.

[SPEAKER_04]: I remember writing in a couple of years ago, Christian and Kronosium strand at how many, how good of a bad ball hitter he was in AAA.

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, the game taught him the lesson.

[SPEAKER_04]: He got to the majors and all of a sudden, that didn't work for him anymore.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he's going to have to figure that out.

[SPEAKER_04]: And by the way, if he doesn't, he won't have a productive big league career.

[SPEAKER_04]: But again, that doesn't mean Ty can't have a big productive big league career.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's just that he is extremely aggressive.

[SPEAKER_04]: which does lead to questions about will that be something that trips him up as he faces more advanced pitching will see that's an interesting question to see that was a fun discussion we got another one though that we want to get to which is as we said mark does the pirates for us has been doing the pirates list for us you know for for a couple years here several years actually if I say on and off you know over the years but but mark

[SPEAKER_04]: I want to kind of ask with that.

[SPEAKER_04]: So with Bubba Chandler, we talked a lot about Bubba and Bubba has been very interesting this year.

[SPEAKER_04]: Bubba Chandler has some of the best velocity that you're going to see among a starting pitcher in minor league baseball.

[SPEAKER_04]: Not the best Harlan Suzanne is like, excuse me guys, I'm over here and there's one or two whenever I just reach back and want it.

[SPEAKER_04]: But you can see, you know, one or one, one or two, even if you had time from Bubba,

[SPEAKER_04]: He's been in AAA hall here.

[SPEAKER_04]: He is now, I would say, one of the more seasoned AAA pictures for a pitching prospect that we've seen in quite a while.

[SPEAKER_04]: As far as the amount of innings that he's thrown in AAA, but they have been a little rocky at times this year.

[SPEAKER_04]: What are you seeing like as someone who's kind of really dug deep into this?

[SPEAKER_04]: What are you seeing from Baba?

[SPEAKER_04]: What is he doing better?

[SPEAKER_04]: What is he struggling to do as well as he did in the past?

[SPEAKER_04]: And what do you think kind of it adds up to in the in the big picture?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's a well, you're a professional.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's professional transition.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that in some instances for Baba, the game is teaching him a little bit this year in terms of what you can and cannot get away with and he really hasn't

[SPEAKER_02]: dealt with too much adversity in his pro career prior to the last two months.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think, you asked, what's he doing well?

[SPEAKER_02]: Or even better than last year?

[SPEAKER_02]: Everything that we loved about Boba Chandler last year, the off season when he was up in the top five of our top one hundred.

[SPEAKER_02]: Metricly is still intact.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's actually throwing a little bit harder this year than he was last year.

[SPEAKER_02]: The ingredients with the unicorn fastball in terms of the character, the zone and the velocity, like you mentioned, it's all still there.

[SPEAKER_02]: His biggest issue for everything that I've been able to pick up on is simply striking at a level that he did last year.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's not throwing his fastball and it sounds very simple and reductive in some ways, but he's not throwing his fastball for strikes enough.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of times when you watch Chandler starts, especially recently.

[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned Spencer Jones earlier.

[SPEAKER_02]: He just faced him on Saturday.

[SPEAKER_02]: Three really good at bats.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've fallen behind in those at bats.

[SPEAKER_02]: pretty frequently.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think his strike percentage and synergy which we use as a tool is down from sixty seven percent last year to sixty three percent this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: His overall strike percentage for the season is sixty two percent and even when he was on fire back in April and May, his command was inconsistent at best.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he was getting away with with a little bit because the stuff is so good.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think for him everything kind of predicate off of that fastball.

[SPEAKER_02]: And more frequently he's lost that fastball up he's lost that fastball up into the arm side like the triple a zone is a little bit tighter than what he's he's pitched at previous to last year as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the biggest concern for me is just that how in and out he's been this year in terms of being able to command it.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a secondary concern in that I don't feel like the off speed, the breaking ball has taken the step, maybe that we hope to see.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think the sliders still averaged a solid average.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's experimented with the curve ball this year and the last couple starts.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's really hasn't been too much of his mix.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's really fast ball and it's changed up to step forward.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think those are the two big pieces.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I know that there's been a lot of discussion about how the pirates have

[SPEAKER_02]: handled when it was time to call him up or not.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that there's part of that team, but for me, it really all just comes back to the fastball command has not been as sharp as it was a year ago.

[SPEAKER_04]: So how much of that, I have to ask the question, how much do you think is AAA?

[SPEAKER_04]: Because we've talked about AAA has a smaller strike zone now, like, than the majors.

[SPEAKER_04]: Because of the ABS zone, because of how it is designed and because of the challenge system, there is a, it's a,

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not one hundred percent that, but it's ninety-five percent that that it is the smallest zone.

[SPEAKER_04]: We see a lower strike percentage in AAA, then we see in the majors.

[SPEAKER_04]: We see a lower percentage of called strikes on the edges of his own in AAA, then we see in the majors.

[SPEAKER_04]: Is this something that is an issue for him do you think long-term or is it potential that this is, hey, the fastball percentage will go strike percentage will go back up when he hits the majors and maybe this is a blip because AAA is so challenging.

[SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't call it a blive.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that he, he's someone who needs to live, you know, the top of the zone or enjoys living here the top of the zone because of how the fastball plays.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are a lot of times where the miss is fairly non competitive at the top of the zone.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that the triple A zone might be a part of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's such a dynamic mover.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's such a good athlete.

[SPEAKER_02]: He pitches with such arm speed that I think when things get a little sideways on him mechanically.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we've always thought for such a long time, he's such a good athlete that the strikes will come.

[SPEAKER_02]: The strikes will get better.

[SPEAKER_02]: I still believe that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that, you know, I think that he will be a average strike thrower in time.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that sinking it back up this year, once it is especially in June and July, when things started to go a little sideways, has taken him long.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's, if anything concerned for me, like the amount of time it's taken for him

[SPEAKER_02]: to kind of sync back up in regain some of the fastball come in.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's been where I'm opening for me.

[SPEAKER_04]: So to just put a kind of a little bit of a bow on this, if we're talking about like, it feels like that Baba Chandler's impact in the majors has been a little slow this year by these struggles.

[SPEAKER_04]: For looking at twenty-six, do you still feel pretty comfortable about his ability to succeed the majorly level, or you think it's more like, hey, this may be a little bit longer of an acclamation period.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're talking more like twenty-seven before he kind of really settles in, or what do you see that what do you think this means for a kind of long-term frame?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm still on the twenty six ETA.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it becomes a significant question that we have to dive into.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't see him in the majors for the end of the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's when the it really starts to become the red flag or the red lights are blaring.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, when you talk to people in the pirate system about Chandler.

[SPEAKER_02]: elite athletes are competitive, but they talk about his competitiveness in a way that you don't normally hear most prospects or at least players that have covered.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that when he didn't get called up in May, when he was pretty much on par with Jacob Miserowski, and he saw Miserowski get called up, so I chased Burns get called up with two guys in the division.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that when that didn't happen and he's actually, I believe on the record talked about some of the frustration of still being in the minor leagues.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that was something that he worked through and maybe was part of the struggles.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's part of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then when you also fall out of whack with your mechanics, it takes some time to get back into that, that's the piece of it, which I think is a little bit more troubling.

[SPEAKER_02]: But this is just speculation.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have this reported.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would think, especially based off of the opening and the rotation that they have right now and where the pirates are this season, where past the August fifth date is very important for them that we see Chandler before the end of the season.

[SPEAKER_04]: I would just kind of throw this to you for a second to Jeff.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like if we don't see Baba this year, other than he's hurt or something, which he's not right now, it kind of is shocking development.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll kind of leave it at that because I do want us to also get to our prospect soap boxes and we've already been going almost an hour here.

[SPEAKER_04]: So Jeff.

[SPEAKER_04]: To kind of kick it off with you, who is your way as we always say our prospects of boxes?

[SPEAKER_04]: Have to be talking about guys who's not in the top hundred, but someone who would treat you for some reason.

[SPEAKER_04]: So Jeff, who is your prospects of box?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's funny.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going back in on a player that, you know, having done the Cardinals list for three years here now, I more or less thought this player was sort of left for dead.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think he snuck onto the back end of the handbook list last year based on internal feedback.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like about outfield or Josh Bias.

[SPEAKER_03]: Bias has had in a true sea change sort of season in terms of his plate skills.

[SPEAKER_03]: going back the last three years, you know, this was a guy kind of going back to one earlier conversation that we had, where the contact just quite frankly was not at the level that it needed to be to get to the impact.

[SPEAKER_03]: And all the supporting tools that Bias had, you know, he's got an arm, he can run, he's a good outfielder, you know, was a two-way player in high school and there were some people who liked him as a pitcher because he was up to, you know, mid-Nindies in the mouth.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a lot of those ingredients here

[SPEAKER_03]: But the contact was just a non-starter, twenty twenty three season, misrate forty three point two percent zone, misrate thirty seven percent.

[SPEAKER_03]: Those are twenty grade contact numbers.

[SPEAKER_03]: We go to the contact numbers.

[SPEAKER_03]: It gets a little bit better, but still not there at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thirty seven point four percent misrate.

[SPEAKER_03]: Twenty eight point one percent zone miss.

[SPEAKER_03]: And mind you this whole time.

[SPEAKER_03]: The chase rates in each of these three seasons.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll mention we're between twenty seven and twenty nine percent.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like rounding error, cyber sort of thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it wasn't a matter of expanding the zone so much for him.

[SPEAKER_03]: the underlying power numbers, the ninety-eighth percentile EVs been between one-of-five and one-of-seven in all three of these seasons.

[SPEAKER_03]: What really changed was twenty twenty-five.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's now in above average contact editor.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, for the most part.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the zone contact rate is now at twenty point six percent.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is very acceptable and I think especially when you consider a majority of his season is coming at the double A level.

[SPEAKER_03]: Twenty seven point five percent overall mystery that best his his best zone mystery of his career.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, twenty two point one percent chase rates of those numbers have gotten better this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: The swing rate is forty six percent.

[SPEAKER_03]: Leave it was forty seven.

[SPEAKER_03]: Two years ago and then last year is fifty one percent.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so the approach as well as the bats of ball skills have really rounded into form and he's hitting for the best power of his career.

[SPEAKER_03]: Low ground ball rate puts the ball in the air quite a bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think sort of the only question at this point when, you know, we look at, you know, his data is just sort of, is this going to scale in a AAA and then the majors.

[SPEAKER_03]: Overall, I think it will.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's made really good swing decisions that we've said, the chase rates really low, the heart swing rate is seventy eight point five percent, which is well above average.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's true above average to maybe even plus approach.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's probably plus plus power with really good angles.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard is average hard hit launch angle.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's any ball and play above ninety five degrees is eighteen, actually ninety five pounds per hour is eighteen degrees.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's it now standing number as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: So

[SPEAKER_03]: I think when you look at ball flight, when you look at angles, when you look at bats of ball skills now, when you look at approach, he's checking all those boxes plus he's got that arm, he's got that running ability.

[SPEAKER_03]: I believe there's a chance that he has a twenty forty season this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: He needs six more home runs, excuse me, twenty fifty season, six more home runs to get to twenty and four more steals to get to fifty.

[SPEAKER_03]: So when I look at a player like this, I, you know, I'm going to have some more conversations in the offseason.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's another guy that could push up into the top five, maybe for the cardinals, and this might be a top hundred prospect, just based on all these skills, and this has been a real change.

[SPEAKER_03]: The type of change we don't typically see in terms of swing and miss.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's not something you can typically fake.

[SPEAKER_04]: that you know, he's an interesting one.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, my soapbox today, I'm going to the Marlins, uh, Luis Kova outfielder for the Marlins.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is where this gets a little tricky, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: He is a second year DSL guy.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is something that is a lot more common now than it used to be and it's not nearly the Scarlet letter that it used to be because

[SPEAKER_04]: understandably now where you have fewer complex spots when you bring a guy over he counts immediately towards your running one sixty five you know roster limit in the minors and on top of that you would rather like we're still talking about an eighteen year old so okay like he's going to be coming over next year as a still eighteen year old turn nineteen in that season probably will reach a ball next year so there's a it feels like this caveat caveat caveat but I want to

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm highlighting him because the feedback we have gotten on him from the DSL this year is very strong, two ninety nine four twenty two five thirty seven with almost as many walks of strikeouts.

[SPEAKER_04]: We've seen power.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's got nine homers this year.

[SPEAKER_04]: He has thirty five steals.

[SPEAKER_04]: We've also got feedback that when it comes to swing decisions, when it comes to ability to drive the ball, when it comes to bat to ball skills, all these things are also looking good.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is the guy who was a prominent sign-eat for them, not that long ago.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I would say if like you look at our remote recent Jacob brother did our marlins top thirty he's kind of consistently been moved covers been moving up that list he's not I would say he's not sniffing the top hundred or anything like that but that's what we bring him up on a prospect so pucks this is the guy who could get there down the road not there yet but keep an eye on him and again we try to give you some names here

[SPEAKER_04]: This is what we love to do.

[SPEAKER_04]: We have these discussions all the time, and so we try to turn some of them into podcast and videos and all for you all.

[SPEAKER_04]: Again, when we talked about Tony Blanco Jr., that is someone that Mark and I spent a lot of time talking about, I feel like last year.

[SPEAKER_04]: Along those lines, Mark, you don't have to have a soap box.

[SPEAKER_04]: You're our guest here on the prospect podcast today, but we don't want to take away the chance if you had someone that you wanted to talk about.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you don't want to show up as a guest and then say something dumb.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I feel better that you also just went with a second year DCL guy at DSL guy because I also do the A's, thirty for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: And one guy who has popped up a little bit and reporting and also that the data has definitely picked our interest is Edgar Monterey.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right now, he's kind of in the the twentieth branch on their list.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could see him moving up a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_02]: Second year in the DSL, there were concerns last year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he's a switch hitter about how the swing, we kind of grow up on both sides of the ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: He also needed to get in better shape.

[SPEAKER_02]: He answered a lot of questions.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that the A's had from him last year went back to the DSL.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's been crushing this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think his ninety of EVs closed in on hundred and five right now at eighteen years old.

[SPEAKER_02]: The angles are pretty good.

[SPEAKER_02]: He'll need to swing a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's frankly a little bit too advanced for some of the pitching he's seeing right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: So again, this isn't a guy who's going to be in the top five of the A's, thirty in a couple months.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's not a top hundred prospect, but in a system that has graduated a lot, and we're starting to look for the next way of eventually seeing guys in the A's system, Egr Monteiro, someone that has my attention as we go into handbook reporting season.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's a good one to kind of to in this with.

[SPEAKER_04]: So this is another base bomb America Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_04]: We do this every week.

[SPEAKER_04]: And we love to kind of talk about prospects, hopefully give you some sneak peeks some insight, not just on the top prospects in the game, but also on players who, a little less on the radar.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's what we kind of ended with soapbox.

[SPEAKER_04]: This was a fun discussion today.

[SPEAKER_04]: We will continue it again next week with another Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_04]: Please like and subscribe if you, whether it's for your podcast feed or whether it's through YouTube.

[SPEAKER_04]: And if you have comments, please leave them on YouTube.

[SPEAKER_04]: We do try to answer them.

[SPEAKER_04]: We do try to read them.

[SPEAKER_04]: Can't promise, well, hundred percent get to it, but we do generally try to get to it.

[SPEAKER_04]: Four mark for Jeff.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm JJ.

[SPEAKER_04]: So long, everybody.