00:00.884 --> 00:03.445 [SPEAKER_03]: It is Prospect podcast time.

00:03.465 --> 00:04.606 [SPEAKER_03]: A little bit of a different look.

00:04.666 --> 00:07.427 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Jacob Rudner, JJ Cooper here as always.

00:08.327 --> 00:14.770 [SPEAKER_03]: Jeff Ponds, Josh Norris, on the road doing their baseballing, and that is what wrote me into this.

00:14.850 --> 00:17.071 [SPEAKER_03]: But JJ, it's nice to join you.

00:17.091 --> 00:18.391 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking forward to the conversation.

00:18.411 --> 00:19.372 [SPEAKER_03]: We're going to be having today.

00:19.392 --> 00:19.752 [SPEAKER_03]: How are you?

00:20.402 --> 00:49.135 [SPEAKER_02]: Good, thank you for stepping in because like you said, like so we have this playoff baseball in the minor leagues, hopefully by the time you are watching or listening to this Josh Norris will have seen David Shields versus Joey Oki, which is about a spicy a classic match up pitching match up and you're going to get and oh, by the way, I would have to say though that he's getting second tripped on this because Jeff is seeing eerie versus how tuna.

00:50.065 --> 00:57.151 [SPEAKER_02]: It's not often you get to see a playoff series where the number one prospect in the game faces off against the number two prospect in the game.

00:57.552 --> 01:00.234 [SPEAKER_02]: We have Connor Griffin, we have Kevin McGonagall.

01:00.494 --> 01:12.385 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, by the way, we also throw in a Max Clark and a Hoesway-Bersignu and all, as well, I'm jealous, but we'll stay here, manning the fort and talking about prospects today.

01:13.055 --> 01:15.016 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, good opportunity to plug the website though.

01:15.056 --> 01:16.757 [SPEAKER_03]: Head on over to baseballamerica.com.

01:17.157 --> 01:21.560 [SPEAKER_03]: Make sure you check out the content that's going to come from their various scenes of prospects.

01:22.160 --> 01:29.244 [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, for us though, JJ, we're going to talk about prospects of old guys that we saw really you saw in the past who made it.

01:30.385 --> 01:31.086 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there you go.

01:31.186 --> 01:33.429 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, some of these guys, I'm familiar with.

01:33.449 --> 01:43.520 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they're not that old, but guys who maybe we didn't evaluate as well as we could have who have outplayed what our projections were for them at the time.

01:43.540 --> 01:45.623 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think the easiest way to break into this conversation.

01:46.103 --> 01:47.023 [SPEAKER_03]: is with Cal Rally.

01:47.043 --> 01:53.806 [SPEAKER_03]: Somebody who's caught fire, has caught the world by storm, whether you're a deep diehard baseball fan or somebody who's just into nicknames.

01:54.506 --> 01:55.586 [SPEAKER_03]: He's been very popular.

01:56.046 --> 02:02.708 [SPEAKER_03]: We had him as highest, the mayor in his number eight prospect in 2021, but that was as good as it got for him for our rankings.

02:03.048 --> 02:04.409 [SPEAKER_03]: What went wrong?

02:04.489 --> 02:07.150 [SPEAKER_03]: Not to say it's wrong, but where where where was the misstep in that?

02:07.190 --> 02:08.610 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so that's what we want to do.

02:08.650 --> 02:11.131 [SPEAKER_02]: We want to see if we can learn something, learn some lessons,

02:11.575 --> 02:13.677 [SPEAKER_02]: from how we've ranked in the past.

02:14.557 --> 02:23.944 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say with this, the criteria we used to pick these were players who are having excellent seasons at the big league level who never made a top 100, right?

02:24.024 --> 02:31.170 [SPEAKER_02]: So you're going to see a lot of these where it says ranked in the top 10 in an organization, but we'll be the first to say.

02:31.990 --> 02:39.272 [SPEAKER_02]: If we had to do over again, Calaroli, who is in the MVP consideration, the discussion, should have been a top 100 prospects.

02:39.332 --> 02:49.094 [SPEAKER_02]: So yes, he was a top 10 prospect in the Mariners, but not cracking the top 100 means, again, realistically, he should have a top 50 prospect if we had it all to do over again.

02:51.575 --> 02:56.576 [SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully again, we're gonna try to pull out some things here that maybe can be applicable down the road.

02:57.196 --> 02:58.497 [SPEAKER_02]: And I would say with him,

03:00.141 --> 03:04.942 [SPEAKER_02]: The concern that he always faced, like, there is a reason that he has the nickname he has, right?

03:05.122 --> 03:05.823 [SPEAKER_02]: He's the big dumpper.

03:06.483 --> 03:13.405 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the concerns were, how is his body going to age as a catcher, right?

03:13.505 --> 03:14.645 [SPEAKER_02]: He's a bigger catcher.

03:15.425 --> 03:19.546 [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't something where it was like, oh, this guy's a brutal behind the plate or anything like that.

03:19.606 --> 03:24.928 [SPEAKER_02]: He was actually rated as our best defensive catcher in the Mariners system when he was coming up.

03:25.368 --> 03:25.508 [SPEAKER_02]: Now,

03:26.719 --> 03:39.228 [SPEAKER_02]: best defensive catcher and some systems is one thing and you know, others sometimes that's like you're an eight, sometimes that's you're a 45, depends on what the rest of the system looks like, but we also loved his, that is power.

03:39.849 --> 03:43.992 [SPEAKER_02]: He was a, we projected him to have 60 power at the time.

03:44.352 --> 03:51.738 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, we'll get to that a little bit that maybe that was that was light, but that's that's an aggressive grade, obviously.

03:56.088 --> 04:04.696 [SPEAKER_02]: What we've seen this year, I would say, our grades were off by a grade or two.

04:05.717 --> 04:09.861 [SPEAKER_02]: And so like we said six power, he's been eight power this year.

04:10.282 --> 04:10.942 [SPEAKER_02]: Eight power is

04:12.903 --> 04:19.112 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't think we would even, I would have a hard of throwing an eight on his power at the time, but it's 80 power.

04:19.232 --> 04:20.374 [SPEAKER_02]: It's top of the scale power.

04:20.774 --> 04:29.207 [SPEAKER_02]: He's, you know, we're talking about a catcher who's literally, you know, the best hit, having the best power season we've ever seen from an MLB catcher.

04:30.301 --> 04:40.716 [SPEAKER_02]: But I would say the hit to also before this year, you know, probably is a switch hitter, which has its challenges and hits, you know, it's benefits as well.

04:41.337 --> 04:46.164 [SPEAKER_02]: So maybe because of that, it took a little bit longer for him.

04:47.084 --> 04:52.529 [SPEAKER_02]: to develop as far as his hit tool because he's having to work on he's having to develop two swings.

04:53.090 --> 05:03.661 [SPEAKER_02]: But we're all talking about now a guy who has generally been kind of a 222 30 hit or was solid OPPs becoming a 270 hit or 270 plus hit or with with excellent OPPs.

05:03.681 --> 05:05.603 [SPEAKER_02]: Like that difference of 50 40 50 points plus

05:09.356 --> 05:22.980 [SPEAKER_02]: that difference of 25 to 30 homers turning into 50 homers is the difference of someone going from being again, someone who is a one of the best catchers in the game to one of the best players in the game.

05:24.460 --> 05:28.881 [SPEAKER_02]: If I'm looking at it, if you ask me to kind of okay, well, what is the lesson which you're learning for this?

05:28.941 --> 05:31.442 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, one is is that, and this is why we still struggle with.

05:31.482 --> 05:34.523 [SPEAKER_02]: And I want to kind of rope you in on this too, because you're part of this too.

05:35.997 --> 05:44.943 [SPEAKER_02]: A violating catchers, I do believe, and I've talked to scouts who say, evaluating amateur catchers is probably the toughest part of their job.

05:45.664 --> 05:59.233 [SPEAKER_02]: Because, for one, there is no position where the difference between the instruction you get as an amateur and as a pro is more significant, right?

06:04.669 --> 06:14.632 [SPEAKER_02]: Best programs, college programs in the country developing catchers, working with catchers on their defense, are the 20-hour rule, right?

06:14.672 --> 06:19.353 [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's only your playing games, there can't be that much instruction.

06:19.393 --> 06:21.153 [SPEAKER_02]: You also have a limited number of coaches.

06:22.714 --> 06:27.415 [SPEAKER_02]: You're trying to work around the margins as an amateur with your catching with your receiving, right?

06:28.497 --> 06:29.358 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'll say this.

06:29.378 --> 06:40.507 [SPEAKER_03]: I think one of the big things in the college ranks are teams are more trying to recruit guys who are ready to look like really good college catchers, not guys who they think can become really good catchers.

06:40.567 --> 06:45.831 [SPEAKER_03]: Because to your point, the developmental timeline is really difficult, especially in a position that's so demanding.

06:46.251 --> 06:51.055 [SPEAKER_03]: And so you're either getting it in raw talent for the most part, or you're not getting it at all.

06:51.095 --> 06:52.136 [SPEAKER_03]: Like there are teams that will

06:53.357 --> 06:57.379 [SPEAKER_03]: behind the plate play in order to get a better bat because of what you're saying.

06:57.419 --> 07:00.340 [SPEAKER_03]: It's not the landscape to be developing catchers at all.

07:00.600 --> 07:01.761 [SPEAKER_03]: Carol, you use the prime example.

07:03.141 --> 07:07.623 [SPEAKER_02]: So what I would say with that, those is so then you go from amateur baseball, you go to Pro Ball.

07:08.524 --> 07:18.588 [SPEAKER_02]: And the day you arrive in Pro Ball as a catcher, you start to meet your team of people who's in higher jobs, right?

07:18.908 --> 07:21.089 [SPEAKER_02]: Like you literally have people in Pro Ball,

07:21.713 --> 07:27.654 [SPEAKER_02]: who the their job is not to help you become a complete player as a catching prospect.

07:28.374 --> 07:29.855 [SPEAKER_02]: There's other people to work on the other parts.

07:30.275 --> 07:33.875 [SPEAKER_02]: Their job is just to make you a complete receiver.

07:34.176 --> 07:35.916 [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to work with you on blocking.

07:35.956 --> 07:37.496 [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to look a few on framing.

07:37.776 --> 07:39.337 [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to work with you on throwing.

07:39.397 --> 07:43.277 [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to work with you on every aspect of just catching.

07:43.877 --> 07:50.179 [SPEAKER_02]: And so one thing I would say with that is is that if you have a

07:51.927 --> 07:52.408 [SPEAKER_02]: you hit on it.

07:52.928 --> 08:01.657 [SPEAKER_02]: If you have a player who was catching in college, again, Cal Raleigh was not a terrible defender in college, you don't misunderstand me.

08:01.997 --> 08:10.265 [SPEAKER_02]: But if you have a guy who's catching in college and he's a really good bat and he is terrible defensively, right?

08:11.626 --> 08:12.167 [SPEAKER_02]: That guy in

08:17.847 --> 08:21.034 [SPEAKER_02]: There is a way that you can get someone like that.

08:21.956 --> 08:26.326 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not saying that you're going to necessarily develop them into a gold glove catcher in the...

08:28.420 --> 08:32.002 [SPEAKER_02]: in the major leagues, although I think you could probably come up with examples of that.

08:32.703 --> 08:45.270 [SPEAKER_02]: But I would say that you could absolutely get them to a point where you say, hey, that's a catcher who now is a very playable catcher at the minimum, and maybe better than that.

08:45.310 --> 08:47.432 [SPEAKER_02]: Like to give an example of this, right?

08:47.552 --> 08:48.752 [SPEAKER_02]: Using it a current prospect.

08:49.273 --> 08:53.796 [SPEAKER_02]: That may be, you know, if I'm trying to, Dominic Keeke is never going to hit 50 homers in a season.

08:54.156 --> 08:56.177 [SPEAKER_02]: To get me, don't misunderstand me here.

08:57.003 --> 09:01.747 [SPEAKER_02]: But the raised dominant Keegan was a guy who in college at Vanderbilt.

09:02.988 --> 09:06.890 [SPEAKER_02]: Every year, it would start with Dominique Keegan's going to catch more this year.

09:07.951 --> 09:15.197 [SPEAKER_02]: And every year, as the year went along, they would always have someone else who would end up catching and Dominique Keegan would play a lot of first base.

09:15.217 --> 09:16.598 [SPEAKER_02]: Because Dominique Keegan, real can hit.

09:17.158 --> 09:22.202 [SPEAKER_02]: But defensively, they never were comfortable with saying, Dominique Keegan is our catcher.

09:26.865 --> 09:29.226 [SPEAKER_02]: These games are not, these games are for development.

09:29.286 --> 09:31.588 [SPEAKER_02]: These games aren't just about getting to Omaha.

09:31.628 --> 09:33.849 [SPEAKER_02]: They're about developing the long-term player.

09:34.229 --> 09:35.870 [SPEAKER_02]: Dominic Keakin can be a full-time catcher.

09:35.910 --> 09:36.971 [SPEAKER_02]: And he can move slowly.

09:37.071 --> 09:45.615 [SPEAKER_02]: He and yes, like for a guy coming, for a guy who had years at Vandy, he's been on a pretty slow track through the minor leagues.

09:46.516 --> 09:55.801 [SPEAKER_02]: But you look at it and you say, and again, I don't think he's a great catcher to mentally, but he is vastly improved defensively over where he was when he was in college.

09:56.443 --> 10:14.453 [SPEAKER_02]: So I do think that sometimes where we can struggle in our evaluations is these catchers whose bat was always there, but the who's defensively get better and better and better because you can get better in pro ball.

10:14.693 --> 10:21.156 [SPEAKER_02]: And again, Raleigh, I think, is probably about the extreme example that he's one that I look back on.

10:21.176 --> 10:22.797 [SPEAKER_02]: And again, we should have 100%

10:25.512 --> 10:27.689 [SPEAKER_02]: The season he's having, like,

10:28.711 --> 10:37.696 [SPEAKER_02]: is something that I don't even know that I mean we couldn't have projected coming into this year and he was a multi-year regular and a solid player before this year.

10:38.357 --> 10:54.607 [SPEAKER_02]: I do struggle to say like oh we should have caught like that we should have seen 50 Homer's you know a 50 Homer type season was coming sure but we should have seen you look at the production he had you look at what he did in the miners you look at the defensive reputation he had the make up you know

10:57.108 --> 11:01.771 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'll take that as one that we missed on, not because we didn't know who he was.

11:01.831 --> 11:06.354 [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously there's none of these guys we didn't know he was, but because we didn't.

11:08.115 --> 11:10.076 [SPEAKER_02]: We probably undersold what we did.

11:10.156 --> 11:13.719 [SPEAKER_02]: We sold the bat and especially the bat plus defensive improvement.

11:13.859 --> 11:15.620 [SPEAKER_02]: Steady, continual defensive improvement.

11:16.539 --> 11:26.986 [SPEAKER_03]: So, this question for me, is that a process flaw, or is that a byproduct of circumstances that you evaluated the player for who he was at the time?

11:27.686 --> 11:30.228 [SPEAKER_03]: And it's not necessarily a miss as much as it is.

11:30.688 --> 11:37.152 [SPEAKER_03]: This is somebody who grew over time into what he is now and you couldn't really project for it.

11:37.192 --> 11:37.753 [SPEAKER_03]: Does that make sense?

11:38.656 --> 11:46.963 [SPEAKER_02]: Let me say, if I go back and look through our notes, I would say that we had really good notes from scouts who were like, this guys, I think could be there every day, catch her for a long time.

11:47.864 --> 11:57.772 [SPEAKER_02]: And again, our grade and all reflected the potential of that, but we probably, you know, he moved relative to quickly and there was a third round pick.

11:58.093 --> 12:05.499 [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think we probably let our priors as a group kind of, here's an example this, right?

12:07.160 --> 12:15.383 [SPEAKER_02]: If you look at what he did in the minors, and you compare Joey Bart and Cal Raleigh, who are by the way, 100% contemporaries, right?

12:17.203 --> 12:24.405 [SPEAKER_02]: I've got, I found notes from well before they were drafted, where it's like, these are the guys of that catching class, right?

12:25.766 --> 12:33.608 [SPEAKER_02]: If you look at Joey Bart as a pro, and you look at Cal Raleigh as a pro, Cal Raleigh was always better.

12:34.296 --> 12:35.256 [SPEAKER_02]: There was never a day.

12:35.496 --> 12:39.057 [SPEAKER_02]: There was never a day that Joy Bart was better in pro ball than Cal Row.

12:39.518 --> 12:42.599 [SPEAKER_02]: However, this is where this gets challenging.

12:42.659 --> 12:51.061 [SPEAKER_02]: So to answer your question, I'm kind of to answer your question obliquely without meaning too, but Joy Bart was also the number two pick in the draft.

12:51.641 --> 12:55.163 [SPEAKER_02]: And Cal Rowly was a third round pick 80, pick 86, I believe.

12:56.803 --> 13:00.204 [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to completely flush that, right?

13:03.523 --> 13:08.705 [SPEAKER_02]: for multiple years, everyone board down on them for the draft.

13:09.526 --> 13:16.129 [SPEAKER_02]: And Joy Bart was at that time, seen as a player who was on a different level than CalRolley.

13:16.889 --> 13:21.811 [SPEAKER_02]: And you look back on it, and it's like, no, CalRolley was on a different level than Joy Bart.

13:21.951 --> 13:27.314 [SPEAKER_02]: And again, both of them are big league catchers, but if we could have flipped, I will put it this way.

13:27.334 --> 13:30.515 [SPEAKER_02]: If we could have flipped those rankings in hindsight, we would have looked a lot better.

13:31.930 --> 13:50.823 [SPEAKER_02]: I Irish, maybe an example of somebody in a recent draft who could be worth see if you want to catch like that's the the want to is the key part there right like do you want to be a catcher, but I Irish is a hundred percent example of a guy who if if he really can develop behind the play we really love that perfect example.

13:51.504 --> 13:57.548 [SPEAKER_00]: Crafts I'm going to still align right from the top here about me on these a cut for everybody.

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14:51.464 --> 14:51.864 [SPEAKER_00]: There you go.

14:52.724 --> 14:53.285 [SPEAKER_03]: Let's move on.

14:53.485 --> 14:56.627 [SPEAKER_03]: Michael Garcia of the Royals.

14:56.647 --> 15:02.530 [SPEAKER_03]: 5.4 B-war, and I just want to emphasize B-war for our colleagues who are listening to this and scoffing at the idea.

15:02.570 --> 15:04.011 [SPEAKER_03]: But he's had a really good year, JJ.

15:05.031 --> 15:15.297 [SPEAKER_03]: For us, as high as Royals number six prospect in 2023, a glove we loved, but maybe somebody who's developed into more of a well-rounded baseball player, what were the problems there?

15:18.115 --> 15:21.139 [SPEAKER_02]: evaluating, hit tools are hard, right?

15:21.599 --> 15:22.981 [SPEAKER_02]: We really like Michael Garcia.

15:23.041 --> 15:36.257 [SPEAKER_02]: If you go back and read like our reports on Michael Garcia, we were like basically, you know, we noted, you know, these are a cousin of, you know, of Ronald and Luis San Hellvacuña, you know, okay, that's just background stuff.

15:36.317 --> 15:36.417 [SPEAKER_02]: But

15:37.042 --> 15:59.124 [SPEAKER_02]: we talked about like that he's a throwback type of hitter who uses the whole field very good hand-eye coordination solid barrel control gap to get power above average hit tool and he's better as a defender than he is as a hitter so like you would read this report and you would say they really like him right but we really worried about the power and

16:00.366 --> 16:08.088 [SPEAKER_02]: If you're talking about someone who, okay, you can love the glove and you can, we projected him as a 55-hitter, but with 40-power.

16:09.008 --> 16:16.490 [SPEAKER_02]: And, okay, 40, if he had been a 55-hitter, 40-power and on a team that didn't have Bobby Witt Jr.

16:16.570 --> 16:19.270 [SPEAKER_02]: As a short stop, that would have been probably a very solid player.

16:20.430 --> 16:23.411 [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of new, he was gonna be a third base when he was on the team with Bobby Witt Jr.

16:24.831 --> 16:27.212 [SPEAKER_02]: And you're looking at that and saying, okay, is that gonna be enough?

16:28.173 --> 16:37.377 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, to his credit, exceptional defender at Thurbase, which is what you would hope to have for a guy who really, you know, can 100% play shortstop, right?

16:37.417 --> 16:45.761 [SPEAKER_02]: Like this is not a guy who, if Bobby Witt Jr went down, or perished the thought as someone just loves baseball and good baseball players.

16:46.142 --> 16:53.385 [SPEAKER_02]: But if Bobby Witt Jr went down next year, you could say my Kelgar Cia defensively has the chops to slide over there and play shortstop.

16:54.045 --> 16:55.346 [SPEAKER_02]: Really good defender, Thur.

16:56.219 --> 16:59.921 [SPEAKER_02]: but we didn't project that the power would be where it is.

17:00.001 --> 17:03.384 [SPEAKER_02]: And I would say that he's now, we said 40 power.

17:03.484 --> 17:05.465 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say that it's probably close to 50 power.

17:07.706 --> 17:12.109 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think he's ended up being, and by the way, the back of all skills were better than we thought.

17:12.149 --> 17:13.290 [SPEAKER_02]: We thought they were very good.

17:13.330 --> 17:17.032 [SPEAKER_02]: But I would say that we had him as 55 hit with 40 power.

17:17.473 --> 17:21.575 [SPEAKER_02]: And I would say that if you evaluated him now, you would say he's ended up being a 60 hitter with 50 power.

17:26.738 --> 17:28.740 [SPEAKER_02]: Trust me, this is self-flagellation here.

17:28.760 --> 17:41.049 [SPEAKER_02]: We're not doing this in saying we were right, it's actually, no, I'm just trying to lay out how difficult some of this is because the margins between if you're projecting a above average hitter to be a plus hitter, small.

17:42.072 --> 17:47.534 [SPEAKER_02]: If you're projecting a 40 power guy to be, you know, he ends up being 50, you've missed it by one grade.

17:48.214 --> 17:49.535 [SPEAKER_02]: But that is the difference.

17:49.655 --> 17:51.175 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, let's take it the other way.

17:51.295 --> 17:53.796 [SPEAKER_02]: If Michael Garcia's defense was everything, well, we thought it was.

17:54.357 --> 17:57.398 [SPEAKER_02]: But we were off on the hit tool, the other way.

17:57.478 --> 17:59.538 [SPEAKER_02]: And the power, the other way, by one grade.

17:59.879 --> 18:05.701 [SPEAKER_02]: If he was a 45 hiter with 30 power, and we, or let's just say 50 hitter with 30 power, right?

18:05.741 --> 18:09.262 [SPEAKER_02]: Because we're half grade off on the hit and we're a full grade off on power.

18:10.952 --> 18:14.977 [SPEAKER_02]: That would probably make him a utility in filter, you know, on most teams.

18:15.137 --> 18:29.213 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying there aren't teams where you would be potentially a second division regular, but there are a lot of teams where if you said, that's kind of like you're then you're talking about like a Miguel Rojas type, and that's a guy who can start, but if you start in Miguel Rojas over the years,

18:30.004 --> 18:31.885 [SPEAKER_02]: you're probably wanting someone better.

18:32.065 --> 18:33.566 [SPEAKER_02]: You're probably looking for someone better.

18:34.266 --> 18:42.811 [SPEAKER_02]: So the margins here are, if you're off a little bit on the hit tool one way and you're then he's gonna be less than you think.

18:43.311 --> 18:46.053 [SPEAKER_02]: If you're off one the other way, it's gonna be much more than you think.

18:47.114 --> 18:49.555 [SPEAKER_02]: I've said the lessons that are taken from this are,

18:51.489 --> 18:56.272 [SPEAKER_02]: You don't ever want to overrate the defense with a prospect, because defense is, you've got to hit.

18:56.673 --> 19:06.379 [SPEAKER_02]: But if you do hit and you have defense, then you, especially if you're an infielder, there are a lot of paths to being a very useful and productive player.

19:07.380 --> 19:17.287 [SPEAKER_02]: The one aspect of this though that I would also say is really difficult one is, when Garcia came to the majors, he was bottom 20% in that speed.

19:19.518 --> 19:23.539 [SPEAKER_02]: To his credit, he is now kind of middle of the pack and bat speed.

19:24.079 --> 19:32.001 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's been the difference in a guy who had below average power becoming a guy with average power.

19:33.581 --> 19:40.143 [SPEAKER_02]: That's not a shock, guys to develop, physically improve and work on weaknesses, which was a weakness of his.

19:41.343 --> 19:44.704 [SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, again, that's one of the challenges of this.

19:49.663 --> 19:59.676 [SPEAKER_02]: Reliant this too much, I think you will be burned, but if you don't rely on an enough, you'll be burned also, which is, when you have guys who are great defenders, right?

19:59.876 --> 20:05.083 [SPEAKER_02]: Who have the hand eye to be an elite defender at especially at short stop?

20:06.752 --> 20:14.436 [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to imagine that at some point as they gain strength, that hand eye coordination won't have some relation to their hitting ability.

20:14.476 --> 20:21.580 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, if they swing it, everything as soon as the pitcher goes into his motion or things like that, it can kind of get in the way.

20:22.120 --> 20:25.281 [SPEAKER_02]: But we do see examples of this.

20:25.321 --> 20:31.705 [SPEAKER_02]: We do see examples of guys who arrive in the majors as kind of like 20 or 30 bat short stops.

20:32.445 --> 20:44.671 [SPEAKER_02]: But they're so good defensively that they stick around for years and by the end of it, they're actually like, you know, two grades higher as a hitter because what happens is is they just get that time.

20:44.731 --> 20:51.535 [SPEAKER_02]: They have that time to develop as a hitter because the other skills are so good and they have the hand eye that eventually it all catches up.

20:51.715 --> 20:56.117 [SPEAKER_02]: So we got it wrong with my gal Garcia, you know, he was a top 250 prospect.

20:56.157 --> 20:57.478 [SPEAKER_02]: I was safe for us, but he should have been a top

20:58.952 --> 21:03.074 [SPEAKER_03]: Is there a lesson in there that defense should count for more?

21:03.655 --> 21:05.016 [SPEAKER_03]: What do you take away from this?

21:06.817 --> 21:08.438 [SPEAKER_02]: See, this is where this gets tough, right?

21:08.778 --> 21:15.482 [SPEAKER_02]: Because it defense is, I would say that defense is very important.

21:16.102 --> 21:19.144 [SPEAKER_02]: However, you can also go overboard, right?

21:19.284 --> 21:24.307 [SPEAKER_02]: Because it's that combo pack, right?

21:25.125 --> 21:43.196 [SPEAKER_02]: it's having defense combined with enough hitting ability because to take the extreme example of it, if you said, okay, he's a 20 hitter and he's an 80 defender, those guys don't play in the big leagues.

21:43.756 --> 21:52.122 [SPEAKER_02]: Those guys really, I wouldn't say there are dime a dozen, but they're really not guys that you turn around

21:55.252 --> 22:05.781 [SPEAKER_02]: but if you are a 40-hitter with a 70-80 defense, I think that can work out for you.

22:06.021 --> 22:20.273 [SPEAKER_02]: And then I would say also on top of that, if you're right on the defense and just off a little bit on the offense and then they could end up developing even further than that, right?

22:20.393 --> 22:22.535 [SPEAKER_02]: So, that

22:23.440 --> 22:43.315 [SPEAKER_02]: The tough part of this is, I'm trying to think of a, you know, of an example of a short stop like this because there are definitely like center feelers, I can think of where we've been burned because really we believed in the defense and then you look on it and you say, okay, yeah, the defense is good, but it's just not enough by itself.

22:44.516 --> 22:47.599 [SPEAKER_02]: But then there are short stops who, you know, Ray or Donas, it's a

22:48.498 --> 22:51.440 [SPEAKER_02]: really bad hitter, but he had a very long career because the defense was so good.

22:52.081 --> 23:07.613 [SPEAKER_02]: So I always say yes, the defense needs to be a and absolutely plays a big role in this, but I would also say like Michael Garcia ended up, we didn't project on his move to third, but he had to be a seven defender at third, and there's a big difference between a seven defender and a six.

23:08.054 --> 23:15.360 [SPEAKER_02]: Matt Chapman, when he was coming up, had hit to a question, always had power, but if you're a seven or an eight at third

23:16.910 --> 23:18.491 [SPEAKER_02]: then that really does.

23:18.611 --> 23:26.637 [SPEAKER_02]: Now again, but at the same time, there were also guys like, South Stewart is an instructive one right now.

23:26.717 --> 23:34.122 [SPEAKER_02]: Like if you're evaluating South Stewart right now, it's third base, I don't think he's gonna be able to stay there long term.

23:34.162 --> 23:35.643 [SPEAKER_02]: I think they're gonna want more defensively.

23:35.943 --> 23:39.305 [SPEAKER_02]: If you have value as a first base, then that's the different evaluation.

23:40.306 --> 23:42.888 [SPEAKER_02]: This is, I mean, again, the thing about it is,

23:44.689 --> 23:45.829 [SPEAKER_02]: This is why I love doing this.

23:45.869 --> 23:48.550 [SPEAKER_02]: I've been doing this at Baseball America for over 20 years.

23:49.510 --> 23:50.291 [SPEAKER_02]: You'll never master it.

23:50.431 --> 23:51.811 [SPEAKER_02]: You can keep getting closer.

23:52.111 --> 24:00.254 [SPEAKER_02]: You can try to keep getting better, but the best way I can explain it to people is I'll try this way.

24:01.674 --> 24:08.476 [SPEAKER_02]: Major league teams with hundreds of people working in their front offices.

24:09.748 --> 24:18.132 [SPEAKER_02]: get it wrong on free agents who have six or seven year MLB track records, right, and they get it wrong every year.

24:18.952 --> 24:24.735 [SPEAKER_02]: And the flip side is is we also have guys who are minor league invites to spring training every year who pop.

24:25.835 --> 24:31.558 [SPEAKER_02]: There is a variability to this game that is maddening but also fascinating at the same time as the way I would put it.

24:32.972 --> 24:50.304 [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's the perfect transition to talk about how pitching is impacted by some of these decisions, Christopher Sanchez is the example that we're going to talk about he was the fillies number 17 prospect in 2020, which by the way, I am going to ask for you to discuss how may be 2020 impacted.

24:52.165 --> 25:00.190 [SPEAKER_03]: Some of the ways that baseball America was doing things and gathering information and whether they're not that could have been a factor and maybe missing a little bit on Christopher Sanchez.

25:00.510 --> 25:08.535 [SPEAKER_03]: But more importantly, Big League development and how that impacts players sometimes that we really can't account for and how Christopher Sanchez might be a great example of that.

25:08.555 --> 25:14.138 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so let's start with congratulations Philadelphia Phillies.

25:15.068 --> 25:22.674 [SPEAKER_02]: For the longest time, it looked like that, oh, this is a trade that the rays had won because look at Curtis Mead for Christmas ages.

25:23.274 --> 25:25.355 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, the fill is won this trade, right?

25:25.436 --> 25:28.658 [SPEAKER_02]: At this point, Curtis Mead, by the way, being an instructive example of,

25:29.928 --> 25:35.731 [SPEAKER_02]: Never did believe in the defense of him at third or second, and probably never downgraded enough on that.

25:35.911 --> 25:42.134 [SPEAKER_02]: Like that he couldn't really throw, he really can't throw, and so that limits him to first base for space to very difficult position.

25:42.375 --> 25:43.335 [SPEAKER_02]: You'd better really mash.

25:43.615 --> 25:45.256 [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I'm not saying it's all over for him.

25:45.536 --> 25:49.618 [SPEAKER_02]: Look at Jonathan Aronda, again, another race prospect who is now mashing.

25:49.718 --> 25:52.280 [SPEAKER_02]: But Christopher Sanchez was a guy who

25:54.153 --> 25:57.074 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say, we'll get into the 2020 component of this.

25:57.574 --> 26:13.921 [SPEAKER_02]: But I would also say with Christopher Sanchez that the other challenge was the reason he was traded from the race to the Phillies was, is that he had to be put on the 40 man when he was still quite far from being big league ready, right?

26:15.122 --> 26:17.863 [SPEAKER_02]: And so because of that, if you map that out,

26:19.088 --> 26:30.566 [SPEAKER_02]: It really seemed to be his sending him down the road to be a left-handed power or left-handed reliever, right, because you had a guy who was going to have to, he was on the 40-man.

26:32.793 --> 26:33.754 [SPEAKER_02]: signed it internationally.

26:33.834 --> 26:37.095 [SPEAKER_02]: I think three years in the DSL, you throw in the pandemic.

26:37.495 --> 26:42.638 [SPEAKER_02]: So he was being added to the 40 man at a time where he didn't have any upper level minor league experience.

26:42.658 --> 26:44.699 [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to start running out of options before long.

26:44.719 --> 26:50.602 [SPEAKER_02]: You don't want to carry a guy a picture on your 40 man roster for multiple years without getting something out of him.

26:51.322 --> 26:51.983 [SPEAKER_02]: And so he did.

26:52.043 --> 26:55.664 [SPEAKER_02]: He made his big league debut as a left handed reliever with control trouble.

26:56.985 --> 26:58.866 [SPEAKER_02]: And normally,

26:59.743 --> 27:15.693 [SPEAKER_02]: If you have a guy who's coming up as a left-handed reliever with control issues, who's not throwing, by the way, 100 miles an hour either, you don't project that guy to make the steps forward to become a front of the rotation starter.

27:17.074 --> 27:26.480 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what Sanchez has done, to his and the Philly credit, like I think the instructive lesson here, which is one that is very hard to reflect in prospect

27:28.455 --> 27:32.538 [SPEAKER_02]: player development at the big league level is very important, right?

27:32.738 --> 27:35.400 [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't stop when you hit the big leagues.

27:35.800 --> 27:43.886 [SPEAKER_02]: To take an example the other way, look at a couple of guys, you know, I'm just thinking of a couple of examples from one team.

27:43.926 --> 27:45.928 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure I could find this for multiple teams, right?

27:46.308 --> 27:50.331 [SPEAKER_02]: But I remember a couple of years ago we had Eddie Julian at the back of the top 100.

27:51.131 --> 27:55.715 [SPEAKER_02]: And Edward Julian played it Auburn, twins,

27:56.782 --> 27:59.926 [SPEAKER_02]: This is the big leagues, and has a productive rookie year.

28:00.006 --> 28:01.989 [SPEAKER_02]: I believe you was over two wars of rookie.

28:02.970 --> 28:05.853 [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of was what we were talking about, right?

28:05.994 --> 28:13.343 [SPEAKER_02]: That we were looking at port offensive second basements slash first baseman, but who hit enough to make that work.

28:15.178 --> 28:30.948 [SPEAKER_02]: And then it's really, he's never been that again, you know, like, and so maybe that's a Julian thing, but maybe that's a player development at the Major League level thing where it's like, okay, as your weaknesses get exposed, are you able to make adjustments?

28:31.208 --> 28:32.749 [SPEAKER_02]: To Christopher Sanchez is credit.

28:34.190 --> 28:38.313 [SPEAKER_02]: When he arrived in the majors, not as a fully finished product, obviously.

28:38.333 --> 28:42.176 [SPEAKER_02]: We just said he had to be rushed because the 40-man roster, all that.

28:44.882 --> 28:49.646 [SPEAKER_02]: He was a 93 mile an hour lefty reliever with control troubles.

28:51.387 --> 28:56.751 [SPEAKER_02]: He is now a 95 mile an hour lefty starter who throws strikes.

28:57.532 --> 29:01.314 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I would say that in hindsight, we were probably underwriting the change up a little bit.

29:01.334 --> 29:02.195 [SPEAKER_02]: It was better than we thought.

29:03.656 --> 29:06.979 [SPEAKER_02]: That's something that we could take from this.

29:08.307 --> 29:28.578 [SPEAKER_02]: I also will say, if you told me, and I know a lot of pictures develop the continued development velocity, but if you told me that the 93-mile-hour lever would become the 95-hour starter, that would be difficult for me to comfortably feel comfortable that we could project when he was making his pro-day view, big league debuts, I'd say.

29:29.038 --> 29:31.640 [SPEAKER_02]: But that's a credit to him and the fillies.

29:32.500 --> 29:37.162 [SPEAKER_02]: That's like one of those massive wins to me is, and the fillies have done this a couple times.

29:38.550 --> 29:51.617 [SPEAKER_02]: There is no one in the world, like you could include him and here as well, like Ranger Suarez is better than anyone other than Ranger Suarez and Ranger Suarez is a immediate family, probably ever believed that he would be.

29:52.177 --> 29:58.421 [SPEAKER_02]: And so when you do that, when you have wins like that, it really does make a difference for a big league club.

30:06.010 --> 30:08.812 [SPEAKER_02]: Potentially, I would say with locks a couple of things.

30:09.132 --> 30:21.362 [SPEAKER_02]: One, I think defensively, well, for one, and again, I don't want to take a cop out, he had a significant wrist injury, right?

30:21.642 --> 30:27.707 [SPEAKER_02]: So one thing you never know was something like that is is was that a setback or was that something where,

30:29.373 --> 30:30.914 [SPEAKER_02]: wrist are very important to hitting.

30:31.154 --> 30:34.895 [SPEAKER_02]: So like is that something where after that it never was the same?

30:35.255 --> 30:43.119 [SPEAKER_02]: But I would also say defensively, instead of getting better at the big league level, it just kept progressing at the big league level, right?

30:43.139 --> 30:49.241 [SPEAKER_02]: You're talking about a guy who arrived in the majors and you're like he's probably not a short stop, but he should be a good second basement.

30:49.641 --> 30:52.942 [SPEAKER_02]: And I would say defensively he's been a little disappointing that way.

30:54.863 --> 30:55.263 [SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah,

30:57.309 --> 31:01.593 [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, that who hasn't had the impact that we thought he would, no, that 100% true.

31:02.694 --> 31:08.038 [SPEAKER_03]: Let's go back to pitching here, Logan Webb, number six on the Giants top 30 in 2019.

31:08.598 --> 31:12.862 [SPEAKER_03]: One of the best strike throwers, some outstanding stuff in the big leagues right now.

31:12.882 --> 31:14.984 [SPEAKER_03]: Sigh young contender in the national league.

31:15.944 --> 31:16.845 [SPEAKER_03]: Where did you miss there?

31:18.567 --> 31:19.447 [SPEAKER_02]: So I would say, um,

31:21.788 --> 31:27.853 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, one is we didn't touch on it with Sanchez, but it's a good one to touch on here, which is 2020 did make things difficult, right?

31:28.254 --> 31:38.022 [SPEAKER_02]: Because there essentially was this period of time where you didn't get, we've got as much info as we could, but there just wasn't as much information out there.

31:38.222 --> 31:42.446 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, all sites were not the same as minor league games, right?

31:43.046 --> 31:46.990 [SPEAKER_02]: So you did have players, I think Michael Harris, I've always used an example of a player who like,

31:47.969 --> 31:53.831 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I had somebody's fan who said we completely, you know, with on Michael Harris, it's like we had him in the top 100 pretty high.

31:53.851 --> 31:55.851 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, he's like, yeah, we didn't do it fast enough.

31:55.911 --> 32:05.654 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, we didn't have him after 2019 when he was a fourth round pick who didn't hit that much and then we didn't rank him in 2020 because there were no games, but then we did have 21.

32:05.694 --> 32:06.895 [SPEAKER_02]: I felt like we were back pretty well in him.

32:07.375 --> 32:13.217 [SPEAKER_02]: In webs case though, I would say, okay, couple things.

32:13.697 --> 32:13.797 [SPEAKER_02]: One,

32:15.198 --> 32:16.540 [SPEAKER_02]: He's a sinker baller, right?

32:17.441 --> 32:26.352 [SPEAKER_02]: And I would say that if you said, what is a truly, and especially he was a sinker baller coming up in the era of the forcing festival, right?

32:26.553 --> 32:29.737 [SPEAKER_02]: He was perfectly positioned perfectly time in that

32:30.530 --> 32:40.912 [SPEAKER_02]: at just the moment where all of a sudden, umpire started inspecting gloves and saying like, wait, why is your hands stuck to that ball?

32:40.953 --> 32:47.654 [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, you could hold it like that for forcing, you know, fastball throwers who are getting a little extra ride at the top of the zone.

32:48.574 --> 32:53.155 [SPEAKER_02]: That's not a problem for a Logan Web, because Logan Web is sinkers, sliders, changeups.

32:54.556 --> 32:56.856 [SPEAKER_02]: So we, you know, I can't help but think about a

33:00.449 --> 33:01.310 [SPEAKER_02]: younger than me.

33:01.730 --> 33:08.174 [SPEAKER_02]: You might be like Brandon Webb, but Brandon Webb was a stud for the Dynamics for a stretch of time and then he had injuries and it kind of ended pretty quickly.

33:08.555 --> 33:17.501 [SPEAKER_02]: But he was a stud and it's kind of that same thing of like, you know, I've now gone through two generations of this of like what did we miss with the sinker baller?

33:19.062 --> 33:26.707 [SPEAKER_02]: The part that's, so I would say that we probably undersold his change up again in hindsight,

33:28.682 --> 33:30.203 [SPEAKER_02]: He did have a PED suspension.

33:30.223 --> 33:34.084 [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard not to be colored by that a little bit to have a little bit of concern.

33:34.104 --> 33:40.267 [SPEAKER_02]: It was an 80 game suspension for that he faced before he went to the big leagues.

33:40.307 --> 33:41.928 [SPEAKER_02]: So that was probably in the mind.

33:42.528 --> 33:44.689 [SPEAKER_02]: Control and command are definitely better than we thought.

33:45.650 --> 33:47.370 [SPEAKER_02]: Those are things that we could have seen, I think.

33:47.991 --> 33:57.715 [SPEAKER_02]: The one that you can't project, you can't predict, that has been important and vital, I think, to the lower-level web experience, is he's the most durable picture and baseball, right?

33:59.087 --> 34:05.513 [SPEAKER_02]: he's about to probably lead his league in innings pitched for a third straight season.

34:06.674 --> 34:10.658 [SPEAKER_02]: That's a level of durability that you just don't.

34:12.300 --> 34:14.102 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how you project that, right?

34:14.142 --> 34:17.345 [SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't like he was athletic, he was a football player in high school.

34:17.365 --> 34:18.226 [SPEAKER_02]: There's things you could

34:19.174 --> 34:22.096 [SPEAKER_02]: maybe use as markers, you could like his delivery and all that.

34:22.196 --> 34:32.063 [SPEAKER_02]: But then to say, this guy's going to give you 200 plus innings every single year, that's the part that's more, you know, more difficult to project.

34:32.664 --> 34:41.630 [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think again in his case, like if we had to do over again, it would be like, hey, we're probably, you know,

34:45.680 --> 34:48.041 [SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to have some of the same markers, right?

34:48.261 --> 34:54.104 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you've got to look a little differently on them as far as what stands out.

34:54.224 --> 35:00.567 [SPEAKER_02]: It's not the same thing as if you're talking about a foreseem fastball guy to get it.

35:00.627 --> 35:02.108 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, just to give it an example, right?

35:02.648 --> 35:05.009 [SPEAKER_02]: Logan Web is ended up being much better than Dustin may.

35:05.649 --> 35:12.513 [SPEAKER_02]: But both of them are kind of, Dustin May was for a period of time, kind of like

35:15.848 --> 35:20.671 [SPEAKER_02]: picture because he gets such extreme arm side run on his fastball.

35:22.152 --> 35:26.454 [SPEAKER_02]: That by itself was as productive as it looked, right?

35:26.574 --> 35:31.097 [SPEAKER_02]: It looked great, but it was generally not generating a whole lot of ground balls.

35:31.157 --> 35:33.218 [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't generating a whole ton of swings and misses.

35:34.679 --> 35:40.422 [SPEAKER_02]: Logan Webb may not have looked as impressive, but he was doing all those things.

35:40.482 --> 35:42.183 [SPEAKER_02]: He was getting those things and doing

35:44.988 --> 36:02.180 [SPEAKER_02]: If we had to do over again like again, that's probably the thing like I'm trying to think like the next time we see like a really good sinker, you know, pair with a slider, pair with a board about on the change up and again, and expecting that control and command, one of the things that also does happen with these pictures is like,

36:03.974 --> 36:14.743 [SPEAKER_02]: As you get older, hopefully you start to more understand how that pitch moves on you, that, you know, to take an example that we've talked a lot over the years, right?

36:15.544 --> 36:21.389 [SPEAKER_02]: It's one thing, having seam-shifted wake can be really useful for a pitcher.

36:22.750 --> 36:30.397 [SPEAKER_02]: If, big-if, if you know what you're doing with it, it can make the pitch moves in ways that hitters don't expect.

36:31.600 --> 36:40.987 [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't know what you're doing with it, seam shifted weight can be like, why did my pitch move like that this time and not next time and not the time after that, right?

36:41.227 --> 36:50.334 [SPEAKER_02]: There's a, there is intentional seam shifted weight, which is kind of how the seams basically interact with airflow and make the ball move.

36:50.914 --> 36:56.638 [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's, so there's unintentional, where it's like, it move this time, but it doesn't move next time.

37:01.260 --> 37:07.922 [SPEAKER_02]: where you know what you're doing, you grip it this way, you throw it this way, and it does it time and time again.

37:08.683 --> 37:16.906 [SPEAKER_02]: That's something where there's a challenge of, okay, you know, sometimes someone who doesn't know what they're doing with it as a 21 year old will often figure that out by 24, 25.

37:19.462 --> 37:25.784 [SPEAKER_03]: Let me ask you a question for the people listening to this who want to get a better look until how the sausage is made when it comes to evaluating prospects.

37:26.664 --> 37:34.867 [SPEAKER_03]: How have you utilized some of the things that we've talked about over the course of the last 40 minutes to alter your process?

37:35.087 --> 37:39.508 [SPEAKER_03]: Where have you felt the biggest change over, let's say, a five-year period since 2020?

37:40.328 --> 37:43.069 [SPEAKER_03]: Where have you felt the biggest change in your evaluation of hitters and pitchers?

37:45.905 --> 37:46.865 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, good question.

37:47.646 --> 37:52.408 [SPEAKER_02]: One thing I would say is, I mean, we do, we have more info now.

37:52.848 --> 37:55.430 [SPEAKER_02]: We always want to have more info than we did before, right?

37:55.950 --> 37:59.331 [SPEAKER_02]: And we definitely have more info now than we did five years ago.

38:00.152 --> 38:06.415 [SPEAKER_02]: There are things that, I would say that there are things like that, you're,

38:07.247 --> 38:08.948 [SPEAKER_02]: You always are trying to learn more.

38:09.168 --> 38:17.232 [SPEAKER_02]: If you said one thing five years ago to now is understanding how pitching arsenals all play together, right?

38:17.412 --> 38:26.537 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, okay, this may seem like a great fastball or a great change up, but like this other pitcher fastball slider change up seem to work together better and understanding that.

38:26.817 --> 38:27.317 [SPEAKER_02]: So that'd be one.

38:27.818 --> 38:32.480 [SPEAKER_02]: And understanding, I would say part of it is is like,

38:34.993 --> 38:38.055 [SPEAKER_02]: allowing for what development could mean.

38:38.155 --> 38:43.700 [SPEAKER_02]: And again, the one thing with all of this is we get it, people look at the rankings a lot, right?

38:45.381 --> 39:01.273 [SPEAKER_02]: One thing that does stand out about this though, that again, we always talk about this is we really, like one of the things we wanna do, we don't just rank them, we write full reports on these players, and a lot of times, we talk about this all the time internally.

39:02.520 --> 39:04.361 [SPEAKER_02]: take Spencer Jones right now, right?

39:04.641 --> 39:13.443 [SPEAKER_02]: Like Yankees Prospect, wherever you rank Spencer Jones right now, you have a very high likelihood.

39:14.104 --> 39:14.984 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's pose this one.

39:15.404 --> 39:20.306 [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to rank Spencer Jones is the 500 or 650 best prospect in the game.

39:22.186 --> 39:24.727 [SPEAKER_02]: Feel free and you very well maybe right, right?

39:24.767 --> 39:29.128 [SPEAKER_02]: You could absolutely say his strikeout right meant that he never had a productive big league career.

39:29.929 --> 39:31.169 [SPEAKER_02]: And hey, look, you were right.

39:32.395 --> 39:33.917 [SPEAKER_02]: And that very well may be right.

39:33.977 --> 39:37.080 [SPEAKER_02]: But you have to understand, these aren't, this isn't light switches.

39:37.120 --> 39:42.426 [SPEAKER_02]: This isn't, yes, no, this isn't on off, this isn't code zero or one.

39:43.207 --> 39:44.468 [SPEAKER_02]: These are probabilities.

39:45.369 --> 39:50.495 [SPEAKER_02]: And in Spencer Jones case right now is we're getting ready to head into the off season.

39:52.213 --> 40:02.076 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say that if I was ranking out probabilities, I would say there was a 50% chance that Spencer Jones never has a productive season as a big league record.

40:02.316 --> 40:03.536 [SPEAKER_02]: I'd say 50%, right?

40:03.956 --> 40:06.797 [SPEAKER_02]: If you wanted to argue 60, if you wanted to argue 40, feel free.

40:08.598 --> 40:20.481 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say that there's a 20 to 30% chance that Spencer Jones has ACs in where you're like, oh, Spencer Jones had a productive year because his power really played,

40:21.259 --> 40:31.142 [SPEAKER_02]: But it was sandwiched around two years where the power didn't play because he'd give for such low average, struck out so much that it derailed him, right?

40:31.803 --> 40:40.886 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you said, give me an example that our state is a quino, who had one season where he had 19 homers and 58 games was a two-war player, and that's the only season he did that.

40:41.106 --> 40:44.147 [SPEAKER_02]: Or to take a modern example, Joe Adele,

40:44.762 --> 40:46.803 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what's in the evaluation of Joe Adele right now?

40:46.864 --> 40:49.305 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, do we overrank him or underrank him in the top 100?

40:49.665 --> 40:56.650 [SPEAKER_02]: Because Joe Adele's had kind of an up and down career, but at the same time, he's also, you know, really good as a powerheader this year.

40:56.950 --> 41:01.033 [SPEAKER_02]: Defensively limited asked to do things probably beyond his abilities.

41:01.073 --> 41:02.134 [SPEAKER_02]: That's not really his fault.

41:02.574 --> 41:04.095 [SPEAKER_02]: But that's another example, right?

41:04.496 --> 41:04.616 [SPEAKER_02]: So

41:06.176 --> 41:08.658 [SPEAKER_02]: you're trying to lay out probabilities here.

41:08.698 --> 41:12.641 [SPEAKER_02]: You're trying to lay out hopefully in a report in the scouting report that we write.

41:13.282 --> 41:14.363 [SPEAKER_02]: Here's what we're hearing.

41:14.403 --> 41:18.166 [SPEAKER_02]: Here's what we're seeing as far as the potential outcomes for this player.

41:18.667 --> 41:25.812 [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about it, you know, like we said right there like we talked about with, you know, with Michael Garcia, his report, right?

41:26.333 --> 41:31.057 [SPEAKER_02]: When you talk about Cal Raleigh's report, or are you talking about Christopher Sanchez's report,

41:35.142 --> 41:36.142 [SPEAKER_02]: like Logan WebsterPort.

41:36.781 --> 41:40.564 [SPEAKER_02]: The giants have tremendous faith in web who they believe is one of the best athletes in the system.

41:40.604 --> 41:46.689 [SPEAKER_02]: The right-handers starts his arsenal with a load of mid-fastball that has touched his highest 98, load of mid-90s fastball, such a high-point.

41:47.010 --> 41:48.831 [SPEAKER_02]: But he must refine the command of his fastball.

41:48.851 --> 41:53.235 [SPEAKER_02]: It gets tremendous lateral movement, which web hasn't learned how to consistently harness.

41:53.615 --> 41:58.059 [SPEAKER_02]: He backs the fastball with low-sadly slider and mid-age changeup, he uses a near-equal measure.

41:58.579 --> 42:02.122 [SPEAKER_02]: He worked in 2019 to make his arm slot more consistent on all his pitches.

42:02.703 --> 42:04.804 [SPEAKER_02]: Once he's done that, he quickly moved through the system.

42:06.508 --> 42:07.469 [SPEAKER_02]: That's laying out.

42:08.269 --> 42:10.871 [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, that's one of the best athletes in the system.

42:11.311 --> 42:15.294 [SPEAKER_02]: This is the guy who has some of the best movement on his fastball of anyone they have.

42:16.615 --> 42:21.158 [SPEAKER_02]: So you have kind of the if he can do this, he could be really good.

42:21.858 --> 42:28.043 [SPEAKER_02]: Again, while we got it wrong in hindsight is, he did that maybe we undersold the likelihood he would do that.

42:29.143 --> 42:33.787 [SPEAKER_02]: But I do hope like when we, I don't get as frustrated

42:36.707 --> 42:40.369 [SPEAKER_02]: If the report lays out, this player has this problem.

42:41.049 --> 42:44.171 [SPEAKER_02]: If he can fix this problem, he could be really good.

42:44.191 --> 42:53.035 [SPEAKER_02]: I have a lot less problem with that player end up being really good and it's like, oh, well, we missed on that when he should have ranked higher.

42:53.055 --> 42:53.976 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we should have.

42:55.145 --> 43:08.274 [SPEAKER_02]: But I have much less problem with that one than if one, like if you read a report on a big leaguer and you're reading that report and you say, this has nothing like the player ended up being in the big leagues, that I have much more of a problem.

43:08.354 --> 43:10.515 [SPEAKER_02]: Even if we got the ranking right, if that makes sense, right?

43:10.895 --> 43:15.338 [SPEAKER_02]: Because you're trying to project what the player is going to look like.

43:15.458 --> 43:20.922 [SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes a player has a minor flaw that ends up derailing.

43:20.942 --> 43:24.024 [SPEAKER_02]: And as sometimes they have a major flaw that they end up solving.

43:24.646 --> 43:36.775 [SPEAKER_02]: And both of those can happen, you do want to hopefully provide the information to the reader, to the person who's the baseball player, to subscribe, or to the prospect of handbook purchaser.

43:37.256 --> 43:44.381 [SPEAKER_02]: So then you, as you read it, can make your decision, can make your evaluation on, oh, I believe you can fix that.

43:44.461 --> 43:47.203 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, then maybe you want to rank that player higher than we did.

43:47.804 --> 43:51.186 [SPEAKER_02]: Or you say, you know, but this is something

43:52.490 --> 44:04.643 [SPEAKER_02]: The best we can do like if we're doing this right like we just did our DSL top 35 recently right and I get it we have some metz fans who are not real thrilled with where we ranked eelian paemia that's fine

44:05.781 --> 44:20.869 [SPEAKER_02]: Just understand, we ranked him there because we talked to, I think, Josh talked to five different scouts who saw Elympania in the DSL and the consistent reports were mature body, not really a whole lot of, or I don't know how there's a plus tool here.

44:21.270 --> 44:21.730 [SPEAKER_02]: Good hitter.

44:21.750 --> 44:25.312 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it's going to be great hitter, but good hitter, don't know if it's going to be a good defender.

44:26.513 --> 44:27.434 [SPEAKER_02]: We're trying to reflect that.

44:27.474 --> 44:28.434 [SPEAKER_02]: We're trying to relay that.

44:28.534 --> 44:36.579 [SPEAKER_02]: And that doesn't mean like if you read the report that we wrote about Ealy and Payne and the DSL, it didn't say this guy's a boss, this guy's a bomb, this guy's not going to be anything.

44:37.139 --> 44:43.804 [SPEAKER_02]: It was, this guy could be good, but he wrote it concerns, and here's what could, from being great.

44:45.164 --> 44:49.847 [SPEAKER_02]: And then there are other players in the DSL that, the right up, if you read the right up, it's like, this guy's not even

44:52.137 --> 44:56.680 [SPEAKER_02]: This guy has to fix this, and he has to fix this, and he has to fix this, and he has to fix this.

44:57.341 --> 45:00.984 [SPEAKER_02]: However, he also could be great because of this.

45:01.964 --> 45:06.087 [SPEAKER_02]: You, the reader, can then say, okay, I have this information.

45:07.509 --> 45:21.159 [SPEAKER_02]: I can take a chance on kill-fraity in Karnasioen who is more volatile and riskier I would say at this point than juggling dynamite, but at the same time,

45:21.924 --> 45:26.667 [SPEAKER_02]: But all comes together, watch out, or you could say, I don't want to deal with someone that risky.

45:26.867 --> 45:30.570 [SPEAKER_02]: I want to take the Elie and Payneas, where it's like this guy finished really strong.

45:31.110 --> 45:31.351 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

45:31.391 --> 45:33.472 [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe he's going to be a solid player, but I want that.

45:33.552 --> 45:40.457 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's a higher likelihood of that turning out than the player who hasn't thrown many innings has a lot of things they have to fix.

45:41.367 --> 46:00.236 [SPEAKER_03]: So does this make you more risk tolerant, does the degree of risk tolerance and crease with all of this being said and has it increased over the years because it seems to me at least from our conversation that you may be better off trying to be more aggressive in both your projections and your ranking of somebody who you think has a chance to be really good.

46:00.917 --> 46:06.399 [SPEAKER_03]: As opposed to catering to potentially what they are or more underdeveloped areas of their game.

46:06.419 --> 46:09.661 [SPEAKER_03]: You don't always have to be safe is seemingly one of the takeaways here.

46:11.435 --> 46:13.477 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say yes to an extent, right?

46:13.737 --> 46:27.972 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, if you wanna try to nail the late developing AAA, M-I-L-B-Vet, I don't think that that's a very follow, I don't think that's a very fertile ground to, to, to, you know, to fish in, right?

46:28.012 --> 46:30.455 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, and you're every now and then you're gonna hit the guy who,

46:31.773 --> 46:35.796 [SPEAKER_02]: has that one year in the big leagues and then kind of flings out again, right?

46:35.876 --> 46:43.380 [SPEAKER_02]: Like if you're saying like I'm going to look at the best performing 25, 26 year olds in the major leagues and you say that's where I'm going to focus.

46:44.261 --> 46:47.103 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if that's where you really want to to aim, right?

46:48.103 --> 46:59.371 [SPEAKER_02]: At the same time also understand if you say I'm only going to be interested in 19 year olds in rookie ball or 17 year olds in rookie ball, you're also going to have more misses than

47:03.360 --> 47:07.248 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's where, again, if you say, what are we trying to do here, right?

47:10.074 --> 47:14.263 [SPEAKER_02]: Two guys who I'd say like I'm very happy with will in this on a positive note, the segment, right?

47:15.892 --> 47:20.596 [SPEAKER_02]: Thankfully, most of the players who have been very productive this year did rank in the top 100.

47:20.916 --> 47:23.118 [SPEAKER_02]: Thankfully, most of them rank pretty high in the top 100.

47:23.739 --> 47:34.027 [SPEAKER_02]: So thankfully, we do have misses, but thankfully, the majority of players, you say, the vast majority of players who are the best players in the big leagues are top 100 prospects.

47:34.348 --> 47:36.890 [SPEAKER_02]: That's just true.

47:38.517 --> 47:41.780 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say with this like if you look at this year and we don't know yet, right?

47:41.820 --> 47:44.602 [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know if Connor Griffin is going to be a long-term success story.

47:44.622 --> 47:47.024 [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know if Kevin McGonagall is going to be a long-term success story.

47:47.485 --> 47:49.606 [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know if Hazard's mod 8.

47:49.646 --> 48:01.556 [SPEAKER_02]: Those are our top prospects in the game now, but I will say with all of them, they already are successes in some form from the standpoint of if the pirates today wanted to trade

48:07.043 --> 48:09.410 [SPEAKER_02]: They could get a King's ransom.

48:10.235 --> 48:10.976 [SPEAKER_02]: for Connor Griffin.

48:11.056 --> 48:15.619 [SPEAKER_02]: They could get so much more than they could, the day after they drafted him.

48:15.639 --> 48:22.465 [SPEAKER_02]: And yes, I understand you can't trade drafted players for six months after their drafted until after the season and all that, please.

48:23.566 --> 48:26.168 [SPEAKER_02]: You can leave that comment if you want on YouTube, but I am aware.

48:26.488 --> 48:32.533 [SPEAKER_02]: But like I'm saying, but if you look at where Connor Griffin was valued at the time of the draft, Twery is now, he is massively further along.

48:32.673 --> 48:38.718 [SPEAKER_02]: If you look at where Hazel's mod A, who, by the way, was valued by teams when he was in the DSL, but where he is valued now.

48:39.847 --> 48:41.188 [SPEAKER_02]: way, way more.

48:42.148 --> 48:43.308 [SPEAKER_02]: So those things are always successors.

48:43.588 --> 48:45.309 [SPEAKER_02]: But we don't know if they're going to pay off as big leaders.

48:45.889 --> 48:52.731 [SPEAKER_02]: However, those are synthesis of synthesizing, of trying to do all we do, right?

48:52.791 --> 48:54.892 [SPEAKER_02]: We got really good reports.

48:55.312 --> 49:03.855 [SPEAKER_02]: Josh Norris for us went down the DSL last year, and everyone down there was raving that Jesus' body, mod day was a player you had to see, right?

49:04.495 --> 49:05.556 [SPEAKER_02]: And then we got data.

49:10.040 --> 49:17.206 [SPEAKER_02]: You don't see plate discipline numbers like this from a DSL hitter, like you're seeing from mod it.

49:17.226 --> 49:24.392 [SPEAKER_02]: You're seeing the plate discipline of a 25-year-old MLB that is really good at it, doing that against pictures who

49:25.150 --> 49:28.232 [SPEAKER_02]: you know are all over the zone from pitch to pitch.

49:28.972 --> 49:33.955 [SPEAKER_02]: And so you marry and then you talk to scouts who were like the tools for him are really good.

49:34.095 --> 49:43.159 [SPEAKER_02]: All these things together and you try to put all that together and say, okay, that's where that's where that's why we're going to be really aggressive with the hazes money.

49:43.519 --> 49:48.222 [SPEAKER_02]: That's why there were questions about Connor Griffin's hit tool in the coming into the draft.

49:49.592 --> 49:52.934 [SPEAKER_02]: but the athleticism, the tools were exceptional.

49:53.494 --> 50:02.678 [SPEAKER_02]: So in his case, it was like, okay, we understand there's a lot of risk here, but these aspects make him still a top 100 pros, but even with that risk.

50:03.118 --> 50:06.940 [SPEAKER_02]: And then I remember us through, you know, you can check it out on YouTube.

50:07.180 --> 50:11.142 [SPEAKER_02]: We did videos on it in spring training where like, hey, his sligs better now.

50:12.008 --> 50:12.588 [SPEAKER_02]: We looked at it.

50:13.068 --> 50:13.769 [SPEAKER_02]: Now we've seen it.

50:14.149 --> 50:16.710 [SPEAKER_02]: We've talked to people, you know, scouts and all.

50:17.170 --> 50:17.710 [SPEAKER_02]: This is guy.

50:17.730 --> 50:20.051 [SPEAKER_02]: He's got a better swing now than he did in high school.

50:20.532 --> 50:21.572 [SPEAKER_02]: And then you saw him take off.

50:21.872 --> 50:27.895 [SPEAKER_02]: The flip side of that is Kevin McGonagall, who no one ever had a question about Kevin McGonagall's hitting ability.

50:28.395 --> 50:30.136 [SPEAKER_02]: But I want to give Ben Badler credit on this one.

50:30.156 --> 50:32.617 [SPEAKER_02]: Ben saw him for years, you know, as an amateur.

50:33.117 --> 50:34.257 [SPEAKER_02]: And always loved him.

50:35.018 --> 50:38.199 [SPEAKER_02]: And with McGonagall, it was like, no, he's a better athlete than

50:39.039 --> 50:48.583 [SPEAKER_02]: Right, not gonna say he's gonna be a seven defender at short, but this guy can really hit, there's power's gonna develop, and he is a middle-infielder, you know.

50:48.883 --> 50:55.425 [SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, I'll get now great, it's like, okay, it might be a six or a seven at second ballerope, maybe that's what he ends up being.

50:55.905 --> 51:01.968 [SPEAKER_02]: Probably the best defensive second baseman that the Tigers have had a long time because they've had a lot of pretty fringy second baseman defensively.

51:02.508 --> 51:02.688 [SPEAKER_02]: But,

51:04.057 --> 51:08.180 [SPEAKER_02]: that's where you try to put all this together and then be aggressive.

51:08.300 --> 51:18.648 [SPEAKER_02]: But again, you want to be it's the okay, I'll go all admiral nimmits, you know, and World War II here is called calculated risk, right?

51:19.249 --> 51:30.077 [SPEAKER_02]: So you're not just taking giant wild swings, you're trying to marry all this together and fit the pieces together to try as best you can to line it up.

51:30.377 --> 51:31.538 [SPEAKER_02]: And this is where we learn from this,

51:34.648 --> 51:46.375 [SPEAKER_02]: What you're really trying to do is figure out like, yeah, you're really are trying to figure out who are going to be above average regular long term right.

51:47.197 --> 51:55.102 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying we're not trying to, in our handbook, we want to write up everyone who is a productive regular of any sort, and some contributing players and all that.

51:55.742 --> 51:58.524 [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm not going to beat myself up.

51:59.004 --> 52:10.912 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to beat you up, you know, like if you write, turn in a Marlon chapter, and you miss on a guy who got 50 unproductive at bats and the big leagues three years from now, and you say you didn't have that big league around it.

52:12.433 --> 52:14.654 [SPEAKER_02]: That's not, I'm not feeling bad about that.

52:16.739 --> 52:37.392 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we do, even if it ends up being in a different organization, we don't want to miss on when, you know, when Xavier Edwards, right, who's ended up being a very productive player for the marlins, run him up for Padre's, we wrote him up for the raise, and we always just said, Scott could really hit questions about his defense and other questions, but the guy can really hit.

52:38.072 --> 52:38.732 [SPEAKER_02]: That's where you want.

52:38.752 --> 52:42.695 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, okay, this guy has a tool that could make him a productive big league right little uncle.

52:44.382 --> 53:09.297 [SPEAKER_03]: Last thing I want to talk about with you before we jump on our prospect soap boxes here is there a common thread JJ between the people who we end up quote unquote missing on as we have this discussion we talked about Logan Webb and Christopher Sanchez and Mike how Garcia is there's something that they share in common that led to them all being included in this conversation

53:11.522 --> 53:13.064 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know about there's a common truck things.

53:13.104 --> 53:17.509 [SPEAKER_02]: Those four, I would say the one that we still are working on as best we can.

53:17.529 --> 53:20.772 [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about it at the start of this with CalRoll, that catching's really hard.

53:22.114 --> 53:24.236 [SPEAKER_02]: Evaluating catching is really hard.

53:25.017 --> 53:26.419 [SPEAKER_02]: I want to get better at that, right?

53:26.479 --> 53:27.940 [SPEAKER_02]: I want us to keep getting better at that.

53:29.980 --> 53:33.482 [SPEAKER_02]: We're trying, like, we were talking about the Marlins, right?

53:33.542 --> 53:35.504 [SPEAKER_02]: Like the Marlins have like seven catching prospects.

53:36.044 --> 53:41.427 [SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like on Augustine Ramirez, we've gotten that one so far, nailed pretty well, which was this guy can hit.

53:41.908 --> 53:47.011 [SPEAKER_02]: We don't think defensively like the reports we have, are that defensively it's not gonna work out necessarily.

53:47.852 --> 53:54.356 [SPEAKER_02]: Joe Mack, you know, we've, like, I think is kind of a more well-rounded, but we'll see what Joe Mack ends up being, for example.

53:55.084 --> 54:22.285 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, I would say though that also like you look at rule five, pick Liam Hicks, I would say that I've been surprised by how useful Liam Hicks has been this year, and I've likely him Hicks for a number of years, but these are again, it's I would say catching is really hard because to take the extreme example of it, Patrick Bailey's really good, Patrick Bailey's really good, but Patrick Bailey's value is something that like

54:24.073 --> 54:38.105 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if we had perfect time site would you be able to say, okay, really like Patrick Bailey's glove, but he's going to be the best framer in the big leagues by such a large margin that it will make him one of the better catchers in the big leagues.

54:38.968 --> 54:48.979 [SPEAKER_02]: That's harder to even now today to project on than it is to say that JT World Muto, a few years ago is like this is a really good athlete who can also catch, right?

54:48.999 --> 54:50.020 [SPEAKER_02]: It was a strong arm.

54:50.741 --> 54:57.108 [SPEAKER_02]: It's easier to hit on the JT Real Muto's of the world as a valuation than it is, the Patrick Bailey's is the way I would put it.

54:58.236 --> 55:01.899 [SPEAKER_03]: All right, JJ, it is Prospect's soapbox time.

55:02.940 --> 55:04.401 [SPEAKER_03]: We've had plenty of time to think about this.

55:04.501 --> 55:06.803 [SPEAKER_03]: Who are you going to stand for today?

55:07.503 --> 55:09.685 [SPEAKER_02]: OK, I'm going to go with, I was talking about this.

55:09.765 --> 55:12.628 [SPEAKER_02]: His guy in the chat today that we was we recorded this.

55:12.908 --> 55:16.050 [SPEAKER_02]: We did the chat on Tuesday at baseballamerica.com.

55:16.070 --> 55:17.171 [SPEAKER_02]: We tried to chat most weeks.

55:17.371 --> 55:19.293 [SPEAKER_02]: So check it out if you didn't.

55:19.793 --> 55:24.137 [SPEAKER_02]: But someone asked, he said, who's the Braise Prospect most likely to pop?

55:25.423 --> 55:33.085 [SPEAKER_02]: And I will tell you, as someone who's done braids list, well, someone who's covered the braids, let me put this way, going back into the 90s, right?

55:35.218 --> 55:43.505 [SPEAKER_02]: It feels like that going back to, I got to see Dr. Ming die play in the outfield in the Braise minor leagues.

55:43.805 --> 55:44.886 [SPEAKER_02]: I got to see Andrew Jones.

55:45.587 --> 55:55.395 [SPEAKER_02]: I got to see, you know, you could just, it felt like that the brave just had this never-ending run Ronald Akunia, obviously stands very much, stands out over the years.

55:55.795 --> 55:57.617 [SPEAKER_02]: This never-ending run of outfield prospects.

55:59.555 --> 56:04.119 [SPEAKER_02]: After Michael Harris, that pretty much dried up for a while there, right?

56:04.199 --> 56:12.485 [SPEAKER_02]: Like I would say that you could look around and say for a couple years there, who's the next great brace out to the prospect and you could say, I don't think there is one.

56:13.706 --> 56:17.269 [SPEAKER_02]: I am not going to tell you that Diego Tores is that.

56:18.408 --> 56:21.350 [SPEAKER_02]: I will say that there's at least a chance he could be.

56:21.890 --> 56:23.652 [SPEAKER_02]: Again, I want to give credit Josh Norris.

56:23.752 --> 56:25.133 [SPEAKER_02]: He's the one who went down the DSL.

56:25.473 --> 56:29.155 [SPEAKER_02]: He's the one who talked to a ton of scouts who evaluate players in DSL.

56:29.856 --> 56:33.098 [SPEAKER_02]: He's the one who did our top 35 DSL prospects.

56:33.678 --> 56:41.123 [SPEAKER_02]: But if you look at the notes we have on Tornas, it does stand out that this is a guy who far, far, far away.

56:41.224 --> 56:44.266 [SPEAKER_02]: You asked a question about balancing risk versus reward.

56:44.986 --> 56:49.990 [SPEAKER_02]: This is all kind of risk with all kind of potential reward, but we'll see how much reward you get.

56:50.751 --> 57:08.585 [SPEAKER_02]: But I will say, if you look at it, you can say, if it all pans out, this guy could be a very solid, a very productive, big league regular, which is, again, that's better than any brace outfield prospect that we can talk about for good number of years now.

57:09.265 --> 57:09.786 [SPEAKER_03]: What about for you?

57:10.837 --> 57:11.657 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to talk pitching.

57:11.677 --> 57:14.078 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to actually have him glad that we're going to have one of each here.

57:14.158 --> 57:17.859 [SPEAKER_03]: And for me, it's Carson Millbrant of the Marlin system.

57:18.339 --> 57:24.641 [SPEAKER_03]: First of all, Carson Millbrant is finally in double A. He made two AA starts and looked really good doing them.

57:25.081 --> 57:27.242 [SPEAKER_03]: One of the biggest things about him going into the season.

57:27.282 --> 57:34.204 [SPEAKER_03]: And one of the reasons why he is towards the bottom of our Marlin's top 30 is because his timeline of progression has been reasonably slow.

57:34.284 --> 57:37.825 [SPEAKER_03]: So first of all, 21 year old Carson is now in double A. However,

57:38.305 --> 57:42.569 [SPEAKER_03]: The biggest thing for me is that he has redesigned himself and his pitchmix.

57:42.629 --> 57:47.252 [SPEAKER_03]: He's 20 pounds heavier than he was in 2024, according to a couple sources with the Marlins.

57:47.633 --> 57:51.516 [SPEAKER_03]: That has helped him throw better strikes and to maintain his technique a little bit better.

57:51.876 --> 57:52.817 [SPEAKER_03]: He's stronger.

57:52.937 --> 57:59.082 [SPEAKER_03]: He didn't play as much baseball in the off season as he had in the past and focusing on strength and conditioning has helped him.

57:59.442 --> 58:02.245 [SPEAKER_03]: The other change that's been really beneficial for Carson Millbrank.

58:02.345 --> 58:06.088 [SPEAKER_03]: And one of the reasons why, as the Marlins guy, I can forecast some

58:06.528 --> 58:32.905 [SPEAKER_03]: Significant upwards movement in our next ranking of the Marlins top 30 is he's throwing pitches differently He's using his slider more often about 30% of the time and he's throwing that tight curve ball a lot more as well Both pitches have been really good at generating swings and misses the Marlins are super high on this guy He's going to play in the AFL this fall has a three ERA 90 innings with I believe 113 total strikeouts the control is still a problem JJ, but

58:33.365 --> 58:44.892 [SPEAKER_03]: This seems like a picture on the rise in an organization that, as we'll appear on baseball America.com in the coming days, has done a really good job of kind of changing things up in its development and making players look a lot better than they have in recent years.

58:46.713 --> 58:49.714 [SPEAKER_02]: I think you had on a key point there when we talk about development, right?

58:50.235 --> 58:56.098 [SPEAKER_02]: You talked about, we often talk about players developing getting stronger physically and how that can increase their velocity.

58:57.183 --> 59:04.244 [SPEAKER_02]: You had on another key part though here, which is getting stronger also can be often the difference of throwing more strikes.

59:04.744 --> 59:07.305 [SPEAKER_02]: Because I see this a lot.

59:07.345 --> 59:11.626 [SPEAKER_02]: Like I used to really get worried when I saw headwax among amateur pitchers.

59:12.106 --> 59:22.188 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you're wondering what a headwax is, think if it is like, you know, sometimes they're facing down as they're at release point because they're almost using their head to help pull their arm through.

59:23.558 --> 59:28.681 [SPEAKER_02]: And I've come to realize, I'm not saying you don't see that in pro ball, but you don't see it nearly as often in pro ball.

59:28.701 --> 59:29.521 [SPEAKER_02]: And why is that?

59:30.081 --> 59:39.966 [SPEAKER_02]: It's because the guys who are doing that is 16, 17 year olds usually, it's because their bodies aren't strong enough to do everything the way they should do it yet.

59:40.747 --> 59:48.711 [SPEAKER_02]: And often, whether it's through weight room work or just natural maturation or often both and eating well, doing all these things, right?

59:49.795 --> 01:00:07.102 [SPEAKER_02]: It can be the thing where that goes away because all of a sudden as they just get into their low early 20s, you know, no, they fill out, they mature and then all of a sudden the things that were hard for them to do pitch after pitch become much easier because they're stronger.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I do think like that's a good point you may with Millbrain is his controls gotten better partly because he's stronger.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not just like we can talk about refining deliveries and all that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I feel like that delivery or payment or repeating release points and all this comes down to I'm now strong enough to do it whereas before I was.

[SPEAKER_03]: There you go.

[SPEAKER_03]: You heard it here on the Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's going to do it for this episode of the Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: Before we let you go though, we do want to encourage you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Head on over to BaseballAmerica.com to check out what we're all writing.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's lots of content going up on the site.

[SPEAKER_03]: Even if it's slow season for some parts of the baseball world, also head on over to YouTube, Baseball America YouTube channel, constantly pumping out content over there.

[SPEAKER_03]: For JJ Cooper though, I'm Jacob Rudner, and we will see you next time.