[SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, JJ Cooper, Josh Norris, Jeff Ponds, Baseball America, Prospect Podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: Here we are again, it's a big one this week.

[SPEAKER_02]: We had the hot cheat show.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we announced that Conradriff in his Baseball America's 2025 minor league player the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Today, or as we record this, we also announced that Jonathan is Baseball America's pitcher, minor league pitcher the year this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Metz, Jonathan, pirate shortstop, Conradriff in.

[SPEAKER_02]: But today, on the podcast, we figured, you know, we got to talk a little bit about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We got to talk to Connor on the hot sheet show.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we wanted to go into more detail.

[SPEAKER_02]: We wanted to give you much more background, much more deep dive into Connor Griffin's season and Connor Griffin the prospect.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we're gonna do that here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Great to see you, Josh, great to see you, Jeff.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think, thankfully, I can say that all three of us got to see Connor Griffin play in person this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: All right, on that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I didn't know you saw him, David.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, future's game, baby.

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah, that thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: Josh and myself actually saw, I would, I would describe it as, we were there when the gospel was written of the cross.

[SPEAKER_04]: That was, you were there on the backfields.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I want to give Josh credit as well.

[SPEAKER_04]: Some of his reporting in the off in the preseason, you know, he does his article of like guys that are popping out the scouts.

[SPEAKER_04]: If I'm not mistaken, you talked a little bit about the improved stuff from Jonah Tong at that point, and we're really early on it.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just going to pat us on the back here.

[SPEAKER_04]: We don't do this often, but this is the value of Read and Baseball American having a sub.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will acknowledge that, even though I do not remember it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, I know the only thing I want to take credit for is that I,

[SPEAKER_00]: put my camera in a spot where it absolutely should not have been in Bradenton, but that's the the joy of being there four hours early and it's kind of like sticking around like the pink panther and it worked out that he he hit a triple and I had it with like three different angles on two different cameras all in Trevor Harrison.

[SPEAKER_00]: And on my phone as well, because I went over and shot it and I think we had another two.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have the

[SPEAKER_02]: And let me just note, if you're watching on YouTube, if you watch these regularly, you have seen that triple, you're seeing it again on this one.

[SPEAKER_02]: But you have seen that triple probably at least six or seven times because I do the editing of these videos and I love that video because it perfectly illustrates the athleticism, the power of the speed, the swing, all these aspects of kind of grip it.

[SPEAKER_02]: to kind of jump in on this.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk a little bit about, okay, we always analyze this, we always talk this through.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so one question you could kind of ask and we often get asked is, so how tough was a decision this year?

[SPEAKER_02]: It was a great year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, again, tong is someone that you could easily say, makes a case, even with 113 endings, plus is major league time, to be player of the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Kevin McGonagall, I think you could very much make an easy case for in a normal year.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I look at this year, when we got to the end of it, we were talking about it in early August, I feel like, and saying, depends on what the gonigled does the rest of the year, depends on what Griffin does, depends what Tong maybe does.

[SPEAKER_02]: We got to the end of August.

[SPEAKER_02]: We got to looking ahead, and I would put it this way.

[SPEAKER_02]: We knew that

[SPEAKER_02]: Erie was going to play out Tuna in the playoffs, so he said Jeff planned to go there, but by the time we even used you were booking to go there, I feel like by then we kind of knew you were not going to talk to Kevin McGonagall for minor league player here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I, and I don't think that was necessarily a, a knock on a gone go.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was, and this is something I feel like if you look historically back on, you know, some of the guys that have come up top prospects that have turned into superstars often as they level up.

[SPEAKER_04]: their play levels up as well.

[SPEAKER_04]: And that's something that we saw from Griffin where he didn't just get better from week to week and month to month throughout the season when he made that jump from low A to high A his overall line and comparison to his peers was better in high A than it had been in low A.

[SPEAKER_04]: He then moved up and it was only four weeks of time, about 20, 21, 22 games prior to the playoffs for Griffin at double A, when you consider how young he is at 19 years old in the same league as Kevin McGonagall and actually produced an even better line than he had in high A. So I think you sort of look at that and he talked a little bit about this and we have some quotes from him in this regard within the player the year article.

[SPEAKER_04]: and he talked a little bit about it on the hot sheet show yesterday, he's constantly making adjustments, constantly looking to improve, you know, taking on the struggles that he might have at a particular level early on, head on and figuring out, all right, what do we need to do to adjust it?

[SPEAKER_04]: And he has sort of that natural athleticism and aptitude to be able to make those changes.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I think when we do dig into the annuals of great prospects over the years that we've written up and covered, the guys who do succeed and turn into superstars at the majorly level or guys that have that aptitude.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's what makes, you know, makes, excuse me, that's what makes them was called in Bubba Chandler.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's what makes Connor Griffin stand out from the rest of my opinion.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Josh, like, so like if we look at it,

[SPEAKER_02]: Connor Riffin played the same levels of chemical, more lower level time I would say the mechanical, but low AA, AA for both of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's younger than mechanical.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had a higher batting average, he had a higher on base.

[SPEAKER_02]: The mechanical had more power, had better slugging percentage.

[SPEAKER_02]: But probably the, I would say the other separator there is, he's better defensively as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he played

[SPEAKER_02]: 122 games, 563 played appearances.

[SPEAKER_02]: The McDonald's will miss some time 88 games, 397 played appearances.

[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like when we added it all up, it's nothing against the McDonald's, but Griffin had the right stats generally.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had the counting stats.

[SPEAKER_02]: He has the speed.

[SPEAKER_02]: He has the defense.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he has an age advantage.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're just really, it was kind of like check, check, check, check, check.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm not going to hold the.

[SPEAKER_00]: injury against him and still happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not going to hold his age against him because that's how it works.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was drafted first, but you know, he checked every box sit every low.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't know how to, any other way to put it except he has it, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: You just watch him and he's got the star factor.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got the effector.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's electric and everything he does.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say this when we were doing, when I did those backfield stories, the one thing that kept coming up was shortstopper outfield, shortstopper outfield.

[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody seemed to say probably outfield.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably shortstop at this point and it's probably a pretty dang good shortstop and that kind of speaks to what Jeff was saying like he obviously worked at it and you know, I think if you put it in center field too.

[SPEAKER_00]: pretty dang good center fielder like he was he wasn't just some guy they stuck out there in spring training he was making like highlight real plays in the outfield.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is athleticism, aptitude, tools, skills as the kids like to say or a like he's he's got it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just jumps off the page like I wanted to vamp a little bit and go get my note pad upstairs but

[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote at the end of my notes.

[SPEAKER_00]: It said like, everything this kid does is magic.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is earmarked for superstar to most clearly as any player I've ever seen.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So, okay, that just jumps into.

[SPEAKER_02]: When we say, what stood out about Connor Griffin's season?

[SPEAKER_02]: So,

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say like now we're going to take a little bit through the journey, you know, Jeff wrote the piece up at baseballamerican.com about this, um, we talked to him again on the hot sheet show.

[SPEAKER_02]: The thing that jumps out to me, most about this season is how far Connor Griffin has come in, but I would really describe as you could say two years, right, because

[SPEAKER_02]: The summer before your draft year for a high school prospect is very important, is significant in how you develop and how you're viewed.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say that that point, Connor Griffith could largely be summarized as, he's really athletic, he's really tooled up.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of potential here.

[SPEAKER_02]: However, there's also a lot of risk, a lot of concern about the hit tool, a lot of concern about is this going to be a hitter

[SPEAKER_02]: fills out and develops into a well-rounded player, or is he going to be one of those tooled up players who can run and can hit for power, but the problem is if you only make contact, 45, 50% of the time, you swing it wrong pitches, all these things, then it doesn't really matter, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And it seems almost crazy to think that that was an honest to goodness.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was not a bad evaluator.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a bad scouting viewpoint of Kevin Garner Griffin at the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Connor Griffin talked about it himself when we talked about the Hatchi show.

[SPEAKER_02]: that he had an arm bar, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like when you're looking at swings and arm bar where you are not really kind of having that same fluidity is something significant to worry about in a hit tool.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had swing in these issues.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had to adjust to hit velocity better.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had to get bigger and stronger, which he's added 15 pounds since he was drafted.

[SPEAKER_02]: All these things where I would say that Jeff, like one of the things that jumps out about it

[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of the summary of scouting, but also the summary of how players at these ages that we're talking about with teenagers can change so dramatically so quickly.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you look at Connor Griffin now, compared to what he looked like, going into a senior year of high school, they almost looked like two different people.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I think, you know, you look at,

[SPEAKER_04]: the body, number one, that he's certainly as added muscle.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that that naturally happens as you age, he's not going to hit his physical peak until he's probably 25, 26, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: So there's more muscle, more strength, that could potentially be added onto this frame.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think you even look at Roman Anthony over the last two years when he entered Pro Ball to the guy that stepped on the field at Fenway when he made his debut, different body types, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Griffin is even bigger and more athletic and you know, I think like you talked about the improvements in the swing obviously, a big part of it for him was just like he conned.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like the two times I talked about it because I talked to him about the swing change a little bit at the future's game and some quotes there and then kind of revisited it when I presented him with the award and had an opportunity to chat them a little bit.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was just keeping it simple.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like for him, it was like, hey, like I was doing all this other stuff and just trying to more or less like move my arms in a fluid way, engage my lower half, get more into my back leg and be less on my front foot.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think even more so than the arm bar, when you watch his lower half, they talked about this a little bit on the hot sheet show yesterday.

[SPEAKER_04]: He really does get into his back leg.

[SPEAKER_04]: He was very forward on his front foot quite often, which if you were stuck in between a little bit or head on a breaking ball, you can look really goofy.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's very much like a fastball kind of a swing.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it allowed him to make those adjustments still be on time with the fastball and catch those breaking balls out front and be able to do damage.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think some of it was timing stuff, some of it was just improving how we moved.

[SPEAKER_04]: We talked about that sort of first move, and I think you see that's a lot better than it was when he was in high school.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think the remarkable part is that he kind of worked on it with his father who is, I think, a college softball coach.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm glad at him, but, you know, as a dad who works and just through BP of an hour ago to my son, it gives me sort of,

[SPEAKER_04]: some inspiration.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I think it's, you know, he's just such an interesting player, an interesting athlete.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think he's very self-aware, just in terms of his abilities as well.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we were talking about short stop.

[SPEAKER_04]: He really did talk about how center field comes much more naturally to him.

[SPEAKER_04]: then shortstop did and then in high school he was really just out through trying to be athletic and make plays and now he's thinking a little bit more about playing the position you know where to be where to be positioned and you know playing it a little bit more controlled then he's always had the big arm you know was a two-way player in high school and a pretty decent pitching prospect in addition to being the hitter that he is so he's maybe the first guy that I

[SPEAKER_04]: 60-year better tools may be across the board, especially as this hit-tools continue to improve with each level.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's just a very unique player.

[SPEAKER_02]: So Josh, like, with a player like this, you got to see him in Greensboro, uh, just an audition, one gate.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not home or if I'm remembering correctly in that way.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And song spring training.

[SPEAKER_02]: Talk to people about him through the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think the thing out that, okay, I'll set it up this way.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love that you share the story recently when you are talking about the grades in the minors, right, great prospects, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: One of the ways you know that you're talking about great prospects is when you're having a completely different conversation with someone who has nothing to do with that team, right, that prospect.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that, and a name ends up coming up, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: You've gotten out with Connor Griffin, haven't you?

[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, my favorite one is a bunch of years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's another new icon of Griffin, but I was doing my eastern league top 20 call and I said one of the scouts was like, I don't want to talk about Joey Gallo.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not in the eastern league.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about Joey Gallo.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not very helpful, but we'll talk about Joey Gallo.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite people that scout, but that was a really weird conversation, but yeah, somebody's guys do bring up these guys unprompted or every so often you'll get a text out of the blue like, hey, this guy is really good, you know, last year, uh, Jaden Ham.

[SPEAKER_00]: came up and it hasn't gone as great for him, but it was guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody started getting text about him.

[SPEAKER_00]: A better example is Ellie Gaila Cruz a couple years ago was, I felt like my social life can be summed up, because I was getting more text about Ellie Gaila Cruz than my own family at that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, Connor Griffin, every year like, hey, this guy, I'm not going to say the

[SPEAKER_02]: are on their way to coming true right now he's just he was just on the front of everybody's lips all year uh... it's not a fluke man so i want to get further into kind of our impressions and what is stood out and what are reporting what we've gotten on kind of grip of this year and we'll do more of that right afters quick break

[SPEAKER_02]: And we're back.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I call this in-person looks this topic, but it's really more than that.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's really just our impressions what we've gathered at Connor Griffin.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm gonna start, and I'll tend to go to Josh and then to Jeff.

[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the things that jumps out to me, there are two things that I would say from seeing Connor Griffin in person talking to him, seeing him play in person, but also watching him a lot, you know, across the season, dialing him up on synergy sports and watching.

[SPEAKER_02]: One is, like, I do think if you are listening to the podcast and you have not seen video, if you have not seen pictures of Connor Griffin now.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I do think it's worth seeing, like, just how big he is now.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is, as he described himself, six foot four, two hundred and twenty-five pounds.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is,

[SPEAKER_02]: That is like very built for a teenager playing baseball.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's built for a teenager getting ready to go into the NFL.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just be clear, like that all true.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the thing I would say with it is is, and we can talk about a speed, and we can talk about a zarm, and we can talk about all these things.

[SPEAKER_02]: The thing that I jumps out to me is,

[SPEAKER_02]: asked him about this on our hot sheet show.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are multiple plays this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says that he's more comfortable than the outfield.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the plays stand out to me is him at shortstop.

[SPEAKER_02]: And a pop fly is hit directly behind the shortstop, or a little bit to the shortstop left or right.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would say 40 feet beyond the infield, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Where?

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that's generally Elie De La Cruz is the guy who stands out to me who's really good at that play in the majors as a short stop.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that's a tough play for a short stop, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because normally, it's not something you do very often.

[SPEAKER_02]: But Connor Griffin flips his hips to do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is a body control and a flexibility there to go with the strength that you just don't see from a whole lot of players.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would describe it as something like, again, as someone who likes football

[SPEAKER_02]: The separator between a corner back is a really good corner back and a guy who can run a fourth three who's not a good corner back is the difference between the guy who has that kind of hip mobility to flip the hips and go back and forth and make sudden moves like that and guys you don't.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not many six foot four, 225 guys pound guys have that ability to flip the hips like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Connor Griffin is a guy who can flip his hips like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's one thing that stood out to me

[SPEAKER_02]: He would be big.

[SPEAKER_02]: He would be one of the bigger, more physically imposing players on a big league club right now, and again, he hasn't turned 20 yet.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's something stood out to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Josh, what about you from your, again, whether it's from in person, whether it's from reporting you've done this year, or over the years?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just, you don't see that kind of size paired with that kind of athleticism and kind of what you just said, and that kind of speed, and it's just,

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say this in the nicest way possible.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a freak.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't see that kind of freaky athleticism from that kind of size, and that kind of eight, and that kind of,

[SPEAKER_00]: control at let us isn't like it's not like he's got a like a baby jarass out there like you see guys who are just growing into their body and don't know what they're doing he knows what he's doing and he's only gonna get better like that's that's we were talking about it earlier and the second word is in player development is development like he's not the same player he was as a Mississippi high schooler and he's not the same player and what he looks like in the big of these is not going to be what he looks like now if there's improvements

[SPEAKER_00]: that I'm sure he knows he has to make and the pirates knows he has to make and to disagree, we know he has to make that he will make before he winds up in Pittsburgh.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's not a finished product as much as some people would like it to be just yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he's done a marvelous job of coming this far in such a short amount of time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's just what kind of again, I'll go back to when I said earlier, it's just

[SPEAKER_00]: in the two games you see and it's just that it's factor that you know it when you see it and you don't see it but once every couple years and there it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: What about you Jeff?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean I think it's just how in natural everything that he does in the field is.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and I mean, he's got the ability to sort of hit for power without selling out for power.

[SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't consider him a power hitter.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, you know, it's kind of an expression I've heard a few times, but he's more of a hitter with power.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, it's more of a line drive swing, you know, like his best-druck contact are like these liners that go up the middle that kind of come off the bat, like, you know, it was like a cue ball hit with a pool stick, you know, it's just,

[SPEAKER_04]: really clean the swing is super clean.

[SPEAKER_04]: He never really even when he swings and misses it's not like off balance, you know, it's like usually a really good pitch or a good pitch location.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think the other thing you mentioned this a little bit is just how will he moves, but when he gets that second gear, it is like, you know, it's maybe not, you know, Chandler Simpson's feed, but it's it's seven year on that second gear when he, you know, if the ball gets to the gap, the other night there was one where it was actually a ball hit the short stop and the infield kind of threw it around a little bit.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and a couple of runs scored, Griffin ended up on third, but like his awareness of just the situation and ability to be like, make the read okay, he's making the throw over there.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to second, okay, that throw was missed.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm, you know, motor in into third base.

[SPEAKER_04]: The defense didn't really have much of a, of a,

[SPEAKER_04]: opportunity to get the out, you know.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it's just that explosiveness, but like the mix of all those tools with really good baseball awareness that allows it to sort of activate, like you were talking a little bit about, you know, a corner and

[SPEAKER_04]: guys that just run really well versus guys that flip the hips.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think some of it is a awareness, too, and I think that that's a big part of it is.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's another level of awareness here, whether it's in the field or at the plate.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's a really smart baseball player, too, and I think sometimes with these super-tooled up guys, that's not always the case because they can kind of do stupid stuff.

[SPEAKER_04]: do maybe, you know, technically bad things and still, you know, it's like can't ward talking football, you know, throwing across his body while he's running, you know, to the other side of the field and throwing for a touchdown pass.

[SPEAKER_04]: Not a lot of guys that can do that.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's not like that.

[SPEAKER_04]: He has all those abilities, but he very much plays like very solid baseball that, you know, your grandfather or your father or your your

[SPEAKER_02]: your beauty, Josh.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll keep the football train going here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like his measurables are maybe not the composition exactly pretty similar to Jeremiah Smith.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a guy who's both an athlete and a technician.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if he's good, if he's as good as he is right now, think about what he's going to be in two years and he's in the league.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's kind of what you're thinking about with Connor Griffin here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jeff, one other thing along this line says that like I was tried to be as locked in on that eerie out to in a series you were there I was trying to watch it from from home and I was locked in out though and we talked about a little bit at that time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Even good hitters you're you're not

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a very difficult thing to do to hit, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And so even in key games, you're not locked in on every single pitch.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes you have a pitch where you get fooled.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes you have a swing where you're like, why did I swing on that?

[SPEAKER_02]: All these things.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can't give you a reminder.

[SPEAKER_02]: I cannot remember.

[SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't mean that every decision was perfect for Contagraphin.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it did feel like pitch after pitch after pitch in that series.

[SPEAKER_02]: over 500 in that series of them right.

[SPEAKER_02]: But 600, it's for 10 with three walks.

[SPEAKER_02]: Six for 10 with three walks.

[SPEAKER_02]: I struggled to come up with two pitches where he looked bad.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where was a bad take, where it was a bad swing, where it was a bad chase.

[SPEAKER_02]: He just seemed like every pitch, this was easy.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was operating at a faster level than anyone trying to pitch to him.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't think that's wrong and I'm going to double check now.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't believe he struck out in the series.

[SPEAKER_04]: If he did it was once, I think that he may be swung and missed on three pitches over the three games.

[SPEAKER_04]: There was one in the first game, two in the same abat in the second.

[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think he missed anything in the 30 might end.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think he actually put more balls in play for hits, almost like a hundred percent more, then he actually had swings and misses.

[SPEAKER_04]: And this is a 19 year old that double a and I mean he wasn't eerie's pitching isn't phenomenal, but he was always with the title, I mean, but they weren't young, you know, they're like 24 23 24 25 year old guys that have been in the eastern league, I think one of the guys that actually pitched in that game might have come in to face him at one point.

[SPEAKER_04]: might have been in AAA for a good chunk of the season and they sent it back down.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's an older team, Eury, too.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I mean, he wasn't facing, you know, the best arms and the miners in this series, but you know, he was facing Durian's arms and guys that typically diced up a 19-year-old or a month of double-ake, you know, experience.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think it's just, yeah, there's not much with Griffin that you can really make it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, now this is where this will get scarier.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, it's from a standpoint of, I'm trying to hold myself back a little bit here because we love prospects and we love really good prospects.

[SPEAKER_02]: And by Connor Griffin's our number one prospect game going into the off season.

[SPEAKER_02]: So clearly we think he is an elite prospect.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I wanted to kind of point out, like we have had this run of short stops who have been minor,

[SPEAKER_02]: Jackson Holiday is one example.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to compare Connor Griffin and Jackson Holiday.

[SPEAKER_02]: They both were 19, but I would say that on a purely athletic

[SPEAKER_02]: power, size, arm, all these things.

[SPEAKER_02]: We wrote about it at the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jackson Holiday played shortstop in the minor leagues.

[SPEAKER_02]: His arm was going to mean he was going to be a big league second baseman down the road.

[SPEAKER_02]: No one will ever say with Connor Griffin, if he stays healthy, that his arm is not capable of playing shortstop.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we can kind of put, I would say holidays a little different type of player.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say also, holiday has power, but I would say that we're talking about in Jackson holiday's case to use a Jeff analogy.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a very high-reving V6, you know?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say in Griffin's case, you're talking about more of a big block V8, or more of maybe, or more like a Ferrari V12.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where you're talking about, there's more cubic inches there.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's just more headroom to develop the power because he's bigger, he's stronger, all that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But there's also two other short stops, who are now two of the best players in the game at the major league level, who have recently been,

[SPEAKER_02]: are minor league players here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Gunner Henderson, who I would say kind of has wasn't as high a draft pick, but had a similar kind of development path was Alabama, not Mississippi, but you know, high school from not a not one of these hotbeds, not a California high school kid, not a Florida high school kid, and then really pop after improving his swing and developing his swing and getting better, getting bigger, getting stronger all that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then the one who kind of was the anointed one, almost going back to, you know, when he reached high school, I remember the first times I was hearing about how great Bobby Witt Jr was.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think was going into his freshman year of high school.

[SPEAKER_02]: I remember talking to scouts, you know, when he was going into a sophomore year of high school, I was like, I would take Bobby Witt Jr.

[SPEAKER_02]: one one right now, if he was available in this year's draft, Bobby Witt Jr was always thought to be that guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: And here you are, Bobby Witt Jr.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll start with you, Jeff.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you're comparing not where we're not saying that countergriffin is going to be Bobby Witt Jr., we now know that with Bobby Witt Jr., but if you're comparing Bobby Witt Jr.

[SPEAKER_02]: the prospect or Gunner Henderson the prospect of countergriffin, the prospect trying to compare where they were then to where Bobby, countergriffin is now.

[SPEAKER_02]: How do you see that comparison?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that,

[SPEAKER_04]: It's probably the right grouping of players.

[SPEAKER_04]: In terms of his season, the age at which he did it, I think is more impressive.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's tough because Bobby with Jr.

[SPEAKER_04]: when he got drafted was more or less the same age that Connor Griffin is now, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: So there is, there is, you know, it is tough.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is age 19 season was in the Arizona Complex Lee, then COVID hit.

[SPEAKER_02]: So his, mine really player the year season when he was with 21, not 19, exactly.

[SPEAKER_04]: So a few years older, I think that the performance

[SPEAKER_04]: We didn't see as good of a hit tool.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think there was more power at that point with Bobby Witts Jr.

[SPEAKER_04]: some of it was obviously, I think playing in AAA, I think at that point in time of 2021 with Balls for questionable, probably helped a little bit, but I think you can argue that at this point in terms of their player of the year, mind only player of the year season, which power was probably a tick better.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think you could argue just based on how it was viewed,

[SPEAKER_04]: Griffins hit tools at least a full grade better if not a grade and a half to maybe two when you consider age and sort of the things that he did throughout the year, a lot lower strikeout rate walks more.

[SPEAKER_04]: And then you sort of, you know, you do look at the production just from like a counting stats perspective.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is this number, I know it doesn't meet anything and it's a team stat to an extent.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's got a hunt, like if it's got 117 runs this season.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like, he was among the minor league leaders in runs and RBI's while hitting, you know, 330 or whatever, and as far as I could go back, exactly.

[SPEAKER_04]: And as far as I could go back, he's the only guy that I could find that was, you know, under 21 years of age that hit 300 with 20 homeruns, 60 steals, 100 or more runs.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, those are pretty outrageous numbers and just in terms of all the things that he does.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think you could argue power a little bit for a bit, but also a couple of years older.

[SPEAKER_04]: And maybe it's a push in terms of the defense.

[SPEAKER_04]: When it comes to Gunnar Henderson, maybe it's the power.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I really like Gunnar Henderson as a prospect.

[SPEAKER_02]: Gunnar's, I'd say Gunnar's arm.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I think it's not good, but Gunner's arm is special.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so the arm is better, but you know, the arm is so good on Griffin, it's almost like negligible.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, if that's what you're arguing about, it's tough because I don't think there's a lot, at least in my time here, I've given this award that,

[SPEAKER_04]: kind of measure up to the season that Griffin had when you factor in age, production, pro-experience, all that stuff.

[SPEAKER_04]: Because I mean, at least with his credit and to Gunnar Henderson's credit, both of those guys made big jumps behind the scenes in 2020 because they were both at the alternate sites, competing with major league players.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that probably helped them out a little bit.

[SPEAKER_04]: Griffin coming into the season, it only seemed originally.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what about you, Josh?

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it's interesting because I don't have much of a history with either a gunner or a gunner or a robber with junior.

[SPEAKER_00]: I might have seen them total three times in their careers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I will say this like from everything I remember us writing about body with junior.

[SPEAKER_00]: You said you wouldn't go there You know, putting necessarily griffin in that echelon just yet with I will like that's what If he reaches this ceiling, that's what he's gonna be it's gonna be that kind of guy and I think Jeff you mentioned earlier in this ball if like

[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't remember anybody getting like five, sixes, Bobby with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember that this, I think there were two players, whatever year, Bobby with Junior was on the cover of the handbook.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he was the only, one of, one of two who got,

[SPEAKER_00]: Sixes are better across the board that year So that is the type of player this that he has a chance to be a true five-tool player a true superstar I don't know anything about power engines so I'll let you guys I'll take your word for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say he's more like a jungle cat He's a panther.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's Lafantara.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry Louis Robert you may have to acquiesce that nickname to Chicana Griffin at this point, but yeah, I mean, he just

[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I could be more technical about it, but we just drips superstar and it's it's really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Someone asked me in my chat this morning like, you know, once Connor Griffin gets there, what are the pirates need to contend more of it, more Connor Griffin's three Connor Griffin's.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's really a really sad thing about the quality of history guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, those other two teams are going to make the playoffs this year, it's really things that they have franchise level, you know, short stops and they're not going to be in the bit in the playoffs.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you need more than just a corner Griffin and in the the Pirates case, a Paul schemes and next year, a Jared Jones and some more guys around it that you can get creative and maybe deal from that well spring of pitching and public jammer and get

[SPEAKER_00]: something to compliment it or you wait a little longer and see if Edward Florentino turns it to be outfield, Congress and Junior.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a nice, it's a really nice building block.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a crown jewel waiting to be surrounded by other lesser jewels.

[SPEAKER_02]: Before I did want to note that two Jeff's point earlier on about, you know, like a thoughty swung a missed three times.

[SPEAKER_02]: Good memory.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I now have the numbers for it.

[SPEAKER_02]: He saw 52 pitches in the Eastern League playoffs in three games.

[SPEAKER_02]: He chased one pitch out of the zone.

[SPEAKER_02]: in 52 pitches, he swung in missed three times and he put 10 balls in play and had six hits on those 10 balls in play, five singles in a double.

[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, I very much up the middle approach.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that just kind of summarized what we're talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: He chased one pitch out of, in a key three game playoff series, he chased one pitch and he missed three and he put 10 in play.

[SPEAKER_02]: that you will, and to go to Josh's point by the way also, the guy who I hesitate to bring up, but who body-wise, Honour Griffin does remind me of, he's a little taller than him, but like, the neck, the thing I remember about Mike Trout when he was coming up.

[SPEAKER_02]: was high school grathies going, you know, in their first year in Pro Ball, don't have necks that look like they can't fit in shirts.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Mike Trout's did, Connor Griffin's does too.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I'm getting concerned.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to go overboard here, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like because I haven't had, I haven't had that scout who's told me, Connor Griffin is Mike Trout.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I want to, you have?

[SPEAKER_02]: I have.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was, that's what I really like when it was when it was a little more possibly in the outfield.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was, you know, early in the season was like, might be trout.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I hesitate to bring it up, but you popped that core.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that that's what I see.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, that I hesitate to say it because you do not.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mike Trout's one of the great players of all time.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know injuries have derailed the second half as career and all that, but Mike Trout is one of those players who you will

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when I'm 80, I'll be like, I saw Mike trout play.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the ones.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there are a few of those.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, so I don't want it to be like, Connor Griffin, seven time all star, you know, like one of the best players the Pirates have ever had, disappointment, he wasn't Mike trout or whatever we're talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the best way I could put it is,

[SPEAKER_02]: when we were talking about him being our new number one, we kind of asked around and all, and we got pretty strong feedback, yes, that's the guy, that's the guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't wanna step on our own like off-season top 100, but I feel much more so now, like this is a great time for short stop.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a great time for young prospects.

[SPEAKER_02]: When we got, you know,

[SPEAKER_02]: Kevin McGonagall, Haisu's mod A, J.J.

[SPEAKER_02]: Weatherhold, Leo de Vries, Sebastian Walcott.

[SPEAKER_02]: We can keep going down the list.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do think though to summarize this before we move on.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do feel like we are talking about a prospect who is in a different realm, though.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like if you're comparing him, we love Haisu's mod A, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're comparing Jesus' mod A to Conrad Griffin, Jesus' mod A, I would say may have a better understanding of the strike, so.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what else I would say he's clearly better at, arm.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, if you're saying arm, it's like you're saying by this much, not by a lot, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus mod has got a really good arm.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hazel's body's not as good a short stop defensively.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, not the most used with Hazel's body is he's going to stick it short stop and it's probably not.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think they need him to in Milwaukee quite frankly.

[SPEAKER_00]: But these are, I don't know how to say this without seeing like I'm sliding Hazel's body.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's in the lead prospect that these are different animals.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are different species of human.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, stand the next to each other and you'll see what I mean.

[SPEAKER_02]: Connor Griffin runs more.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's bigger.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's stronger.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he might have a better just pure hit tool, although when you Incorporate in the plate discipline and again.

[SPEAKER_02]: Monty's younger, but Monty's not that much younger because we are talking about a 19-year-old in this case.

[SPEAKER_02]: When you talk about, again, like Kevin McGonagall's when you talk about the lead of Reza's could be really good, but

[SPEAKER_02]: But Jeff, to kind of bring it back to you before we move on.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, but when we're talking about these, we keep talking about it, the difference between Connor Griffin and everyone else we're talking about here is is none of the rest of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sebastian Walcott is the biggest of the rest of these guys, but Sebastian Walcott is your, I would say, is there much more typical baseball player big framed shortstop?

[SPEAKER_02]: who can move, but he's not going to be a seven runner, he's not going to be, you know, he's not, you wouldn't say right now, especially while I've got if you wanted to could just go to the center field and be a seven center fielder, Connor Griffin could be a seven center fielder if you want to.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is he kind of like when we talk about this, is he on a different tier than all these other elite short-stop prospects we're talking about?

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think so.

[SPEAKER_04]: I just think it's the balance of

[SPEAKER_04]: One area with grip in that you can pick a part where I think there's some with with all these guys like his angles maybe aren't perfect yet he hasn't learned to like get him to his pull side power yet but he's six four hits the crap out of the ball like how does it need to you know if he wants to hit 40 home runs so probably have to be able to do that probably can do 25 or more.

[SPEAKER_04]: as he's currently constituted, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't really know if there's any other guy that checks all the boxes, it doesn't have a bigger glaring hole, you know.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's fun.

[SPEAKER_02]: It has been fun to watch and play.

[SPEAKER_02]: It has been fun to award him baseball

[SPEAKER_02]: That was a fun pod to talk about because again, and we'll do this again, like the funny thing is is we're going to talk about the pirates in the offseason.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of good prospects to talk about.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about kind of griffin.

[SPEAKER_02]: We will do a top hundred podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk a lot about kind of griffin.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about.

[SPEAKER_02]: I apologize if you don't want to hear about kind of griffin because you're going to hear about lot about kind of griffin until the day he graduates from prospects that is you don't want to hear about kind of griffin.

[SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing on this podcast here?

[SPEAKER_02]: Very fair.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so that's our countergriff and podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: That leads into prospect soapbox, which we always end this with, which is, we are gonna each talk about a non-top-hundred prospect.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll kick it off this week, because I don't even know if you guys had figured out, maybe you have, but I have one definitely.

[SPEAKER_02]: The other end of the spectrum from countergriffin.

[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing against Brian Torres.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am a Brian Torres believer.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is the, is a former baseball America,

[SPEAKER_02]: uh, pre-pandemic and a little bit post-pandemic, the giant system I remember right was catching at one point.

[SPEAKER_02]: Z-rare, catcher who then ended up playing infield and ended up being an outfielder.

[SPEAKER_02]: The main thing though about Brian Torres that we have seen in White, that's why he was our indie player the year and now he has gone to, he went to double-eye and he was a Texas League batting champ.

[SPEAKER_02]: When to triple-eye this year at Memphis, he hit well over 300 and he led the minors in

[SPEAKER_02]: He is a guy who can really hit.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am not going to tell you, he is older, obviously, because he has taken the path of being released, having to make his way an indie ball from multiple years, and then getting back into affiliate.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is an older, minor, this is more of a minor league that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I do hope that we will get to see Brian Torres play in the majors.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because Brian Torres, I would say,

[SPEAKER_02]: He deserves that shot.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is a over 300 hitter for his minor league career.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is over a 320 hitter for his full season minor league career, which kind of gives you the, hey, the post pandemic second stage career of Brian Torres.

[SPEAKER_02]: Get some base.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is a little bit of power there.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's some athleticism, he can run.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's just a lot to like role player probably sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would hope that at some point we will see Brian Torres in the major leagues.

[SPEAKER_02]: Josh, who's your prospects up looks?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm going to cheat in a major way, and I'm going to say the back of the giant system, basically.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not cheating.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the way, Jeff and I do that regularly, where we will pull out guys we like from the back of systems we did.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you don't normally invite me on the podcast, so I don't know what to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in any case, you know, there's a lot of guys in the back and we, you know, we don't talk about just organs allows because he's on the top 100.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's forget he's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he's not far behind is Johnny level who he didn't, you know,

[SPEAKER_00]: quite matches production from the ACL when he got to the the Cowley, but you still got a valueator.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all summer rating about him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Canner Martinez with the in the ACL club.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a pop-up guy who was really good this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fastball in the mid to upper 90s, the banner slider and a change up that jumped on O2 grades from start to start.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I saw him,

[SPEAKER_00]: That Luis Delatori, who's a little older and dominated in the, uh, not the F sale certainly the ACL and then the Cali and you know this is a guy who has now stuff with a little little, little more raw you expect for you to my, my, my, my little more.

[SPEAKER_00]: down in the system than you expect to be for a 22 year old.

[SPEAKER_00]: All those guys are starting to cover less into something really interesting at the back of their system.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, you know, they've got elder job is he's the big boy.

[SPEAKER_00]: But these guys in a couple of years might form the nucleus of a really good giant's club.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've been talking about the giants or there's some interesting stuff that's building their eye agree.

[SPEAKER_04]: But what about you Jeff?

[SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[SPEAKER_04]: I have a really interesting prospect.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I'll put it this way.

[SPEAKER_04]: There are three hitters over the last two seasons that have a minimum 700 plate of parents that hit three, 20 or better.

[SPEAKER_04]: One of them is Brian Torres.

[SPEAKER_04]: Another one of them is Justin Crawford.

[SPEAKER_04]: And the last one is Keaton Anthony.

[SPEAKER_04]: I've seen this guy probably a dozen times over the last two seasons between spring training, AA games, AAA games.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he's constantly hit.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's not a lot of game power at this point.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's 24 years old.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's pretty much first based on,

[SPEAKER_04]: At times, I wondered if he was related to Roman Anthony because they have the same last name in a very similar build.

[SPEAKER_04]: But the underlying doubt is really good.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's top 10 over the last two seasons in the minors in WRC plus with a 145.

[SPEAKER_04]: Over the last two years, you know, spanning 792 plate appearances, he hit the 325 in the highest levels of the minors with an 866 OPS.

[SPEAKER_04]: You dig into the data under the hood.

[SPEAKER_04]: And it's really pretty good, you know, 16% in zone myths isn't passive.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's a 48.5% swing rate.

[SPEAKER_04]: We'll chase a little bit, but the contact rates are very high.

[SPEAKER_04]: And there's underlying power here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Just not a lot of pulsight power.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of the only thing he doesn't do very well.

[SPEAKER_04]: But it's a 104 90th percentile, which is about majorly average, a 90.4 mile per hour.

[SPEAKER_04]: average EV this season and those are on Hawkeye devices so you can kind of trust it really the only thing he doesn't do is pull the ball Do I think he's a big league regular definitely not but he's don't these kind of guys fascinating because they're kind of like

[SPEAKER_04]: back end of the top 30, maybe like 31 to 40 kind of guys where you always have that sneaking suspicion, like, could this guy come up and be like, tie France, you know, could it just be like that?

[SPEAKER_04]: Second division or like lower level team, like kind of replace that level guy that has a couple of good seasons in the big league because he can make a lot of contact and he's tough to strike out.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's finding guys like that to be kind of fascinating.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what the soap box is for.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we were wanting to do here.

[SPEAKER_02]: We want to kind of spread a spotlight on some of the guys who are not necessarily always the guys who's the next on the 100, but guys who are interesting, who could be big leaders who aren't going to rank in our top 100 or the top 10s of an organization.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think those were a couple of great, those are actually three great examples of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's just really good, this was a good way to end it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We hope you enjoyed this edition of the baseball America Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you did, go to over to baseballmerica.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have so much content on this.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have stories about Connor Griffin player the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have statistically, you can look at how Connor Griffin stats for this year as player the year matchup against every

[SPEAKER_02]: minor league player of the year that we've ever chosen.

[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, we've been picking these since 1981 and I can say, having just entered all those steps, proud of the vast majority of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've got, we try to make our win when we pick minor league player of the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I should say this more often.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not just trying to pick the best season of the miners.

[SPEAKER_02]: We often do not pick the best season of the miners.

[SPEAKER_02]: We are picking the best season of the miners by a prospect who we believe is on their way to MLB excellence.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a couple of things that jump out for that.

[SPEAKER_02]: No one ever over the age of 24 has won the MI, our player of the year, mileage player of the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Usually it's a 19, 20 or 21 year old.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because those are the players who combine the production.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because again, we're not giving this award to our top prospect.

[SPEAKER_02]: You have to have an exceptional season.

[SPEAKER_02]: Connor Griffin this year hit 333 as we mentioned.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the highest batting average by a teenager in full season ball, since Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

[SPEAKER_02]: in 2018 when he hit 381, which by the way, minor league player of the year type season.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Vladimir, Vladimir, Vlad Jr.

[SPEAKER_02]: hit 381, you're our minor league player of the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Seasons like that are the ones that we want to reward, but then we also want to look back on and say that we had Hall of Famers like Derek Geter and Frank Thomas and Joe Mower.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've had Future Hall of Famers.

[SPEAKER_02]: We talked about Mike Trout,

[SPEAKER_02]: Mike Trout was our minor league player of the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, one of the most fun stories I ever got to write was telling the story, a child believed was the first time I'd ever been told back in 2011 or what it was 2012, of the story of how the angels drafted Mike Trout.

[SPEAKER_02]: We want to highlight future stars as my childhood years.

[SPEAKER_02]: As you can tell, we do believe that Connor Griffin is going to be a future star.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, for Josh, for Jeff, I'm JJ.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a long everybody.