[SPEAKER_03]: Hey everybody, JJ Cooper, Jeff Ponds and other baseball America Prospect podcast, and there's too much going on right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: In a good way, in a very good way, again, we're going to warn you.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're recording this.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is eight o'clock on Tuesday night Eastern time.

[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're listening to this, you probably know what was going on at eight o'clock on Eastern.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, we were planning to have one game kind of segue into another game, and then we had rain.

[SPEAKER_03]: So now I've got Mariners tigers on.

[SPEAKER_03]: to get ready to start with our other AL game.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think Jeff, we'll kind of, you'll see our reactions maybe at times and all that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we are still here to give you a prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's gonna be a really fun one today.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're talking pitching mainly today.

[SPEAKER_03]: We like to talk about pitching.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we have a lot of stuff over at Baseball America that's worth talking about.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna start with, I'll give you a little preview of the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna start with why what you know about hard

[SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then we're going to talk about the hardest of the hard drawers in the minor leagues.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have up at baseball America.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, probably there's a couple more names we're going to add, but 125 minor league pitchers who threw 100 miles an hour in 2025.

[SPEAKER_03]: That will segue nicely into also if you go over a baseball america.com Jeff also just rolled out pitch by pitch and then put it all together these stuff, the best stuff leaders, the stuff plus leaders in the minor leagues across all levels and then we'll get to our

[SPEAKER_03]: Jeff, great to see you.

[SPEAKER_03]: To start with, I know you love lost you like I do.

[SPEAKER_03]: So,

[SPEAKER_03]: I kind of posed this question to a lot of people today, asked it, you know, and I've been researching this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got to give a question.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got to give credit.

[SPEAKER_03]: We were talking about Cam Schlittler's appearance last week.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then people were coming back to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, I like the discussion.

[SPEAKER_03]: But in social media and saying, yeah, this is great.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's added eight miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the tradeoff is, he's got to blow out.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he's traded off this short term success.

[SPEAKER_03]: being great, even in a playoff game, but we just know that what this is going to mean is he's going to get hurt.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that if he was geared down a little bit, he would probably have a chance to have a longer and more successful career.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is that a conventional wisdom that you've ever heard or like, do you kind of subscribe to it anywhere?

[SPEAKER_03]: What's your thought?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's sort of along the lines of like I had a kid that I had a drive over to try out today and he was like, I can't play golf.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's nine years ten years old and he's like, I can't play golf any longer because my swing coach told me it's going to ruin my swing and I'm like, there's plenty of guys that in MLP that play golf that are hitters.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to hear this.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's an old lifestyle.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's the same thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's another one of these conversations where it makes sense in your head.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't, I don't think that's, in fact, the case and, you know, I think that it's always the exceptions that they'll use as the rule, you know, or they'll bring up Greg Maddox, which Maddox threw pretty hard for his day, you know, I don't think Greg Maddox if he came up and was drafted in 2025 would have been a guy that, you know, sat 92 93, I think he probably would have sat six to seven,

[SPEAKER_02]: Things adjust, and velocity matters.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I can tell you as someone who saw cams Schlittler multiple times when he was 90 to 92.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was not nearly as effective.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cleaning up his mechanics is what

[SPEAKER_02]: gave him the initial velocity bump because when we talk about what he was in college to now, it is almost a ten full miles per hour in terms of what his average velocity speed was, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: So we look at that, but the reason he was able to get that is because he cleaned up his leg block, because his arm swing is more efficient because he's getting more into his glutes and not, you know,

[SPEAKER_02]: His hamstrings.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like I think it's like all of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's how like it's why drive line all these people have used this stuff with kinetic chain.

[SPEAKER_02]: Once you get more efficient, the velocity comes easier and then you add on weight training and just the natural gains that people make between will say 20 years old, 21 years old and 2526.

[SPEAKER_02]: just in terms of adding muscle and mature muscle, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, especially if you're a professional athlete who's trained with a professional organization that, you know, spends some money like the Yankees.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean, I, I find it funny because you guys wouldn't try to throw harder.

[SPEAKER_02]: They wouldn't lift weights.

[SPEAKER_02]: They wouldn't fix their mechanics.

[SPEAKER_02]: If all that mattered was command and movement, and it's just it's not, unfortunately.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's where we go with this, which is, so that got me just thinking that got me to studying.

[SPEAKER_03]: I love, I love to kind of end up down a rabbit hole.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I very much did.

[SPEAKER_03]: And what we found, so we're at baseball america.com, I looked at every significant MLB starter who debuted.

[SPEAKER_03]: 2008, 2015.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know something happened at baseball game, but I'm just going to keep rolling on.

[SPEAKER_03]: Home run by somebody.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not in the game.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm watching.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, okay, glad junior.

[SPEAKER_03]: Done it again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, we had

[SPEAKER_03]: 236 starting pitchers.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tanner Moore starts, although there's one exception on that for a guy.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we're really what we did.

[SPEAKER_03]: The query was, give me every starter who debuted, 2008 to 2015, who had more starts than relief appearances in the first two years and had more than 16.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I wanted everyone who had some semblance of a actual career, not a guy who came up because we ran out of pictures and we need someone to start on Tuesday.

[SPEAKER_03]: Guys who actually were brought up, and brought up the starters, not brought up, we don't know what he's gonna do, but brought up because they're paying an earned kind of a path through the miners.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we looked at how hard they through.

[SPEAKER_03]: compared to League Average, because League Average changes, by the way, Steven Straussberg threw six miles an hour harder than the average right-handed starter when he came up, throwing significantly softer than what we saw this year from Jacob Miserowski, who threw an average 99 miles an hour as a starter with his fastball, which is a sentence that I just said and I still

[SPEAKER_03]: Actually, he threw a 97 mile an hour cutter slash slider yesterday.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I guess that is equally hard to believe.

[SPEAKER_03]: But he was 99.

[SPEAKER_03]: He actually has a smaller delta.

[SPEAKER_03]: We call it velocity delta smaller difference between league average and his fastball, then Strasper did throwing significantly softer because that's how much VLO has improved increased.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the thing that jumps out is so we looked at these pictures and we looked at them like the one through harder versus one through through.

[SPEAKER_03]: So two miles an hour more harder, one to two miles an hour harder than normal average, which is negative 0.9 to 0.9, negative one to negative two, and then negative two miles an hour, two miles an hour softer.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you throw two miles an hour harder as a starter, you have a 50 or I shouldn't say you have.

[SPEAKER_03]: These pictures, 2008, 2015, 50% of them,

[SPEAKER_03]: through 1,000 MLB innings.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can't have a injury plagued, oh, he never pitched career and get to 1,000 innings.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is, by old standards five years, I would say by new standards, I would say that's for like six, seven years?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for six, seven.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so they did that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then you say, well, what about the others?

[SPEAKER_03]: The guys who threw one mile an hour, not two, but one mile an hour or more softer than league average when they debuted.

[SPEAKER_03]: 15% of them got to a thousandings.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot more there, there's a lot more to chew on, but the main thing that jumps out is this, this is the summary statement would be this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I also, there's another story there, I looked at, yes, the Tommy John rate, by the way, among pictures who would throw two miles an hour or more harder than league average.

[SPEAKER_03]: Among starters, it's higher.

[SPEAKER_03]: I then also logged every 60 day I L-stint that every one of those pictures, 236 did.

[SPEAKER_03]: And by the way, that was some fun work during the Playoff game last night because that was by hand.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was going by each player's transactions and finding all the 60 day.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then going to make sure, oh, that was a transfer from the 1516 of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Go along all those.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the pictures that throw harder do have more TJs.

[SPEAKER_03]: and do get hurt more often, I would say.

[SPEAKER_03]: They've had more 60-day ailstins, but there is one little caveat of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's partly because also they're the ones who pitch longer.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this is kind of the surprising takeaway to me of this is, it is really hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: It does not mean that it never happens.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if I, if you said what was the wow moment to me of this, it was looking at the right.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would say the top tier of what I would call the soft tossers, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: The pictures who, when they showed up in the majors, they had below average velocity, and they were great.

[SPEAKER_03]: Dallas, Kikel, Kyle Hendrix.

[SPEAKER_03]: Aaron Nolo, who seems like a weird one for that, but Aaron Nolo was over one nine hour below Lee Gavage when he debuted, got his Velo up to Lee Gavage, not long after that, but we're looking at their debut Velo, Trevor Cahill, Mike Leak.

[SPEAKER_03]: These guys all had significant careers, lengthy careers, but in all those cases, it is, they kind of hit a wall at 31 32, not

[SPEAKER_03]: 100% of the time they never had no one had a good you have for that call Hendrix was a better than league average pitcher every year from 2014 to 2020.

[SPEAKER_03]: From 2021 to 25 he had one year where he had a better than league average.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you can't say that he disappeared, but his effectiveness really dropped off in his thirties.

[SPEAKER_03]: Dallas Kikele won a sigh young, but he had a six year

[SPEAKER_03]: Mike Leak was out of the game as of the majors as a 31-year-old.

[SPEAKER_03]: Trevor Kales last effective year was as a 30-year-old.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's where I'm going to kick this back to you, Jeff.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that was the stunning thing to me is to kind of realize, we think of the Jamie Moyers.

[SPEAKER_03]: We think of the Mark Burley.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we think of the Tom Glavin's.

[SPEAKER_03]: We think of all these guys where it's like Charlie Lee brand.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Frank Tananna, we could just keep going further and further back.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I can name you all these

[SPEAKER_03]: below average velocity pitchers.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, in many of the cases, could I'm gonna talk about the guy who had Velo and then it tailed off as he, you know, aged.

[SPEAKER_03]: But these pitchers who kind of really survived really thrived with below average velocity and did it for years and Jamie Moir's case into his mid to late 40s.

[SPEAKER_03]: We don't see that anymore.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you flip it.

[SPEAKER_03]: and then you look at the Kevin Gospels and the Justin Verlander who won two sirens and two runners up from age 32 to 39.

[SPEAKER_03]: You look at Zach Wheeler, you look at, you could just go down the list and these power pitchers, 32, 33, 34, 35 is not a hiccup for them in a lot of cases.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're continuing to have success.

[SPEAKER_03]: That kind of jumped out to me, but I was wondering what you thought as someone who watches a lot of pitching.

[SPEAKER_01]: F.T.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fam, let's talk about super power.

[SPEAKER_01]: Eric Crats is a proud, super power customer.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's going to give us more of the personal experience.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'll just start it with this.

[SPEAKER_01]: You ever go to the doctor and Docs just like, oh, a drink more water.

[SPEAKER_01]: Are you looking for more data, more of a game plan?

[SPEAKER_01]: Super power does that for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: They give you the experience that athletes get with teams.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lab, the lab results came back for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: now it's streamlines everything that I kind of had an idea of, but now it really lets me focus on the things that I'm deficient in, the things that I have good, good lab test results from, and I could go in a direction I want to go.

[SPEAKER_01]: nutritional guidance supplements, suggestions, you name it.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much more info to check out at superpower.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can lock in the special $199 price while it lasts after you sign up.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're gonna ask you how you heard about them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mention FT to support the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your biology decoded your blueprint activated with super power.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think like the standards even of like what a soft tosser even is at this point has slid over or increased quite a bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like over the last five, six years.

[SPEAKER_02]: seeing somebody who throws 92 to 93 now in the minors versus seeing a starter who was controlling a game at 92 93 touching four or five a few years ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: So way different reaction like for 2019 you're like this guy pretty good like decent velocity he's got to start shot to be a starter.

[SPEAKER_02]: There were 14 pictures that averaged starters, qualified starters of 52, who averaged 93 miles per hour below.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were exactly two starters who, excuse me, was 13.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there were two starters who were 90 miles an hour or below that were Jeffrey Springs and Kyle Hendrix.

[SPEAKER_02]: Springs had an okay year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hendrix had a near five ERA this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the guys that are around there are all sort of four ERA guys.

[SPEAKER_02]: Chris Bassett, Brady Singer, Kyle Freeland, Sonny Gray.

[SPEAKER_02]: Merrill Kelly was below four, Zack Lightell was below four.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what you get.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you get to the guys that are right around 93.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a couple of successful ones here in Andrew Abbott and Logan Webb.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think we also look at a guy like Logan Web, who's an extreme ground ball guy, two-seamer, ton of movement, good secondary stuff, and then you have Andrew Abbott, who maybe doesn't throw that hard, but has always been kind of funky in terms of the plane on that pitch, gets decent amount of ride on it.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's also left-handed.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think like that plays into it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So even like considering that he's throwing averaging 92.7 from the left side, even a little different than really throwing him into the category of like a full soft tosser.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and then you go over to the other side of this, the hardest throwing guys in the game.

[SPEAKER_02]: Paul schemes.

[SPEAKER_02]: School, DeGrom, are within the top five.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's two guys there that have ERAs over four, one being Jose Soriano, the other named Sandy Alcantara, who's obviously coming back from Tommy John Surgery and has never really been a strikeout guy either.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was more of a command guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: He just happened to have a lot of velocity.

[SPEAKER_02]: But you go down this list, the best pictures in the game are all averaging 95 miles per hour or harder.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's pretty hard to think of a top 10 picture in the game

[SPEAKER_02]: who isn't sitting 95 to 97 in every single start.

[SPEAKER_02]: Garrett Crochet, Hunter Brown had a really good year.

[SPEAKER_02]: We saw what Gavin Williams kind of bust out this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's another really hard thrower, Max Freed even, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like we discuss Max Freed as if he's sort of a soft tosser.

[SPEAKER_02]: He sat 95.8 this year and his past.

[SPEAKER_02]: From the left side.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, from the left side.

[SPEAKER_02]: So all of these guys are adding velocity.

[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of guys see their velocity increase once they get up to the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that goes back to just the optimization of the mechanics, but also the body.

[SPEAKER_02]: Just what are you eating?

[SPEAKER_02]: How are you training?

[SPEAKER_02]: Who are you training with?

[SPEAKER_02]: What hours are you training?

[SPEAKER_02]: Are you really optimizing?

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, all of your time and work.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we see that pretty consistently with the hardest throwers.

[SPEAKER_03]: two things with that story, you know, there just charts and all in there on this.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if you look at this past year, there was no such thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: The worst 97 plus mile an hour picture had 1.7 war.

[SPEAKER_03]: The average war for a 97 mile an hour picture or harder starting picture was 3.3.

[SPEAKER_03]: War goes down linearly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like if you do the Velo buckets, if you throw a mile or two softer than that, the average war goes down.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you throw a mile and a two soft from that, the average war goes down, you mud goes down, goes down.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the most important thing I would say with this though is this.

[SPEAKER_03]: but what to what you said.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was no such thing as a pitcher who, a starting pitcher who averaged 97 miles an hour harder, who was a bad pitcher this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sandy Alcantaro was the worst of those.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, he struggled early on.

[SPEAKER_03]: He ended up being, I think, a 1.7 war pitcher.

[SPEAKER_03]: The flip side of that is, if you didn't average 90.9 miles an hour if you fastball.

[SPEAKER_03]: the best of those pictures was 2.5 or the average was 1.1.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like it really is something where nowadays the game it does feel like has changed somewhat, where control, command, movement, all those things, still important.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if you don't match that with some VLO, don't marry that with some VLO, it really doesn't have the same impact.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I would also add with that, we pointed this out.

[SPEAKER_03]: Last 15 years, you look at SI young winners,

[SPEAKER_03]: There are two who did not have a average or better velocity for starters.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was Kikul who we talked about 2015, A.L.

[SPEAKER_03]: And R.A.

[SPEAKER_03]: Dickie, who's a knuckleballer in 2012.

[SPEAKER_03]: Those are the only two.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you look at the 2021, 2022, 2022, 2023, 2024, Si Young winners on average, so two miles an hour, or two point nine miles an hour harder than league average for starters.

[SPEAKER_03]: 17 of the last 30 psi on winners have thrown two miles an hour or more harder.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know that everyone's going to say, well, what about the injuries?

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, I will just point out this study tried to look at that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And yes, there are more injuries.

[SPEAKER_03]: But as we laid out in that story, the bigger risk to a picture to have your career end is being ineffective, not being injured.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, how good could he have bid if not for the injuries?

[SPEAKER_03]: But Jacob Drogram, it has the 20 second most career innings pitch among active pitchers right now, multiple psi young awards, and effective at age 37.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to pitch to least 40, you probably can.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's not the same thing as saying, oh, you know, what happened to this guy?

[SPEAKER_03]: He, this is not Mark Fidrich, where, you know, you say, oh, we had a year, it was great.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he just disappeared.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're not seeing that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I just wanted to again, again, check it out

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot there, and speaking of velocity, we want to talk about all of the pictures in the minor leagues who really bring the heat, and we'll do that right after this quick break.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we're back.

[SPEAKER_03]: So Jeff, you also pulled together

[SPEAKER_03]: the 100 mile an hour club in the minor leagues, which you've taken the mantle on that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I found my first one I think of that did of that was 2014.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's where I have a stat that hopefully is even gonna surprise Jeff here.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I went back and looked at our 2017 and our 2018 list, okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then I went and asked the question,

[SPEAKER_03]: how many of those guys made the majors?

[SPEAKER_03]: And do understand, this is not a list where we, this is not a prospect list that we pull together, this is not a, doesn't have a cutoff of how many strikeouts you get, walk right anything like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: The only thing that you had to do to qualify to be on this list was throw one pitch, 100 miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_03]: What would you guess was the rate of all levels of the miners?

[SPEAKER_03]: What percentage of those pictures do you think made the major leagues?

[SPEAKER_02]: Of the guys that hit 100 miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's not 100% because I can think of one who hit 100 that year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that didn't.

[SPEAKER_02]: So definitely not to be 100%.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna go with 75%. 70%.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, pretty good.

[SPEAKER_03]: Each two years in a row is 70%, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And that to me is a stunning number, not because I would expect everyone to, but from the standpoint of, if you said, give me one attribute across the minor leagues for pitchers, and you said, if I said, give me the top,

[SPEAKER_03]: Give me the top 90 or 100 in strikeout rate in the miners, or in K to BB, you know, percentage.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think maybe I get to 70%, but to have just this one attribute throws really hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: By itself, mean, if you have that ability, you've got a seven and ten chance of making it to the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't care, again, if you are in a

[SPEAKER_03]: rookie ball, you have a seven in ten chance.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's a crazy number to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think of that as we look at, we have 125 pictures.

[SPEAKER_03]: Again, we might add a few more names to that as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe we'll get to 130, but 125 pictures through 100 miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of looked at this and I'll what jumped out to you, be on the fact, maybe I'll start with the fact that we have 125 pictures who did it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, it's obviously, it's even more than that because there was maybe a couple of games in the season, like I think I missed Jackson Wiggins, within our sample size, who hit 100.

[SPEAKER_02]: But obviously, the sheer volume, but going through, you know, I was shocked at how many

[SPEAKER_02]: And you even start sort of at the top, the hardest thrown pitch in the miners this year per the numbers that we got were Joel Hartardo from the angels who made 19 starts this year, through 91 innings.

[SPEAKER_02]: He actually doesn't strike out that many guys at all.

[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't really good ERA, but only a 15.5% K rate, he does have a 50% ground ball rate, it's a sinker guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's a starter, Harlan Susana, who's number four in the list.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's a starter.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob, Miss Yorowski's number nine on the list.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's a starter.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think you could kind of go all the way down.

[SPEAKER_02]: Are there, you know, Boba Chandler is number 19?

[SPEAKER_02]: Carlos the Gronhe is number 20.

[SPEAKER_02]: These guys are all on the top 20.

[SPEAKER_02]: They all had a maximum velocity of 111.7 or harder.

[SPEAKER_02]: Her Tardo hit 104.4.

[SPEAKER_02]: Susana's a starter hit 103.8.

[SPEAKER_02]: Missier Rowski at least in the minors hit 102.7 max.

[SPEAKER_02]: Boba Chandler's a 101.7 Carlos the Gronhe's a 101.7.

[SPEAKER_02]: And even if you look at

[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of these names, the hardest-throwing relievers, a lot of these guys have gotten up to the big leagues already or going to be up there, you know, very shortly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Whether that's a Zach Maxwell, a Daniel Polencia, Justin Martinez, Dylan Ross got called up by the Metz at the end of the season.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a good variation of starters here and I didn't even name some of the guys are just below that Bobby Miller's kind of a starter now we sort of reliever chase burns even mentioned chase birds I'm sure that his maximum velocity if you'd been healthy in the minors all year would have you been higher then 101.3 I mean I haven't even gotten to somebody who's thrown a max velocity pitch under 101.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm all the way up to like, number 49.

[SPEAKER_02]: Drey Jamison coming off of injuries.

[SPEAKER_03]: Who's pitching in the AFL right now as we talk, as we speak.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a 99 tonight.

[SPEAKER_02]: Grant Taylor another one, a guy that popped for us kind of early, um, trade Gregory Alford that we got some good reports from Bill Mitchell out in Arizona.

[SPEAKER_02]: TGA.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, 100.9.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is a guy out of high school a year ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: Antoine Kelly had a really good year as a starter.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had a 100.7, Jose Irbina, a really interesting starter in the lower levels for the raise.

[SPEAKER_02]: He topped out at 100.7.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not like all these guys are huge.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just named probably five or six pictures who were six feet or under.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it

[SPEAKER_02]: starters, it's relievers, it's big guys that you would expect to throw hard, and it's smaller, really efficient athletic guys that are throwing hard.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just, you know, this this list all threw out.

[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, there are numerous guys that if we stretch this to like 99.5, so when anything that you might arrayed our gun might up to triple digits,

[SPEAKER_03]: There's an ATV broadcast, I will tell you this.

[SPEAKER_03]: And ATV broadcast, they always rounded up.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, and you can put it on to your guns around up too.

[SPEAKER_02]: So like, you know, 99.9s, that's a hundred pretty much.

[SPEAKER_02]: You're probably going to say that's a hundred.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's so many of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, there's like I said a ton of starters here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like Joe Boyle,

[SPEAKER_02]: doesn't even pop any longer and I would argue it's probably one of the hardest throwers in the miners two, three years ago, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's remarkable, like the amount of prospects who now can hit 100 miles per hour in game.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not just relievers that air it out.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of guys within this list that have a fair amount of command that throw a fair amount of strikes.

[SPEAKER_03]: The other thing I wanted to put out with that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So again, I've got this, I've got our old list, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sitting here with the old list that we had.

[SPEAKER_03]: And these were just a listed names, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And some of those names were premium prospects at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: But at the same time, it was like, you want to ran with the D-backs at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you want to ran was far away from what he is right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: but he threw a hundred, Tony Gonslin, back then, this is a game, we're talking like 2017, 2018.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, oh, we, you know, Brian Ellington, I don't think that we really spent a whole lot of time talking about Brian Ellington at the time, or Tanner Scott, who we knew through really hard, but you know, like, but you just go down this list and it's like, the best way I can put it is is there's a number of guys on here where Carlos Estaviz for the Rockies, where it's like, the attribute they had at the time

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you turn around and usually it's relievers, I'd say a lot of cases, but they end up being guys who color system has led the, I think led majors and saves this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, admittedly saves it's not a stat that gets tracked nearly as much as it was in the days of Bobby Thigpin and all, but but what I mean by this is it's like, you are looking at pictures who, even if,

[SPEAKER_03]: even if their numbers were not great this year, even if they're not throwing strikes yet, even if they don't strike out a ton of guys.

[SPEAKER_03]: I like how you put it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like there's a there's a mechanical component to this and I think to go back to the other story we were talking about as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: When you say, well, why do these pictures last?

[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things is is to throw a hundred

[SPEAKER_03]: it's really hard when they talk about when you talk about that this a picture's mechanics are terrible.

[SPEAKER_03]: I am not going to tell you it is impossible to throw 100 with make terrible mechanics.

[SPEAKER_03]: I have seen I would say a couple of times where you could say that that's but I would say it's really hard right and so when you say like why did these pictures last?

[SPEAKER_03]: Just in Verlander last, because the same about the reason that allows him to reach back for 99 to 100 for 15 years, is a delivery that works that allows him to do that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the kind of thing where, again, if you said to me, I know that anytime I talk about velocity, I hear from people who are like, the loss is not what matters, this location is command.

[SPEAKER_03]: disclaimer put on here we are talking about pros here 12 year olds don't listen to this this is not about 12 year olds this is not about chasing 75 when you're throwing 60 your body that is trying to put a V8

[SPEAKER_03]: into a Chevy Shavat.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not saying that you might not be a really too old reference into a tiny Kia.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not saying you might be able to not figure out a fit it in there, but I promise you the transmission is not going to be able to handle it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I promise you the suspension is not going to be a whole handle it.

[SPEAKER_03]: You need to build a base before you can throw hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it is a, it is very much a risk to throw hard when you are not strong enough to control it.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're talking about adults here.

[SPEAKER_03]: The list we are talking about here is of, like you said, some are tall, some are short.

[SPEAKER_03]: But generally, they're also not extremely skinny and pictures who are physically undeveloped.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard to throw 100, which you're physically undeveloped.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that is one of the things that jumps out here.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that perfectly leads us into the next part, which is if you've been at Baseball America.

[SPEAKER_03]: any time in the last week, you've also been enjoying that Jeff, you've been pulling together kind of the stuff scores for everyone.

[SPEAKER_03]: The best pitches and then pulling it all together, what did you learn by doing that?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, um, you know, I think it's it's funny because stuff scores on their face.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's one of the reasons that I broke everything up into

[SPEAKER_02]: individual pitch types.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could have gone a step further in kind of broken out some cutters and sweepers a lot of the sweepers get picked up in the the slider data so it's kind of funny to kind of separate those out when there's definitely some sliders I graded that you know technically our sweepers and cutters are kind of all over the place because there's stuff that more on the cut fast both night.

[SPEAKER_02]: stuff with a little bit more in the gyroslider side and then I'd say something that's what I'm considered like Jay's at Jacob and Zeraf, these slider is really more of like your traditional hudder breaking ball, not a cut fastball.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there was like a lot of variance in there so I didn't necessarily break this out.

[SPEAKER_02]: But

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think I always try to look at it as of like, all right, who has a big sample size of pitches?

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's look at starters and that's what I tried to really focus on with a lot of these.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was eliminating guys that had really high stuff scores, but like under 800 or 900 pitches.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, which eliminates some of the, you know, something to make it some of the guys and some of the complex guys that maybe didn't pitch in full season ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but a lot of the top prospect in the game, still rate very highly when it comes to stuff scores and especially like overall arsenal.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not always one for one.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um,

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and there's a lot of better pitchers who might be arsenal scores between like one 10 to like one 13 so it's like

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like a few standard deviations above normal and maybe they're not Missier asky, you know, who hasn't an outrageous score.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's also one of the things that I tried to do when I put out the arsenal stuff was give you the stuff plus scores of just like all the pitches kind of blended together and then the naturalized stuff plus which looks at.

[SPEAKER_02]: each pitch in comparison to it's category.

[SPEAKER_02]: So like a slider that's maybe 115 is going to boost your regular stuff plus score, but a naturalized one or neutralized one, then sort of like negates that because that's really sort of an average slider.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it then gets created like an average slider.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's really looking at like who's throwing their best pitches most frequently and who's pitches even within those pitch types is really the best, which I think allows us to get a little bit more context.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I look at a pitcher like Christian Oper of the white socks and, you know, really good fastball.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's another guy that hit 100 miles per hour this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Stuff scores are really good.

[SPEAKER_02]: But his best secondary

[SPEAKER_02]: is a slower sweeper that actually does great out pretty well.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then a really good change up.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the changeups generally have lower scores in comparison with other countries.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's less speed, there's less spin, but there's a lot of movement.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we also look at the vertical separation, the VA separation within our grades between the fastball and the changeup and how that plays.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he gets boosted up a little bit when we look at the sort of neutralized

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's always interesting to just sort of see these guys like who are the top 25 fast balls, you know, that have a bigger sample size who are the top sliders that have a bigger sample size curve ball sinkers and and then digging into the data and seeing that so many of these guys get really good results against these pitches consistently.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, whether it swings and misses, whether it's ground balls, whether it's just, you know, poor quality of a bad at balls.

[SPEAKER_02]: It does track.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think very well for for how individual pitches play.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's obviously another component of this of commands.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and control and.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think the element of control that matters is being in the zone enough with your primary pitch that you can throw other stuff out of the zone if you have chase pitches a bigger sweeper or split or something that you're not going to curve ball harder curve ball that has a lot of movement.

[SPEAKER_02]: You're not going to land that in zone in a regular basis and it's probably more hitable when it's in zone.

[SPEAKER_02]: So you need something that sort of.

[SPEAKER_02]: sets that pitch up and I think so often we see that when someone has a really good fastball and they're in the zone enough, they have higher chase rates just simply because they're setting up with that fastball guys are always thinking about having to deal with that pitch and then those secondaries can play off.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was just like, we know that

[SPEAKER_03]: We have stuff miles, a lot of places have stuff miles now.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there are great strings to it, but we also acknowledge that there are limitations to it.

[SPEAKER_03]: You hit on it, a couple of these are one is what makes a change up great is often something that you said like we've added the vertical component to that key important to have that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we're, and maybe we'll get there and they're not too distant future.

[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things that's kind of key to this is is getting to the point of modeling the interaction between the pitches, too.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because what you just said is something that eventually hopefully we can model, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: I would say like, where, yes, this pitch is more effective because, you know, an Ellie who does stuff for us did really good work on this a few years ago of making the point of using example like a Vomap Brash, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Vomap Brash had this

[SPEAKER_03]: He had basically had a breaking ball that broke incredibly dastardly one way.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he ran with his fastball the other.

[SPEAKER_03]: But basically between them, if you were a hitter,

[SPEAKER_03]: It essentially meant that if you got any kind of read on the pitches, you could kind of figure out your takes because the movement on both of them was so much that if you saw it and it seemed like it was in the middle, you could take.

[SPEAKER_03]: You only would not take it if it was like running, you know, being leaked over or whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it was the alley was talking at that time about the need for a bridge pitch in between

[SPEAKER_03]: if he's solved something coming middle middle knew that it wasn't going to end up out of the zone.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's the interaction component that again I think is the next step for these models and all and we're getting there.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're hopefully we'll get there eventually.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it is vital to this though, goes back to everything we're talking about today.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's great to have the chase pitches where you can really generate swings and misses out of the zone.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would say I'll

[SPEAKER_03]: But I do feel like that if you said, why, what has changed most?

[SPEAKER_03]: And we're probably gonna get into more of this in the off-season, because ABS challenged system, which we've seen in AAA has come into the majors in four years.

[SPEAKER_03]: Trust me that we're gonna have a full, probably pod just about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I would just say this.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can't succeed, I would say in the major leagues now.

[SPEAKER_03]: unless you can win as a pitcher in the zone.

[SPEAKER_03]: You might have chases out, but the zone's narrower and it's just going to get smaller with ABS challenge.

[SPEAKER_03]: At that's the case, you have to have something that whether it is takes because of being fooled or swings and misses, but if you don't have

[SPEAKER_03]: some usually things, not something but some things in most cases that you can succeed with in the zone you are in real trouble in the major.

[SPEAKER_02]: You either got to be able to miss bats with your fastball or you probably need to have three bat-missing secondaries in a fastball you can command.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right, that you can throw it to certain zones and set everything else up, and then you got to have three secondaries with distinct movement that can all miss bats that you can command well enough.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying that it has to be in the zone 50% of the time, but it probably has to be like 46 to 48 to really play.

[SPEAKER_02]: and then be able to throw it out of the zone to still get chases, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like it has to be a pitch that isn't an auto take.

[SPEAKER_02]: We see that with a lot of change-ups, where guys are still learning the change-up has happened with George Kirby early in his career.

[SPEAKER_02]: We just couldn't land the change-up and zone enough that when he did he would get swings and misses, but it was so rare that it was actually in zone that it became a much easier take.

[SPEAKER_02]: and then, you know, then you gotta gotta figure out whether it's even worth throwing or not.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, I think like the depth of the arsenal can make up for a lack of velocity or premiere fastball, but it's a lot easier to build from that fastball down, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's velocity or movement, a combination of the two, your Joe Ryan, you get movement, and we release trades and deception that's created in terms of the plane of the ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's why like you look at a patent, totally an economy early, different players, but both can miss bats with different pitches.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, totally is going to go off the fastball and everything is going to cascade off of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Early throws his fastball well enough, but he's got two different breaking ball shapes.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's got a really good change up that he can manipulate, it almost has two different shapes.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's why early's had a, like,

[SPEAKER_02]: pun intended early success because he's got a deep arsenal of quality secondary.

[SPEAKER_02]: You're kind of got to have one of the other.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you have both, then you have a good chance of being a front line starter frankly, but it's so hard to even know until guys get to the big leagues how some of the secondary stuff particularly changeups are going to play against big league haters.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's so okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So let me ask one more question with this, which is, so if you go over there,

[SPEAKER_03]: A prospect not, if you're a fantasy player, if you're just a fan who wants to know what's next, how would you best use the stuff story?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think if you're a fantasy player, I would try to take the scores and then it's going to see what I do, marry it to ERA in FIP and XFIP or we don't get Sierra for the minors, but sort of whatever ERA estimators you like, I would look at walk rates and I would look at strikeout rates and then kind of determine like, all right, who has the best combination of performance and stuff?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because you're going to weed out a fair amount of these guys that are relievers now if you're a fan of a team and it's your team maybe you put a little checkmark next to that name of like this is a guy that can come up and you know be really good immediately I think there's some guys like that I know that.

[SPEAKER_02]: The blue jays had a guy, you know, mason flarity.

[SPEAKER_02]: You had a crazy slider and cutter didn't throw that hard, but always showed up pretty highly on stuff models.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because both those pitches had a lot of movement.

[SPEAKER_02]: You need traits, high spin rates, whatever it might be that caused them to be so effective.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why they showed up high on stuff models.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think you just look at it like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: You obviously, there's going to be guys that jump on these things that have crazy movement.

[SPEAKER_02]: that also don't have great performance, but also sometimes it's something to look at and say, maybe the performance is going to come with a couple of adjustments, you know, throwing his better pictures more frequently, getting it in the zone for 5% more of the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: We see little adjustments and growth like that with really talented hitters and pictures every year.

[SPEAKER_02]: That you can never fully write somebody off like this is off topic, but I can remember having a conversation with a cross-checker

[SPEAKER_02]: about Joshua by as a year ago and then pretty much being like, I know the numbers are bad, but like, seriously, I wouldn't I wouldn't write this off because if it he ever catches even just enough contact, it's going to take off and I sit here a year later, having just written my Joshua by his report for the handbook and, you know, he's going to be in the Cardinals top 10 and frankly, like, I don't think he's at far off from a top 100 guy, like,

[SPEAKER_02]: We see this with pictures too, guys that throw enough strikes.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it's ever going to happen, but if Griff McGarry all of a sudden is in the zone, average above average amount of the time, all of a sudden Griff McGarry looks at like a much more interesting prospect than he has been over the last couple years as he hasn't been able to find the zone.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, it doesn't always happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of stories of guys with great stuff that never make the jump.

[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're going to bed on a guy who's struggled, if he has good stuff, and it's just a matter of maybe a little bit more strikes that he can coax out of him, that's not always a bad bet.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, well, okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to let you go first on Prospect Sandbox.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sopbox today.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I'm still kind of a little bit like trying to remember who I want to do, because I've gone

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not there yet.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, take us away Jeff, who is your prospects and books?

[SPEAKER_02]: So, this was a really interesting trade that happened at the beginning of the season.

[SPEAKER_02]: And could end up having some implications on the brewers

[SPEAKER_02]: World Series fortunes, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Quinn Priester was traded to the brewers from the Red Sox.

[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously that trade went really well for the brewers.

[SPEAKER_02]: Priester's been every bit the number three starter that I think some people thought he would be coming out of the draft had an exceptional season as obviously made some very big starts for the brewers down the stretch.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, if you remember, you know, they got back, you'll free Rodriguez, who had some hype coming off of the complex that he didn't really fully meet, and they also got, I believe, was like a first round, comp pick or whatever, was traded at the Red Sox.

[SPEAKER_02]: There was a player to be named later in that deal, and

[SPEAKER_02]: We may look back in a few years and say this might have been the best player, at least in the Red Sox side that was moving that deal.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's John Hall of Betts.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, the deal had happened earlier that that year, the thing was on the seventh of April, he's then the player to be named later that sent to the Red Sox on May 5th.

[SPEAKER_02]: Had a phenomenal debut season was a guy that was drafted out of old dominion last year in the fifth round, didn't get a whole lot of money.

[SPEAKER_02]: Made five starts for that very talented mudcats team, began the year, then went up to high a Salem, pitcher the well there, then had six appearances five starts spanning 37 and two thirds with Portland 2.39 ERA 2.05

[SPEAKER_02]: Pretty good numbers also had 27 strikeouts to five walks over the 37 and 23rd inning.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not a huge strikeout guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: That said, he jumps on the stuff model, particularly for his fastball quality.

[SPEAKER_02]: He has a really interesting forcing fastball.

[SPEAKER_02]: The velocity is only, we'll say, a little below major league average first starter 93.6 is max velocity.

[SPEAKER_02]: This year was 97.

[SPEAKER_02]: But he averages 17 and a half inches of induced vertical break

[SPEAKER_02]: 11.7 inches of horizontal break from a 4.18 degree VAA.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a 5-3 release.

[SPEAKER_02]: He gets six and a half feet of extension.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's in the zone 65% of the time at a 72% strike rate on that forcing

[SPEAKER_02]: lower 80s sweep your slider kind of a two planes almost like a death ball a little bit and then a really good change up that has good vertical separation, good velocity separation off of the fastball.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's not a huge batmesser, throws a lot of strikes, they're really, really interesting shapes.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's a guy that if he comes back next year and he has those fastball characteristics,

[SPEAKER_02]: And let's say it makes a jump that he's averaging 94.794.8 a mile per hour a little bit more isn't insane for a guy to make a jump in his second year of pro ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: This, to me, becomes a really interesting starter because he has those, you know, the movement on the fastball.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's got the release traits in the fastball.

[SPEAKER_02]: He throws a ton of strikes with all of his pitches.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he's got some different secondary.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's got a couple of different breaking ball shapes.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's got to change up.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty good.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the Red Sox have done a great job over the last year of really developing a lot of the arms and their system.

[SPEAKER_02]: I actually would go on a limb here and say they're pitching development has actually surpassed the hitting development that got all the highlights and and and

[SPEAKER_02]: and articles, and hype, et cetera, I think Willard and Bailey have just really done a phenomenal job top-to-bottom with that organization that it's not just the Peyton Toli's and the guys that you know, parouses, the guys who signed for big bonuses or had some notoriety entering the season when Willard came in, it's these guys like Hall of Betts and others, you know, Uberstein, guys that are pitching really, really well in the upper minors and look like

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they're not a number three starter, but a possible number four, a number five type of starter or a depth guy, you know, five six type of starter, it's really important for organizations to produce those guys have that depth, not only for trade chips, but also for just the marathon of the major league season and how many starters you really need.

[SPEAKER_02]: that have quality stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: This guy to me was like a throwing in this deal and I think when you take a step back six months later and it's like, wow, like there's there's maybe a lot more here than we that we even realized.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, mine you're probably going to be excited about this one too.

[SPEAKER_03]: I've gone all over the board, but mine's DAX Killby.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we both would say,

[SPEAKER_03]: This is the challenge that we face, trying to do this as well as we can.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we now get very limited snippets on most of the drafts, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: That's Kilbee to the credit of him and the Yankees.

[SPEAKER_03]: We got more of a snippet than normal, brand.

[SPEAKER_03]: We got to see a little bit of what he could do.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I would put it to you.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know soapbox usually is a monologue, but Jeff,

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like that there's no drafty that from this year's draft class that I feel better about what they've done to make me more excited about them than I was and I was going to we are already pretty excited about next skill be at draft day but I feel like I feel significantly more excited about what he can be now because for all the things you could like I think you now

[SPEAKER_03]: maybe even a better hitter than we thought he was.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that's what it is.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he blew up the athletic testing, one of the best athletes in the draft.

[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of one of my favorite players.

[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, I didn't really do my rankings until after the draft where I had a chance to kind of dig in for a week or so because you're so busy up to that period, July is crazy.

[SPEAKER_02]: I had him, I think, 17, I'm on my board.

[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of do it for fantasy.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it is my opinion, it is the players that I prefer.

[SPEAKER_02]: I actually think if you went out into like the marketplace right now, he's probably going top 10 to like 13 and a lot of these drafts the hype is behind him and I think it's more than the Yankees thing he could be playing for the Diamondbacks or the Brewers and would have this kind of height because he was in a stat cast park so we get to see the EVs and all that stuff and the EVs were good the skill stuff was really really good so all that stuff is public.

[SPEAKER_02]: Plus, I've been on record talking about how good the athletic testing was.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that was something that I think was definitely discussed with Kiwi's profile.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was also a guy that's been trending up since the combine.

[SPEAKER_02]: If I remember correctly, he was one of the big standouts of the testing at the combine in terms of some of the running and hitting drills and EVs, things like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think he's definitely a guy that, you know, if you redrafted right now and it's obviously dumb to say this, when it's only been a few months after the drafts, not all these guys have played, he might go a little bit higher than he did, there might he might have left some money on the table in terms of if he looks back in three or four years as to like, who should have gone where and who should have gotten a million dollars more, he'll be might be one of those guys.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's in top 100 conversations now, though, I don't think he'll end up on our offseason list.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's in the conversation.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's certainly a guy that's going to be discussing.

[SPEAKER_03]: 100%, so that's why he's my soapbox, little sneak peek at some of our off-season discussions.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's a lot of pitching, but we did at least work a hitter in there at the back at the very end of this.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to run now, I've got to edit this, but also we've got a lot of baseball to watch.

[SPEAKER_03]: For Jeff, I'm JJ, so long everybody.