[SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, JJ Cooper, Jeff Ponce, another baseball America Prospect podcast and this week we are talking all about hit plus and stuff plus and if you have been at baseball and I can calm last two days you probably know what we're talking about there but just in case you don't Jeff if you haven't gone to baseball and I can calm before you're listening to this before you watch this on YouTube.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just lay it out for people.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what is it that we are talking about?

[SPEAKER_02]: We're looking to all third organizations and how they all shape up analytically in how they're producing at the minor league levels.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that's the very simple way.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jeff, great to see you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's now try to give the listener a little bit of a more detailed look at what we're talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: You'll start with, we'll start with stuff plus, because that's kind of, we've had that a little bit longer.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll start by saying that all of this is very much kind of the work of you and Dylan White, who is our lead fantasy analyst.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was also kind of a, I would say,

[SPEAKER_02]: analytics experts that basically drives this, but kind of lay out for us like what we're, you know, again, we're not the only stuff model out there by any stretch of the imagination, but what is it that we're trying to measure here?

[SPEAKER_02]: And so when we say so and so this team is good and stuff plus or this team is bad and the stuff plus, what does that mean?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think from like a very basic level what we're doing on the stuff plus side and on the hit plus side is measuring run value and it's obviously the opposite from one to the other where with hitters were looking at traits and

[SPEAKER_03]: things that tend to produce runs and we've seen that these sort of metrics and how they correlate to run production or run suppression on the pitching side over a pretty decent sample now, not only on the major league side, but also on the minor league side just in terms of the breadth of data we've had access to for going on five plus years now, which I think, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: five years you start to really get a good feel for what works and what doesn't and what sort of other red flags and what aren't.

[SPEAKER_03]: So looking at the pitching side, we're looking at traits that suppressed, you know, run production.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so a lot of that is obviously basic stuff velocity.

[SPEAKER_03]: movement.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think people will look at spin, which can contribute, but really it's more spin that's producing movement we've talked about this concept before, so, you know, we can see an organization maybe like the brewers and like a curveballs where, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: They're breaking balls actually don't perform that well, but they are very high spinning breaking balls, which isn't necessarily indicative of being a good pitch necessarily, but I think, you know, lots of movement at certain velocity bands, how those pitches.

[SPEAKER_03]: particularly secondaries, change-ups, but more so sliders, sweepers, curveballs, cutters.

[SPEAKER_03]: How those play off of the fastball and the quality of the fastball?

[SPEAKER_03]: Often impacts all that because we're looking at it in terms of how all the pitches play against each other and in our snow, you know, release points and, and, and, um,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, playing to the plate, like stuff like the HAA stuff like that, that maybe isn't one for one direct correlation, you know, to deception, but does sort of explain some of the

[SPEAKER_03]: particularly sweepers when we're talking about HAA or even coders.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's all the stuff getting a little bit technical, but I'm a very basic level.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're looking at how hard do you throw it, how much does it move, how does it move, and what's the historical significance of pitches like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But also how good is that pitch against other pitches within its pitch type and often other pitches that are?

[SPEAKER_03]: similar movement, but maybe a little softer, a little bit harder, all that kind of stuff, hitting, I think is really basic.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you make a lot of contact?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you make a lot of contact in the zone?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you swing at strikes?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you not swing at balls?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you hit the ball hard and do you hit the ball hard in the air at good angles?

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I mean,

[SPEAKER_03]: That's kind of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would sit out.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is Ron Tom on defense.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not talking about base running.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about purely the batter pitcher interaction here.

[SPEAKER_02]: But you just hit on it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would the way I would describe it.

[SPEAKER_02]: These are an attempts to model and explain and project what's good on the hitting side and the pitching side.

[SPEAKER_02]: The pitching side, the stuff plus is one that I would say,

[SPEAKER_02]: is a continual work and progress to continue to improve it because it is much more complex.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it is much more like, if you set on this hit plus, it's, there's much, there are many fewer interactions we're talking about here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, if you hit the ball softly, swing it pitches out of the zone, don't make a ton of contact, don't make a ton of contact in the zone.

[SPEAKER_02]: you're just not going to hit.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry, but there's not like there's not any, but but he does this really well.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, if you check none of those boxes, you are not going to unless you improve that you are not going to be a productive majorly clear now.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can think of it as like your video game with the sliders, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: You can really crank up contact and you can downgrade EV a little bit and still be good.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can crank up EV and crank down contact or zone miss or whatever and still be a productive player.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's ways to do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But on the hitting side, if it, you know, there's not really the best way I could put it is is there's not something else out here where we're like, oh, if we just have that data point.

[SPEAKER_02]: always it can improve but like this is pretty like you said it's pretty straightforward stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: On the pitching side and to Dylan's credit we keep trying to, you know, we keep improving this but there are still I would say and again I'm gonna ask you, you know, here's my perception and then you tell me what you think.

[SPEAKER_02]: We are doing the best we can on this but this is an incredibly

[SPEAKER_02]: We've been continually working on improving how it models change-ups.

[SPEAKER_02]: Change-ups are continued to be a challenge for any kind of stuff model, because it's, as you said, it's more about deception.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, things that we started incorporating into it that we, that may not have been there four or five years ago are part of that, which is, hey, looking at the difference in pitchpath,

[SPEAKER_02]: adds to the quality of the change of you know, but I think that as we go forward, we're going to see even more and more modeling on this that looks at the interaction between the different pitches because if this one pitch is this, but you have this other pitch that really works well with it, Dylan points out in this piece about when you talk about sweepers, sweepers are really good.

[SPEAKER_02]: But sweepers are a little different than when we talk about other sliders because they really are kind of a same side pitch in many ways of these.

[SPEAKER_02]: So if you have a great sweeper, it's not like, well, why isn't you throwing that sweeper more well, no, he's probably he may be maxing it out versus right handed hitters.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it wouldn't make any sense to throw it to lefties or things like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's just so much more complexity to a pitching model, I would say, where we feel good about where this is, but we also, I would say, there's probably going to be continually more improvements to that.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're on the hitting side.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I'll ask you, is there anything else that's like if we had that, it really would help unlock something else on the hitting model.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, yeah, it's a good question because like off the top of my head, you know, we do have access to a variety of swing metrics and including the heart swing things like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: pulsight air metrics and a variety of those.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's just way more numbers that, you know, through sourcing that we have access to that, you know, I think a lot of it at this point with hitting like we

[SPEAKER_03]: We sort of know, so it's hard to sort of point out one there where I think like with pitching it's ever evolving, I think the next sort of thing with with hitting is probably, you know, more bat path sort of metrics, you know, more specific in like trust where the bat speed metrics, the certainly we've started to get those at the major league level on like AAA and some stuff in the far to state league as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: like any of those parks, we can certainly get that type of stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think the next wrinkle is probably being able to factor in.

[SPEAKER_03]: you know run value like running running value like you know as a base runner and then obviously is a fielder and then be able to come up with almost like a you know projected sort of like war type of metric or overall value on both sides of the ball.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's kind of where the next part of it goes because we have so much minutia just in terms of

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, hitting like just being able to use publicly available numbers and then all the underlying stuff, we can get a pretty good feel for, you know, what the issues are within like a bad at ball profile in terms of, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: too much, you know, whatever, you know, pull side ground balls and rollovers and all that kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like we can identify a lot of those traits, just kind of by kind of looking at the bigger numbers and the bigger sample size already.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there's a lot of models, you know, that just specifically look at some of the public stuff and do a really good job of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, I think, you know, the more that we learn, the more that we're able to make the connections between

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, just some basic stuff like infield flyball rate and ground ball rate and, um, line drive rate and all that sort of stuff with certain other metrics like angles and, um, you know, EVs and that sort of thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, then also their correlation to just higher, batting averages on balls and play.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think a lot of that stuff we've already sort of hack to a degree, um, or maybe I'm just not smart enough to think of,

[SPEAKER_03]: with the next adventure is, you know, something involving bad and ball spins, someone like that and sort of expected distance and that sort of thing on hits.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right, so that's a good way to kind of set this up, which is what we're trying to do here and what we've done here is using, you know, sourcing to gather the analytical data across the minor leagues and then take that on an organizational level and also, you know,

[SPEAKER_02]: to basically pull out what each organization is doing now.

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, if we like to point out kind of the pluses and minuses, we are looking at the organizations as a whole here, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: So, if one organization and this is not really true, this is an extreme example of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But one organization was full of 30 year olds versus another organization in those full of 20 year olds, and the 30 year olds perform better.

[SPEAKER_02]: That would not necessarily mean that they're better prospects.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, but what we're saying is we're looking at the entirety.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think with that you are very much finding

[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things you find is what organizations value, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And that kind of perfect segues us to the thing that if you have gone to baseball america.com and read the two stories.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that one of the first things you will notice is, huh?

[SPEAKER_02]: So there's an organization that is number one on the hitting and the pitching side.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, there is.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I know that I can, I'm, cue the comments, you know, I know on YouTube, we will get that we are clearly biased towards the Dodgers here because, you know, there is a definite subset of people who just think that the Dodgers are actually not, you know, that they're not really doing what, you know, what we're saying here and all, but why do the Dodgers rank so well on this?

[SPEAKER_03]: I think like the just consistently target a lot of these traits, you know, there are an organization that's something sort of the forefront of not only, you know, the analytics and player development, but I think also on the scouting side of things, I think people forget just the amount of resources that the Dodgers have and can sort of pour into, you know, boots on the ground and addition to the folks in the offices,

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think there's just lost happened in terms of the organizational philosophy from top to bottom.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't think this is necessarily unique to baseball or even unique to the Dodgers in that sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think anytime you see an organization that is really productive for a long period of time,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's because there is sort of a top down philosophy and good communication throughout the organization and certain ideals and sort of pillars that the organization sort of stands behind.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think you can look at football and probably both of our teams or the Patriots and the Steelers and their prime years and

[SPEAKER_03]: you know, some of the, you know, more dynastic runs, but Celtics, the lickers.

[SPEAKER_03]: Just to me, you can go right through into baseball, even the recent teams, the Astros, you know, they just obviously had their run of playoff appearances and a lot of success kind of just come to an end or maybe go on pause for a year or two.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think a lot of that just has to do with doing everything really well and all the different acquisition windows that teams have the Dodgers really make the most of that and I think, you know, you don't just see their players that come to their organization have success.

[SPEAKER_03]: With their team, you're starting to see a lot of guys that they've traded also have success with their respective teams, like a bush obviously being a primary one ramp epio has been really good since he's gone over to the raised and Miguel Vargas honestly had a really good year for the White Sox kind of

[SPEAKER_03]: I think to those outside of the fantasy world where you rank pretty highly as a third basement, but that's another conversation But I think it's just they target good players.

[SPEAKER_03]: They develop good players.

[SPEAKER_03]: They sign good players.

[SPEAKER_03]: They trade for good players and

[SPEAKER_03]: At this point, we shouldn't be shocked by any of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the reasons they're able to get access to the players that they're able to get access to, I think often is because of how well they do in the draft and on the international market, that even if they miss on the first round pick or second round pick, they probably find somebody around 3 through 20 or an NBFA for that matter.

[SPEAKER_03]: Who's a writer?

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, who's a really interesting player who maybe has value for the major league team or at the very least is an interesting trade asset or a good viable player Um, I'm one of the teams and within their minor league run their organization.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just, you know, good

[SPEAKER_03]: Every year there's an Aiden folder where I think it's the guy that we talk about specifically in the article.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's specific, there's a guy like that every year.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's guys like Patrick Copen who I feel like if he's in a different organization, he's a shallower organization, say the white socks.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're probably having more top 100 kind of conversations around him because his performance has been really good over the last couple of years.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's what I find interesting is like it's such a deep system and it's been such a deep system for such a long time long before my time here at Baseball American.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think I'm weeks away from going on a full four year.

[SPEAKER_03]: So,

[SPEAKER_03]: Every year we're having the same conversations or other Dodgers, you know, deep into October as a viable, you know, championship contender and then also about the quality of their farm systems when we do these stat cast rankings and scores.

[SPEAKER_02]: As you just kind of laid out, but like if you look at, okay, so 2022.

[SPEAKER_02]: They had one pick in the top under picks, Dalton rushing number 40, who by the way.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in the big leagues for them didn't have a great year, but in the big leagues, and then Alex Freeland was at pick one of five.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, again, in the big leagues this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you look at 20 2021, you know, well, it's again, just you said, it's not like we'll see with Maddox bronze.

[SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't happened yet Peter, you big.

[SPEAKER_02]: Nick Dastrine, he's been, you know, had some injuries, but Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip's, Binskip

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say many factors a little strong, but it is kind of partly that.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's they know how to acquire traits and then help those players improve in ways that gets them to kind of the maximum what they are.

[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I would say on the pitching side, as they've themselves acknowledged, it has led to kind of a date they embrace injury risk.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have more willingness to take on risk.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd say them in the braves over the last two years, both kind of fit in that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it does mean they're willing to trade.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we're gonna have more injuries, but we're also, they would rather have guys who have dominant stuff when they're healthy than okay guys we're gonna be durable.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll see, you know, again, it's hard to say it's not working out for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: We also fully acknowledge that this is our organization that they can do everything.

[SPEAKER_02]: do every aspect of it, where I would say so many organizations operate from a position of, they have scarce resources.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where I would say that the way I would describe it, this is the organization has to decide.

[SPEAKER_02]: Are we going to put our money into this over here?

[SPEAKER_02]: Sports medicine.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sports science.

[SPEAKER_02]: Are we going to do it into R&D?

[SPEAKER_02]: Are we going to do it into coaching?

[SPEAKER_02]: Are we going to do it into scouting?

[SPEAKER_02]: Are we going to do it into whatever it is?

[SPEAKER_02]: And the Dodgers approach is yes, we do it all.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say I will point out, I get it.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Dodgers have more resources, but a lot of times what we are talking about is in the terms of major league.

[SPEAKER_02]: Organizations revenue, major league organization overall spending, the decisions that are being made on this are often ones that are in tiny, tiny, tiny, you know, fractions of when you consider the magnitude of spending that goes on in major league baseball, but the Dodgers are one of those who absolutely, I would say says yes, so that's one.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I think in some ways people may have expected that we want to talk about a team who's pitching has kind of been

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that this is going to be against a lot of prevailing conventional wisdom that this organization's pitching is really standing out in the minor leagues and we'll do that right after this quick break.

[SPEAKER_02]: So Jeff we're back and let's talk about the Orioles pitching and I say that because I know that there is very much.

[SPEAKER_02]: a, and let's just say that Trevor Rodgers in development over the 2025 season did help reduce some of this, you know, in the second half of the season, like the Orioles had a terrible season, one that they do need to examine and go, what went wrong.

[SPEAKER_02]: But for all the concerns about, well, their pitching is the problem, they don't go out and acquire pitching, they lost Corbin Burns.

[SPEAKER_02]: Trevor Rodgers then came out and was,

[SPEAKER_02]: an ace for the second half of the season a little more than the second half of the season a little bit beyond just that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But in the minor leagues, the Orioles also look really good.

[SPEAKER_02]: They stand out here as far as the top organizations, as far as on the pitching metrics, on stuff plus.

[SPEAKER_02]: Were you surprised at all about that or did that kind of just confirmed you something that you were already seeing?

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I wasn't shocked.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think second was maybe a little bit higher than, you know, I would have guessed out of the hat.

[SPEAKER_03]: I probably might have guessed like mats or rays or red socks next.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe even marlins who I'll rank within that sort of range.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Yankees too, who are just kind of outside of the top five or six group.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, just thinking about

[SPEAKER_03]: some of their arms with premium stuff, you know, obviously, you know, Carlos the Grange is being one of them, but there's a whole bunch of other really interesting stuff in that organization.

[SPEAKER_03]: But,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when the numbers came out, it didn't sense over the article, and I was going parsing through it, I think this was probably the big Ahad jump out moment for me.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then when you start to look at some of the names, you realize how good of a job they've done, and we talked about this in my previous comments, and the Dodgers in a few different acquisition windows here of acquiring good stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: They haven't spent a lot of draft capital on college pictures in the early few rounds of the draft.

[SPEAKER_03]: They'd mostly gone hitters.

[SPEAKER_03]: But then you take a look at guys that leave I Wells who's a fourth rounder, Braxton Bragg who an excellent year this year who's an eighth rounder, 2023, eighth rounder, leave I Wells at the same drafts in the fourth round.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then somebody like,

[SPEAKER_03]: 23 years who had one of the best years of any picture in the minor leagues this year and was certainly a contender for our minor league picture of the year award this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then also in that 23 draft, Nester Hermann, you know, right hander who had kind of a breakout year last year, you know, solid year again this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he's a guy that they they draft in the 11th

[SPEAKER_03]: to her excubles, alma mater, Seattle University.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they're getting a lot of value, particularly from this one draft class, but guys that have now been in the system, I think 23 is obviously a good example, because they've been in the system now for a couple of years, and now are all sort of on the cusp of the major leagues, you know, Bragg obviously has some major issues dealing with.

[SPEAKER_03]: But all those guys,

[SPEAKER_03]: really valuable, have good stuff, varying degrees of starter futures, I think that there's relief risk with a few of those guys, but all of them throw hard, have pretty good stuff, have performed in the upper minors.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you start to factor in how well they've done with some of the names in the international market.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is it key for Morphay?

[SPEAKER_03]: Was that was his name?

[SPEAKER_03]: It was like the big name coming into the year.

[SPEAKER_03]: And obviously, can't throw strikes.

[SPEAKER_03]: But has crazy stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: But then Estimum Mejia steps up and Louis Galeone steps up.

[SPEAKER_03]: And both of those guys rank really highly.

[SPEAKER_03]: look like really interesting pitching prospects, and he was on the top 100, I think, daily own as a guy who's kind of a green arrow up guy this off season already, because he's in the fall league if I'm not mistaken, and then they acquired a couple of interesting pitchers and guys like Jerry and Watts Brown, I think Tyson neighbor's being another Boston Bateman.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they added a lot of depth in a few of these different acquisition windows, like I said,

[SPEAKER_03]: They're getting some value from guys in the draft.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're getting some value from international pictures, which I mean, that is among, if not the trickiest demographic to sort of project out from an early age and get some value, at least from, you know, prospects status, that's sort of thing in an early period.

[SPEAKER_03]: So,

[SPEAKER_03]: Kudos to them, especially is an organization that when Mike Elias took over, really didn't have a lot of presence in Latin America.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they've got a great job there.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then all these different draft arts, particularly from that 23 class, I mean,

[SPEAKER_03]: That is a nice crop of pitchers, even if you drafted those guys anywhere throughout the board, you would probably come back and say that was a second, third, fifth in a seventh round pick or something.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, no, you know, it's a fourth in 11th and 8th, and then a non-drafted guy that we signed in August at staff for the draft.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's a pretty good production and all of those guys, well, they may not be the ace in waiting that Orioles fans are clamoring for, I think they all are going to have value for the organization in the next year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say with this is that they need to do this, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like if they're going to have their approach, if their approach is going to be,

[SPEAKER_02]: When you see the oils are picking in round one, if you see the oils are picking in round two and often the oils are picking around three, expect to see them take a position player.

[SPEAKER_02]: If that's going to generally be the case for them, then they have to do this.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would say that there is also very clear evidence nowadays that this is,

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not saying to the exclusion of taking guys high, but there is a hundred percent, I would say nowadays, a belief among many, I would say, more forward, you know, I'm the cutting edge organizations that the four through 15th rounds are rounds where they can find pictures who are nowhere near what they need to be,

[SPEAKER_02]: Would you say that that is that a crazy idea or is that something we're seeing because it just like again the brewers on another example of this the Mariners are example that I think that there's a number of organizations for you're like Where did this guy come from he was a seventh round pick he never had success before they did this this and this with him is vealos up three miles an hour he's now throwing this pitch that he never threw before and now he's a prospect and now he's in the big leagues that kind of we've seen that path in a way that

[SPEAKER_02]: You rarely rarely see the same story.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that it'd done happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: But you rarely rarely see the story of, this is a seventh round college hitter who hit 210, 280, 315 in college.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they've turned him into a really good hitter.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's much more that you can find pictures who, at least on the surface stat level, had six ERAs allowed more than a hit and ending didn't strike anyone out in college and then they end up being much better

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think we see it every year.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that college success and traditional ways in terms of wins and losses and ERAs doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think the thing that you can prove in college that you can handle a solid workload and take the ball once a week and go deep into starts and get out in a variety of ways.

[SPEAKER_03]: But also show certain traits.

[SPEAKER_03]: traits and certain things in terms of movement and release traits.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes it's just inefficient season mechanics and it's like, all right, this is a very fixable low-hanging fruit that we can fix in an offseason and have, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: major improvements to fastball playing, fastball quality as we talked about last week, a lot of the additional velocity pictures of added in recent years is just a greater understanding of how the body moves the kinetic chain and focus on cleaning up mechanics and getting the most out of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, when

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when we have organizations that have smart people in the identification process and the player development process that are aligned, and often that's like minorly pitching coordinators, because they're talking to both groups and are kind of a good traffic and going between between the two, which sometimes are siloed off.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think like a couple of good examples that we can pull from this year that two organizations that regardless of what their ranks are, both had a lot of success of bringing in college pitchers from, you know, throughout the board and then turning in them into something with newer pitching voices and coordinators and the red socks and the blue jays.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, Justin and Willard, whether Red Sox and Justin Lear, they just have to do it from Justin's with the BlueJays, both of those guys were able to come in.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think be, you know, interesting voices within the process on both sides and, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: Then take in some of these pitchers and improve those guys and make sure that there were, you know, really clear directions and plans of approach when it came to PD for, you know, all their guys and we saw, you know, rookies from, you know,

[SPEAKER_02]: It does really stand out and it is again, but you know, like we saw was you savage we saw it with obviously with the Red Sox tape and totally we've seen it with a guy's like kind of nearly, you know, who are kind of success stories and all that that's what we're seeing a lot of I think there's one other organization that we need to head on with this with the pitching side, which is.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Metz, I would say that this is pretty apparent if you saw what they did, like, I know that they missed the playoffs and know that Metz fans understandably are pretty upset with the season, but on the rookie pitching side, like we saw them, the thing that almost saved the season was no limit lane.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you had Jonah Tong come up into the rotation.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that you're looking at probably

[SPEAKER_02]: to the minimum of those guys being in the rotation and start next year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we'll see about Brandon Sprote.

[SPEAKER_02]: But going beyond that, we talked about this at the deadline that they made trades that I would say that you could really kind of summarize as they developed pictures to the point where they had value in trades, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Added Velocity, added stuff for pictures, where a lot of kind of relieverish types,

[SPEAKER_02]: We're enticing, we're appealing to other teams.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're really now, it's not just those big names that we're talking about now on the medside of how they're kind of taking a step forward when it comes to pitching development.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think, you know, we've talked about this all throughout the year and, you know, I think part of it was, you know, when they brought in Eric Jagers from the Reds and, you know, obviously a drive line background, I just think things started to change and there's other folks that they brought into the organization that have had my hand in this, but it just seemed very clear that they were targeting certain types of traits in the draft.

[SPEAKER_03]: and doing it a lot, like they drafted a lot of pictures.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'd have to pull up the numbers over the last three years or whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it feels like they've brought in a lot of talent and they've done a really good job of then having a really clear dev plan for all those guys of how they're going to make them better.

[SPEAKER_03]: And as they've ran into hurdles and roadblocks with certain things,

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think like Jonah Tong is a good example of that, I think Brandon Sprote is an even better example of that when you look at, you know, he dominated throughout the lower levels.

[SPEAKER_03]: Once you got up the AAA, you started to struggle a little bit more, and it was like, all right, we need to figure out a game plan in terms of usage and maybe getting a little bit more varied in terms of your arsenal and game planning a little bit better.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, started throwing a few different variations of his fastball, made some changes to his breaking stuff, and then the usage and game with his breaking stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then it led to a lot of success.

[SPEAKER_03]: We just saw that in 2025 of them kind of fixing that problem.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it led to a really good second half, and then he obviously gets up to the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_03]: Jonathan was a fastball guy that had a pretty good slider, and a curveball that worked in the lower levels, that was kind of a mid 70s get to get me over curveball that once you get up to AA AAA, the pitch doesn't really work as well as an as effective, particularly as sort of a pitch that's used in lieu of a change up.

[SPEAKER_03]: they developed an improved change up grip.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we talked about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: We covered it.

[SPEAKER_03]: He talked to us about it on show.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it was something they did in their offseason dev camps and made a few different suggestions.

[SPEAKER_03]: He tried to split her, he didn't like the split her.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they tried to, you know, a different grip on a different part of the horseshoe and he really liked it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it drove a ton of results.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he had a historic minor league season for the meds this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think we look at all these different players.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nolan McLean was, I think, always a raw ball of clay, a lot of organizations wanted to get their hands on.

[SPEAKER_03]: just because he had been a two-way player or guy that who really liked to hit and had some limiting pitching experience, but obviously had a lot more talent on the pitching side than he did on the hitting side where he was

[SPEAKER_03]: a guy with a contact rate that would even make Spencer Jones flush.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll just put it that way.

[SPEAKER_03]: But now he's one of the most exciting young pitchers in the major leagues and I think going in the next year because I think he still qualifies is probably working you the year candidate and maybe a front runner, you know, it wouldn't shock me if Vegas had the highest odds on him, you know, come February.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's gonna be a fun one because, you know, come February, I'll be very interested.

[SPEAKER_02]: I will just say again, another guy that you've heard on this podcast, we've just talked about a lot, but the Pirates gonna have a real issue that when Connor Griffin shows up to spring training, he's going to be the best player in their camp.

[SPEAKER_02]: It position player, not the best player.

[SPEAKER_02]: Paul schemes is still there, but the best position player in camp.

[SPEAKER_02]: And,

[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be fascinating if they have kind of a placeholder shortstop or if it's Nick Gonzalez is going to be their shortstop to try to explain like, you know, I help that a healthy kind of griff and he's to go to trip lay, you know, because he needs more time, which I'm not saying he doesn't he just got to double I, but because we're really comfortable with filling the blank at shortstop when anyone watching's going to be like,

[SPEAKER_02]: think that Connor Griffin might be your best short stop and your best center filter.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, that's another rookie of the year Candidate will see for next year.

[SPEAKER_02]: But speaking of that, we'll bring it over to the hitting side.

[SPEAKER_02]: And one that jumped out to me and I'll kind of, again, I'm going to ask you what you kind of think about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But one that really does jump out to me is I've gun the

[SPEAKER_02]: And there was a time where it was like you have some interesting pictures, but when you talked about hitters and the tigers, you weren't talking for long.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you look at literally a 25 year span and you said, give me the best position players that the tigers produced homegrown.

[SPEAKER_02]: you would not be talking for long.

[SPEAKER_02]: You had Travis Freeman and then you had a long gap until you got to, you know, someone else.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what we're gonna get?

[SPEAKER_02]: There have been a couple of Nick Castellanos's is one that definitely stands out.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm not saying there's no, you know, but.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say there was a long stretch of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you look at it now and they are right there at the top.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're number two in our pit plus metric.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you look at it and you say, okay, well, they are best in swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: They are like, that's probably the thing that jumps out the most, but they are best in swing decisions and they are second best in 90th percentile exit velocity.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a good combo to have, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you are know the zone, and when you get a pitch in the zone, you really drive it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, we could talk about Kevin McGonagall.

[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, we could talk about, you know, that Jose, Jose, per se, we could talk about Max Clark.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a kind of a key part of this, obviously.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would say on top of that, you know, price-rainer.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would say that the other thing that to their credit, it's getting guys who seem like they were kind of lost to somewhere Max Anderson.

[SPEAKER_02]: Trade crews had a really good year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's not just those top tier, top 25 prospects in the game that they have who are doing this.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the fact that we are again.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about development of organizations, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And that really stands out to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: as one that jumps out, that's a positive.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, okay, we're gonna spin this positive, Jeff.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we had two organizations that have made changes are making changes to soft-season.

[SPEAKER_02]: We know that Paul Toboney is the new head of President-of-based operations for the nationals.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know yet what the Rockies, what decision the Rockies are gonna go in.

[SPEAKER_02]: But they have already come out and said that,

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see it when it happens, but that they recognize the need for a new fresh outside voice, it would appear.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to ask it to you this way, like looking at this, looking at these organizations as a whole, I would kind of lay out that these are two organizations that have more low hanging fruit have more

[SPEAKER_02]: where a different approach might be able to unlock more because I'd say that there's less that's been done in those areas than it is in most other organizations.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that am I being too optimistic here when I say that these are two organizations that could take steps forward or is that something that you see in the state as well?

[SPEAKER_03]: No, I think, you know, you hit the nail on the head in terms of, you know, two organizations that, you know, absolutely, you know, it could take sort of those jumps forward.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think particularly when you look at the nationals, there's, there's been talent in the organization.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just don't think there has been,

[SPEAKER_03]: a consistent direction.

[SPEAKER_03]: And now I'm saying this is somebody who has or they cover the national's right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I know that there's a lot of people who are hurting right now, who we're not, we are not really, anytime you change.

[SPEAKER_02]: So they'll be just getting there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Anytime you change directions and organization, there is a lot of hardworking people that end up adversely affected by that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's, unfortunately, that sucks,

[SPEAKER_02]: It, that is part of the game, you know, the same way that it is for players on it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, we're not making light of that in any way.

[SPEAKER_02]: But sorry, continue.

[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, I completely agree with you on that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and so I think, you know, particularly when we're talking about the nationals, I think there is a lot of low hanging fruit.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they're also made, you know, the first step in the right direction of,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, making a really good hire, I think, at the top and in terms of to Bonnie, it's a somebody that, you know, you hear nothing but positive things with folks that have dealt with him behind the scenes, within the Red Sox organization, folks in the media.

[SPEAKER_03]: those with other organizations that maybe came up at the same time and have close relationships with him.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's very much well-liked and beloved even within the Red Sox front office.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I think that is a great hire and somebody who's been around for a few different regimes and a few different GMs and seeing how

[SPEAKER_03]: different people do different things.

[SPEAKER_03]: How data is used, how scouting is used.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think is maybe even taken away based on some of this comment, some of his own personal observations of things that maybe he didn't like under certain predecessors in Boston.

[SPEAKER_03]: and things that maybe he will take away that he did like so I think that he will have a good marriage of sort of scouting acumen and good scouting people in minds with a new organization but also using the data and aligning themselves with player development in a way that can help their players get better because you know the success of these draft picks I think for a lot of guys who've done a lot of amateur work.

[SPEAKER_03]: and they'll tell you this, it doesn't stop.

[SPEAKER_03]: Once those guys are just brought into the organization, it's just like whatever happens happens, it's on the organization to make sure that they have the resources and information in front of them, in the right direction to make the, you know, tangible changes they need to make to find success in the big leagues one day.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's something that kind of gets lost sometimes in the process.

[SPEAKER_03]: But

[SPEAKER_03]: I think the nationals for the very least are in a good position to maybe make a jump.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there are some things that, you know, they do do, you know, fairly well.

[SPEAKER_03]: Their EVs are actually pretty high.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're swing decisions actually.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're in bad and, you know, I think some of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll get to the point.

[SPEAKER_02]: So like, yes, those are both good.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I say it's low hanging fruit.

[SPEAKER_02]: And their contact is horrific.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So they are worse, they are worse in contact percentage and they are second to last in zone contact rate, which I Now some of that may be okay, this is who you've drafted right like you've drafted players who have big swings, we hit them all really hard, but don't have great bat double skills like there's a certain level of that, but there is also some of okay

[SPEAKER_02]: What you know going in there is like, if you're a new regime coming in, your first goal is not, oh, we're gonna really embark on that speed training and all that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Seems like we got that pretty well.

[SPEAKER_02]: Your, and it's not even like, when you talk about swing decisions, it's not something where you would say, oh, they're really what we're gonna do is more about pitch recognition than anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there is some of that, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: There's goal giving some of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But more than anything, it is about we're gonna really work at,

[SPEAKER_02]: tweaking swings, improving swings, developing players to make more consistent contact.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, like, yeah, they hit the ball really hard.

[SPEAKER_02]: If they could get to that, then there's something here to be potentially really kind of blossomed, I would say.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the Rockies, I would say, the Rockies are 30

[SPEAKER_02]: That would be, I would say it's a flip side thing, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like if a new regime's coming in in Colorado, it is going to be about swing decisions, pitch recognition, maybe some bad speed training as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's kind of like what they need to what the national needs are kind of two very different things, aren't they?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think, you know, absolutely, when you look at the numbers,

[SPEAKER_03]: their issues and their low-hanging fruit sort of fall within completely different categories.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would also say with with Colorado, you know, we were talking about hitting more right now, but they also are them and the nationals are pretty low in the stuff plus metrics as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that so I would say especially on the rocky side, like there is the

[SPEAKER_02]: the 800-pound gorilla, the problem that has been a problem forever, which is what we do of course, field.

[SPEAKER_02]: But on top of that, there is, again, some stuff development that could also probably play a role here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Any other orgs, before we wrap this up, any other orgs we haven't talked about here that you're like, JJ, you didn't ask me about them.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think the Astros are kind of an interesting one.

[SPEAKER_03]: As somebody who covers the Astros, I will say like,

[SPEAKER_03]: While they're not huge names, though, I think that will change with Ethan Frey, who they drafted at LSU this year, who had a phenomenal pro debut.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think if we look back in recent years, they're all over the last decade, guys that have pro debuts of this caliber.

[SPEAKER_03]: and are doing the type of things they're doing and just in terms of the underlying metrics and all that sort of stuff, but also the feedback that we've gotten from Scouts.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think those guys typically project pretty well as future big leegers.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he was obviously one, I think Zach Cole, who was a big leager and kind of was one of the few guys helping them down the stretch.

[SPEAKER_03]: In terms of making some plays over the last couple of weeks, we'll bush, it's kind of like a bat first catcher probably just a first baseman long term, but when you look at, you know, 21 and under performers this year in the minor leagues bush ranks really highly Anthony Quasau, who was a later round draft pick kind of out of their backyard, excuse me California, who.

[SPEAKER_03]: I wrote about earlier this year, and some of the changes he made to come a couple years.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's one of the youngest players in the 2023 draft class, but we took a big step forward, and then Lucas Spence, who looks like an absolute fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a bunch of interesting under the radar guys there with good underlying metrics.

[SPEAKER_03]: They hit the ball really, really hard, pretty good swing decisions and excellent angles.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's kind of like the Spencer Jones approach is what the Astros seem to have targeted and kind of found with a lot of these guys, but I find that one to be interesting because this is always an organization where

[SPEAKER_03]: They consistently have prospects who outperform, you know, how they're ranked.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not just by us, but I think just generally by the industry at large.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so for them to have some more of these bats kind of brewing in there, gives me a lot to kind of bear down on as we're getting into handbook period now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Though the AL teams are not my problem right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: I might even think about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not on to the American League.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're on to the National League right now if we work on our top 10s.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on to the reds.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking a very much about the reds right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we do hope you enjoy this edition of the baseball America Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: With Jeff Ponce, I'm JJ Cooper.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you enjoyed this, check out much more on this over at baseballamerican.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, we want to give Dylan White credit.

[SPEAKER_02]: Dylan did the heavy lifting here.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're just kind of analyzing an all from, you know, Jeff did a lot of the heavy lifting too.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to say, but let me just say this.

[SPEAKER_02]: I did none of the heavy lifting on this piece.

[SPEAKER_02]: I enjoyed it like you all the readers did.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, looked at it before it went live.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that's all I can say.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we hope you're also enjoying the postseason.

[SPEAKER_02]: But again, so much over at baseballamerica.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you do enjoy this, please like and subscribe or leave a comment on YouTube.

[SPEAKER_02]: I try to respond to this many of those that can.

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

[SPEAKER_02]: So long, everybody.