[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to another baseball America prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're staying with the top 30 deep dives.

[SPEAKER_01]: They we are diving into the Tampa Bay raise top 30.

[SPEAKER_01]: JJ Cooper is joining me as he writes the raise top 34.

[SPEAKER_01]: The handbook.

[SPEAKER_01]: JJ, how's it going today, man?

[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Not bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Happy to talk.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get a little bit of a behind the curtain.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're recording this as we just got done doing a top 100 rankings meeting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Always fun to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to be talking about a raised system that even in the time since we did the prospect handbook, which was literally less than a month ago, a whole lot has changed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it feels that way and you know, just constant stream of feedback, particularly, you know, as the top 100 kind of process begins and we start to hammer out a list.

[SPEAKER_01]: We certainly get.

[SPEAKER_01]: more specific feedback on certain players and it's not just, you know, how they line up against other players in their respective systems, but sort of the global, you know, ranking.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think sometimes that's, that's a little tougher, right, because depending on who you're speaking with within the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: They could have a wide variety of opinions or preferences, there's obviously boxes as well that all come into play.

[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of interesting, but let's dive into this race system here before we go into any of the rankings.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just from a general sense,

[SPEAKER_01]: But sort of the state of the organization, state of the system, is it a system that has players that could graduate and contribute in the next season in 2026, is it more of a wait and see kind of a system that has maybe depth with younger, high upside players?

[SPEAKER_01]: What's the sort of defining characteristic?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's now both because obviously the the main thing that happened is in this offseason trading away guys like shame bars trading away brand and allow has Basically there are trade for prospects and so I would say the raise or not, you know, I don't think that the raise are conveying that hey, this is a loss season and we're just looking down the road.

[SPEAKER_00]: But.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you could in any way say anything other than this is getting worse in the short term to try to get better in the long term.

[SPEAKER_00]: The rays are not a team also who is unwilling to kind of do that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you look two years ago at the debt to a season and a half ago, I should say from now, at the deadline, they did a massive sell-off and brought in a lot of prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of those have taken big steps back since they were trained.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what happens when you trade for prospects, and especially I love to emphasize this to people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anytime you see players traded for non-top 100 prospects, really non-top 50 prospects, especially non-top 100 prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot of risk there of whether those players are going to pan out or then kind of fade from fade into obscurity and in the raise case they traded primarily for some in very intriguing guys, but non top hundred guys in most of the cases the trades have made this off season there is a top hundred guy in it, but it's mainly for non top hundred guys some of those are going to pop some of those are going to fade back.

[SPEAKER_00]: there is something about going for prospect volume and that's something the raise have done now.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I would say when you look at the AL, he's right now and you look at the blue jays who are about, you know, two hairs, you know, length away from being world champions and then you look at the red socks who as we recorded this just added Ranger Suarez and have now extremely deep rotation to go with

[SPEAKER_00]: pretty intriguing young line up, especially with Roman Anthony fully helped in this year, back from what he was at the end of the last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: You look at the Yankees who were there just a couple of years ago on the precipice of a world championship, you know, have an AL Crown to their credit recently.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you look at the Orioles who obviously took a step back last year, but

[SPEAKER_00]: are trying, are clearly trying to make that a one year blip have been very active on the free agent market and making trades, including a trade with this raise team.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you put it all together and I would say that this is an organization that has some questions, you know, Carson Williams, when you ask about that, we'll talk about him more.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure in a minute, but Carson Williams

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's other guys, there's some pictures who we might see in the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I would say more than anything with all these trades they've made.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is going to be pretty impressive prospect that at all levels of the full season miners.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we'll also kind of dive into on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so let's get into the system a little bit here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get into the rankings.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can see them on the bottom of the screen, on your ticker.

[SPEAKER_01]: How difficult was the decision to rank Brody Hopkins at one?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because there are some players I think within a similar tier, at least one, and Theo Gillan.

[SPEAKER_01]: Was it really between those two?

[SPEAKER_01]: Cause obviously Melton was a late addition to the system.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say even Carson Williams, I think you could go down so now who's now four, you could make a case for Carson Williams, I think Carson Williams was the clear number one coming into last year and he did some very good things and some not so good things to share I would say.

[SPEAKER_00]: On the good side, he led all minor league short stops in home runs, that's very good.

[SPEAKER_00]: He also had a strikeout rate that is rather worrisome and those concerns that I think I'm being kind when I say rather worrisome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those issues carried over when he was kind of a call up to the big leagues in part because and by their own doing, the race kind of ran out of short stops.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when I say run out of short stops, I don't mean, oh, we don't like what Taylor Walls is doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Taylor Walls got hurt.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, they traded away short stops at the deadline.

[SPEAKER_00]: They turned around and after further injuries happened, if you had come into the season saying, well, Carson Williams is our fifth option right now, as far as who's going to play short stop at the big league level, if injuries happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: Options 1, 2, 3 and 4,

[SPEAKER_00]: had all either gotten hurt or had been traded.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they kind of turned to Carson Williams, partly by, well, we don't have anyone better.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's good defensively.

[SPEAKER_00]: You knew that you would get solid defense from him, although his metrics weren't great in his debut, but he's always been known as a very good defensive shortstop.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you knew that you might take some, you might see some power and you might see a ton of strikeouts and that's what we saw on the majors.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's, I've used this a couple times maybe on the podcast already, if you say where Carson Williams is now, which is off coming off of disappointing year.

[SPEAKER_00]: But compared to where Colson Montgomery was at this time last year, I would say the Carson Williams is in higher esteemed than Colson in the Montgomery was at this time last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Colson, the Montgomery, then went out and had a very up and down, but very solid Dave Pro, you know, Major League debut, I should say Pro Day.

[SPEAKER_00]: We majored with the white socks.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not crazy to think that Carson Williams had a bad year last year, kind of a, you know, a dip of a year.

[SPEAKER_00]: comes back a little stronger this year makes a little bit more contact.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't expect him to be like a 280 hit or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is the guy who could hit 220 to 30 in the big leagues and be a very productive player.

[SPEAKER_00]: The rays have kind of shown that Taylor walls is like, oh, 222 30.

[SPEAKER_00]: That sounds great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Carson Williams could do that and hit 20 bombs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you do that and play good defense, that's a very valuable shortstop.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's four because of the risk.

[SPEAKER_00]: If he strikes up 35% of the time in the big leagues, I don't care how good your defense is.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care how many, you know, how much good your power is you're probably going to struggle to be a productive big leader.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why he's not one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Theo Gillen, I think is probably a year away because he although was a great debut.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was something where he's in low A.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was learning a new position, took it pretty well, but all that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then Brody Hopkins, I would say actually kind of earned the number one spot more than anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: The feedback we got, you and I've talked about Brody Hopkins a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to kick it back to you a little bit because I know you love Brody Hopkins too.

[SPEAKER_00]: The feedback we got the more and more we kind of

[SPEAKER_00]: The stuff is just so good and the improvement that we are seeing from him year in year out is such where he is hard not to get kind of excited about what he could be you could look at his age and say, Oh, it should be a little further along, but then you got to remember this guy was an outfield who pitched a little bit until very late in his college career and the stuff, I mean, just as far as pure stuff, there's not a whole lot of pictures in the minor leagues who are nastier at their best in body Hopkins.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really agree with that and you know, I think that, you know, the point about his background is a two way player who is primarily a position player early in his collegiate career.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think is important context, just in terms of the refinement with Hopkins, that he was always a few years behind other college starters that he's almost in some respects, kind of like a Juco guy, where he had like this one season as a mid-major starter that was in the weekend rotation consistently.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's been able to build up and I think as you said, the stuff is excellent, just kind of break it down sat 96.6 this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that fast ball is sitting 95 to probably not 8 miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to move it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a 101 mile per hour peak, and it's got a ton of spin, ton of raw spin, average in about 2,52600 RPMs, or raw spin.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's, I think, spin traits there that he could throw a two seam if he wants to add that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it has movement, as you said, from a very low release height, he gets a good extension.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lower arm angle as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: That creates one of the flatter forcing fastballs in the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he'll continue to miss bats and AAA this year and eventually in the majors with that pitch.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's got hard secondaries in a low 90s cutter.

[SPEAKER_01]: an upper 80s curve ball that I know that we've spoke about this before and I'm sure right about more of it in the best pitches in the top 100.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's one of the best curve balls not just in the minor leagues or in the handbook.

[SPEAKER_01]: It might be one of the best curve balls thrown by anyone on the planet.

[SPEAKER_01]: It sits in eight miles an hour and has a ton of total movement and you know for as much as it moves in as hard as it is and the knocks that he

[SPEAKER_01]: It has a well above average strike rate, and an average to slightly above average zone rate for a curve ball.

[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think that his strike that only is maybe a little bit undersold.

[SPEAKER_01]: I agree, we need to dive into the inzone rates and that sort of thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think about that, JJ?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I agree.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, if you want to talk about something that I generally do not worry about much, it is the raise ability to, if the raise,

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll put it this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: If the rays cannot get you to average control, you will not get to average control.

[SPEAKER_00]: The rays are really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get to this later as a topic, but they've already helped pop and improve this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it will continue to improve.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has athleticism.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has kind of, I think that the trend line will just continue to get better.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen it get better already.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it will continue to get better.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's going to kind of lead to better and better in zone rates.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we said, like, his curveball kind of breaks your brain a little bit, because it is a curveball.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a slider.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is an actual curveball, but with the power that there just aren't many curveballs that you could even try to compare it to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Guys don't throw 88 mile an hour.

[SPEAKER_00]: True curveballs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and like I said, it's an above average zone rate.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the higher strike rates actually among curveballs and the miners that were thrown 200 or more times.

[SPEAKER_01]: He lands his cutter a lot and the fastball command I would say is average took fringy average.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't land to sweeper all that much, but when we talk to him at the future's game, I remember him saying that he was purposely throwing it last.

[SPEAKER_01]: So just, yeah, overall, I think he's a really interesting starter, potential starter, and

[SPEAKER_01]: While there's maybe questions regarding a strike doing and maybe a little bit of relief risk, I think if he is a reliever, he's going to be a damn good one because the level of stuff that he has, and you're going to see a lot more 99 to 100.

[SPEAKER_01]: If he's coming out for a knitting with a curveball, that's maybe sitting 90 miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think he has the athleticism and at least the underlying traits to continue as a starter.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've been a fan for a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's very much a starter and partly also because I think that the rays are going to have every reason to develop him as a starter.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you look at kind of the mix that they have, they have some other guys coming up who are, I would say, much more likely relievers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that when you look at kind of what they have coming, it makes it like they're, they have a lot of potential starters coming too, but it really like Hopkins is

[SPEAKER_00]: where they're grouping of starters is Hopkins is the guy, if you said, look through all their pitching prospects, who here, if everything breaks right, could be that front of the rotation starter, that playoff starter, he's kind of fits that bill more than most of the guys that they have, I would say.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the other thing on top of that is, he's a little bit closer to the majors than most of those guys, so that's the second part.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the third part is,

[SPEAKER_00]: They have, like, they're gonna have, like, when you, when you talk about strike throwers, the race have multiple players who are among the best control and command in the minors.

[SPEAKER_00]: They can, you know, kind of, again, if, if, if Hopkins, this is the team that started Joe Boyle last year, and he had his ups and downs, they're willing to kind of write out a little bit to help a guy get to where he hopefully could be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, so let's move along a little bit, and let's talk about the system.

[SPEAKER_01]: year over year.

[SPEAKER_01]: How many years have you been writing the race system now?

[SPEAKER_01]: Has it been a decade or close to it?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I've done it every year, but I've done it definitely over, I think the span of a decade at some point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I've done 10 times I've done the race, but I've done the race.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've done the race in different eras of race prospect.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've definitely rode up like wander Franco and all I've read, I've wrote up Jeter Kevin Arrow coming up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember the first year I did it, but I would it may have been pre-wonder Franco,

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's been at least all five handbooks that I've been a part of.

[SPEAKER_01]: So year over year, the 2024 going into 2025 version of this system versus the 2025 going into 2022, six version of this system, is it better or is it worse?

[SPEAKER_00]: It was worse and now it's better.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like you gotta look at this two different ways, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you just look at it coming out of the season,

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say it was a little worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: Graduations of a couple of guys, Chandler Simpson graduated, you know, you know, I like Chandler Simpson.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I would say on top of that, multiple guys who, whether because of injuries or ineffectiveness, just took steps back, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Brayton Taylor,

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to talk too much about him on this, but took a massive step back.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tray Morgan, the concerns that he faced the first space been coming into the season, didn't have a terrible season, but I would say that those concerns about the lack of impact for a first baseman are magnified.

[SPEAKER_00]: Xavier Isaac had a very injury plate season, didn't had a brain surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, significant kind of issues that he had to deal with

[SPEAKER_00]: But when he did play, there were real struggles there as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you have players who kind of took a step back.

[SPEAKER_00]: So then you would say, okay, maybe it's a little bit worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then then we had the traits.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all of a sudden, guys who, I mean, to put it this way,

[SPEAKER_00]: was kind of in that yonder aranamo, where guys were in that mix for 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, huh, do I want these guys at 10, do I want Nathan Flueling at 10?

[SPEAKER_00]: Those were guys who were right in that top 10 area.

[SPEAKER_00]: The trades happen and all of a sudden you're looking at it and Aaron almost 17th on the racist.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you said he was 10 or 11, you'd be saying, okay, that's a fine, that's a perfectly acceptable player in a decent system to be ranked 10th or 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are definitely systems that have much worse players ranked at that range.

[SPEAKER_00]: You say 17th for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: There aren't a whole lot of organizations who have players.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we both like Aaron Amo.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the guy who can play second base, who can hit.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a little bit too aggressive, but he really can hit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So batting champion in the minor leagues.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's shown more power, kind of especially in the winter ball this year, I can definitely stay in the dirt.

[SPEAKER_00]: You put all that together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the guy who, I mean, he's kind of in that second.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now that definitely second tier,

[SPEAKER_00]: Ty Johnson, who had an incredible year at AA, if Ty Johnson's 13, 14th in your organization, because he's almost assuredly a reliever because of the pitch mix and the arm slot, no that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are in your 20s, he's 22 on the system now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then you're talking about, wow, that's really deep.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we talk about that there's the systems where you get to 25 and you're going who else am I going to write about here to get the 30.

[SPEAKER_00]: The raise now or a system where it's like, I've got, I literally have eight, I think additional reports for guys who are written and then got pushed out because of all these trays.

[SPEAKER_00]: They brought in a pretty massive influx in the boss trade, obviously brought in multiple prospect from the Orioles, including Michael Ferret, who went straight into their top 10, then you got slater to Brown, you got Kate Bodyn who immediately becomes the best defensive

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they also had the brand, the laltrade, where

[SPEAKER_00]: three-team trade and that added two of the top prospects in the organization now because Jacob Mountain is a top-hundred caliber prospect in Anderson, Brito is right in that, you know, right the back of the range of the top-hundred.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it really did kind of reshape them and does make this now, I would say one of the deeper systems in Major League Baseball because that's what when you trade they didn't we we've seen a lot of trades, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like so the marlins are getting

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say the right now, the trades that the rays have made have brought back more impact.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say then the trades at the Marlons have made.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's really interesting and we're going to dive into, I think, some of those trades in the later part of this in the podcast version so we can keep things moving, but who's your guess for who's going to be number one next year, do you think Brody Hopkins will you know exceed rookie limits and you know potentially not be eligible next year, do you think he'll have to make a return to the number one spot or do you think Theo Gillon or somebody else is maybe the front runner at the moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I do think Hopkins has a pretty decent chance to graduate.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's one, that there's something else here that if you're a raised fan, you're probably pretty excited about nothing against the O'Gillin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing against any of the guys are currently here.

[SPEAKER_00]: The raised pick two in the draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: They, if the white socks won the lottery and they did cause they get Rock Chaloski, but the raised really won the lottery cause they're the team who kind of like,

[SPEAKER_00]: nowhere to get what should be an exceptional pick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, pretty good chance, Rock Joloski will be off the board.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're the raise, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you are looking at multiple, it's extremely intriguing guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you tell me that grady emerson, Justin Lebron,

[SPEAKER_00]: AJ Garcia, you know, like Liam Petersen, there's a multitude of ways they could go here there, Korea.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a multitude of ways where at least coming into this year's draft before any games are played, it looks to be really deep, but it looks to be really solid at the top Jacob Blumbar.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we have so many names that we could throw out here and it's like,

[SPEAKER_00]: Picking to in this kind of draft is probably the player they take should be a top 35 to 40 prospect in the game.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of the marker that I would say has been put down here for if Hopkins doesn't graduate.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hopkins, I had trouble believing the Hopkins who is in that range now, a better process than that now.

[SPEAKER_00]: If he's that good this year, he's going to graduate probably unless something weird happens or the race really are like, no, we're rebuilding so just stay down the miners will see in next year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you get a guy like Theo Gillan, I think Theo Gillan could be really good, but at the same time, I think that whoever they drafted to is probably going to have a similar skill set probably a little bit even louder tools and so Gillan's going to have to have a really good year this year to edge that out and then, but this is a team where.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say the organization that has a number of guys because of the depth they have now, where maybe something a little bit more crazy happens, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you could see a Daniel Pierce who was their first round picklash.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he's gonna leap into number one, but that's the high school shortstop who was their first round picklash year who could.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think you could also see one of these pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we've talked about like this wave of younger pictures they have,

[SPEAKER_00]: Trevor Harrison, if something really clicks, could he bolt into that group, potentially, you know, I don't think it's going to be Husseria O'Bena.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's going to be Sanny August Wars, but there's a lot of different paths this could be, I think this will be one of the more interesting developments of whose number one a year from now of these.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one I will say is it won't be Carson Williams, because Carson Williams, either well

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a lot of options, and obviously that number two pick looming more than likely could be the number one prospect going in next year, especially in a pretty good draft.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, last question here for the video portion of the show, what is this organization good at developing JJ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I'm going to start with kind of planning out something and this is not a knock on the raises, just so I would push back a little bit about conventional wisdom, you know, there's the whole

[SPEAKER_00]: mean that it's like, oh, the rays made a train, I love it for the rays, who did they get, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's been there being for a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: The rays win and lose traves because they are happy to make trays at a level that most other organizations are not.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are willing to consider trading anyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: So,

[SPEAKER_00]: You can look at trades that they've won and then you could look at trades like Curtis Mead for CRISPR Sanchez, and you're like, they lost that one badly.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have some of those.

[SPEAKER_00]: They won Jr. Camino for help me the high IVB fastball pitcher who bounced back with the brewers this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Tobias Myers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tobias Myers, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: clearly won that trade right they win trades they lose trades but the other thing I'll say though that is kind of I think a little bit lost now is this has not been over the 2019 to 2023 which I think is the area that we can study 2022 where you can say we have a better idea now of what these guys are

[SPEAKER_00]: It has not been a great organization during that stretch of drafting or signing international players and developing them in two stars.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are some successes here, but more of what their success has been has been their willingness to trade and develop.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are

[SPEAKER_00]: When we look at their top 10 that you're looking at here, Brody Hopkins trade, The O'Gill and drafted Jacob Mountain trade, Carson Williams drafted TJ Dickle's drafted.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's the other answer I'm going to give here.

[SPEAKER_00]: TJ Dickle's is example of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are also what they are good at doing in development.

[SPEAKER_00]: No organization is better at helping pitchers find the strike so.

[SPEAKER_00]: whether it's cleaning up deliveries, whether it's simplifying or picking a array of pitches that will help the pitcher stay in the zone, whether it's their ethos that we've written about for a couple of years ago about how, if you don't have great control, they're just gonna put the glove in the middle of the plate, you know, middle of the zone and say, trust your staff, throw to here,

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're going to miss it and then you're going to miss it up, you're going to miss it down, but you're going to be around the zone because instead of trying to hit the corner of the zone, you're trying to hit the middle, which means that you're 14, your 12 inch miss may still be in the zone, your 10 inch miss or your eight inch miss or your fifth, you know, maybe you set up here and then you end up over there, they do a really good job of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: TJ Nichols, to me, like we can talk about other guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's plenty of examples of the big league levels for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But TJ Nichols is an example of development's success store that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he was drafted, his scouting report was really good stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: No idea where it's going.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you look at that guy, compared to what TJ Nichols was this past year, where he's now a really consistent strike thrower.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not the only one.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are plenty of stories in this raise organization of pictures who do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're really good at it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could talk about the game, the Joe boys.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could talk about Shane Bos, who kind of developed before they went moved on.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could talk about Tyler Glaston, if you wanted to go back away.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could talk about guys for years in your Jeffrey Springs.

[SPEAKER_00]: When the rays get them, they figure out a way to get them to throw more strikes and then that helps unlock because these are guys who generally have stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the rays are very good at that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, the rays when it comes to trade, they do such volume of trades.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're willingness to make trades means that.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're always, they're willing to lose trades in addition to winning trades because they figure that they're going to try to win it on the margins.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to make more of them and we're hopefully going to be a little faster and a little bit better about doing these to another teams.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that makes a lot of sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: JJ, let's wrap up the video portion of the show for those tuning in on YouTube.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be back later this week with even more prospect deep dives.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's we go through all 30 systems.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those listening on the podcast stick around because get a whole lot more raise talk to come.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, we are back with the podcast remaining portion of the raise top 30 talk here on the baseball, America, Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, JJ, let's talk a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the question I wanted to throw at you first.

[SPEAKER_01]: How much did the raise like the 2025 MLB draft?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, they had it quite a few high picks here between the first two rounds between, uh, Daniel Pierce, Brennan, Summer Hill, Pierce got 4.3 million to pick 14, Summer Hill got $2 million at pick 42, uh, and then Cooper Fleming and Dean Moss both got well over a million dollars.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then they traded for Kaden Bodine, and they traded for Slater to

[SPEAKER_01]: lot of high-end high school players, and then that elusive raise catcher that we'll talk about at the end of the show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Seven top hundred picks when you throw in the Orioles trade, which, by the way, you know, if you're the raise, obviously one other benefit of that, like you just mentioned, like so you're effectively your draft budget got larger without having to spend money on your draft budget, because

[SPEAKER_00]: the Orioles cut the check and then give you the player effectively six months later.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, they clearly did and I do think that 100% when you say what is the future of the race, it's gonna depend in somewhat on how well they hit on this 2025 draft because there's just so much talent that they brought in in this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned, a lot of high school players here.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can argue that high school players are generally a little bit riskier than the college demographic that generally has proven true.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, one of the ways you can mitigate that risk is you don't draft a high school player.

[SPEAKER_00]: You draft all my school players because that's kind of what the race did here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like if you said are all these high school players going to hit, I could feel very comfortable telling you no, they will not.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you told me

[SPEAKER_00]: Cooper Fleming pops and cotton gray doesn't or vice versa or Dean Maus does or Daniel Pierce or Slater to Brown we just go through all this kind of combinations some of those likely will hit because these are a lot of Pretty high ceiling prospects that they brought in and the key thing about this because of the way they did this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this is how we do it, it's a little artificial, it's not, you know, but none of these guys are coming in the highest ranked player we're talking about of this group in the raised top 30 is peers who's eight.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're talking about guys who are kind of in the.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, to 20 to 20 to 20 to 30.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then guys like Tottenham Ray, who's really interesting, really high ceiling potential prospect, who was in the top 30, was written up in the handbook, but then these Orioles and Astros traits happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he doesn't even, he's no longer in the 30.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of different guys here who could end up developing into very high ceiling prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: The funny thing about it is it's like, some of the guys even a little bit lower.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I would say they're riskier, but I do think that like gray is kind of a fascinating catcher prospect.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see if it's catcher is probably more, you know, bad, but there's a lot to be interested in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: They went twice to the shortstop well with Pearson Fleming.

[SPEAKER_00]: They also, again, like, plated a bronze was one of the more bullsier.

[SPEAKER_00]: They loved their up the middle outfielders.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've added another one there.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, it's Austin Overn also who can run as another outfielder.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's just, yes, there's a lot of re-stocking here that happened in one draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, by the way, as we mentioned earlier on this,

[SPEAKER_00]: That's before they, it's not just that they pick two in a very talented draft, but there's all the financial benefit you get from as far as your pool by picking two as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, they're the rays, you know, so it's picking two and it's, you know, generally having supplemental picks as well and and all that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the 26 draft should be very good to the rays as well when you look at what the system's going to look like a year from now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think that, you know, there's different types of depth, right, when we talk about depth within systems could be pitching depth that's majorly ready.

[SPEAKER_01]: It could be depth of players who are majorly ready with maybe, you know, more average sort of everyday type of fringe average like.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly, but where I'm going with this is I feel like there is a depth of upside within this system, even outside of that group of drafts, you talk about some of the other guys outside of ten eight and Smith is a guy that has a lot of upside we talked about Xavier Isaac unfortunate issue that if he comes back fully healthy to what he was.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, there's a lot of upside in that bat and the raw power that he possesses, guys like Nathan flew out, he was a, you know, really intriguing player Trevor Harrison, who we know has huge stuff and potential upside.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can kind of keep going, even Jose Irbino was a guy that I really enjoyed watching.

[SPEAKER_01]: throughout the season when he was starting and I was kind of, you know, watching the variety of minor league games tend to tune into him because I like the mechanics.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like the stuff a little undersized, but, you know, an interesting player.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have a short stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's actually bigger than I thought.

[SPEAKER_01]: So scratch that in Irbina.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they have a legitimate short stop.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say that Williams is, again, we'll see if Williams starts the or triple

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a really good glove at short stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Gregory Barrios, not a great hitter, but is a really good glove, and he's gonna be a double air triplet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Adrian Santana needs to add ideally about 20 pounds of muscle to be a really impactful player, but he is an excellent defensive short stop.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then you go down to a Daniel Pierce.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel Pierce could be a really good short stop.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you talk about depth, that's one way they have depth.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is an organization that has like four full-season guys this year, who are probably all sixes are better defensively at shortstop.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's unusual.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's 55s at least for all of those guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you look at center field and most of the Aden Smith, that was one of the Aden Smith had a

[SPEAKER_00]: The great development, though, is he went from being, we think that Aden Smith might be able to play center field to Aden Smith is one of the best defensive center fielders in this organization.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's an organization where like, if you aren't plus, if not plus, plus, they're like, you can't play center for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We always have a plot, like, we want our corners to be 55 or better center fielders.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's generally what they play in the corners.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you have him, you have, you know, again, we've mentioned slated a brown, but you also have Austin over now, like they've got Homer Bush Jr. who is the Homer Bush Jr. is the strangest player in the minors in some ways, which is that physically, if you said, who are some of the most physically imposing centerfielders in the minors, Homer Bush Jr. is what ball-sized?

[SPEAKER_00]: He could play, like he has that kind of,

[SPEAKER_00]: He also did not hit a home run this past year.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the power is not there despite the strength he has.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's again, that's up the middle.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now they have catching depth, which is something that the rays do not develop catchers.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at the rays history of developing catchers, it does not exist.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at the rays ability to have a long term catcher,

[SPEAKER_00]: I've kind of asked guys with the raise about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like they seem to, I would say, either value catchers differently than most organizations, or if they don't value them differently, I would say it this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: They don't think that the price to have an all-round, good to glove, who can hit catcher, the price to pay for that is usually more than they're willing to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that's what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: The raised history of catchers is and developing catchers is a very, very poor one, but if you look at her right now and you say, okay, well, what are that catcher?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, dominant key again to his credit.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that dominant key again is both a guy whose limitations are pretty clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like he always puts up pretty solid offensive numbers.

[SPEAKER_00]: He, I would describe him as a really good bad ball hitter, not bad ball, mistake hitter, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you ramp up the Velo and locate against Dominic Keegan, you're probably going to get him out.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you ramp up the Velo and then you spin it and you keep that, you know, you keep that, you're breaking all down the zone away and you're changing eye levels and all that, you're probably going to get Dominic Keegan out.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you hang on, Dominic Keegan's going to do something to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can do that, he's gotten better defensively, he's always going to probably have a little bit of a problem

[SPEAKER_00]: his throwing is kind of always impacted by how long it takes about to get out know that but he could be a big leaker.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then behind him we talked about like fluelling I think you love them too right like fluelling is kind of a one of the more interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: young catchers, he caught more games than pretty much anyone in A-Ball last year as a teenager.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like he was a, like his durability really stood out, but on top of that, it's really loud offensive potential upside.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's a plate discipline combined with power combo here.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's really kind of what you would want to see in the young catcher starter set.

[SPEAKER_00]: To go with, again, the leadership and the tools to potentially be a solid defender behind the plate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's what's so interesting is it's a combination of athleticism, like he's a really good athlete who's one of the better athletic testers.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's big left hand at power 90th percentile EV was like 105.1 at 18 years old for a majority of the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a little bit of swinging miss, but it's not at a rate where it's terribly concerning.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's like, you know, there's swinging miss.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of, you know, one of those things that gets mentioned is scouting report, but it's not something that I think, you know, has totally limited the profile.

[SPEAKER_01]: You want to see some improvement there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pretty good swing decisions, pretty good angles.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's, I mean, there's a lot to like with flu welling and as you mentioned, the catching, and I think just the potential for him to be, you know,

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a plus defender long term back there, just based on the athleticism and, you know, being able to learn a position, but we can kind of get into a little bit of the raise catching history and a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I just want to add with that flow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there was this thing in this, I will say if you are if you in your first full pro season catch that many games in Charleston, South Carolina and around that league.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't wear down, something's almost wrong with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you must have like a nuclear reactor within your body or something.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because like, that is, I cannot imagine dialing up something more difficult than, hey, I'm going to catch a lot of games.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's 90 with the humidity of 110% tonight.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and it's that way, all week this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to be out there every night.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like, he really held up to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, that we didn't even get to Caden

[SPEAKER_00]: is a really like, if the combination of flu well and bodine is a great pairing from the standpoint to me of like flowing is like if everything breaks right, this guy could be really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bodine is the guy who I'd say like if he's not a solid defensive catcher with

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just even call them survival skills offensively, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You could say he's not going to give you profile power for the position.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's very reasonable.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you said, is he going to work counts, make contact?

[SPEAKER_00]: be a past at the plate more than most catchers, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a little bit weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely a hit over power profile, but there's some real hitting ability there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think to go with some real defensive ability, he doesn't throw all that great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just kind of the flip side of Dominic Keegan, like his accuracy and how quick he gets them all out.

[SPEAKER_00]: The fact that he puts it right on the bag kind of makes up for a little bit of a lack of arm strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great combo to have.

[SPEAKER_00]: maybe it all falls apart because he's very young and there's a lot of things that I have to still develop.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he could be a stud and the other other catcher who also will probably be starting the year somewhere in a ball but moving up relatively quickly because he was a college guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who you look at and you say,

[SPEAKER_00]: He may not have the upside, but he also doesn't have a whole lot of things that he has to improve grammatically to be big league caliber, because the defense is pretty polished.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to ever say for a guy coming from amateur baseball to pro baseball, the defense is big league ready.

[SPEAKER_00]: I maybe I said that about Connor Burns with the reds who would you also say his bat is not college ready.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like there's a little bit of trade off there, but most of the time you would say, okay, we'll see how he handles stuff feel all the weekend, but on handles some stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then you would say like the bat the ball skills, the awareness of the strike zone, all that for Bowdoin, is enough where he should have a little bit easier transition to pro ball than most college countries.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a nice little kind of Yen and Yang that they have there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it does seem like, you know, they could potentially have a couple of guys in the system right now that could develop into everyday catchers for the race, which would be a first and a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: That would literally be a first in our admission history.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's very interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's sort of wrap up the show here, J.J. with more of a general question.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might have already talked about this name, but we can dig in a little bit deeper.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who's your sleeper in the system, particularly in the 11 to 30 range, maybe even deeper?

[SPEAKER_00]: We mentioned talking gray before.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not even in the 30 now, but I do think that you are talking about a guy who

[SPEAKER_00]: When we talk about real power potential, like he put on a show at Super 60, you know, one of the kind of early events that kind of starts the high school season last year, he's extremely strong.

[SPEAKER_00]: First basement outfield or probably and probably first basement today, but real offensive upside kind of an intriguing guy to watch that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would also say like, I'll say this is the keep an eye on for this year's sleeper.

[SPEAKER_00]: the race put out cook on their 40 man.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's an interesting guy because he was a starter small college starter drafted move to the pen had good stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then they were like, hey, why don't we move him to the rotation?

[SPEAKER_00]: They moved in the rotation.

[SPEAKER_00]: struggle to stay healthy as a starter so they're like, okay, maybe we're overthinking this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's move him back to the pen and looks really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's a pure reliever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, Ty Johnson could be flittin' this, you know, also, he's really good, but like, cook as a guy who, I think you will see pitch in the big leagues for the raise this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably in a, you know, I'll probably see him endure him a good bit, then I'll go, oh, Alex, cook as in here this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: next week oh Alex cook is here this week three weeks later oh Alex cook is not here this week that kind of role right now because the race like to kind of keep everyone fresh but i do think that uh that he's a guy to kind of remember but

[SPEAKER_00]: I got to be honest, we could go on for another, with all the trades they made, we could go on for another 30 minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could talk about Jackson Balmister, who's really not, I mean, one would not say as a sleeper, but I would say, if you just look at his numbers, he's just straight statistical number for the last year,

[SPEAKER_00]: He was much better than that, especially post-injury.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could talk about Emilian Petre, who's kind of an interesting guy, the middle of the field or Canadian in the field are out of Kentucky.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's just a lot of different kind of interesting guys here.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is now, after all these moves, a very deep system once again, and a fun wonder right about.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's probably only going to get more fun in the coming year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So exciting times for the Tampa Rays.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see if there's still one Tampa Bay in five years.

[SPEAKER_01]: But.

[SPEAKER_01]: Could be the Orlando rays of the Florida rays.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see JJ, thank you for joining me today, diving into, I think, a really, really fun system with a lot of interesting players.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of moving parts, even since we did the handbook.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Kudos to you to putting together a really good right up on all these players.

[SPEAKER_01]: For all those tuning in, thank you for tuning in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for subscribing to Baseball America.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you are a subscriber as JJ always says, it's why we get an opportunity to do what we do.

[SPEAKER_01]: and love to do every single day here at baseball America.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you next time.