[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, J.J. Cooper Jeff Ponson, another baseball-america prospect podcast, and it's a normal prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: Been a while, been a long while.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've recorded 30 deep dives.

[SPEAKER_01]: Since we did the last of these kind of just run of the mill regularly scheduled wind-stay prospect podcast, we've had a lot more prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: than that over the last month, month and a half, but we hope you've enjoyed all those.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what we're gonna talk about today, both Jeff and I are getting ready to head down to spring training.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will be hitting the backfields.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will be hitting spring breakout games.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do believe, baseball America will have someone fingers crossed at each and every spring breakout game.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we wanted to provide a little bit of kind of like of our thoughts kind of talk a little bit about how valuable is spring training and the information that you gather from spring training.

[SPEAKER_01]: The stars, the people really struggle, we talk about from a prospect perspective.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jeff, you've been doing this for quite a while, I've been doing this for quite a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll start with a little story time of the thing I'm glad I didn't over react to, which I think I may have mentioned briefly on the podcast before, but I will never forget being at Angels Camp.

[SPEAKER_01]: the year that show you Tani came over and do remember this was the time where you know like there was a lot of questions about okay so Tani going to live up to the high piece seems you know no no one could do hitting and pitching but there seemed to be at that time a lot more confidence about his pitching and then I what heard that he was going to pitch on the backfields and a scrimmage game you know like it was a backfields game against angels like rookie ball like this was like Levant Soto and Kevin Myton when they had just come over to the states

[SPEAKER_01]: And I watched Otani basically sit ninety one ninety two, get hit, have multiple innings rolled, and walked away thinking like, wait a second, I've watched Otani.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Japan a lot and this is not that same guy and the next week he was the same guy and I'm really glad that I just kind of wrote that off as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was in a skirmish.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't really care.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm not saying to care, but it wasn't something for, you know, actually matter.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was working on things.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was just bad.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm really glad about that because I would have looked really stupid to be like showy otony's gonna make his next start next weekend.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sucks.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's 92 miles an hour and then he was like 98 and great and he's been showy otony ever since pretty much and I'm just really glad I didn't over react to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time we would go we don't go to spring training and do all the work we do trying to get around the back fields, talk to people, see things if we didn't think it was valuable.

[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you find that balance between

[SPEAKER_01]: this is useful information and I don't want to over-react it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think this is going to sound a little counterintuitive based on some of the social media material that's going to come out of my accounts and our accounts over the next couple of weeks, but I think not to get caught up in the moment, don't get caught up in the highlights.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you can see a guy on the backfields that I, I mean, I could probably pull random names.

[SPEAKER_03]: You'll see a guy strike out eight, you know, that will never do that again in season and you know, we'll have an eight ERA.

[SPEAKER_03]: You'll see guys have two home run games.

[SPEAKER_03]: And all of a sudden, I don't know, this guy's gonna bounce back and it's just that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Remember, I see in, you know, obviously he's on the court, not the Guardians 40-man roster now, but Khalil Watson and his first backfields, homering off of major leagueers in multiple games.

[SPEAKER_03]: Had another game where he hit multiple homeruns and had like a triple to the wall.

[SPEAKER_03]: And like, I remember coming, it was my first time on the backfields and covering spring training.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, I think that I kind of overreact a little bit to it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like it was like, wow, this looks phenomenal.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, he's the best player on the East Coast to Florida on the backfields.

[SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't the only person saying that.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were certainly scouts and et cetera that were watching these performances and feeling the same way.

[SPEAKER_03]: And was a highly touted first rounder.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then things went about as poorly as they possibly could have gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: in the following few weeks two months for Watson.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's like a perfect example.

[SPEAKER_03]: But you know, at the same time, I think that, you know, you'll see something like, I know this isn't a huge prospect, like a couple years ago, you know, we saw Jayden ham on the backfields and was

[SPEAKER_03]: a relative unknown, even kind of coming out of the draft and performed really well and scouts loved it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know, that kind of put him on our radar.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is he a top 100 prospect, he's a guy that's going to be a rotation piece going forward, has it, you know, gone swimmingly in the whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just back a little back to where he was before, a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, you'll see some things like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's also a great opportunity to number one kind of catch up on a lot of the DSL guys who are coming over for the first time so getting first looks on sort of those young players as they come over and getting a good feel for how big they are, you know what the tools are actually like, all those sort of things.

[SPEAKER_03]: And

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think it also gives you an opportunity for there for a bunch of different days to maybe see a variety of hitters in a variety of situations face and a lefty face and a variety face and a guy who's way over the top or really really low and slingy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Someone who's breaking ball first so you'll see so many arms come in because typically, you know, outside of maybe a little bit later in camp.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're more or less getting like multiple three-inning starts maybe throughout a game on each side.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, there's multiple games going on, so you're kind of bouncing back and forth, but I think the best thing is really just being able to see everything.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it also gives you a really good feel for how an organization views a particular player.

[SPEAKER_03]: The games that there may be playing

[SPEAKER_03]: whatever two years ago, playing in AA games.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it was like, he's not going to be assigned to summer set on a camp, but it told us a lot about how the Yankees viewed Lumbard.

[SPEAKER_03]: They weren't hiding.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were putting him in games that they felt comfortable.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Could be stretched.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and I think you see that sort of thing and it gives you a little bit more confidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then, you know, on top of it, I think,

[SPEAKER_03]: being able to maybe see multiple good pitching prospects for an organization in a day.

[SPEAKER_03]: And just get a really good feel for where they're at in terms of velocity, pitch movement, strike throwing, all that sort of stuff, even just like mound presence and how they handle themselves and sort of such an unofficial setting.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think it kind of gives you an idea of like the professionalism maybe at a young age.

[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe that's maybe taking a two-month

[SPEAKER_03]: who take it a little bit more seriously than others, and just how that's kind of played out over the years.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some of the best players, the guys that take it more seriously, and the last one I'll bring up is seeing a guy like Connor Griffin, seeing, so we saw him in some major league games, which was great.

[SPEAKER_03]: We saw him in the spring break out game great.

[SPEAKER_03]: We didn't see him like play a full game.

[SPEAKER_03]: You got to see that in the backfields.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I can remember, you know, a year ago now, going there with Josh Norris is our trips kind of intersected on that particular day.

[SPEAKER_03]: We both wanted to see more Connor Griffin.

[SPEAKER_03]: sitting there in the first ball he hit was like, you know, three, nine need to write center field in, you know, pirate city and then just him running around the base is like a gazelle and just kind of looking at Josh and him looking back at me out of the corner of his eye and it was like an unspoken, you know, sort of like,

[SPEAKER_01]: We have gotten so much mileage.

[SPEAKER_01]: This clip that you're watching again right now, you have gotten so much mileage out of it because it's one of those, well, we were there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it just such a perfect moment of it, explaining what he is.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he made phenomenal, he played outfield that day.

[SPEAKER_03]: He made phenomenal plays in the outfield.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think Josh and I both kind of came back where they're first like update the top 100 meeting of being like,

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, we need to just move up Connor Griffin, and yeah, we're going to end up moving them up again soon, but how high can we push them?

[SPEAKER_03]: It's for a reasonable reaction to all this, and then of course, you know, had a bad first game where he struck out four times and then I don't think he struck out three times again the rest of the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love it so that because like there are a couple things with this, I want to kind of add one is that I do think the other thing you get, you do get a sense of the talent of an organization, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: having better, there are fewer org players now, but having better org players than another org doesn't really make that much difference at the end of the day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, this fifth pitcher to come into this game is better than the fifth pitcher came into the game that I saw yesterday.

[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't really matter, but you just,

[SPEAKER_01]: You get a sense of what the organization as a whole looks like when you're looking at multiple games.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, we've talked about it before, but the backfields is just such a wonderful experience because if you love baseball.

[SPEAKER_01]: On a certain day, like I remember being in Jupiter one time and the Marlins Cardinals decided to do all four games on the same side and you're like there's more baseball like it was both my ADHD brain, you know, actually diagnosed like was both in heaven and hell at the same time because.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everywhere I looked, there was something interesting going on, but I also was absolutely convinced that I was focused here, I was missing something over there because you couldn't keep track of it all.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's important to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I had multiple, I've had multiple days on that complex, on the cardinal side where they're playing four games against the marlins.

[SPEAKER_03]: One of them was actually that Calilawatsen Day.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was another day I can recall where, you know, I had one game,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, maybe it was Matthew Liebator and Gordon Grassepho.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was the day, if you remember, that Grassepho hit 100 miles per hour for the first time in the track.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we reported it.

[SPEAKER_03]: The double A game was Mason Win and Jordan Walker.

[SPEAKER_03]: Josh Bias was over, you know, a newer drafty was over in the low A game.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then Yadir Molina was getting at bats in a high A game that Cleo Watson was in.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I can remember he hit a ball that should have been a triple and he just ran to first base.

[SPEAKER_03]: And just like I'm about running all the face.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm good.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like you saw, I saw a potential Hall of Famer, you know, a future all star, a top prospect and, you know, a rotation piece like all within like five minutes of each other just kind of zooming around within this quad.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's so this is something that, you know, again, I think what we're trying to do here is

[SPEAKER_01]: We will come back from spring training and we will have our first top 100 update basically for a brother round the start of April.

[SPEAKER_01]: It won't be opening day because now triple A.

[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be like that weird time and triple A opening day leads into the rest of finally opening day, but we'll try to do it pretty quickly there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the useful, but also I would say, probably the most challenging one we do, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's some stuff that's just simple, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like there are players who are hurt now who, okay, well, move them down a little bit because they're, we don't know when they're gonna be healthy again.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's, you know, guys have TJ.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's guys who are healthy again, you're like, okay, this guy we had lower because we didn't see him sit and pitched in a year and a half.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now he's back on the mound.

[SPEAKER_01]: Stuff looks good, okay, you feel a little bit more comfortable.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are kind of the easy parts of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: The challenging part is what you just talked about like kind of grip it, where it's like, there seems to be something tangible here that's taken a step forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we don't want to overreact to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you an example of a player from this spring training that's useful to kind of talk about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Vance Honeycutt,

[SPEAKER_01]: First round, pick of the Orals, I'll field it out in North Carolina.

[SPEAKER_01]: How did your last year that was really statistically frightening?

[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of swing and miss, there was a lot of strikeouts, a really kind of just a really down, a disappointing year in class.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you've paid any attention at all this spring training, you know that in Van Tonecups, first four games, a spring training, he had one at bat,

[SPEAKER_01]: one at bat homerde, one at bat homerde.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, maybe even more impressively, he's had four at bat since then.

[SPEAKER_01]: Somehow, hasn't homerde again.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's only, so he's stuck on four homers in eight at bats.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he's always struck out one time, the spring.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, obviously, you don't wanna just say, oh, okay, Vance Honey Cut is fixed.

[SPEAKER_01]: everything's great now why it's he got to make the team you know he got to jump from a ball to the big leagues because it's no no no one's saying that but at the same time it does it is an indicator okay like I've got on my to do list like I want to really dive into more the Orioles knew talking to Orioles people last year they knew that there was work to be done with his swing with everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to see how different he looks now compared to a year to go.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say, like, this is a, that's the perfect example.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was bringing up the top 100.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't misunderstand me.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are not talking in the April top 100 beating of, hey, this van's honey cut go from the back of the Orioles top 30 onto top 100, consider it, or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it does mean, like,

[SPEAKER_01]: The spring training little hints does mean that he is much more a pay attention to what he's doing in April and May than he was before the spring train.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where I would kind of say like, there are guys like that, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: There are guys where you want to be

[SPEAKER_01]: more focused on them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Figure out what's going on.

[SPEAKER_01]: Talk to people, you know, one of us will probably be in an Orioles camp at some point.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, put eyes on him, talk to people about him, get an understanding of, okay, what's different?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is this a sign that he's actually taken a big step forward?

[SPEAKER_01]: You talked about Joshua Vias.

[SPEAKER_01]: Joshua Vias was one of those guys last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Connor Griffin was one of the guys last year because he'd already we saw, like you could see

[SPEAKER_01]: How do you balance, like when we go into that top 100, we try to be, I would say, the April one is one where we're like, okay, if we've got really good feedback from evaluator from Scouts and, you know, front-offs officials, like, hey, this guy's really take a step forward, we'll move a guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say this is the one where we're the most cautious because you just feel better in May doing it than you do in April, don't you?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think sometimes maybe there's guys who are neck and neck with an inorganization where we maybe feel like maybe this guy's trending above this guy and we get more, you know, not just in person looks, but in person feedback from, you know, scouts.

[SPEAKER_03]: for an office people, you know, all our contacts that makes us more comfortable, maybe jump this guy who was two in an office season top 30 above this guy that was one.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a lot of like the sort of mechanical changes you'll see early.

[SPEAKER_03]: Might even be stuff that we were like I said, we were question about that like, you know, January, top 100 meeting and then we maybe see it play out a little bit more in the spring.

[SPEAKER_03]: So sometimes it's stuff that we're already thinking about a lot of the time and sort of already tracking, and then once we get a little bit of that confirmation, then we're like, all right, like I feel better about moving this guy up a few spots or maybe moving this other guy down.

[SPEAKER_03]: which are, you know, ultimately, like, reorder a top 30.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think a lot of it too is draft ease.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we'll see some draft ease that they look better or they look worse than they did.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know,

[SPEAKER_03]: at the end of the season, or if they actually debuted or at the end of their college or high school seasons, Griffin certainly falls into the category from a positive perspective, but you know, there's been negative ones certainly before as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it's getting a good grasp on some of that sort of thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it's not going to be large sort of like wholesale changes, the bigger changes that we're going to see in a later update when once we have a little bit more to sync our teeth and to with the season more feedback dated back all that up as well.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm looking at our top 100 movement last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So 2025 for the April update.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the big mover in the top 25 was Kevin McGonagall moving up six spots.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that just gives you an idea like that's that was the big mover.

[SPEAKER_01]: in the top like 25 and it was six spots, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So, which good, good we moved him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of, we meant you mentioned Connor Griffin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Connor Griffin, who was, you know, I would say came into the year, got Connor Griffin was moved up seven spots.

[SPEAKER_01]: He went from 57 to 50 in that first update as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we did move those guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like to give an example, like Griffin moved up seven in our April update, he moved up eight spots in our May update, he moved up 15 spots in our June update.

[SPEAKER_01]: He moved up 25 spots in our July update.

[SPEAKER_01]: So.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the path of a truly elite prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it was just like every month.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, okay, move them up again.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every month is like, what about now, moving them up again, moving them up again, just keep doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, McGonagall kind of with the other example of that, I would say, because McGonagall was went from 23 to 17 to six spots.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then only one spot in May, then he went up seven spots in June and we went up six spots in July, which basically got him to

[SPEAKER_01]: number two.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where he's kind of sits.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I would say that there is kind of movement like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say I don't want to, you know, like I sound like we did everything right there.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's also around the time we were hearing feedback about Colson Montgomery and kind of how much you was struggling so he moved him down 33 spots in that first update.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was then sent to the complex league.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is bad.

[SPEAKER_01]: We dropped him and then he ended up fixing things.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, there's, it can go, but either way, that's why I say we want to react, but we don't want to overreact, but at the same time, those are kind of the things that are kind of the challenges of this, but I would say like if you're watching, if you're a baseball or subscriber, our April update is modest, our may update is where.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's like where Jackson Choreo a couple years ago really took off up the list.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where we've kind of, I would say that that may update is the one where we feel really good about, okay?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's enough signal here.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just noise.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's try to accurately reflect kind of what we're seeing.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it is something where, you know, we're going to get it right most of the time, hopefully, but we will get some of those wrong, like, kind of along those lines Jeff, like you mentioned, a kind of like before of Cleo Watson, um, I would, I would basically ask kind of like looking at it big picture.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is it pitchers or hitters who can make kind of the biggest wow to you like where this guy's just a different guy than he was not long ago, like when you're looking spring training in April, is it going to pitchers or hitters that really.

[SPEAKER_03]: Move this it's probably going to be more pitchers.

[SPEAKER_03]: Mostly because in a small sample, I can get a much better handle on.

[SPEAKER_03]: Excuse me, I'm sorry, I can get a much better handle on

[SPEAKER_03]: sort of what they're throwing, how the attack, at least a good feel for what the strike throwing is because we have cataloged data from multiple seasons, you know, whether it's their, you know, outside, and then if they're a college guy, really the only guys that won't have like real velocity on or probably high school guys, but I can kind of come back and track a little bit or how, you know, this guy was such and such and such today with, you know, this sort of ride these sort of numbers,

[SPEAKER_03]: How does that compare to what he was throwing last year?

[SPEAKER_03]: Is this a new pitch, you know, that's sort of thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the other thing that's good is you're on the backfield.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, if you're there enough and it's some of your organizations like the blue jays who I cover for example, you know, some of the coaching staff, etc.

[SPEAKER_03]: Come and chat with me about who's throwing hey, you got to check this guy out.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they're going to be positive.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're not going to give me anything negative.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, but they'll give you some some clues and some cues as to like, hey, go check this guy out when he's going or, you know, check with someone soda to know what the schedule is because you have to see this guy throwing this this and that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then that kind of maybe tip-shoff is some stuff to look for and I think that's always part of all this is like the chatter and I always feel like the chatter is stronger around like what starting pitchers are going and so you kind of chase lineups around the starting pitchers that you're going to see.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think I can take more away from a starting pitcher at least to how they're going to look entering season versus a hitter where because of these are really

[SPEAKER_03]: of larger sample against more types of pictures, more situational stuff, all that sort of thing, and how that ultimately plays out.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I will say, I agree with you that pictures, I think you get more of a sense, but then the question of pictures becomes, it used to be when I started at BA that pictures generally were worse in

[SPEAKER_01]: spring training and you expected them to ramp up into the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say nowadays, that's a very different story.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like obviously, for one,

[SPEAKER_01]: These players are paid, you're round now basically.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they do train with the team.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have off season to do lists, but obviously a lot of them also are spending times at the facilities, all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you see the best stuff that you're gonna see from a guy in spring training and then it's a question of them holding onto it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't want to again, we don't, everything on this seems to be summarized that don't overreact, but when you see a guy has taken a step forward, stuff wise,

[SPEAKER_01]: That's easier to kind of understand that if it's sustainable, that should have lasting ramifications in a way, when even when you see what looks like a good swing change, I would say that a good swing change, you wanna see how it's tested over a month or two or three of askly facing pitching because that's going to either show it really was a good swing change or maybe you're better off where what you were

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they end up going back mid season and it's tough with some of the skill based stuff like, you know, you may see a guy may contact for three days and make good swing decisions, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's going to hold up over four or five weeks into the season.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, that's some of the stuff I think with hitters that's.

[SPEAKER_03]: tougher to get a handle on, maybe it's the same with pictures and strike throwing to a degree.

[SPEAKER_03]: But usually those guys with bad command, it's hard for them to fake it even for a day.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, guys that guys that have,

[SPEAKER_03]: five walk per nine or you know 15% walk rates typically don't go out and you know throw 80% strikes even on the backfields so you know I think that's the tricky thing with hitters words more about

[SPEAKER_03]: thought it's kind of the bus test like what are these guys looking like coming off the bus what kind of athletes are there.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think you get a much better feel for defense than you do on video that's always been the benefit of knowing and watching these guys and actually seeing what they're around so like in the outfield or you know the first step the hands the actions and

[SPEAKER_03]: how they're handling skips, and if you know the fields well enough, you kind of know what sort of stuff happens at certain fields, some dead spots, in terms of the end field, or there's really bad shine in this particular outfield grass, and guys are always dropping balls this time of the day when the sun is this strong.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's some of that stuff that you'll pick up onto, but I think ultimately that's what the tricky part is with hitters is just

[SPEAKER_03]: trying to know what's tangible outside of like he got bigger.

[SPEAKER_03]: He got stronger.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's faster.

[SPEAKER_03]: He hit ball hard, you know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: To wrap this up, I want to ask.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're good right above head to Florida.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're above to in Florida.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've got Hayesus Cano and Josh Norris are going to Arizona.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've got Bill Mitchell out there as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what I'll give, I'll start.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like couple things that you're looking forward to seeing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, some of it, what I'm looking for, we're both looking forward to seeing some of it is is stuff that we don't know yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what most important, most fun part is is, oh, I've got to see someone I didn't know as any good, and now I very much, they're on my radar.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's going to be fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'll give you an example.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hoping to get to Lakeland, and when I get to Lakeland, I want to see, okay, who are the, who are the pictures here, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's something where I did the Tiger's Top 30 for us, and there's not a picture in the Top 10.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I want, I'm expecting that some of those guys that have had a number of guys who have been injured, want to see some of them get, you know, put eyes on some of those guys to see like, okay, who are the guys who could be moving in to that top 10 consideration?

[SPEAKER_01]: That'd be one.

[SPEAKER_01]: I also kind of like some of their younger short stops.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you did not younger short stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like John Peck has made it up for some games, you know, Jack Penny, you guys like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's one that stands out for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are some things that you're looking for to see when you go to Florida?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think number one, and I think this is definitely going to fall into the category of cheating JJ.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be hopefully seeing team Japan play two games in the WBC.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's going to be the first thing I'm looking for, but in the mornings of the second semifinal game and the finals, which is St. Patrick's Day.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to be in an Irish bar.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to be driving up north a little bit to the Cardinals complex.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going to try to hopefully see some of these Cardinals draft the arms.

[SPEAKER_03]: And just in general, probably the best system that I've had to cover for a handbook thus far.

[SPEAKER_03]: In terms of how it was ranked coming out of the handbook, obviously seen plenty of weather hope.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I want to see maybe some Liam Doyle.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'd love to see Tanner Frankwin, Kate Crossland, some of those guys.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, just some of the other, you know, Daniel Ortiz, some of the other cardinal skies have excited about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I've excited to get to Red Sox camp the day after the WBC, I'm going to drive down there the first morning.

[SPEAKER_03]: Probably try to maybe shoot down to Fort Myers again for some camp stuff over the next couple of days.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that first day is going to be I'm going to get up early.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to drive, you know, from Fort Lauderdale over to Fort Myers, make that couple of hours drive.

[SPEAKER_03]: Get their first thing in the morning and, um,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, watch, watch, hopefully some good arms in the back field and there's plenty of red socks arms to be excited about and see, you know, who could throw in a given day.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of depth there and maybe see some Justin Gonzalez who I think is one player that I'm keenly aware of and going to be following, you know, with, you know, by.

[SPEAKER_03]: extra focus glasses here as a potential top 100 riser.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that all of the ingredients are here.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's someone I'm kind of stumping for in the off season.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're going to be on all my breakout lists and every other kind of article I'm going to write in that vein.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's kind of the high level stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to get to a whole bunch of camps because they're going to be in Fort Lauderdale Miami for WBC,

[SPEAKER_03]: rate into Tampa back to West Palm for, you know, two for about three days to catch some more Cardinals, Astros, you know, Marlins, Nationals Camp.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm kind of excited for the Nationals Camp.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a different feel now with Nationals.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some of these folks have known a little bit from the Red Sox, you know, there's some other former colleagues here that maybe work for the

[SPEAKER_03]: So much friendlier environment, I'm going to walk across the parking lot from the Astos games, go over to the Nats, CEI Willets and I'm going to pick, I regard this to how you feel about an I'm going to pick anytime you get to see one of those guys, the following spring I always think that's exciting.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's some really interesting arms.

[SPEAKER_01]: I promise you, at Nats camp, whatever field you're looking at, there's going to be a short stop worth paying attention to

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but there's there's there's plenty going on.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think at all these complexes in Florida.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've had down years with Florida.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've had up years with Florida.

[SPEAKER_03]: The last couple feel like they've been a little bit more up.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so yeah, I'm excited for that and then next year we're going to go to Adam, we're going to have a we're going to have a tournament.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we may not even know where we're going from day to day.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's going to be exciting.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say my most exciting day of this is is I'm going to pull off the I'm starting off on the Atlantic coast and I'm going to try to pull off the triple header.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because there are three games over three spring breakout games over there there's a one there's a four and there's a seven.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I won't get every, I won't get 27 innings.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's just no light.

[SPEAKER_01]: The driving will mean that I won't get 27.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think I can get about 23.

[SPEAKER_01]: you know.

[SPEAKER_01]: So 23 innings of spring break out in one day is pretty good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would if I was stupid then drive over because then I'm going to head over to the you know for the breakout games on the other side, but I will be doing that the next morning because as you and I both know there's not really a whole lot of places to stay halfway between the that's alligator alley

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you know, but it is going to be very exciting to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it's again, this is this is one of the great times of year.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will be talking about it on the podcast next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, by Wednesday, our podcast next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a little bit delayed because Jeff and I will be in person together at some point next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we will probably bring the mics and

[SPEAKER_01]: and record in person at some point, you know, do the prospect pod and we'll have a lot because we'll be that we will be right at spring breakouts, but we'll both hit back fields all that as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll be looking forward to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So for Jeff, I'm JJ.

[SPEAKER_01]: We think joining us on the Baseball America prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please like and subscribe and I'm

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously check out all the other content.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have on the Baseball America podcast, be the YouTube channel.

[SPEAKER_01]: And most importantly, Baseball American.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you enjoy this and you have a check out Baseball American.com, I promise you, you will enjoy so much of you can find over there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything will get you ready for the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, we're rolling along as we record this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're getting ready, and we're going to hop off and then go check out some WBC action, because that's going on as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: For Jeff, I'm JJ, so long, everybody.