[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody JJ Cooper Jeff Ponson of the baseball America prospect podcast we're back as we are every week And we are going to talk today about kind of things that we've noticed in the first week and the youngest players in each and every minor league Jeff before we kind of look at some of the players who have stood out and let's say that it's gonna be a very pitching heavy list because

[SPEAKER_01]: Pictures you can have a little bit more feel for right away.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've talked about this recently on the pod.

[SPEAKER_01]: How you see a picture and okay, if he's added a picture, if he's throwing harder or whatever, that's a real intangible thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas look, nothing against James Tibs, but if James Tibs has a monster week against Las Vegas, you don't know if that's like he's unlocked another level or is that that he's a good slugger and he's in Las Vegas.

[SPEAKER_01]: Before we kind of look at the players, I want to kind of ask with this, like we are right now eight to nine games on the AAA size.

[SPEAKER_01]: We record this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are in game four for everyone pretty much on the AA high-A low-A.

[SPEAKER_01]: obviously too soon.

[SPEAKER_01]: The answer is not, or we, you know, when does data, when does the signal, you know, break through above the noise?

[SPEAKER_01]: But how far do you think we are away from when, like, you can actually start to really look at stuff and say, okay, this is real intangible, not just it's an interesting tidbit, but we don't know how real and solid and actionable this is.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and just tackling pitching, I think, maybe not one star, especially when these guys aren't fully built up necessarily in terms of going five or six innings, ideally.

[SPEAKER_03]: Though you will see that with some guys if they're pitching efficiently enough,

[SPEAKER_03]: But you get a pretty good idea and a pretty good handle on what a guy's stuff is, how it moves, what is velocity bands are, how we throws his pitches.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think you can take a lot away from a single game start from a pitcher.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I even think in terms of like scouting pitchers, maybe you want to see a couple of starts, but once you've seen it, you kind of know how he moves and what pitches he throws.

[SPEAKER_03]: to look at a year over year sort of thing with pictures and be like, all right, as he added a pitch, as he added the loss, the, is this moving differently, is there maybe a different grip?

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we get access to some of that stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: It allows us to maybe ask some more, you know, interesting questions to pictures about what's changing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Jonah Tong was a guy that we had heard things about in terms of a new pitch mix.

[SPEAKER_03]: He showed it and the change up very early on was getting a lot of whiffs and it was like, okay, this is something to hone in on and we kind of talked about it over the first month hitting is very different.

[SPEAKER_03]: In terms of like the EV metrics.

[SPEAKER_03]: You probably need, I think the magic number is like 68, technically is where it's standardized.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's so safe between like 65 to like 70s bad at balls in play.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not necessarily bad at ball events because you get some weird fouls and misreads and stuff like that that you eliminate.

[SPEAKER_03]: So,

[SPEAKER_03]: We're still, we're still away from that, a ways from that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, even in the college baseball side, we kind of crossed that threshold for the full time players that had played a full schedule, maybe last weekend, and some of the other guys that maybe put tune or played two out of three games, those guys were starting to catch up this week.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it does take some time.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, college baseball, of course, started back in February and we're already in, you know, the middle, we're early to mid-April.

[SPEAKER_03]: So,

[SPEAKER_03]: It takes a little time, obviously they play a lot more games in the minor leagues, they can standardize a lot quicker.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we're probably looking at a month until EV data has some signal in it.

[SPEAKER_03]: some of the the swing and missed stuff chase and with I think it takes even longer.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a lot like batting average and on base percentage where someone can be in a really hot run and then get really cold for a couple of weeks and things start to get exposed or guys just just get figured out face to better pitching staff because it's not all major league.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not that I'll majorly, rotations are exactly the same, but they're above a certain bar that you get a lot more variance in terms of what you could see from one organization to the next organization at low-A or high-A or AA.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I think a lot of that stuff is probably months away from really being like true signal, we can start to get an idea if someone's making a lot more contact and showing up in the numbers, putting the ball in the air more, pulling the ball more, but

[SPEAKER_03]: We do need a pretty sizable number before data for hitters is really signal where we can react a lot quicker with pitchers.

[SPEAKER_03]: And a lot, a lot of the hitting stuff, I think, is just looking at production and then trying to tie it to, okay, to the contact rates and the swing decisions and the EVs and the angles.

[SPEAKER_03]: Does that all match the production?

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say the one or thing though that had that standard that's very quickly is when you start looking at bad speed stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do have that at least for AAA and the names at the top I would say in AAA as far as bad speed, which I will say bad speed is something that I do think is both under and overrated at the same time because swinging hard by itself,

[SPEAKER_01]: does not have a real strong correlation to success.

[SPEAKER_01]: Swinging hard, plus making contact, is a real strong correlation to success.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say like Devaston DeHilis Santos, Camp Alderman, you can see Noel, you'll Hendrick Pinnango, our favorite grade-header who,

[SPEAKER_01]: really needs to work on the defense, uh, Ernesto Martinez juniors up there, Connor Griffin was up there before he moved up to the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_01]: So some notable names in that, uh, but I would say, you know, again, for hitters, we're still a ways away.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when it comes to pictures, as you said, there's more that you've already seen.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to just kind of basically let you kind of run with this a couple of pictures you've seen so far that have really impressed.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that first one I want to touch on is a six foot eight Orioles left hand or they have a couple of them actually, but I'm just going to say which one.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is Joseph Jerzwa and I'm going to throw out the nickname here, the spelling beat.

[SPEAKER_03]: We had the password with, with, uh,

[SPEAKER_03]: Joe's Nixon Garcia, I think this is dispelling because it's not as hard to say, but it is difficult to spell, it starts with a DZ for those out.

[SPEAKER_03]: DZ, I E, R, W, A, exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it's really interesting stuff, the velocities up from even what we saw last year at Michigan State, where he was always kind of on that periphery of like

[SPEAKER_03]: the first round conversation, they plunk them in the second round.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was great at Michigan State last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was really good, exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's probably a double-plus change-up.

[SPEAKER_03]: When you look at the vertical separation, his ability to land it in and out of the zone, he could throw it through.

[SPEAKER_03]: to write easy.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can throw it left on left.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a really effective pitch.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's playing off of a pretty good fastball.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's 94 to 95 or touch 97.

[SPEAKER_03]: The velocity held in his first start as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: The breaking ball is fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not unusable.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's probably like a 45, maybe a 50.

[SPEAKER_03]: It has decent movement.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think he's a guy that actually probably adds like more of a true sinker as well, just based on his arm slot and how the ball moves out of his hand.

[SPEAKER_03]: He gets a ton of arm side run on everything.

[SPEAKER_03]: He showed an excellent command as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: When I saw him against the red socks for three innings in the spring break out game, and they did us a real service pitch in all of their pitchers or eels for three innings.

[SPEAKER_03]: He'll be got like a good chunk of what they would look thought like at least one time through the order and a couple extra batters.

[SPEAKER_03]: He did the same thing in his first start.

[SPEAKER_03]: of the season in high A.

[SPEAKER_03]: This first professional start, technical, professional start.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, if I remember one walk, one hit goes six scoreless under 80 pitches.

[SPEAKER_03]: You typically don't see that in the first week of the season.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think he's already probably too good for the South Atlantic League.

[SPEAKER_03]: Probably a guy that within the next few starts, it wouldn't shock me if before May 1st.

[SPEAKER_03]: He gets bumped up to AA and has a real shot to maybe pitch himself into the

[SPEAKER_03]: I had one scout actually pose a question, is he actually the Orioles' best pitching prospect?

[SPEAKER_03]: And not that it's a system loaded with pitching prospects, but there are some interesting arms, trade Gibson, you know, Esteban Mejí is one that, you know, in terms of the lower levels and big stuff, they have a good mix in terms of the arms that are in that system.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there are some people already kind of having that conversation after a couple of starts if, you know, jerseys, maybe the guy.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty interesting and you often don't see leftys that throw this hard with this kind of movement and just that outlier change up that is going to be really effective against either handedness.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would, yeah, it's a great question to ask because the thing about it is we say best pitching prospect, you kind of a little bit of that is kind of what do you want?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I would say me, he has a higher ceiling, but sure, I would absolutely see where she's like, yeah, but me, he also is like, you're putting the roulette wheel starting to roll and you're like, you know what, let me just put all my life savings on, you know, 22.

[SPEAKER_01]: And let's see how it turns out because they're so far to come.

[SPEAKER_01]: If it ever clicks fully, you know, my hea could be utterly dominant.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, Jersey, you're talking about a guy who is a pretty polished, fast mover, who, okay, I would say you're probably talking more mid-rotation.

[SPEAKER_01]: If everything breaks right?

[SPEAKER_01]: really valuable and again he's six foot eight like there's there's a little bit of unusualness to him as well there's always some risk with that as well as far as being able to maintain that being able to throw strikes but that's never really been much of a big issue for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the next one, you have, by the way, there's a piece up at baseball America.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is kind of taken somewhat from, just in a piece of 15 breakout pitching prospects who could crack the top 120, 26.

[SPEAKER_01]: The next one's one, we both, I think, are very, very much kind of pushing that, like, hey, I think we'll see him in the top 100 before too long, which is Tanner Franklin, who,

[SPEAKER_01]: I saw on the breakout game and he looked really good, touched 100, just kind of showed like real stuff but also some solid feel to go with it.

[SPEAKER_01]: What jumps out about Tanner to you?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, he's a guy that doing like pre-draft work.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I got something like this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm pretty sure Jacob did in Carlos.

[SPEAKER_03]: This was one of those guys where I think a lot of people liked it.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was some risk because he really only been a reliever between Kenneth Saw State and then his time of Tennessee.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it was like if there's an organization that could be patient with this guy,

[SPEAKER_03]: develop him as a starter and really put the time and over the next couple of years, it could, you know, this guy could turn into like a number two.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, this could be better than even a mid-votation, like a six.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's probably the best possible fit.

[SPEAKER_03]: because this is an organization that is kind of moving into the modern era in terms of the types of pictures that they target, the type of data that they're using, the type of language that they're using in conversations around development around,

[SPEAKER_03]: drafting.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just changed.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's been more, it's been modernized under high in bloom.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's one of the reasons that I think he was brought in and has a lot of, you know, good talented bright young people around him.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think you're seeing that there's been this sort of change in terms of them maybe going after some risky profiles where if you look back on their drafting history,

[SPEAKER_03]: over the last, you know, 15 years.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is the opposite of what they like to tell you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Whereas risk versus possible, it was K to BB and they really didn't care what the stuff was.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll try to add velocity and it didn't really work.

[SPEAKER_03]: And eventually it hit a point where they really got surpassed by other teams.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it hurt them when, you know, they had a lineup at least that was ready to kind of compete.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's changed a lot.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think you look at a guy like Tanner Franklin and he's

[SPEAKER_03]: sort of the perfect fit because they can be patient with a guy like this.

[SPEAKER_03]: They can take it a little bit slow.

[SPEAKER_03]: That said, had a really good start.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, a little rough forethening was cruising before that and his first appearance for a high aporia.

[SPEAKER_03]: But as a guy that impressed in the backfields, he impressed in the spring break out game.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was around there at the end of my trip in terms of the Palm Beach Jupiter area.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the consistent feedback I got was, I like Tanner Frank when more than Liam Doyle.

[SPEAKER_03]: And these are proscouts from opposing teams.

[SPEAKER_03]: They don't care about draft position.

[SPEAKER_03]: They care about who they think the best guy is on their, their looks or, you know, their collection of looks.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got a lot of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think you probably came away from the spring break out game feeling that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everybody else that was there.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you were just watching that, again, I don't want to make too much of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I become a Liam Doyle fan.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, let's let Matt give him a.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you walked into that, if you went the old school pro scout approach, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And you walked into that and said, I don't want to know anything about the backstory of these guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to evaluate them on what I see here today.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't close.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that was Doyle on the bad day, it was Franklin on a good day, all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: What we're going to have to see with Doyle is is that Doyle's kind of his carrying tool is I haven't fastballed that you cannot hit if I throw it well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then everything else plays because of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not going to be that if you're not throwing strikes, which you wouldn't spring break out game.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's also not going to be that if you're sitting 95, like that in pro ball is not going to be, even with movement.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not going to be something where pro hitters are going to be like, oh, no, what do we do?

[SPEAKER_01]: What is happening with this magic sorcery?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, no, this is, okay, it's got some movement to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I'm going to try to hit a little bit above.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to aim a baseball above where I think it is, and let's see how it goes.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we haven't we haven't seen Doyle pitch yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're still waiting for that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we haven't seen a regular season game yet from him.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have from Franklin and I do think so that Franklin that the other thing that just jumps out to me about this is.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've always looked at there's a couple of Florida teams you can choose, but I would say 2016 you had Dane Dunning, you had AJ Pock, you had Alex Fato, you had Sean Anderson, you had Kirby Sneed, you had Jackson Coar, you had Brady Singer, all on the same pitching staff.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are all big leaders I just read a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a couple of other years for Florida, you could kind of go

[SPEAKER_01]: We just talked about Doyle.

[SPEAKER_01]: We just talked about Tanner Franklin, same team.

[SPEAKER_01]: AJ Russell is in your 15 breakout pitching prospect story as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not even talking about Marcus Phillips, who when you talk about Marcus Phillips, they're like, well, maybe he's better than these other guys, you know, that thought we're better than that.

[SPEAKER_03]: He almost was in the breakout story.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and that's not counting, I mean, like, again, we, we, we, we both are kind of lamenting like Tegan Cooves being pulled from the rotation.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to see, but Tegan Cooves is still there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that guy's going to be a hydraft pick this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are other guys of that team who will still get drafted.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's a lot of, when you say, like, if someone hears this and says, Yeah, but really did you, you know, like Tanner Franklin, like they're converting him from a reliever.

[SPEAKER_01]: He only threw 39 innings last year all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because Liam Doyle, Marcus Phillips, we're kind of there like weekend stars, Tegan Cooms was a starter and then they had like guys like AJ Russell making spot starts as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every single player who is making those starts is going to be a legitimate pro prospect as a pitcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: and using Franklin the way they did makes a whole set and by the way, I didn't mention Nate Sneed, which I need to mention also, we could keep going.

[SPEAKER_01]: That Tennessee staff last year was utterly stacked and, you know, fascinating because of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But speaking of guys from last year's, you know, we're not last year, but I think speaking of guys actually like AJ Russell, who've been a little bit banged up at times.

[SPEAKER_01]: The other guy to bring up here is you also wrote about

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and this is one where I had seen lighter probably almost three years ago now in the Cape League, right as he had transferred to FSU.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's probably about as good as he had ever been in college and about as healthy as he had ever been in college.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's huge stuff, velocities back,

[SPEAKER_03]: They kind of hit him a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like he was somebody that when I was watching that Dodgers Spring Break out game on TV because I was supposed to know Arizona was like, all right, when are they gonna bring out lighter?

[SPEAKER_03]: It didn't happen.

[SPEAKER_03]: So finally got to see him this week.

[SPEAKER_03]: He comes out in low A.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's been so long since he's pitched as well because he had the shoulder impingement and then comes back from that and rehabbing

[SPEAKER_03]: Here's the UCL has Tommy John Surgery, and then asked where you have from that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's been a while, but look really sharp.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it was three innings.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it allowed one hit.

[SPEAKER_03]: Struck out five or six.

[SPEAKER_03]: I gotta look at the numbers specifically, but look really good in that start.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I said, the velocity was back.

[SPEAKER_03]: strong up three just to be great, but these come on a whiffs and yeah, I mean, and about like, it's ten better.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a 30% K rate with those three strikeouts.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he like no one really touched him at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, you know, I think it's um, it's one of these guys where you're going to have to sort of wait and see and see how many innings he can build up to.

[SPEAKER_03]: But this was a guy that if he was fully healthy in his draft eligible season pitch for up issue, there's a solid chance that, you know, he's going for a lot more than like 1.3 or whatever it was that he went for.

[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, he's another guy that I kind of expected break out kind of gambling on the hurt college pitcher where we've seen some success in those guys in recent years,

[SPEAKER_03]: that I was kind of heavy on as a breakout last year and, you know, was a guy that's kind of seen as Prospect Stock raise a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it's sometimes a good area to kind of plan, you mentioned today's age at Russell, he's another example of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's often times they come back healthy, the stuff comes back, they're now into pro development programs and they kind of take a couple of steps forward.

[SPEAKER_03]: So be interesting to follow where a lighter is, you know, by the end of the year.

[SPEAKER_01]: as we love to say, the Dodgers are less risk-averse than almost anyone when it comes to injuries.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's like, that's kind of one of their, and you say like, there are many superpowers that the Dodgers have, but this is one of them because they're like, we can, if we get enough of these guys, we know that some of them will break down some of them will stay, you know, we'll still be hard at any one moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: But,

[SPEAKER_01]: we will get it with volume.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if we have enough talented pitchers, that's going to work out for us in Camlider.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, he threw 35 innings at FSU in 24.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then he threw 57 basically for Central Florida the year before.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he probably won't go that many innings this year just from the standpoint of

[SPEAKER_01]: didn't pitch last year and he didn't throw that many innings here before that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the stuff is the stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: It really does stand out.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just throw out one that's kind of not in the same vein, but like I just find fascinating is that I do the reds for us obviously.

[SPEAKER_01]: And

[SPEAKER_01]: Chase Petty, as we're recording, this just had another really effective outing for Triple A Louisville, and he's the most schizophrenic Petra I know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because like his first start of the year, it was like four scoreless.

[SPEAKER_01]: His second start of the year, it was like seven runs in like an inning.

[SPEAKER_01]: His third star of the year is like five scoreless.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is something where when Chase Petty is good, he's very good.

[SPEAKER_01]: When Chase Petty is bad, he destroys basically like two months of work in his ERA.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have not figured it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still trying to, but I just find that fascinating.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as we promised, we're gonna talk also about the youngest, somebody's picturesque will, but more position players will be part of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: But some of the youngest players, the youngest players across the minor leagues, and we'll do that right after this quick break.

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[SPEAKER_01]: cross the country so make sure you go to seekgeek they will take care of you and we're back so Jeff we put also up at baseballamerica.com the youngest players the youngest 25 players on basically opening their rosters in all minor full season minor leagues

[SPEAKER_01]: The first question I'll ask is, and I'm asking you, but I feel strongly about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've been doing this list for baseball America since at least 2010, I'm embarrassed to say, so like a long time, but why is it valuable to look at something as simple as here's the youngest players?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think it shows you players that are advanced for the age often, especially as they get up to higher levels and you can kind of look at it and see, okay, some of that self-explanatory, sometimes it's Hazoo's Monday and you're like, well,

[SPEAKER_03]: mod A is obviously one of the top four prospects in the game.

[SPEAKER_03]: The only top four prospect that's not in the big leagues currently and probably issue in to be the number one prospect within a few months.

[SPEAKER_01]: You say probably I will say on this right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: and barring an injury by someone in May, he will be the number one prospect in the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not really a question.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's not going to be much of a question about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think he'll maintain that too.

[SPEAKER_03]: It should be on the cover of the handbook next year.

[SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, so I think you look at that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But you look at this just historically over the years and talked about this a little bit off air.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of good names.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not always perfect.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's some guys that maybe stick out and you're like, oh, okay, team really believed in them or there may be just lacking a certain position or player of their caliber defensively at a certain level.

[SPEAKER_03]: And a guy maybe gets pushed up beyond an area where his badge should be.

[SPEAKER_03]: But overall, if you look at these lists, just even on this list today, you're gonna see a lot of,

[SPEAKER_03]: Top 100 prospects in the top five players.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're going to see a lot of top 10 prospects and systems, young, highly touted, you know, day one, top three to four round, in terms of bonuses, high school players.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's sort of that, that sort of thing, and I think it is very instructive in terms of which players teams believe in, too, if they're assigning them to levels pretty aggressively and compared to their peers.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the thing I would say, is obviously there can be a little bit of artificiality to this.

[SPEAKER_01]: If a team wants to try to create perceived value in a player, pushing a player to a level, maybe a little bit beyond where they are expected to go, can help do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because when teams use, teams, every team uses models on all this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you use models, if a player is young for the level and is performing, that really is going to help kind of push a guy up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Generally, what I would say is teams show you what they think in a player, partly by how they assign them, where they send them, like the players to get moved quickly to next levels.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's because they're more advanced than their peers.

[SPEAKER_01]: You just mentioned, Haisus Madei is the absolute stand-out this year among this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, him and Connor Griffin, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Connor Griffin is in the big leagues as a teenager.

[SPEAKER_01]: FSL, the Florida State League, which is low-A, he'd still be among the top 25 youngest players in that league, which is kind of crazy for a guy's in the majors, but my day is younger than pretty much almost.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's one of the 25 youngest players in the minor leagues full season minor league period, and he's in double-A, but the thing always, we link to kind of past list of this, and the thing that does jump out is,

[SPEAKER_01]: like you said it's hidden miss right i don't want to make it sound like if you see a player on this list a hundred percent guarantee that guy's going to pop but okay we talked about racing with as the a's outfielder last week on the on the kind of our erasona guys who popped out that he's used some josh wrong

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the second youngest player in the colleague.

[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that they sent him there tells you something.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is a strong hint of something.

[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that Kevin Alvarez is the youngest player in Lowe.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the Astros outfielder tells you something.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not shocked, but Eli will at second youngest player in Lowe.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those kind of things are clues, and the thing that I love is when you look at past years, you'll kind of see someone like, oh, Willie Castro was the fourth year on this part of the Midwest League, in, you know, like I think it was 2016.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well,

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the Castro was on the radar, but I want to say like he was prominently on the radar at that point necessarily.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like that was a little kind of indicator, a little signals like, oh, they felt he was ready to handle that league and an age where most people are not ready to handle it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That to me, I would say, you know, like if you asked me to say, okay, give me a couple of guys who stand out this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Totten Gray, who raised first baseman, who's one of the youngest players in the Carolina League.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way,

[SPEAKER_01]: very small sample.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good start.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's already had a triple.

[SPEAKER_01]: He looks the parts which hit her all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's one to me and speaking of I'm I shouldn't probably stay in the exact same vein here but like you know if you go to high A and then you go to the South Atlantic League Nathan Flueling who I think we both really love catcher the race catcher is the third youngest part of that league.

[SPEAKER_01]: Justing as Alas we've talked about a lot in recent weeks is the

[SPEAKER_01]: that stands out, young heel, you know, who we talked about, Brave Shortstop, one of the youngest players in the South Atlantic League.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those kind of things stand out.

[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing, Jeff, before we kind of wrap this up, that also stands out is, I think it's always useful as a,

[SPEAKER_01]: sanity check when you remember that a player who you may be like, Oh, that guy's been around forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: The example all use.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think you have one too.

[SPEAKER_01]: But example all uses Jackson Holiday is on a rehab assignment to the International League.

[SPEAKER_01]: And because he's there for opening day, that meant he's one of the 25 youngest players in the International League.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's after having played

[SPEAKER_01]: 210 basically gains in the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a reminder of how young he still is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyone jump out to you where you're like, oh wait, that's a good reminder that I still young for his level.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think Arjun Namala, who's one of the 10 youngest players at the Northwest and Northwest League.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's only six teams there, but if you even go down to the South at Wannellie, and I think this is a good example, he's actually younger than Caleb Bonner.

[SPEAKER_03]: who was drafted a year after Namala.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's kind of interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, wow, like, I didn't even put that into perspective that, you know, bottomer and him are the same age, bottomers actually a month older and was playing at a lower level, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you kind of put what Namala's struggles were into perspective and why he's repeating hi-A.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know, once he hits in the first half,

[SPEAKER_03]: They're this year who'll probably be out here in New Hampshire and they'll be able to see him more often.

[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I think that often puts a lot of this into perspective of just how young a particular player is and sometimes even in comparison to other players that in your head feel a lot younger because maybe they've had less pro experience.

[SPEAKER_01]: A couple of other examples I'll give that I think fit that pretty well.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jefferson, Rhoha's with the Cubs third youngest part in the Southern League.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it felt like, you know, like, oh, Rhoha's got kind of got held back last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now that no, he's still exceptionally a camcolier is, I was kind of really surprised to see call you're going back to AA, but it is useful to remember.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fifth youngest player in the Southern League, even as he heads back there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think one that really jumps out to me is Walker Jenkins is the second youngest player in the International League.

[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like that Walker Jenkins has been like on this oak and we just get him to be healthy and just get him on a roll to do something.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have to remember, he's actually the second youngest player in AAA.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even for all the injuries that have slowed him down, he's still very much on a fast track.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's also useful to note like Cooper Pratt, you know, who just signed the extension, one of the ten youngest players in the I.L.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tremar Johnson, who, you know, I would say that like it feels like Tremar has been around a while now, but one of the youngest players in the international league.

[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, Bryce Eldridge, third youngest player in the PCL, disappointing that he didn't make the big league roster on opening day, but he is one of the youngest players in Triple A.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that makes puts a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cam Colley seemed like he was, again, slowed down and spread back up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cam Colley is one of the younger players in the PCL.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot there to check out at baseballamerica.com and as we said, we'll get to have a little bit more signal and a little bit less noise every week that we're doing this over the next several months.

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

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a long everybody.