[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody JJ Cooper Carlos Glauson other baseball American draft podcast and Carlos Good to see you as always.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hello.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited about this one You know we we look we have a variety of topics we talk about but today we're gonna be talking all about rock to last key We're gonna be ahead of the curve.

[SPEAKER_03]: We are

[SPEAKER_03]: At the point in the, I would say, in the draft process where nothing's firmed up, nothing's finalized, anything like that, but it is heading closer to that.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is getting closer.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so we're going to be talking all about rock Julyowski today, the presumptive number one pick in the 2026 draft.

[SPEAKER_03]: Before I do that though, we should also give people a little bit of a sneak peak.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we always have updates coming.

[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like working on the draft board is kind of a 24-7 deal.

[SPEAKER_02]: So as we're recording this process, myself and JJ are really trying to finalize a lot of update or reports for players.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to be added to our draft board.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to the top 400 players in the class.

[SPEAKER_02]: Next week, as you're listening to this podcast, be on the lookout for that.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've spent a lot of time really the whole year, but over the last week's in particular, really trying to drill down on player movement and just give a more thorough understanding of the talent in this year's class.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I got to say, JJ, I feel like as we go through this process.

[SPEAKER_02]: This feels like one of the most unresolved, unsettled, split-campy sort of middle of the first rounds that I've ever covered at Baseball Mercur, so I'm very happy today to be talking about a player who we have very few questions about at the top.

[SPEAKER_02]: At least we know for a certain one thing, Rock Chalaski, very good player.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would say this before we dive into this, like as we're doing these

[SPEAKER_03]: Again, much can change, but right now, if you're picking one, two, three, four, congratulations, like we don't know exactly how the board will sort out, but there seems to be a general agreement.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, these are the players up there.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a couple of others who might move into that range.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you're picking eight, nine, 10, there's no guarantee right now that you're gonna feel better about the guy you can pick at eight, that feels like in if you're picking at 15, is there?

[SPEAKER_02]: One question on a point to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I agree with that generally.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think where you specifically draw the tier is interesting.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I know, I feel like there is a solid group of three to four players, Rochulowski, Gradie Emerson, Von Lackey, Jackson Flora are kind of the most common names we were hearing at the top of the board.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've gotten this question a lot in other podcasts.

[SPEAKER_02]: if you can kind of take your pick of would you rather be the pirates picking fifth with the largest bonus pool or would you rather pick either three or four with a smaller pool?

[SPEAKER_02]: For me, that question really comes down to three.

[SPEAKER_02]: If I get a third pick, I think I would take it because I view those top hitters as a clear tier and then I'm just luke warm enough on Flora at four and he's got the pitching factor that I think that's the stage where I would probably take

[SPEAKER_03]: I probably would agree with you.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would say this.

[SPEAKER_03]: How about this way?

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like if you're the white socks, let's just look at it even a little bit bigger picture.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you're the white socks, you would not trade that bigger pool to flip.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you could trade picks and the pirates will trade our draft for yours, the white socks, like thanks, but no thanks.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think if you're picking too, you know, I think it's

[SPEAKER_03]: same thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: You don't even have to really give it a whole lot of thought.

[SPEAKER_03]: You feel pretty comfortable if you're the raised to be like, I appreciate you calling.

[SPEAKER_03]: Good to check in how you're doing well.

[SPEAKER_03]: But now we're good.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think probably, yeah, three, you start at least have to think about it because they're

[SPEAKER_03]: As much as we can fall in love with the top of a draft, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And I always go back to, if you hit on the top of your draft, if you draft like the Pirates of the Year's go Paul schemes, or if you've picked later, but Connor Griffin, if you pick someone like that and you just bomb the rest of it, you still had a good draft, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Get a star out of your draft, makes it a great draft.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that said, obviously having more money, especially in a draft that's very unsettled after this top tier, does give you a lot more possibilities and more picks by the way, we keep talking about we have the money, but obviously just money by itself.

[SPEAKER_03]: bonus pool a lot meant I should say not money but bonus pool a lot meant by itself only creates so much for you you also have the chance to have more you have more dart throws you have more guys that you get to put choose by having that's where the bonus pool a lot comes from I would say

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you get to four.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would, I would probably, I would probably flip that for the bonus pool.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, probably not at three.

[SPEAKER_03]: I agree.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you go one, not a question.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's what we are here to talk about today.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'll ask you, Carlos, how much are you starting to hear rumblings of, oh, you know, because I will say, there's never been a draft that other, even in the Bryce Harper and Stephen Straussburg drafts, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Where you had this guy who came in as the presumptive number one.

[SPEAKER_03]: didn't do anything during the year to really change that in any way, shape or form.

[SPEAKER_03]: But there still has to be kind of the, oh, I don't know if that guy's going to be number one, we're looking at all options.

[SPEAKER_03]: How much we're hearing that there could be someone else.

[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think are the chances that someone else other than Rockshire, ask you to go one one?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I still put it like it like a 5% or less chance that someone non name rock cheloski is the first overall pick.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, for for myself at least, I feel like it's very hard to deal in absolutes in the draft because we never really know if I was saying it's absolutely going to happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would just be lying to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: So you kind of always have to leave some room for uncertainty.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have sort of reached the area where

[SPEAKER_02]: As I'm having conversations with people in decision-making roles with teams, you're hearing other names kind of floated as like don't rule out, and largely the players that mostly get associated with the topic are the two that we mentioned in that top tier, Grady Emerson.

[SPEAKER_02]: Texas high school shortstop maybe the best beer hitter in the class and then Von Lackey who's just had a tremendous year and I think has Arguably the highest floor of any hitter in this class is given what he can do for you Defensively at catcher.

[SPEAKER_02]: Both of those names are being talked about as like a hey Don't fully count them out the white socks really are still scouting Greatie Emerson hard.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's hard for me to believe that like

[SPEAKER_02]: at this stage anyone other than Rock still is the favorite for the pick and I do think that it is common we've had a few drafts and I think I think back to the Adley Ruchman draft in 2019 where he was kind of wired a wire number one overall player and there was a very good kind of tier one B player in Bobby with Junior who in hindsight probably take him first overall but I would say it was the same thing then like everyone kind of assumed Adley was going to be the guy

[SPEAKER_02]: The Orioles never wanted to make that clear and no team picking one is ever going to do that make it clear they want as much leverage as they can realistically get and truthfully you should.

[SPEAKER_02]: Be scouting everyone in that range down to the wire because you never know what's going to happen if rock has some horrible injury like you want to be prepared to go in another direction, but I would say at this stage like I would.

[SPEAKER_02]: It would be very difficult for me to mock anyone other than Rock Chilasky to the White Sox at this point based on everything I've heard and what I understand about this class.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, but here's the more interesting question I think.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I agree with you completely like you would be, if you're the White Sox, you would be doing now practice if you weren't scraping, you know, scouting Brady Emerson Harden, Von Lackey Harden, and the other guy's hard Jackson Floor Harden, like that's the part of the job, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: You want to you don't

[SPEAKER_03]: come into it with pretty assumptions.

[SPEAKER_03]: You come into it saying, we are going to make the best evaluation possible.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the second part of that question, the underlying kind of part there, right, is Rochalowski, UCLA Shorestuff, was our

[SPEAKER_03]: based ball America College Player of the Year is a sophomore.

[SPEAKER_03]: We do not see that happen very often.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is very rare Mark to share.

[SPEAKER_03]: There are a couple of guys who have done it over the years, but it is very rare to see a sophomore.

[SPEAKER_03]: Usually it is a draft eligible player.

[SPEAKER_03]: Usually it is a junior who wins a player there.

[SPEAKER_03]: Here we are.

[SPEAKER_03]: We are two thirds of the way through the regular season now, basically.

[SPEAKER_02]: Which was crazy, by the way.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but we are heading into week 11 of the

[SPEAKER_03]: Rock's not hitting at the same level that he did last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: The counting stats, they're not dramatically lower.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is a lower batting average, it is a lower on base percentage.

[SPEAKER_03]: He has lower slugging percentage right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he did last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the question I'll ask you, Carlos, is, is Rock Chalowski having a season that disappoints?

[SPEAKER_03]: Is there a concerns here about what we're seeing from Rock Chalowski?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess if you came into this year expecting that Rock Chalowski would make history and win back to back college player the year, maybe you could say that he's having a disappointing year, outside of those expectations, which I think are too extreme to put on any player.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't think so.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he is basically exactly the same player.

[SPEAKER_02]: We expected him to be, we thought he would be.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is very modest, down tick, in numbers across the board, like you mentioned, yeah, the averages lower, the OPP is lower, the slug is lower, but we're comparing a college player of the year season to, again, what's standards out is one of the most impressive offensive seasons in college baseball this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually think there are some underlying numbers

[SPEAKER_02]: that I actually prefer from Rochelowski's 2026 season.

[SPEAKER_02]: We can get into that, but I generally think if you're looking at, like say, Roch's OPS, he's currently got a one, I never know how to pronounce the OPS on a podcast that makes sense to be with.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's got an 1134 OPS right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: 1.134.

[SPEAKER_03]: 1130.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: A year ago, it was 1190.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean,

[SPEAKER_02]: He's striking out a tick more than he did a year ago, but it's still a sub 15% strike out right.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's never struck out at a rate higher than that.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's walking more than 10% of the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: So no, I don't really have any qualms with the performance that he's had so far this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious if you see it any differently.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do know that for I understand the reason it is the

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got a huge ax on your back and every time people see you, they want to see something loud, something that's impressive.

[SPEAKER_02]: They want to see, hey, this guy's one, one show me why.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think rock does that in a number of ways on the field, but offensively, I think the bar for him to clear to impress people is just so high that comes with being the number I'm playing in the class.

[SPEAKER_02]: The degree that he is, and because of that, I think he gets really nitpicked when he's not like the best offensive player you've ever seen, but what are your thoughts?

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I'll put it this way.

[SPEAKER_03]: We could probably predict right now that we could be 12 months from now.

[SPEAKER_03]: We could be doing a podcast like this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe we should just put it on the schedule and say, you know, DAX Whitney still looks like he might be the number one pick, but his DAX Whitney disappointing with the season he's having.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it would be because DAX Whitney's season, it's hard for it to be better than what he's having as a sophomore, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And you could say that with Rochalowski in some ways,

[SPEAKER_03]: We just set Rocholowski was our baseball America College Player of the Year last year as a soft war.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's having a very similar season to that.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's not found another level and most of the other guys that we're talking about when you talk about Vaam Lacky, Vaam Lacky is a better player this year than he was last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: but he also had room to be, he had further room to grow to be what he is this year, as opposed to like, we may be talking about Landon Harrison at this time next year and saying, you know, at this time last year, Landon Harrison was not just leading the nation in Homer's, but was you know, he was five, six, seven Homer's ahead of where he is right now this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you've talked about it with other players too, like a guy like Drew Burris, when you've set the bar so high early on, it's almost like you're always going to leave room for people to be disappointed,

[SPEAKER_02]: They're not like miracle seasons, but really outlier stand out historic individual seasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't know that it's fair for any player for the expectation be to replicate that or to improve on that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know there is something to, hey, you want to see consistent growth for amateur players at the college level.

[SPEAKER_02]: You want to see them improving year over year.

[SPEAKER_02]: But once you hit like this elite threshold, at least in terms of performance and the numbers you're putting up the stat line you're putting up.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I don't really get too bothered about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like if you've already had a college player of the year, season as a sophomore in your nearing, the production you had a year ago, to me, that's great because all the tools of beneath that are still quite impressive.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know, there are a few things that I kind of hinted at that I'm actually more impressive.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think

[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I want to get into.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's drill into some of the numbers because I think if if you're looking at it and you're disappointed, I think there are reasons to be more optimistic about the fact that he is making improvements as a player.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we're going to get into some of the underlying data that may make the argument that rock is even making slight improvements right after this quick break.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So Carlos.

[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of hinted at this.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the case can be made at the minimum that Rochalowski is having as good a year at the plate, as he did last year, or maybe in some ways even better, what stands out to you about why you would say that maybe he's actually showing some improvements.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the first thing I look at with Rock Chalowski this year was I was curious about the chase rate with him.

[SPEAKER_02]: We did a piece in the offices and kind of going over Rock Chalowski as a player in all the tools, all the areas.

[SPEAKER_02]: And what stood out to me was I did think that in terms of pure contactability and in terms of

[SPEAKER_02]: you lead strikes on recognition.

[SPEAKER_02]: He maybe was not at the same tier of some of the most dominant bat first prospects at the top of the board in recent years.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think part of that for rock was the aggression in his swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: And when he was in high school,

[SPEAKER_02]: We had heard from Scouts, we had seen it at the time that he really did get aggressive at times in his swing decisions to expand at the zone.

[SPEAKER_02]: Recently, frequently in high school, we did not at all think he was going to be this caliber of player, although we liked him quite a bit, he was one of the higher ranked high school players to get to college, like he really transformed himself as an offensive player in college.

[SPEAKER_02]: But if you wanted to nitpick with him even entering this year, I think

[SPEAKER_02]: like being more selective at the plate, not expanding the zone is an area that I wanted to see some improvement in.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think he has improved in that area.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's modest.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a dramatic jump.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the chase ready year ago was 27% particularly on secondary sliders and changeups.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was really aggressive on chasing those pitches out of the zone.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's sub 30% on every pitch that he's face so far this year in terms of chase and the overall chase rate.

[SPEAKER_02]: is down to 23%.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the first number that I look at and say, okay, this is maybe the single offensive question mark I had for him that was like, again, none of these are red flags, but it's just areas that I'd like to see him improve.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's done that.

[SPEAKER_02]: In conference so far, he's walking at a 13.6% rate.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's his highest in conference walk rate he's had the overall walk rate is down a little bit compared to year go, but I'd like some of those underlying numbers that he's shown so far.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the first one.

[SPEAKER_02]: you can chime in on this if you want to change it, but I think that's great.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I was going to say it's both early count and I think even more important, his two strike chase rate is also improved, which so even if I could I could kind of to be honest, I could explain away if his early count chase rate had kind of gone up a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: I could see that being the mindset of I'm the junior who has to

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they make they're going to pitch around me a little bit more so maybe I've got to be a little bit more aggressive, but he's not he's actually saying like look, this is a lineup that other guys in this lineup can do the job to I don't have to be the hero, but the most important thing is to see that that two strike chase right because obviously.

[SPEAKER_03]: you don't want to be expanding your zone too far.

[SPEAKER_03]: You want to have a two strike approach to some standpoint, step where you're like, look, if you're trying to get me to chase out of the zone and two strike to hit bad pitches, I'm not going to do it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we're seeing improvement there.

[SPEAKER_03]: That for me, right away, that is something that that's a real, again, it's all of this is minor, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: There's nothing that the best way we could put it is, is I think we could say, is this

[SPEAKER_03]: There's nothing glaringly different about Rocholowski, 2026 versus Rocholowski, 2025.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is that fair?

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's fair.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe the most dramatic difference is not even in the chase or the swing decisions, but the impact.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's another area.

[SPEAKER_02]: that's different from a year ago and you may be would look at the home run total studies had this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had 23 years ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's at 14 right now through 40 games.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think we probably can expect that he's not going to match that 2025 mark he had unless he just really gets on a

[SPEAKER_02]: an insane heater, which is perfectly capable of doing down the stretch.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd like to see that happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: It would be a lot of fun.

[SPEAKER_02]: But he's actually hitting the ball harder this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like all these numbers and X of velocities may be sound small.

[SPEAKER_02]: But at least the numbers that we have and we're looking at right now, I think it's pretty.

[SPEAKER_02]: Impressive improvements across the board.

[SPEAKER_02]: His average exit velocity, a year ago was 91 and a half miles per hour this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's 92 and a half a full tick up in an average EV is 90th percentile EV.

[SPEAKER_02]: A year ago was 166.5 this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's 108 miles per hour.

[SPEAKER_02]: his max X of velocity is basically the exact same.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think down to the decimal, this is through games through April 20th.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so the fact that he's just hitting the ball harder across the board is encouraging to me as well, because again, rock always felt like this very balanced offensive profile, a chance to be above average as both a pure hitter and a power hitter.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you say he's going to be more 50 hit 60 power.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you think he's going to be more 60 hit 50 power.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm inclined to think he's more power over hit.

[SPEAKER_02]: If I had to pick one of those, but I like all of the inputs here.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's good to see.

[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe just the distribution of his bad at balls has been different enough that we haven't seen quite the same home run output.

[SPEAKER_02]: It does feel like his pop-up rate is a little bit higher than it was a year ago, which probably costing him a little in terms of the extra base department, but I kind of like what we've seen from him this year despite the lower home run totals.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is the one thing like the pop up right last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have it by scoring a synergy at 9% and this year is at 15%.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's, that is a negative.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's one thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I will kind of down what I'm not too, I'm not too worried about that because I feel like that rate in smaller samples can also get, like you, you'll hiters with this run into these spells and I don't think there's any real mechanical reasons like, oh, boxing like not making quality contact.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's just like, oh, hey, I wouldn't expect that rate to continue moving forward for him.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would also point out he's also seeing 1.5 mile an hour harder on average fastballs this year than last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he's basing a little bit again, fastball velocity is not a perfect analog for a pretty good one.

[SPEAKER_03]: But there's pitching quality, but as you know, as I like to point out, it's a

[SPEAKER_03]: It's the closest analog you can ever find.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you tell me a guy's facing 88 versus 92, 99 times out of 100, the guy facing 92 facing better pitching.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's so he's facing better pitching, there's you're a little bit so far the other thing I would point out that I think to go back to that hit versus power.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's not pulling the ball in the air as much as he was last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so you might be okay, that's a little less damage.

[SPEAKER_03]: I will also point out though, and this is encouraging to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: Last year, his home runs.

[SPEAKER_03]: He had 23 home runs.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were, he pulled the ball to left field, the left center power alley, and occasionally they'd leak into the kind of center field.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was it.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was where every single Homer that Rocholowski hit last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: He had

[SPEAKER_03]: This year, 50% of his home runs are to left field, seven left center, 21 to center, 14 to right center power alley, and seven percent to right field.

[SPEAKER_03]: He is showing a level of all field power that he did not show last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you could say, well, he hit more Homer's last year because he pulled him on the air more.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, but at the same time, I will go back to,

[SPEAKER_03]: Not that pictures didn't know who Rochalowski was last year, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: But this year, everyone knows you're facing Rochalowski.

[SPEAKER_03]: Rochalowski, if you look at kind of wear pictures, pitch him, they like to stay away.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're not something where they're like, oh, I'm down to you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you know what I need to do?

[SPEAKER_03]: I need to rare back and throw in on Rochalowski's hands.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I need to throw a strike.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, they don't.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's not a place you want to live against Rochalowski.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is also encouraging to me because maybe you could say that like rocks approach is basically identical to what it was a year ago and he's being thrown fewer strikes and he's just not forcing the issue because in 2025 he was thrown strikes nearly 60% of the time, I think it's 59% rate we have.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's down 3 percentage points this year to 56% so it wouldn't shock me if like entirely that chase rate was just down to the fact that like he's being thrown strikes less frequently and he's not forcing the issue.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of some speculation here for me but I like to see that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm trying to pull up right now while we're talking like basically the difference in kind of where in the zone.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll probably have a graphic up on the YouTube side as we do this.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if you look at kind of where rock is seeing pitches and as far as zones this year,

[SPEAKER_03]: I would say, you know, get every pitcher, every no one is perfect.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there are pitchers, but there are definitely more a little bit further away, like he is seeing a higher percentage of pitches in the zone away from him.

[SPEAKER_02]: then he is in and I'm again I'm going to try to see the other thing as you're pulling that up that I I'm just looking at here that I feel like is also notable is I kind of look at like the strike rate and the percentage of pitches that he's thrown just to see again like largely our teams attacking him in a specific way.

[SPEAKER_02]: The one pitch type that has been thrown pretty significantly less often this year to Raksulaski is change ups.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was thrown change ups about 14% of the time in 2025.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's below 10% this year, 8% of the time as we're recording the podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: And both a year ago and this year, Raksulaski absolutely annihilates college change ups and I feel like he's probably understand that.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he's been getting

[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, fastballs or sliders about 80% of the time, which if I was a pitcher, I mean, those pitches in general, the ones I would want to attack him with, the slider just feels like typically, I know different pitchers are going to have different strengths and weaknesses, not everyone's going to have a good slider to throw him, but it is notable to me that like, no one's throwing him the changeups and this probably smart because he destroys those pitch types.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, okay, this is Rock Tulaoski's pitch distribution in 2026, as far as my pitchers are pitching to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll describe this for the podcast list here.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, basically, we're seeing essentially 11% of pitches to rock have been, you know, essentially kind of in on him,

[SPEAKER_03]: you know, in on his hands, but in the zone.

[SPEAKER_03]: And further than that, 11% have been in off the zone, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: So, but then at the same time, if you said the comparison to that would be, okay, 14% of pitches are

[SPEAKER_03]: on the outer third of the zone, and then on top of that, another 32% of pitches are out of the zone away.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this is something where this year they're like, okay, I'm going to stay away from rock.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want rock to be getting this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, in comparison, it's not dramatic differences, but 12% were in the zone.

[SPEAKER_03]: And by the way, 6% were middle middle last year,

[SPEAKER_03]: You don't want to go middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle

[SPEAKER_03]: if he just tried to pull everything this year, it would probably be a kind of a...

[SPEAKER_03]: a less than ideal approach because teams have realized, maybe you don't want to do that to the best hit or in college baseball over there.

[SPEAKER_03]: So what we're seeing is his pictures are maybe being a little bit more careful, rock to ask you, which makes sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's rock to lousky and everyone knows that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he's responded by using the whole field a little bit more, but so that's hitting.

[SPEAKER_03]: What about on the fielding side?

[SPEAKER_03]: Are you seeing anything different?

[SPEAKER_03]: Are you hearing anything different about the evaluation of rock to lousky at Schwoordstein?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't think in particular, there's much different about him defensively.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are really strong reviews on what he can do.

[SPEAKER_02]: As a short stop, and he's kind of gone out there and done it.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not in the case where there's like a significant jumper reduction in errors.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you want to read too much into that within a single season in the first place, but I got a chance to see him live earlier this year, and he kind of looked the part was the impact reliable defender.

[SPEAKER_02]: We expect him to be that that feels like that's just been the guy

[SPEAKER_02]: He's been at every series throughout the season this spring.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've not heard really anything from any scout who's been watching him throughout the year to to make us reconsider our expectations for his, his glove and his defensive ability.

[SPEAKER_02]: And for all the talk about Rochelowski, JJ, I do think Roch's glove is maybe his loudest individual tool.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I've kind of been on that for for a while now.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the the most obvious part of his game that jumped out when he was in high school.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I just have a ton of confidence in his glove and what he can do as a defender

[SPEAKER_03]: So that is our kind of in-depth look of really trying to ask the question of is, hey, let's kind of update on our number one prospect, but our short summary is, yeah, pretty much the same guy that we thought he was coming into the year of some really good achievements.

[SPEAKER_03]: But also, and you know, yeah, okay, you could say he's also not hitting his many home runs.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that is the baseball America draft podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: Carlos Glazo, I'm JJ Cooper, thank you for the download.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for listening.

[SPEAKER_03]: Please feel free to leave a comment.

[SPEAKER_03]: and we will be happy to try to enter those on YouTube as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we hope you enjoyed this and check out, by the way, we got an update coming so check out baseballamerica.com for much more draft coverage this week next week and every week in the lead up to the MLB draft.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's longer, everybody.