[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody, JJ Cooper Carlos Clause, a baseball man, a draft podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: Colis is back, rested, vacationed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm here, not rested, not vacationed, but I did to be getting a chance.

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to send you on a trip, JJ.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we need to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Get you some rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: you know, but that's coming at some point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure, but not yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, we will be together next week, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we have the we will be headed to Baltimore to check out the the baseball factory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm American game.

[SPEAKER_00]: And get a chance to see some of the top high school players like we did last year I would say, you know, there was a number of guys, but I would say Tome is the one who kind of That was my first really chance to get eyes on the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, nice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's good.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, so we'll have that coming up But but today we're going to talk about the college class because

[SPEAKER_00]: We are kind of nearing, I would say that we are, we are at the end of the college summer season.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've dropped my daughter back off at school.

[SPEAKER_00]: College is back.

[SPEAKER_00]: So summer is done and with that we have a chance to have a little bit better sense of the college class that we did coming into the summer because that's one of the things that summer is used for.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've been reporting on the USA baseball top 10 and prospects and Jeff Ponce did our Cape Codley top 25.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm just gonna start by asking kind of big picture

[SPEAKER_00]: Here we are now, what's your sense of the state of the college class?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I feel like we've kind of gotten different pieces of feedback based on what people were watching.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it sounds like the Cape Cod like the summer is pretty exciting.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know Jeff was very bullish on the players that he got to see this summer.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if that's like a significant jump in like the prospects at the event or maybe just a lot of the top guys performed as you would like to see them.

[SPEAKER_01]: But hearing hearing about Jeff talk about how the capos this year I think is encouraging maybe for the depth of this college class.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will say for just talking with scouts and being at Team USA for for the collegiate national team.

[SPEAKER_01]: It did feel like maybe Scott's were a little bit underwhelmed by the prospects there in particular the hitters, I think.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of really talented arms.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our top 10 this year from Team USA is going to be led by Thomas Vellinkis, Lieutenant pitcher from Mississippi State.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he was probably the most exciting prospect that we saw from Team USA.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think beyond that

[SPEAKER_01]: You lead position players on the college side.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like both Gavin Kelly and Landon Heerston who are going to rank near the top of our Team USA list, but they're both unconventional top of the class hitting prospects for a few different reasons we can get into.

[SPEAKER_01]: I may be a little bit more excited about this college class than most of the scouts I talked to, probably just because I'm really excited about the pitching.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you do want to get excited about the demographic, we've talked about it for months now with this 2027 college class.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is just a huge amount of pitching talent, pitching volume, elite stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of pitchers.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to come into next spring with more starting track record than we saw a year ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: Part of that might just be me looking back to this past 26 class and like lamenting the lack of first round arms.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's just scratching an inch that we haven't had for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I am pretty excited about both the top end pitching talent.

[SPEAKER_01]: We got guys like Dex Whitney who we didn't even get to see the summer.

[SPEAKER_01]: We might not see him at all next spring.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's kind of going to be

[SPEAKER_01]: how do you handle this elite talent?

[SPEAKER_01]: But there are some names at the back of this top 10 list that I'm really intrigued by that we can dig into, but I'm curious from your perspective, JJ.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's always nice to talk about what I think, but you're also kind of over viewing everything we do at baseball America.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious if you have like a different takeaway or thought or curiosity about this college class as we stand now.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I kind of agree with you, like if you look at where this pitching class is right now compared to last year, obviously at this time last year, you know, we had Cam Fluke coming off of an exceptional postseason run, but even with Cam Fluke, like Cam Fluke's delivery at the time, it was not like where you said, this is prototypical, what you're looking for in your front of the rotation starter, you had, you had guys, but you pitching wise.

[SPEAKER_00]: You kind of went into the spring with a lot of, maybe this guy's a merge, Jackson Flora who wound up being our top pitching prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was coming off a spring, or he basically threw only two pitches.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, a real question, so by the start of the spring.

[SPEAKER_01]: Liam Peterson had his control questions that he never really answered in the spring and I think to your point about Cameron Flooky.

[SPEAKER_01]: Before he dealt with his injury, I kind of was up in the impression like, hey, I don't want to do another chase burn situation where I overly critique a delivery that's unconventional but works because I had to work for him, but I do think once the

[SPEAKER_01]: You kind of added questions to how the operation looked.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think we're going to have more pictures go at an earlier spot next year regardless of what happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the flip side is as you look at the hitters.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is, I think we can probably where we can start here is you don't have to compare this to last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Justin LeBron had all kind of questions about the hit tool and all that, but Justin LeBron was a surefire shortstop.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rock Chalowski was the top guy in the class, and this was a surefire shortstop, who also had a long track record of hitting, and was coming off season where he argued as the best hitter in college baseball, so it's off for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is, I mean, Gavin Kelly had a great season, but

[SPEAKER_00]: We just talked about the Rock to Lowski, Justin LeBron, and we could, again, we could then get into, many other, there was then the Chris Aquopians, there was the Ace Reces, there was all these guys who had like, you felt good about their bats.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in a lot of cases, it kind of, they fit profiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Having Kelly's going to be a landed hairsty and also, landed hairsty is going to be fascinating.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll start him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Land hairsty was a standout sophomore, obviously.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that is a profile.

[SPEAKER_00]: Horner outfielder, college corner outfield that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't often go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though even the guys who go in the top 10 who end up in corners usually they're center fielders who then slide over or it's like they break some of both or in weird cases it's like okay Harrison Bader was not a top of that class but Harrison Bader has deferred to this guy but he probably can play center and in Harrison that's a corner out field bat right that you're really putting all in if you take him top 10 it's probably going to be entirely

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I just pulled up our top 10 Team USA list from a year ago, which you mentioned was headline by Rock Chalowski, who was very obviously the top player a year ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had three short stops inside that top 10, which for college, I feel like is a solid number.

[SPEAKER_01]: This year, and don't have to...

[SPEAKER_01]: and a catcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we've got a couple catchers in this year's list or potential catchers, I'll say, but no one who had the defensive chops of Faun Lackey at the same time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even Ryder Helferick, I think is probably a better defensive catcher than any of the guys we're looking at currently.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there are some interesting players who could play catcher, Gavin Kelly, obviously being the the most notable one.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you look lower on our list, you'll see Chase Frallick at Auburn, who

[SPEAKER_01]: is another exciting bat first catcher, but there's the profile there that you can look at.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a single player on our top 10 this year who I would feel confident playing shortstop.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, maybe Gavin Kelly is the most likely, but beyond them, I think the best defender at Team USA was Nico Partita, who's a third baseman and does not move like a player who's going to play up the middle.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think if you're going to critique the college hitting

[SPEAKER_01]: The middle infield is maybe the biggest question mark and part of that is also because Brennan Lawson is maybe the top ranked short stop in the class if you consider him a short stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he's bigger than several short stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people think he's maybe likely to play third base first base, but he's Canadian.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't play for Team USA.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't play this summer.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're really gonna need to see a lot of what he does next spring to bear down on him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, circling back to the guys you mentioned.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you said, let's start with Lin and Harrison.

[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of buried that a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Harrison is a really unusual top of the class, but I think he might be the best offensive player in the class.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think his pure hitting ability could warrant that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And despite the fact that he went just three for 16 in four official games with Team USA, I think Scouts,

[SPEAKER_01]: saw what they were expecting to see for him throughout trials with the stripes and the stars.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know there are some questions about how he handles left-handed pitching.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at his two-year platoon splits with ASU, he's been significantly more productive against righties, which is what you would expect.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think they're going to be some questions for him going into the spring about how does he handle lefties, how does he handle left-on-left spin.

[SPEAKER_01]: I actually thought he looked pretty good and some

[SPEAKER_01]: really high profile left-on-left matchups against Team USA specifically that don't show up in his offensive numbers if you're just going to USA baseball site and kind of looking at how to everyone perform.

[SPEAKER_01]: In four games, he was the hitter I expected him to be, he's got great rhythm.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought he sees the ball really well out of the hand again from both varieties and lefties, which was encouraging to me because that was something I was in particular bearing down to him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that he's anything more than a left fielder.

[SPEAKER_01]: He played left field and first base with Team USA.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going from left field to first base.

[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't super exciting?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he can move around well enough to play now if it's corner, but you are right that if you're drafting him in this range, you absolutely have to nail the offensive evaluation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that can be tricky a lot of the times.

[SPEAKER_01]: players are growing at the very top of the draft are going there because they hit they hit for power, they can run, they can play premium defensive positions, you're kind of immediately taking that defensive component off the table with Landon Hairston and I do think that could allow some players in this class next year to kind of...

[SPEAKER_01]: pass him over if they come out and perform, or if he takes a step back offensively, it is an unusual profile to have stuff this high and I think that's probably part of the reason scout seemed a little bit down on this college group or this team USA college group.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can come up with three outfielder's taken in the top 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: This decade, who I would say you would call corner outfielders, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and again, I'm not saying they've never played an an inning and summer guessing the guys I'll be curious.

[SPEAKER_01]: The guys you mentioned how physical they are, because lane no matter if it's not the tallest and biggest player in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I'm curious to hear the names you've got here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hesting here, Stead.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Gavin Cross, Charlie Condon.

[SPEAKER_01]: all much more physical than laying in here.

[SPEAKER_01]: At least in terms of size and I'm not sure that's going to be all wrongs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: As I said, I'm not sure if that will be a continued like

[SPEAKER_01]: issue for teams because we have seen teams in the 2020s just be more willing to take shorter players.

[SPEAKER_01]: If they have the hit tool, if they have the power in line of Harrison clearly has power.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that there are any real questions about his impact ability at this stage.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I don't know that group does that make you more or less excited about potentially taking less Harrison high.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would think that's what's clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like at this point, Hesting Kierstead did make the majors, but has been a disappointment.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the second pick overall, and that is not the production you want for the second pick overall.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gavin Cross has been a had a nice little run recently, very recently, but is, you know, not a guy if you were drafting that over, you would not come close.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, you could throw eight, I'm not throwing AJ Groscia into that yet, because from this year's class, he also has topped him pick.

[SPEAKER_00]: but he also was the bonus wise, he was not a top 10 pick.

[SPEAKER_00]: right and you could also if you were looking at this corner guys you could say like he at least played center field I'm sure he's going to be run out as a center field or get a chance even if we think he's probably like he's much more in that play right that like we said that's he's the guy who like again if you wanted to keep going on this I think the other top 10 pick in the last decade you could add would be Corey Ray who again was the college center fielder who was going to slide over which is a little

[SPEAKER_00]: But again, like what we're just pointing out here is this is not necessarily anything to a friend here, but these are guys where it's like, when you do that, you better really hit on the bat because just a little bit of, I like to say it this way, the hit tool is the hardest thing to project.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're one great off on the hit tool on, like you said, let's say you're one great

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he's still going to keep kind of climbing the miners as a shortstop who may have time to figure it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're Gavin Cross and you don't hit for average or power significantly, there's not really a whole lot else for you to do to help a club.

[SPEAKER_01]: right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, you mentioned Justin LeBron as we record this doing pretty well right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, hi.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has four home runs in his first 35 plate appearances.

[SPEAKER_01]: The strike out and walk rates are quite scary.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it is nice to see him just having an electric start to his pro career because his tools are

[SPEAKER_01]: are exceptional.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's no player in this top 10 with that tool set, the athletic foundation, and circling back to Gavin Kelly, who I also mentioned as kind of an unconventional, top of the class college hitter.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if you can figure this query out as I'm talking about him, but Gavin Kelly to me is unusual because he does not have a lot of physicality.

[SPEAKER_01]: We haven't listed six foot 175 pounds, specifically the weight threshold there, JJ.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious

[SPEAKER_01]: I would imagine a college hitter who's that light being drafted in the top 10 is pretty unusual.

[SPEAKER_01]: He just doesn't look like a typical top of the class position player on the college side.

[SPEAKER_01]: To me, it stands out when you watch him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, his offensive performance is spectacular.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you wanted to say, hey, I prefer Gavin Kelly's hit tool to land in here, since I think you have a very solid

[SPEAKER_01]: case to make that.

[SPEAKER_01]: He had better performance in team USA's official games who is hitting third in the lineup right behind Lane Harrison who is hitting second and I think basically all of their official games he finished third in hitting hit for 74 led the team in total hits he went nine for 19 it's an efficient bat spath yet bat path excuse me he has quick bat speed he

[SPEAKER_01]: I liked everything like mechanically about the swing.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also had a significant jump in power output.

[SPEAKER_01]: In his second year with West Virginia, he went from just 200 months as a freshman to 19 in 26, while hitting 382.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there are some questions with Kelly, the physicality that I mentioned, like, is that power going to translate to wood?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure that's going to be a question for him, and then maybe more importantly, where is he going to play defensively?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because he split time at catcher in second base with West Virginia.

[SPEAKER_01]: He got some time during trials with Team USA at catcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we got to see him at the position a little bit this summer.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he also de-h full time for the actual,

[SPEAKER_01]: college national team, I think that's probably more because of the surrounding cast is probably better line up to have him de-age and get guys like Freylic into the lineup.

[SPEAKER_01]: Get guys like Riker White into the lineup who is playing second base, but that's definitely going to be an area that Scouts are really drilling down him during the spring does he do enough defensively to stick at the catcher position.

[SPEAKER_01]: How will that catcher position?

[SPEAKER_01]: How will his body handle the wear and tear and just the durability required?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, again, I would be curious to see who are the latest, major league patchers who are full-time catchers.

[SPEAKER_01]: I imagine that list is pretty short.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're just looking at what Gavin Kelly is now, but there's another player who you're really excited about the pure hitting ability, the offensive impact, the approach, the pop that he's shown, but beyond that, I think you're gonna want

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I'm just doing this right now that's, I used our, our, our, our, our dead graph data because I wanted that the weights at that time, not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Correct.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's neat.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got, get games weight as a pro.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in the 2020s, I found very few players that who are in that range.

[SPEAKER_00]: The, the college players are players of all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Overall, it's like, eight more weeks was the highest rate of player we had last year who was lighter than that, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't see a whole lot of 170 pros period.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the last college guys that I have seen

[SPEAKER_00]: that, you know, we had as top prospects were, Brayton Taylor was listed at 165 and a Rique Bradfield at 172 in the 2023 class.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, right, Rique Bradfield is a 81.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think with both those players, like Bradfield's defensive profiles, there's obviously speaks to herself when you hear his name, but I even think Taylor at the time,

[SPEAKER_01]: everyone is pretty confident that he's going to be a rock solid defender third base and you also felt like you could play kind of all over the infield.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Gavin Kelly will become that that's same sort of athlete who you can envision him multiple middle-end field or in field spots.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but that like Nick Madrigal was the other guy I thought about.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was obviously very small.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's before that 2020.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going back to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Matt McLean was the other.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, yeah, I'm a clean, I'm also curious how how physical was an angel's short stop at a Campbell.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why I'm playing that in his name in Zack Meadow.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was a bigger biggest player in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: He might be.

[SPEAKER_01]: my way more than 175 at the same time, but that's another player who kind of sticks out to me, but I don't do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say, I'm looking, but like, yeah, like Peyton Graham, who was kind of on the fringe, was a 171.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I bring this up partly because I would say with a lot of these guys that they're lack of

[SPEAKER_00]: strength has been like with Matt McLean I've brought him up for the reds and like when you said like what was the biggest concern to him who's a solid big leader let's be clear like this is a success story but

[SPEAKER_00]: Scouts would say, like, he visibly wears down during the season, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And we've seen that even in the major leagues, I would say, staying healthy and staying kind of at that level of strength have been challenges for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, Braden Taylor, I would say is like, I would say he's kind of taking a different practice.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's, it's about how much power he's trying to hit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the string gets a little steep, uh, but.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Enrique Bradfield, his lack of power, I would say, is in some ways limited in him, like he's still not in the big leagues yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to make it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I would say, Lee, doesn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: Golly doesn't have that caring tool of speed and center field defense that I've read for those.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I think there are similar questions that we had with Lane and Harrison.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you miss on the hit tool, if the hit tool's not as good as you expecting, what are you left with then?

[SPEAKER_01]: There are just maybe fewer athletic tools, secondary tools, loud explosive tools with both Kelly and Harrison,

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe less confidence in where these guys are going to play long-term that I think are just going to add a lot of pressure to them from just a pure hitting standpoint next spring.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're really going to need to perform to maintain their status at the top of the class.

[SPEAKER_01]: I could easily do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can improve some of these secondary skills.

[SPEAKER_01]: Gavin Kelly could maybe have a great offseason and really come out looking like a no doubt.

[SPEAKER_01]: catching prospect, I think in particular, there's some things he could do with kind of the arm action and how the arm works behind the plate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he adds more strength and so you have fewer questions about potential durability issues behind the plate.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I just do think that obviously I can't come back every year and say there's no rock Chalowski in this class because he's not a player that's gonna come around every year.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think you,

[SPEAKER_01]: you just look around at the hitting the hitting in this group.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there are just a lot of questions that you're going to have where that's maybe not the case with the pitching that we can get into as well unless you have more thoughts on what bad things come on.

[SPEAKER_00]: A couple of things on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: To answer your question, Nick Badger goes list at 165.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, and I would say again under on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that Nick Badgerdahl's 165 ended up being very much a limiting factor for him as a pro.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is is you don't really see 170 pound catchers at the big snow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously he would gain weight, but you don't see 180 pound catchers generally in the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_00]: That would say is a legitimately

[SPEAKER_00]: limiting factor potentially for him as a catcher in that Garrett Stubs is a little bigger than that, but Garrett Stubs who's kind of been this long-term kind of back up and you know, and up and down guy and all that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that Garrett Stubs is a guy who

[SPEAKER_00]: one of the things we wrote about him when he was on the cusp of the big leagues was teams didn't really think that he could be in every day catcher partly because of his lack of power, but partly because he just wasn't big enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: They think he could help a team, but you're not going to say, oh, this is your guy is going to catch a hundred hundred and ten games.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think with Gavin Kelly, beyond the fact that also I would throw out talked to a scout about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: no catcher who's in elite catcher.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know that Von Lackey played other positions early in his career, and Von Lackey would play a game every now and then else we're just to give him a rest, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: or to show that he could play a reposition on the field kind of as flex.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Gavin Kelly, they kind of moved him back and forth and partly I think because of his size.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that is, I would say if I'm a, if I was a team, I would look at that and say, I'm less certain about him as a catcher than I am about some of these guys we just rounded off, partly because of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So,

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I'd also say two, one of the things that was brought up to me about just the catchers in general at that team who says a lot of these catchers were kind of critiqued for their defensive ability.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're Gavin Kelly, you didn't kind of come out and say, hey, I'm going to be the starting catcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: Put one of these other bat first catchers in the

[SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't he win that catching job when there wasn't a Vaughn Lackey to be like oh clearly He's he's like a potential goal club defender.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think those are gonna be real questions that that we'll need to see how their answer next spring So now we're gonna dive in the pictures a little bit more the more the more intriguing part of the class We'll do that right off this quick break

[SPEAKER_00]: So Carlos, the pitching side, we have a lot more here that a lot more players who I would say fit what you would standardly view as guys who could go in the top 10 top 15 picks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bear?

[SPEAKER_01]: definitely fair.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think at the top of the board, what Thomas Valinches has shown so far with Mississippi State, makes me more excited about him as a top of the class arm compared to anyone from a year ago, Cameron Flooky, Jackson Floralian Peterson.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he combines

[SPEAKER_01]: track record, power stuff, command, and delivery in a way that I have fewer question marks about his profile at this time than any of those three pictures you could name.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think the starting point for our pitching conversation in the college classes already higher than it was a year ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not even to mention.

[SPEAKER_01]: maybe the most talented pitcher in the class, Dex Whitney, who again, we're not going to see him throw for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was number two.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me ask you, you said maybe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is there even a baby to that if he's healthy?

[SPEAKER_01]: probably not I think you might you might be able to find some scouts who prefer valentious because he's left handed.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do think he's a really talented pitching prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the overwhelming opinion in the industry would be that Dex Whitney is the top pitching prospect in the class.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think if he's healthy he's probably just the number one college player in the class.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think Dex Whitney versus our top high school player.

[SPEAKER_01]: don't so word would be an interesting conversation I could see people landing on either side of that depending on like maybe your risk tolerance for pitching versus those elite short-stop prospects that everyone loves.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like if if Whitney was healthy right now I would imagine he's probably the top overall prospect in the class for us college or high school.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think even beyond Valencia so I know we'll talk about plenty so I want to kind of move

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the most exciting name for me, a player who I really like and wife, I felt like he dominated was Camden and Clark, who's a right-handed pitcher at Southern Miss.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't make the final team USA roster, but I feel like his combination of delivery command.

[SPEAKER_01]: and freaky fastball trades makes him one of the more interesting players in this class.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was watching from behind the plate when he was pitching for stars and stripes and he was getting a ton of miss on a 93, 94 mile per hour fastball that was just one of those invisible at the top of the zone.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you watch the pitch, I think now that we know more about the pitching data,

[SPEAKER_01]: There are going to be a lot of fastball traits here that are like checking off these analytical boxes and sure enough, you've looked at what the pitch did last spring with Southern Miss.

[SPEAKER_01]: It averaged more than 21 inches in doos vertical break, even for college.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a pretty elite number.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's near the top of the scale for like a could we sit or check there just some people who don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you hear this for college with the college baseball, that does not translate one to one to pro ball.

[SPEAKER_00]: The pro ball, it is harder to generate induced vertical break with the pro ball than it is with college ball.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's differences in the seams that just allow you to I think get more movement out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I think there's still some calibration issues in college that maybe can make the top pitch just look even more extreme than they actually will be at the next level, even beyond like the ball differences.

[SPEAKER_01]: Either way, that's towards the top of what we tend to see for full-time pictures who have a lot of fastball data in their mix.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has a below average release height, which in this sense, I mean as a positive unusual combination of his ride where he releases the ball from and an extremely flat.

[SPEAKER_01]: vertical approach angle.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's minus 3.85, which is, again, anything under four.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think is a lead.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a pretty standout number.

[SPEAKER_01]: The velocity in and of itself is fairly vanilla, fairly mediocre for some of our top pitching prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sits around 93.

[SPEAKER_01]: He'll touch 96.

[SPEAKER_01]: 97.

[SPEAKER_01]: But because of those movement characteristics and release traits that he has, it plays

[SPEAKER_01]: And my favorite part about all of this is he ties it together with great fastball command.

[SPEAKER_01]: He really fills up his own a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think he really even needs to be precise with that fastball now for it to be effective.

[SPEAKER_01]: But while pitching as a starter and reliever, he had just a 5.3% walk rate last spring, which really excites me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to want to see more from his secondaries, which were effective against the competition he was playing, but I think do like a little bit behind his fastball now, and obviously would like to see him perform as a full-time starter, but I think he maybe has one of the mark-siting fastballs in the class overall, just given those trades, and I felt like he kind of dominated in the time that I watched him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's one of the names that if you're not aware of him, not familiar with him, because he's not like

[SPEAKER_01]: in the Whitney Valentious tier now, he could easily be a first-round pick.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other part of this class though, on that college side is that, okay, the other part of what I wanna ask with this is, how many guys kind of fit in that group where they would be equating to where the Cam Fluke is, where the Liam Peterson's were last year, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So, did you give a sense of that?

[SPEAKER_00]: You've just talked about some of the guys at the top.

[SPEAKER_00]: which said that's what he's going to be a weird case, but like we how many of this state's rotation members will fit in that group?

[SPEAKER_00]: How do you know, how does a, you know, like,

[SPEAKER_00]: How many guys from Texas fitted that you're like right like my question is is like to just get a sense of this class Like would you say that Camp Lucke's clearly above would be at this time last year clearly above The second tier of guys that we're talking about behind the you know, yeah, the clear top two or is it more of like no these guys are kind of fit in that same range

[SPEAKER_01]: I think looking at our board now, looking at some of the names, if we say Thomas Villanches and Dax, what near in a tier of their own head of everyone from last year, I think there's a group of seven to nine, maybe even ten players in the second tier who I'd say would fit in a similar talent range to the trio from a year ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: So those are names.

[SPEAKER_01]: For us, that would include Chris Lovonus at Wake Forest, Landon Mac at Tennessee, Dylan Valantis and Sam Cozart at Texas.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ryan McPherson definitely at Mississippi State.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I would include Duke Stone at Mississippi State in that group right now, but if you wanted to, I think it's defensible.

[SPEAKER_01]: You get to case in Evans and William Schmidt from LSU, Camden Clark, who I just talked about.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Aiden King at Florida,

[SPEAKER_01]: Ed and King is not exactly my cup of tea just because I don't know like what the standout pitching trait is for him, but he also is gonna enter the spring as one of the more well-established starting pitchers in this class.

[SPEAKER_01]: His two-year track record with Florida is pretty tremendous.

[SPEAKER_01]: He pitch well in the summer.

[SPEAKER_01]: He checks a lot of boxes.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a lean.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's got a fast arm shot.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think

[SPEAKER_01]: who all feel like first round picks to me now and sorting through that group next year I know is going to be a real challenge for scouts is probably going to be a headache for us but these are one of the challenges in covering the draft that's a lot of fun because they're not difficult to sort out because we've kind of gotten into this like vanilla grouping.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're difficult to sort out because they're all really talented.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've all done a lot of things really well positively.

[SPEAKER_01]: and you're kind of picking and choosing what are the traits you most like and what are the weaknesses that you feel like are most addressable at the next level.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do feel like

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, maybe six to 10 players, I feel like all could fit in that second tier at this stage right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's very, very deep on the pitching side.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where we would say, like, the key part of that to me, what I get excited about that is is not that every one of those guys is going to be where Liam Peterson or Cam Flooky or Jackson Flora ended up being last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's that many guys who could be in that range.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or could be better than that, by the way, because, again, you know, you could have Cam Flooky did not.

[SPEAKER_00]: His stock did not go up over the course of the season.

[SPEAKER_00]: They would down, it to have that happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you have these many guys already there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's before you allow that there's, like, set Jackson Flores, a perfect example of.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are going to be guys who are not right now anywhere around that range.

[SPEAKER_00]: who make the case to kind of move himself and base an Edwards at this time last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's not a guy who'd be like, oh, he's, you know, I mean, even Kate Anderson, Liam Doyle, Kate Anderson, who was right before we were recording this podcast, we heard the news that he was gonna be promoted to the majors really excited to see what he does.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like Kate Anderson, we had on our top 100 entering the year but he wasn't in the range where he wound up fitting.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think part of that is because he hadn't gone out and did what he did his draft year and also part of that is just like,

[SPEAKER_01]: Figuring out which are the right college pitchers to have high-end or border only new season can be tricky and I've mentioned this a few times now But I'm I'm excited about this class because I do think Systemically it will help us maybe to correct for an area that we kind of go into each spring a little bit too light on the college arms a little bit too high

[SPEAKER_01]: on high school arms.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the perfect class for us to try and kind of address that and get ahead of who are the arms are going to actually go out and perform and move up.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm looking forward to like a year from now saying, okay, did we handle this demographic more effectively than we have in the past?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's definitely one of my goals for this year's group.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good thing to end this on, which is, okay, spell that out.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've kind of we've talked about this, but I think this is something useful again.

[SPEAKER_00]: We like to show to help people understand our process.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is something we've kind of evaluated that we realized is that just the nature of the calendar has kind of let us that way a little bit hasn't it?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think so the way I would say it is that I think each year we tend to see college pictures move up our board and high school pictures move down our board and part of that is because a lot of college pictures come out and improve and perform and do improve their draft stock but I think part of it is also that we have systemically been a bit too high on the high school pitchers and too low on the college pitchers from our preseason starting point and I think

[SPEAKER_01]: the biggest reason for that is probably because we spend a lot of time watching the high school arms in person in more abbreviated shorter outings where they're dominating and they obviously look good and I think last year's high school pigeon class was talented but I think we tend to just start those guys a little bit too aggressively on our board and maybe there are more college pictures who are out of sight out of mind either because they didn't pitch it all over the summer

[SPEAKER_01]: or we didn't see them in person over the summer.

[SPEAKER_00]: More generally the first, which is that you're wasting now a lot of the top pitching prospects, either don't throw it all or throw so abbreviated to workload that it's something that you're starting with, there's no signal there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I think hopefully doing more expanded underclass coverage will help to correct for that, but we should be waiting college spring performance from these 227 eligible arms more than what did they do in the summer?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because if they're just not pitching but doesn't take anything away from who they are as draft prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we basically just want to get those guys ranked in a more appropriate spot.

[SPEAKER_01]: And also I think part of the two is

[SPEAKER_01]: being more aggressive maybe in reacting to fall.

[SPEAKER_01]: What we're hearing, not necessarily performance and results from the fall, but chatter from scouts about pictures and what they're doing in the fall, because Mason Edwards who you mentioned, I think that's a great one.

[SPEAKER_01]: feedback about what his fall looked like the jump and power that he showed just how he looked as a pitching prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: We moved him up slightly on our preseason board, but we were hesitant and part of the hesitancy was because okay like we've heard this that sounds great in the fall.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got to go out and do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I still think there is always going to be kind of a balancing act between those.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's kind of how I'm thinking about our pitching process, how it's been

[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny because there's a college podcast that will be coming out next week that Jake and I recorded.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we were talking about kind of the value of Falball and how you don't want to over-react to it, but you do want to report it, and he used an example of a hitter, which was Daniel Jackson, who Daniel Jackson coming out of his first year at Georgia out of Wofford.

[SPEAKER_00]: wasn't really it like there was nothing about him that said oh this is a prospect and then the fall ball kind of is like this guy's more physical there's a lot more here now you're not going to say oh let's put him in the top 50 at that point right but it was an indication again the problem with this is that we always are is the balance we're trying to do here is to react but not over react and we're also trying to recalibrate here a little bit

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's a lot tougher.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do think it's getting easier now in this way from the standpoint of with the way college baseball is kind of trending.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you are performing an rotation as a sophomore, that kind of is a, and you have stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a special kind of category already.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the game's gotten a little bit older.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as we have really tried to have be better and better on our pre, our underclass list as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is, I think that when you talk about these college pitchers, there are so many college pitchers in this class who just have a track record that if I'm a team, I feel way more comfortable about these guys that can then I can't about almost any high school arm because I have track record, they've gone through a little bit of the durability and injury nexus, all these aspects where you're like, if you come,

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going, I do think this is also going to push.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about the high school arms always kind of end up sliding into that supplemental first round, except for the very few elite ones.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is going to push it further because I agree.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're like last year pushes them up a little bit where you're like, mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yeah, he's a prep pitcher, but do I like any college pitcher about this guy?

[SPEAKER_00]: No.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: This year you're going to have guys who you're going to like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, agreed.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that is the Baseball America Draft podcast for this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are back Carlos's back and we're in the go.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we do hope that you check out everything over at BaseballAmerican.com speaking of.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go check out.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've got a piece over there about the 2027 draft class.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll just leave it at this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll tease it this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: The 2027 draft class just got a little bit deeper.

[SPEAKER_00]: There has been a reclassification.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ben Butler had that, you know, so by the time you're listening to this, that'll be up at baseballmarket.com, go check that out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, there is the Cape Top 25 up right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Carlos is wrapping up.

[SPEAKER_00]: We will have the USA baseball top 10 up shortly as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of stuff check out at baseballamerican.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as always, please like and subscribe that helps other people to see our content.

[SPEAKER_00]: For Carlos, I'm JJ.

[SPEAKER_00]: So long, everybody.