[SPEAKER_00]: Hello everybody, JJ Cooper, Josh Norse, Facebook, America, Prospect, podcast and we've got a good one for you today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Check it out over at baseballmerica.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have seen that we have the top 35 Dominican summer league prospects up on the site.

[SPEAKER_00]: Josh Norse did all the reporting for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Josh Norse went to the Dominican for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: As the video you'll be watching on the YouTube during this show will illustrate.

[SPEAKER_00]: Josh great to see you and just kind of jumping in.

[SPEAKER_00]: you've been doing the DSL top prospects list for us for several years now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's a pretty clear answer when you say, well, why would you rank the DSL's prospects?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's used my day being number one on the first one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those you did, I think is a pretty good example of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I kind of did wanna ask a more nuanced question that which is,

[SPEAKER_00]: how much more difficult is it to rank DSL projects when you compare to even like the complex leagues, but especially when we get to like top 30s and prospects who are in full season,

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's fairly difficult just because the league is massive.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's essentially the size of both low A and high A combined.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like 50, 152 teams, 1500, some odd players.

[SPEAKER_01]: So my line always is, hey, if you think I missed a guy, you might be right.

[SPEAKER_01]: I ranked 35 dudes out of 1500 or so.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, there's some room for error there, but why do it is because these guys do become our top prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the number one prospect in

[SPEAKER_01]: are on top 100 right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two years ago was the number one prospect in DSL.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's just my day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Randy Rodriguez ranked somewhere on that same list.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's way up there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And honestly, he has a case for number one overall in my mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: Josquark and Zales was number one last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And wouldn't shop me if he's the number one prospect at some point next year too.

[SPEAKER_01]: As a matter of fact, I predicted that very thing earlier in the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, once my day graduates, he has a case, and you know, basically his California League performance certainly warrants it.

[SPEAKER_01]: These guys do become prospect, they become bigger prospects, they become stars, they...

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a reason to rank them.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a reason to get, you know, however much money on them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if they were, if we were to, you know, mix up these guys and the amateur drafty, the domestic amateur drafties, it'd be really interesting to see who would go in the first round instead of some other guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think there would be some of these guys who would be first rounders.

[SPEAKER_00]: to just kind of give you an example of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So 2024, first year you did this.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's just been day one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yairo Padilla II, I mean, I'm going to allow us three Luis Payne of four.

[SPEAKER_00]: Three of those four guys are top 100 prospects for us right now as Josh noted.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's just been day is number one on the top 100 right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: 2025 list, Joshua Gonzalez, Kendri Tureo, Kevin DeFranck, Diego Torniz, Juan Sanchez, Kevin Alvarez, were your top six.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, from that list, Juss-Warr is Kendri Turio and Kevin Alvarez are all 1,100 prospects right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kevin DeFranck basically came off a very injury plague year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of, both of those guys list kind of give you an example of it, which is I would say if you're reading that list, if you're listening to the podcast here, understand that

[SPEAKER_00]: This is both the chance the reason we do this is that the reason we devote the space resources to it is it allows you to get a sneak peek at what's going to be coming.

[SPEAKER_00]: kind of more widespread knowledge a year or two from now.

[SPEAKER_00]: But just understand when you do that, the same way that if you said right now, hey, we're predicting the 2027 top draft rankings compared to the 28 or the 29, your 27 ranks gonna have a little bit more fidelity to it than the 28 or the 29's because there's more things that can happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: are 17, 18, in some cases, 19 years old.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the hit rate on this is actually pretty remarkable when you consider how many more levels there are, how many more steps there are between here and the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when you look at back at it also, it's like, I think that the other key thing while you do 35 of these is like you look at last year's list,

[SPEAKER_00]: I would imagine when you started doing your reporting last year, Franklin Primera was kind of, was that a guy who kind of moved his way on to the list?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to ask me, remember, my report from two years ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: The reason he was on there is because he makes such a strong impression in DSL all star game.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you did top the Boston group had a bunch of guys and people said, hey, look, you know, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

[SPEAKER_01]: has some stuff like nobody knows him yet, but there's some some tools there.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's power.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the home run he hit in the DSL all star game was technically not his first pro home run, but it was like it just didn't count on his ledger, but you know, he blew up.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I didn't expect him to kind of blow up like he did, but he has and he was the number one prospect in the FCL this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm pretty proud that I got him in the DSL last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was kind of a surprise, but that's the fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are some guys on this list.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I knew coming into this at some point that on cable Gomez was going to be number one.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he's already on our top 100.

[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of had to be, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: There were some guys I didn't know about this, and there'll be a supplemental piece coming Thursday of some guys who didn't qualify for this list, but I'll see peek it and say,

[SPEAKER_01]: There's two guys on that list, there's a guy on that list who I think would have beaten Gomez or at least challenged him for number one if he had more at bats because the reviews on him were silly and there's a picture on this list who would have challenged the top pitching spot if he had more than five and a third innings.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I gave people a hit there if I go the search DSLR and five and a third innings.

[SPEAKER_01]: who would have challenged the top pitching spot if you had more innings, but just based on, I can't believe I found multiple scouts who saw both those guys, considering that they're only so many scouts in the league and there are so many teams, but I did, so that looked for that on Thursday.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, the thing I will say for Josh here is that having seen the notes that he has from this, to get to 35, basically means talking to

[SPEAKER_01]: but 110, 120, 100, I don't know if it's that much, but I mean, I've got 24, 25 pages of notes, a lot of them are the same guy, but you've got to reinforce, you know, some guys are lower on, some guys, if I were to do this on one guy's opinion, there'd be certain guys were way higher, and certain guys who did start way higher, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you want to transition here, I could just say, yeah, yeah, we'll get to there.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get to the details of the players exactly themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what we are going to do right after this quick break is we're going to talk about how this class compares to past classes and then dive into some of the top prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that right after this quick break?

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're back.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Josh, before we dive into the prospect, some of the prospects at the top of this list, I do kind of wanna ask you, looking at this 26 class, compared to 25 compared to 24.

[SPEAKER_00]: Better, worse, similar, different.

[SPEAKER_00]: How would you describe it?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's kind of similar, it's not, you know, a class that I expect to be, you know, taking up 10% of the top 100 or something like that, or 15% or whatever it may be.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it was an easy slam dunk at the top with on-table Gomez that was really not in doubt.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were some, there were some guys who have other prospects as number one, but I didn't think there was much of a trick I'd chance for anybody

[SPEAKER_01]: not so much with the pitching, as usual, the pitching on the DR is usually not very good, save for a few guys, which is why, again, you can look at stats all you want, but context matters, and some of these guys they are facing are not going to be professionals in a year or two, or in a month, maybe.

[SPEAKER_01]: So,

[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta, that's when you talk to scouts, man.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why you talk to scouts, you see the tools and can tell you things that you don't see in the stat lines.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's also like, and who kind of have context of, oh, this guy had a monster weak, but he never faced a guy who's actually in a good, or oh, I saw this guy against a good pitcher and he really showed his ability to handle VLO to adjust or break well, things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because also, one hour of thing about this league, you said, like it's so massive, but the discrepancies between the talent just from one club to another, like the podgers have two teams down there.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of them won the title.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the other was by far the worst team in the league.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you say, oh, we're placing the pod rays today, very quick follow up questions, which one?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because, for example, another example is, you know, on the AC hen, God with the meds got a, you know, a pretty big outland on remote, wasn't, wasn't top my head.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't say five million, something like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: The entire other meds club, I don't think, got that much money.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, there is a prospect who will be featured in Thursday's article on that list.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, there's a discrepancy there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so, okay, along those lines, you said, I want to explain a little bit further the pitching.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the reasons that we see like this is kind of a just reality, one of the reasons we see so much less pitching coming out of, you know, in the DSL than we see in, uh, you know, in any pretty much any other minor league, I would say is that

[SPEAKER_00]: We know like this is, again, this is not a draft, this is a system where you know, players are signed, you have a fixed amount of money you can spend and then sign your players out of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pictures don't make money in the DSL.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can, sorry, you're entering the, you know, international amateur pictures, especially in the DSL as well and all.

[SPEAKER_00]: don't command the same kind of bonuses as position players do.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'll use that moment to repeat my favorite stat.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the Philly's Astro's World Series a few years ago, the first three pictures who were winning pictures in that series were all, you know, of foreignborn, and their signing bonus was a, I believe, a combined 40 grant.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so because of that, if you have like players who are two way players here, right, the way I would explain it to just put it in blunt terms, if Paul schemes was coming up through the international amateur system, Paul schemes would probably have signed as a catcher.

[SPEAKER_00]: not as a pitcher.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a two-way player at Air Force before he transferred the LSU.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, hey, you're a Friday night starter ace.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're no longer going to hit.

[SPEAKER_00]: You had real power.

[SPEAKER_00]: But...

[SPEAKER_00]: He would command a much higher price tag, if he was an Dominican, if he was a Venezuelan, if he was in Colombia as a position player, who with the idea that always you could end up moving down the road to pitcher.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the DSL is where this is kind of the initial intake point of all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And with it being the initial intake point, so you see like this year, as you saw last year, last year, I believe you had two pitchers in the top 10 this year,

[SPEAKER_00]: You have zero zero zero.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so with that it's a very position player heavy group.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is kind of But at the same time

[SPEAKER_01]: pictures who are really good to really stand out there because that partly I would say we like a Ken Retorial last year that we saw and and Ken Retorial was unique in the fact that he had he started the year in the DSL and was there for about 10 minutes and finished in low-way.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that doesn't happen very often with anybody left.

[SPEAKER_00]: a little sneak peak also the Royals have the top right pitching prospect again this year two years and a top great prediction prospect.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so speaking of let's dive in with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So on Hellbow Gomez is the number one prospects Royals outfielder was that an easy call was that a tough decision?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it wasn't the top to sit, and it was it was easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were some contenders, I mean, obviously two, three.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're going to get into all of those, but like yeah, so yeah, two, two, three, four ahead of cases, but there were more hikis on those guys than Gomez.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a very well-rounded player who's got, you know, probably 55s are better across his card.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll, you know, say this, multiple scouts said they believe this is the best Latin American

[SPEAKER_01]: have had since Carlos Beltrone.

[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's a big that's a big number to put in my guy who's a Hall of Famer But he also tells you how long it's been when the other guy was inducted into the Hall of Famer this year Yeah, this is like I mean he can hit he can hit for power.

[SPEAKER_01]: He does it easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: He can throw he can run He can feel he there's it's a five tool player.

[SPEAKER_01]: It might not be a seven anywhere on the card and it might not be a true You know face of the sport type of player like an air and judge or you're done

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I say that having just said, you know, Carlos Beltron, but it's a really, really good player for a very long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he was very clearly the focus of the Royals Ventura team when teams got to face him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that was, it was not much of a stretch to rank him number one.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like I said, he's already like the 55 I want to say on our top 100 right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, but with that, I would say two through four was fascinating and how you line that up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say coming into it, if you were someone who follows this closely, but again, who's looking at the stats a lot because, you know, again, there's not, hey, there's a lot more information.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you really are interested in this,

[SPEAKER_00]: like me, you can watch DSL games now.

[SPEAKER_00]: That just not be the case.

[SPEAKER_00]: But with that, I would say that if you are a pretty hardcore fan, you may have thought, friend Cisco Renteria, who's number four on the list, the Philly's outfitter, would be number two, let's say.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the performance was so loud, he kind of had the standout season.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a, I believe he won MVP of the league.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what, again, you said two through four all had cases, but what is it as you're lining it up?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yostin, Pania, who's number two on this list, the Yankees out there are a little bit older, but also obviously advanced out of the league and then kind of did it at upper levels as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: But let's talk about Rintoria for a minute because he's, I think the second most famous guy on this list probably.

[SPEAKER_00]: What was it out Rintoria that while still he's among the absolute top prospects on this list, there was at least some hesitation.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were hesitations just because they might... evaluators believe he's probably going to move to a corner.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's already big in physical.

[SPEAKER_01]: The extreme ground ball profile is a problem.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like 51% ground balls, which is not great at any level.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a problem that's going to need to be fixed.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, to be able to do what he did while still having that profile is pretty interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: but it also scouts also pointed to the fact that his hands take a little bit longer to trigger than you might like and he might get beat by a pre-good velocity and located velocity once he reaches the states and full-season ball and all things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there were these, you know, these minor hickies across the card that really kind of like, okay, he's not number one, but he's really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm a little wary.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the biggest key was that ground ball profile that scares me a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if he doesn't make some changes, he's going to hurt him once he gets to a more advanced pitching.

[SPEAKER_01]: And defense, quite frankly.

[SPEAKER_00]: So to kind of tie with that, the other big slugger I would say in the league was Pania, Yostin Pania for the Yankees, was a little bit older.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what was it about his profile that really jumped out that ended up having him at number two?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, he hits the ball ridiculously hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is, if you remember, if you remember Justin Goodsall, everybody who was watching this podcast knows who Justin Goodsall is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he does that thing that Justin Goodsall is does, but he also can hit a little bit better.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's world's better defender.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's got a 70 arm.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would not believe the 166 mile an hour throw that

[SPEAKER_01]: on court.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he throws the ball hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's athletic.

[SPEAKER_01]: The make-up seems really good based on evaluators I've talked to.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, yeah, he proved it at low-way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be very curious how I would have lined him up, had he not proved it at low-way.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he went to low, you know, went to Tampa and, you know,

[SPEAKER_01]: context here matters too, if you went to Tampa at a time when the FCL was done.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you're getting the the cream of the FCL, which is not very creamy, but he still continued to do it under the lights, which matters.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you talk to evaluators, they absolutely gushed over this guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was the one Hickey on the card is, I'm saying Hickey a lot, is

[SPEAKER_01]: swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's to be understand.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's understandable.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a player who ate Josh.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you rank him in your Yankees top 30 in the handbook this year?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he signed on December 1st.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a good chance that I now returned in the list by that time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you had gotten some back signal that, hey, we just signed this monster, you can rewrite it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's what happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is his first pro season.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like he's repeating the league or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: but the combination of tools, skills, makeup, and performance at a level higher than any complex ball really put a book of the top for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say it is a little bit unusual for the DSL that three of the top four prospects are all outfielders.

[SPEAKER_00]: Usually it's kind of a short stop heavy list.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one short stop line.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why some scouts when I asked them, you know, what

[SPEAKER_01]: How does this class compare?

[SPEAKER_01]: They said, well, it's really light on position players.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm suspicious.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not really light on middle diamond players, which is a, you know, a thing you want to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the guys that really do jump up.

[SPEAKER_01]: You would talk to back and just Monday, Joe Swarkins, all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are your number ones.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's last two years.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're both short stops.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the one short stop among the top four that group is Albert

[SPEAKER_00]: what about him really jumped out?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's hitability, it's power, it's athleticism, they're at switcheter for now.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are some scouts who kind of believe he's probably going to have to give up the bright-handed hitting because the swings look wild the different.

[SPEAKER_01]: I caught him, I was able to pair him up with Unhevil Gomez on my last day, the DR, unfortunately his timing was a little bit off that day, but you could see the potential there.

[SPEAKER_01]: The body is really, really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: needs to not, I would worry if he gets any more physical, he has to move off that position, but there's a potential there for, you know, a really offensively gifted third baseman or shortstop if he can hack it there and stay there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's some stuff there that like is a little bit, you know, puts him down a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: I could have basically put it at two.

[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't getting to one.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, he's a really interesting player, and he, you know, talked to someasters people after the list came out, or, you know, after the list came out, and they're like, we have him way up our board on our personal, you know, rank of our own prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing I feel like I've ever missed if I don't ask you about.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, if you're enjoying this, please go over to baseballamerica.com and you know, we're not gonna give you everything from the full 35.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's over there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And don't let that happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Josh mentioned, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Josh mentioned, there's gonna be more coming as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it would be crazy not to ask you about the brewer simply for the fact that I feel like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you said not who has the top prospect, but who has the most significant prospects,

[SPEAKER_00]: were the Brewers number one on that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, they just keep doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I only saw a little bit of Ricky Monny's, but people, maybe like we'll want it back, people gushed over him, people gushed over Leander, Matos, Leander's, Matos, I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Diego frontado was his reviews were a little cooler than I would have expected.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt based on he did despite those reviews.

[SPEAKER_01]: He did really produce.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was one of I think it was seven players with double digit home runs in the league and the other one, they're two of them were on the brewers.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it was two.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, Mercedes, the left header is a cheese ball of my own.

[SPEAKER_01]: I happened to see him just by accident.

[SPEAKER_01]: I picked the brewers to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: Brewer's Pirates game my first day there and he came in at the back of it for like three or four and it's like, okay You've got a loose athletic left hand or who's poppin load of him at 90s.

[SPEAKER_01]: He can spin it and that's kind of all you want to see at that age You're not expecting multiple you know three pitches.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're just you're kind of as much as scouting is dreaming That's that's what you have to do out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: You see you can see some hallmarks that are hard to describe

[SPEAKER_01]: Not there, but it's just, you know what when you see it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's loose.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's twitchy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's projectable.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's present stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's possibility for more.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot so you want to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you do give the benefit of the doubt to a brewer's player development system that has gotten the best out of nearly everybody for the last, I don't know, half a decade.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it is something where, but I think that's an important note that you made there, which is,

[SPEAKER_00]: you're also looking with these players, you're realizing like, it's not what they're doing right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: You wanna see the tools, you wanna see the skills, but you also are looking at with the understanding that you're talking about players who are going to be looked very different than they do right now, if they do make the majors, because that's gonna be four, five, sometimes six or seven years down the road for some of these players.

[SPEAKER_00]: People change pretty physically, pretty significantly between ages 18 and 25, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you see someone loose and athletic live arm, who's already demonstrating some aspects of it, if you've said like you're going to go into the DSL and you're going to throw out any picture who doesn't demonstrate for you three present quality pitches,

[SPEAKER_00]: you might be, you know, kind of, or to get out of pictures.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you find a guy with three pitches, period, you're kind of, you've found a four leaf clover.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where this is again.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where this is fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is where this is fascinating.

[SPEAKER_00]: But also that's where,

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to look at this list in a few years and you say, oh, you missed on someone.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, yeah, you're going to miss on someone this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to, we miss on a top hundred on guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you're talking about the DSL, it's a long ways away.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the track record does show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there are the guys who rise to the cream that rises to the top, like, you know, use the cream earlier than an algae.

[SPEAKER_00]: more often than not are the players who are going to end up being impactful players.

[SPEAKER_00]: As we say this, you know, Jackson Treo was that guy, you know, that we were talking about as a teenager, not that many years ago, and now we're watching him kind of impact the penit race again for a, you know, for what is a, you know, but been multiple seasons now.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are the players who end up

[SPEAKER_00]: I can feel very comfortable in telling you that there are going to be players on this top 35 that we look back on years from now and say, oh, remember when that player was in the DSL, but along those lines, that's the top four on the list.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the full top 35, but I don't want to cut it off there.

[SPEAKER_00]: We come back from this break, Josh is going to give a couple more names that really jumped out to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll do that right after this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Josh, I don't want to end it at four, but I also don't want to give away the full list.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll kind of ask you, who are two, three, four more players who jumped out to you that you wanted to talk about?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first I won't go down super far, but I'm gonna go to seven.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sebastian Rojas, catch him with the cardinals, shocker with the cardinals of another catcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've got ready, I'll Rodriguez, who, like I said earlier, has it case, if we were to just,

[SPEAKER_01]: straight the extra sketch a little bit on the top 100.

[SPEAKER_01]: He might be he would have a strong case for number one overall right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then they got Leo Bernal.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've got Jimmy Crooks.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've got those guys and then Sebastian Rojas, everybody sang his praises.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about a true catcher with a bone average to plus defense who can throw and he knows it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a 1.83.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think was the lowest

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's above there's average to above average offensive skills across the board.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I had him when I initially did this, I had them way down there, but I got two or three calls late and everybody everybody said there's not a whole lot of holes in this kids game and you put them at a premium position and you say, OK, this is this guy has to keep rising.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a matter of just how far I could put them up there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would be really excited about this kid.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cardinal stance a little bit down the list.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk about

[SPEAKER_01]: I talked about the idea that you have to be creative with some of these players.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where a guy like Brain or Figareo with the Rangers comes in, who is actually pitching in 20 minutes or so in the bridge league.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he is a last year at this time, he was, I don't know if he'd been released yet by the Cubans, but he was an outfielder who did not hit, but had a strong arm and the Ranger snapped him up and said, okay, you're left handed

[SPEAKER_01]: And he was the second man up in the All-Star game.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, he was a little jerry, but left hander up to 100 miles an hour with when he hits it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a nasty slider.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, those two pitches are, you know, they flash really big numbers.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you can get him to be consistent in his delivery, you're going to have at the very least a special reliever.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I've said this a few places, but I don't think I'm sitting on a podcast yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a lot of left-handers that throw 100 miles an hour in this game, right, JJ?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, even now, there's more, there's more than it's ever been, but not still even now.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's rare.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, two year, flash forward, two years from now, let's go to Hickory North Carolina.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can have three of them in the same rotation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anya Lopez with the rangers throws up to 99 and you know when surprised if he gets 100 figure rail and then by then Brody Boomerilla might be back so if you have to say nothing if I think Geo Rojas might be past victory at that point but you could have three left handers or 100 miles an hour in the same mile of the rotation which if that comes to fruition I can't imagine that's ever happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just put it in perspective for all the 100 mile an hour, we've seen the big league this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I count 10 lefties who've thrown 100 this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's not that many.

[SPEAKER_00]: But again, this also works perfectly what we talked about earlier.

[SPEAKER_00]: Big roll was initially signed as a position player and then when that didn't work out.

[SPEAKER_00]: He ends up as a pitcher.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of a track record, a path we see a lot because what we talked about the economic dynamics of this, which is, you get paid as an outfielder.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if it doesn't work out, and you've got a great arm, oh, well, let's see then what you can do as a pitcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: Antonio Gomez and the Yankee system got a million dollars as a catcher and could not hit, but he has the million dollar arm and now he's throwing a hundred miles an hour with a ton of vert as a reliever in Florida and Anderson Novice, same idea, but the fillings a couple years ago signed could not hit.

[SPEAKER_01]: convert him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's, you know, in Florida doing the same thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, let's say that was two guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you one more.

[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about Luis Garcis earlier.

[SPEAKER_01]: The, the, I think we, we can't say that and we didn't say it by name.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, the starter for the All Star Game.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the two years in a row, the Royals about the AL starter.

[SPEAKER_01]: But,

[SPEAKER_01]: This one was a little bit more successful than Freddie contraris was, but it's a smooth delivery.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was the one guy who it sounds like his Velo was slightly down in a one-ending burst, because he was 92-94 from the left side with a pretty good feel to spin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Clean delivery athletic people said, you know, ceiling is kind of like a number three starter, but he'd been up to like 96 before.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody said that this was robably the number one

[SPEAKER_01]: in the league.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he was an easy call to move to, you know, to be the number one pitching prospect in the league, not that there are a whole lot of them on that list.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not that there are a whole lot, but as you said, do check out of Ritbaseball, America this Thursday, we will have four, or you can just read today's hot shape.

[SPEAKER_00]: or you could reach it because we did have him as a helium.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so check that out over at BaseballAmerica.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is our look at the Dominican Summer League's top prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: A league that like several minor leagues now is done for the year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Said the DSL, the Padre's winning the DSL title.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do check out over, I've got obviously a link in the show notes as well to the top 35.

[SPEAKER_00]: But on top of that, we have links in that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can then find last year's list as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: scan through names and go, oh, okay, yeah, Joshua Gonzalez, Kendra Churro.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you go down the list, I love how you just kind of is you're going down the list.

[SPEAKER_00]: You'll find some guys you're like, oh, I haven't heard about that guy at all this year, and then you'll have you'll just be kind of rolling along, and then you're like, oh, okay, and there's, you know,

[SPEAKER_00]: there's a Sebastian Dos Santos at number 30 or you know there's Franklin Premera at 33 and it's like yep there are guys who very much have become much more prominent in the in the most recent year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then stay tuned to my Twitter feed I guess I'm going from here I'm going to Richmond tonight I'm going to see you in the next four days these aren't Dominican some really good but uh

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to see in order with the Chesapeakes, Kadenhunter, Anthony Ienson, Joseph Gerwatt, J.T.

[SPEAKER_01]: Quinn, and on the Richmond side, there's going to be Miguel Mendez and Jacob Brezhnehann.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's six pretty interesting arms in the next four days to say nothing of Dakota Jordan, Aaron Estrada, guys like that on both sides.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's going to be four fun days in squirrelsville.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fun days indeed.

[SPEAKER_00]: So for Josh, I'm J.J., so long everybody.