[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody, J.J. Cooper, Jeff Ponce, Ian Kunder, baseball, America, prospect podcast, and today, we're wrapping up the, the minor league regular seasoners over, we are down as we record this to double-i playoffs that are wrapping up, triple-i playoffs getting underway.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, felt like it was a good time to talk about a topic that's going to be a topic of discussion for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: around the office, the virtual office, all off season, which is we've just come off of the most offensive season in minor league modern history.

[SPEAKER_01]: More runs per game, more home runs per game, didn't we've ever seen?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I say

[SPEAKER_01]: By we I would say anyone watching the miners has ever seen.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it may have been true.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know that Joe Bowman hit 77 homers for Roswell and like 49.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, okay, maybe there's someone listening to this.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I'll Joe Bowman.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to say for the most of you, you've never seen anything like this before.

[SPEAKER_01]: But our question today, the thing that we're going to examine today that I'm going to really kind of lean on Jeff and Ian today on is the question that we've been talking about all around this during the season, but especially now as we get into the offseason ranking season, which is

[SPEAKER_01]: How do we adjust for a season in which everything is so much different than what we normally expect?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to kick it to them, but I'll give an example of a YouTube comment that we had

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, again, I try to respond to YouTube comments.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had a YouTube comment off of a recent video we had about Kaden Bodine.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it said, we were talking about Kaden Bodine, what a great hitter he is, but how there's the power of some other question.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the commenter said, I don't know how you, something like a long lines.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I don't know how you can say that, you didn't mention that he has 13 homers this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, okay, 13 homers.

[SPEAKER_01]: And my response to that was I mean this gently, but I don't think you fully understand that 13 homers in 2026 is not the same as 13 homers in 25, 24, 23, 22.

[SPEAKER_01]: The 13 homers this year is not really a large number in a year where everyone was hitting homers.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where I would say that it's an example of how everyone we're all going to have to adjust to what is kind of a new normal in a I'll start it off with you as we go in the thought season how do like how much of an issue do you think it's going to be how much of a challenge is it going to be both for as we rank hitters and pictures to try to wrap our brains around what has been a very different season.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of it's going to come down to process and that as long as we're not just relying on you just looking at the surface level stats when trying to set our rankings for the handbook or discussing evaluating players and I think we're going to be in good shape because ultimately we're going to have to lean more into those other sources, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the past, you know, if you saw a guy hit 35 home runs, you're probably like, oh, there's, you know, there's going to be power there.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's easy plus power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, that might not be the case as much this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, someone who could that kind of, he didn't hit that many, but Franklin R is this year, for example.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, he reads 25 home runs this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how real that power still is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at like some of the underlying data, it really tailed off at the end of the season with the major league baseball.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it, you know, did he jump from someone who was, you know, projected as like 10 home runs to 25 in the majors, or did he really just go from someone who maybe was more like a six to eight home run guy to someone who's now going to hit 14 or 50?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, those are the kind of things we're going to have to work through.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's part of the fun though, is that, you know, this is where we can lean into our sources.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can lean into, you know, our conversations with front office people, our conversation was scouts.

[SPEAKER_00]: our understanding of the underlying data that we have access to, you know, watching synergy video to see, hey, you know, let's see how many of those 25 home nuns were actually home runs, or were actually more like wall scrapers that barely got out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Things like that that were fortunate enough to have access to.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think you're going to be especially important because, yeah, this is just not a year where you can just go, you, you, you, you, you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't judge a book by it's cover this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have to actually dig in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's something I've been working on right now for an article that's going to be out by the time this comes out, looking at the breakout picks for this this season.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the guys have pretty impressive stats and have fallen in team's prospect rankings.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when I look under the surface, looking at scab notes, things like that, it's rightfully so.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because ultimately, you know, a guy hitting 240 would

[SPEAKER_00]: 25 home runs this season.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not an outlier.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought you're stat.

[SPEAKER_00]: You had a really great tweet about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe yesterday where last or this year 10, 10 minor league hitters reach 35 home runs last year was two.

[SPEAKER_00]: This year 25 hitters reached 30 home runs last year was five.

[SPEAKER_00]: This year, 75 hitters had 25 home runs.

[SPEAKER_00]: Last year was 18, and then this was the one that got me.

[SPEAKER_00]: 171 minor leak hitters had 20 home runs this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Last year was 66, so you basically had a three times increase.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, home runs just aren't the same as they were last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: A guy hitting 20 home runs this year, you need to really dive into the context around it to see if there was an actual change.

[SPEAKER_00]: or if it was more just the run environment.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the same applies for pictures where hey, a guy might have had a 5-ERA this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at the underlying data, you know, you talk to scouts and there's pretty good feedback.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's more valuable than looking at the run environment because we just don't know if this minor league baseball is how things are gonna play going forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff, one of the things I want to cut through out with that is obviously the biggest thing we've seen here is that power numbers went way up, which led to more run score.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Babib across AA and Bala was also batting average on Balls and Play was also way up, which when we're talking about a hotter baseball, which by all accounts the baseball, the minor league baseball and double able was hotter this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're seeing, like, understandably, if line drives or hit harder, they get through the little infield more often.

[SPEAKER_01]: If a ball that was going to be caught by an outfielder, you know, position normally last year, now gets over their head.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a double.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's a lot here that we saw, like, okay, in the Florida state, like, we saw that people were hitting the exit vealos were higher.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know what we don't know?

[SPEAKER_01]: where the exit feels higher because they hit the ball harder this year, that speed improve training all that, or do they hit the ball harder because the ball responded hotter this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: How do you kind of wrap your brain around even some of the non-home run effects for hitters and pictures?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think that's one of those things that we have to figure out.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have a question for you, JJ, I think there's an answer to this.

[SPEAKER_02]: previous seasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: So prior to the 2026 run environment, we think, you know, or have a feeling that the baseballs were, you know, the culprit.

[SPEAKER_02]: Did the major league balls play hotter than the minor league balls?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, like, well, I'll say this.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is, okay, so if we go back, there was the year that they said, we, you know, we reported a baseball America, like 2018, I think it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're like, they're gonna use the major league baseball in AAA now, and before this, now I feel like, you know, back in my day, but before this,

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the fascinating parts of it was is that if you had a major league player pitcher or about or rehabbing, they would use major league baseballs for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the minor league ball was so much debtor than the major league ball that sometimes you would have pitchers like, nah, I'll use the minor league ball.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would rather have that because and everyone knew like that the major league baseball just performed, it was a hotter baseball.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I've talked my head, I'm pretty sure it was 2018.

[SPEAKER_01]: Home run records in AAA, it was like, boom, they just took off.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we'd always kind of been in this world where major league baseball is a much more performant baseball that everyone knew.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the minor league baseball was a little bit dead or didn't perform the thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say with this, you could say this here.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is where we talk about the great unknowns that we don't fully know.

[SPEAKER_01]: One could argue that the minor league baseball now, which was, did see maybe even a little bit hotter than the major league baseball, but the minor league baseball may be much more of a,

[SPEAKER_01]: accurate and a log for the major league baseball now.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's where I was going.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, go ahead.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what that's why I asked the question because I was just trying to think of like a different angle to it and you know maybe it's more appropriate to the type of ball flight that we're going to see off the bat in the majors probably not because there's a quality of pitching element to this that we would have had to adjust to anyway.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I think for me, a lot of it is going to come down to like the eating, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Is going and watching a hazeus buy as for, you know, a hundred of baths.

[SPEAKER_02]: We can do that pretty easily in synergy, you can watch.

[SPEAKER_01]: Which I think you've already, you've already cleared that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think this is why it's going to be 15, 300.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: So is he a 40 home runhead or absolutely not?

[SPEAKER_02]: But do I believe that it's 55 power or better?

[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think you see he consistently swings at pitches over the heart of the plate and he doesn't take a half.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, there is no half-hearted swings and Hazoo's bias.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's game.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, he swings the bat hard consistently and looks to make hard contact.

[SPEAKER_02]: When I look at the EVs, they're not super outlier.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, when I'm looking at other players, like, running out Rodriguez, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Running out Rodriguez, the EVs are there.

[SPEAKER_02]: It backs what you're watching with the eye test.

[SPEAKER_02]: It backs the statistics.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's also an age component to this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where, if you're talking about the guys that are at an upper echelon level,

[SPEAKER_02]: when it comes to, you know, EVs and actual power performance.

[SPEAKER_02]: You're talking about the guys that are, you know, posted 90th percentile EVs of, you know, 108, 107.5 up to like 110, because there's guys like that in the minors.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have too much of a question regarding whether or not those kind of players are going to translate in terms of power, especially if they're higher barrel rate guys that get good angles.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's not a lot of question that those sort of power tools, like Azaro Montes, just from a power perspective, I don't question that it's plus plus power.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right, the hit tools and other questions.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a whole, a whole other conversation.

[SPEAKER_02]: But when I look at a player that broke out this year, that maybe isn't getting as much love as he probably deserves, but I think it's a potential top 100 candidate is Chase Harland from the Dodgers.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know, sorry, you know, the Dodgers prospect was paid handily to hide the sky up, of course.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think you look at some, by the way, yes, that is, that is obvious, yes, that is sarcasm.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh god, the sound by it's going to get cut up.

[SPEAKER_02]: I forgot it's the modern age.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think you look at his plate skills.

[SPEAKER_02]: You look at his angles.

[SPEAKER_02]: You look at the EVs and it's like, okay, I see why the numbers played up this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everything came together.

[SPEAKER_02]: The new baseball isn't the size of a beach ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to make you make more contact.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to help you hit it at a better angle.

[SPEAKER_02]: It might travel further when you hit it at a good angle.

[SPEAKER_02]: It might be hotter off of the bat than it would have been in previous years, but I still think you have to sort of look at some of those components.

[SPEAKER_02]: And some of it's gonna come down to watching some video and looking at the homers.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we can look at synergy and isolate every homer, I know.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're in the midst of or starting the the handbook process now.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know I've been doing so on my NL top 10s.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's been some of the work is how much do I believe XYZ power break out, you know, Hase's bias being one versus some of these other guys that are out there.

[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think there's some home run numbers, guys that hit 30 plus home runs that just kind of had okay seasons, but they hit 30

[SPEAKER_02]: probably gets on to the back end of the cardinals top 30 and it's a loaded list isn't in other top 30s, but

[SPEAKER_02]: He had a good season.

[SPEAKER_02]: He hit 32 home runs.

[SPEAKER_02]: Typically, when a prospect of his first full professional season, it's 32 home runs.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're kind of talking about him as a potential, maybe not top 100, but top 150 to 200 type guy.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I see, I think that's some of the adjustment.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think we're not believing a lot of the home run totals.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's much more eye-wash than it might have been a previous years.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will say, that is the, okay, this is not for the baseball America, uh, reader listener viewer, but I can promise you, hopefully we have a normal spring training next year, but it'll be for years to come even, you know, you'll hear this guy come up and you'll hear the broadcaster and it's like,

[SPEAKER_01]: This guy hit 32 haulers in 2026.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's, you know, that's exceptional.

[SPEAKER_01]: He had 25, he had a 20 20 season.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, yep, he did.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that does not denigrate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those that goes on your baseball card forever, and you can always say that you did that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we are definitely in a different world this year than we are in some of these other years.

[SPEAKER_01]: We want to kind of talk about some of the ways that we are going to try to adjust for this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll do that right if it's quick break.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jeff, I'll go back to you first on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you talk about the different ways, you mentioned like we're going to watching synergy, watching video of these players, talking to scouts, using the data.

[SPEAKER_01]: normalizing a lot of this, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: There are challenges to all of these things, but I don't feel like this is an insurmountable task to try to, as best we can, filter out the noise from the signal here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think,

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's going to be impossible to fully sort of weed out the noise with what we have available to us.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we have, I'd say, as many tools as anybody in the history of prospecting is in a public space has had available to that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's not say there aren't good tools that are available to other websites.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are, but we have not just a ton of data for this season.

[SPEAKER_02]: we have historical data going back five years now.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we have a real sample size of how these numbers work.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think even if you're adjusting for like historical standards with underlying data,

[SPEAKER_02]: You don't know what the impact was, one for one, on certain environments for the baseball.

[SPEAKER_02]: And as far as the public environments we have JJ, we can look at AAA, we can look at the Florida State League.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know if, what was the difference in the Southern League that it was so far beyond any other type of offensive season that we've seen in the Southern League?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, how much 9% increase in homeruns?

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's absurd.

[SPEAKER_02]: So how do we know that the EVs didn't increase by 30%.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, just across the board, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think you can sort of look at the Texas League.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's always been a great run environment.

[SPEAKER_02]: The ball was always flown there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you put like, you know, a little bit more accelerant into the fire, like, you know, how much hotter does it get?

[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the things that I think it's really hard to adjust to when you don't have, like, you know, per pitch or per badded ball data points across every badded ball that was hit in double.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have that, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: We have some up.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have a lot of other stats, a lot of other information.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have that, which is where we start.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't even know if certain leagues

[SPEAKER_02]: in terms of the EVs, the barrel rate, all that sort of stuff was just so heavily impacted, you know, buy this swap in the ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think as we start to adjust, it's going to be like, it really just has to be like a case-by-case basis.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I hate to say it, but I think that this is a time, I don't know if I hate to say it, actually, like to say it, but this is a time where the eye test becomes more valuable.

[SPEAKER_02]: watching the players, that's the only way you're going to be able to sauce out a lot of this stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, you know, I don't have examples off the top of my head, but I do remember other players that you called Ninja Blacksdale was one, where I remember you calling out and saying, you know, you watched all of it, home runs, and there are a lot of wall scrapers.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think those are the things that are ringing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you question that a little bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cesarini at least is in a more neutral run environment versus versus Ragsdale, but, but, you know, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I think any of those are not let's be clear.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: Straight person.

[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean we're saying, oh, they're not prospects.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, that doesn't mean we're saying, oh, that shouldn't be brain-tilely.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know yet, but we're saying, I've noticed with them more wallspapers and some other guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ian, the other part of this that you and I've talked about,

[SPEAKER_01]: that I think is going to be even more subtle.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, this is second order, third order effects, which there's only so much you can do to sus them out.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to have had players this year, who pitchers who basically

[SPEAKER_01]: kind of win in the tank, right, because what has succeeded for them for years and was worked really well, didn't work this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, why didn't it work?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're playing a different game, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're playing a game where that ball that

[SPEAKER_01]: that pitch you made was well-located, the hitter was fooled, you got the bad on it, it should have been a flyout and this year it was a home run or a double.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, those kind of things and the flip side is there are going to be hitters who developed a level of confidence that they've never had before that helped transform them.

[SPEAKER_01]: That might mean that we have players who are better now than we thought they were or worse.

[SPEAKER_01]: because of the environment they played in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't even know how we could sus that out.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, and that's gonna be the challenge.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that a lot of it's, I think it's just gonna have to come back on what Jeff said to like, I test, but also leaning into like, you know, talking to sources, cause, you know, when you talk to scouts, you talk to front office people, if you have a good relationship with them, they're gonna give you, you know,

[SPEAKER_00]: they'll let you know, hey, this guy might have a five-year array, but I'm still in or like, you know, you'll hear things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, you know, you pair that with then you go watch the player and you watch, you know, hey, you know, this guy's Babip is abnormally high, or he's given up a bunch of lazy flyballs that turned into a home run set in past years weren't.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think there are going to be ways around it's definitely going to be challenging, but I think with pictures though it's going to the most interesting thing is something we've kind of seen at the major level two is just there's just such an emphasis on stuff right now and ultimately I think that's probably going to have to matter more than the results especially with pictures in those run heavy weeks like thinking about some guys in the Texas League.

[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, if you're outside of what's north west Arkansas is that the really good pitchers park in the Texas League Arkansas or Arkansas.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, if you're not pitching in there, if you're pitching like Amoreo for example, because I know they're in season.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do the Diamondbacks prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of their guys just, you know, they had good numbers in high A.

[SPEAKER_00]: They go to double and all of a sudden they're ERA's like seven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Guys like David Hagman, you know, it takes him a while to figure it out or Danny Lee again before he was traded was in the same boat.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think ultimately it's just going to come down to, yeah, you're going to have to evaluate their stuff taking it out of a cat or just not even taking into consideration really what they're overall numbers were for the year, because ultimately, you know, when they get into more neutral run environment, they get in a, which won't happen in the diamond access system because you're going to read out.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in some other systems, when you get to a more neutral run environment, you get to the different baseball, like things are going to change.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, it's, you know, we're not going to know if this is an outlier year or the new normal until probably, you know, halfway through next year.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for now, I feel like we kind of have to operate like it's an outlier in terms of the run environment and just evaluate players like, you know, not really taking a new account.

[SPEAKER_00]: What happened this year for us?

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jeff, that leads me to kind of something else here, which is, there has not been anything like this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because this, I would say, the key thing that's happened here is it's pervasive across three, well, really six.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you say DSL,

[SPEAKER_01]: rookie, low-a, high-a, double-a, triple-a, stayed very much the same environment as before.

[SPEAKER_01]: But everywhere else changed.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we have seen examples where, you know, we had the 2022, the sticky ball, the tacky ball, pre-tax ball, in the southern league for half the season, where all of a sudden,

[SPEAKER_01]: pictures were like, this is the greatest baseball out ever through on my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And hit her for like, this is the worst baseball I've ever seen in my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because it was like, imagine if we secretly gave every picture spider attack on their fingers and said, go to work.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so we had that, but they took it away halfway through the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we had guys like Jackson Cheerio striking out a lot too much and they just like that ball in a way is like, oh, he went back to being Jackson Cheerio.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've had ABS full ABS in AAA with the challenge system some days and full ABS others and all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've had things that do affect the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in significant ways, I would say even more than that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we've always had to adjust for like, especially the old school colleague, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The old school California league, where it's like, like, I know we in and I've had stories like, yep, that's Lancaster.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, that's high desert.

[SPEAKER_00]: What a time Lancaster.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bubblebell, 30 home runs, Zachier is same thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there are so many red socks that had been a fit for that park.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, but Jeff, like, when you say like, are there things we can learn from past?

[SPEAKER_01]: examples of either a weird variable that was inserted and taken away or a change or a league or a park.

[SPEAKER_01]: How do we use that to try to do this better?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think the 2023 first half suddenly is a great example, you know, like I do you remember like pulling the differences and induced vertical break on pictures and it was like an average of like three inches per picture and then there was somebody like Coleman Crow who added like seven inches and had like a sub to ERA.

[SPEAKER_02]: He threw over 100 earnings in AAA this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that kind of goes to show, but sometimes the change in one of these variables can be very big and very large.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think the Jackson Cheerio one was good.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are other haters that were in that league.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think you do need to just sort of approach it by taking some of the surface level numbers with a grain of salt.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can't buy into every 30 home run pad as a potential 30 home run hitter.

[SPEAKER_02]: at other points in time.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's been crazy AAA run environments in previous years where the ball seemed super-duced.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to say it was even prior to the pandemic.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it might have been 2019 where those AAA balls were, we're

[SPEAKER_01]: It's 2018, 2019, home run records.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a 19-year-old.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a whole different world.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because I was thinking back to watching AAA games of a co-estate, even Flagger Aero Jr. hitting a home run that was further than anything I saw hit in the 30 years prior to that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they were Hall of Fame, home run headers, that I saw on that park, and MVP is like, well, vaude, you know, that it bumps.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I think you take, you kind of,

[SPEAKER_02]: feel through it through some of that knowing that all right, there's there's going to be some adjustment.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have to be cautious.

[SPEAKER_02]: There has to be really good reasons for me to fully buy in here and luckily, you know, there's other components of a hit or beyond power.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, the contact rates, the approach all that sort of stuff I think is more important.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if anything, you know, it maybe came at a good time because it does feel like the plate skills seem to be of greater importance to teams.

[SPEAKER_02]: It seems to be a trend in interaction.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're seeing teams less interested in those athletic free true outcome profiles.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now they want the athletic guy that has the plate skills.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll ask you, like I said, you had to look at those Lancaster numbers every year and try to figure out, okay, is this a real?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is this not the flip side of that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is this guy this pitriterable?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or has he just been chewed up by Lancaster?

[SPEAKER_01]: What have you learned from the years of trying to, again?

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say that we're always trying to filter out all these extra effects that

[SPEAKER_01]: whether we always are trying to go, do they have long-term effects or is this temporary?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, because that is the big question is, you know, I think it's more, maybe more soap.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think you could apply to hitters and pictures, because if in this increased run environment, you have hitters who are more selling out for power, because they know they're gonna get rewarded for that, and they try that next year, and it's a different run environment.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could see some pretty substantial decreases in performance.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in terms of increase, you know, strike out raids or guys who have just have an abnormally high fly ball rate, but it's not translating into a high home run fly ball rate, because they got used to hitting a certain way this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, when you're having success when you're hitting 30, 40 home runs, it's hard to be told, hey, this isn't the good way to approach things.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it might not be the good way to approach things next year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the fascinating question.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the thing that we're going to have to, that we're going to have to probably sort through the hardest is, you know,

[SPEAKER_00]: which guys as Jeff said, which guys are real and which guys were a more of a product of the environment.

[SPEAKER_00]: And

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be, you know, there's probably no like analytically correct answer, you know, it's going to have to be as, you know, a combination of I test and just kind of feel and but yeah, we can, I think we can lean back on and one that comes to mind for me was when the new stadium in Worcester opened.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember going to the first game there, and I can't remember what the score was, but both teams were well into the double digits, and the ball, they were guys hitting what look like in field pop-ups that were going, you know, 350 feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you realized pretty quickly that there was a serious, pretty big design fall on the stadium, where there was just a wind tunnel created directly from behind-home plate that meant balls just in the air got absolutely launched into the outfield.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that first season, at the ATS, and then I believe when AAA started later on,

[SPEAKER_00]: the run numbers in Worcester, it was playing like it was like an renal almost.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you kind of had to take everything you saw with a grain of salt there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they fixed it the next season.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's still a pretty good run park if I remember correctly, but they were able to, they put up like wind vents or, you know, like, like, basically curtains that blocked it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not as much of an issue anymore, but, you know, going back to that, and I remember seeing guys who, you know, you have fringy power grades on hitting, you know, what consistent home runs day and a day out and you're like,

[SPEAKER_00]: really like him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of feel like that's what we're going to end up when we're diving into these 30s.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's to me it's more going to be an issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think guys in the back of the 30, then guys in the top 10 of system.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you guys agree on that because I think guys in the top 10 of the system, there's going to be more sources of information on it's going to be easier to kind of get people's feel on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas when you're getting outside the top 30, or in the back of the top 30, a lot of that becomes personal

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say the first 10, 15, maybe depending on the org, obviously, there's similarities.

[SPEAKER_00]: But once you get outside of that, a lot of it is going to be, hey, what is your organization like?

[SPEAKER_00]: What is this scouts personal preference, things like that?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's going to be a lot of variance there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's where it's going to be having to sit through of, hey, this guy is the product of the environment where this guy is actually legitimately made improvements.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's part of the fun part, but it's also going to be the challenge.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where I think yeah, would

[SPEAKER_00]: You said like leaning back on that experience of having to sift through it with you know the red socks prospects and everyone else coming through Worcester that year or the same thing with pictures I think going back to when they when they were using the full balls and strike system.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember having to basically create like manually figure out splits of pictures who were pitching on what was it Tuesday to Thursday versus when they pinched on Friday to Sunday and it was like the walk right was like 10% higher or something when they pitched with the full ABS versus the challenge system.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's going to have to do some, there's going to have to be some fun stuff like that to try to figure it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that it's going to be more of an impact in the place where it's going to be, where more it's going to be a challenge though, is with kind of the lesser prospects.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think ultimately when it comes to the top 10, guys, you know, top 10 or so in the system, top 15 in really good systems.

[SPEAKER_00]: you're going to have a lot of information on them.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's going to be a lot easier to figure that out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas, you know, when you have kind of like the Jack Irvitch example, I think is a pretty good one.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's someone who calls you after you last year, at 32 home run.

[SPEAKER_00]: You also struck out 32% of the time this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, how do you weigh those two variables?

[SPEAKER_00]: And what happens if next year, you know, that those 32 home runs becomes 18 or 20.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you have 18 or 20 home runs in a 32% strike, that's a very different type of prospect.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think those are the examples of the guys that are going to be more challenging than someone like, I don't know, just like Josiah Hartchorn or someone who had a big breakout this season or when you see them, it's like, oh no, I get that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think that's where it's really going to be the challenge and we're leaning on past experience, but also our process is going to be key.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to go for everybody, but we are going to try to talk about some of the prospects who this is going to be interesting to try to figure out some tricky player valuations.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll do that right after we'll more break and we're back.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I would say that, okay, we'll start with everyone's tricky with this, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The guys who had great years, a picture who had a great year, is a tricky evaluation

[SPEAKER_01]: If you had a great year this year, you stand out more than you would.

[SPEAKER_01]: Kate Anderson is a tricky evaluation this year and you might be like, why?

[SPEAKER_01]: He was so good in a season where everyone hit.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's exactly it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I see you Jeff, I'll kind of go to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think Kate Anderson this year is a more difficult evaluation than he would be in a normal year because in a normal year, this would have felt more like a very good season not a historic, wow, how did you do that?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's an ERA plus number that we never see.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a pitchability element with Anderson for me that I buy into based on the performance a little bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe that's foolish, maybe it's not.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think the concerns with Anderson are an environmental factor and a change in the ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: We wrote and we've talked about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think maybe that's an element to kind of filter in through this

[SPEAKER_02]: regardless of how the ball plays off the bat when hitters may contact, you can argue from a movement perspective that these baseballs and the minor leagues because of kind of the raised seams and all that, little easier to grip, little easier to spin, you're seeing better,

[SPEAKER_02]: Four seam shapes, I think there's some impact on, you know, some more magnets forced, so like spin-induced breaking ball shapes, sweepers that have high spin rates that, you know, that there's a more higher percentage of spin contributing to those.

[SPEAKER_02]: You might be seeing some pitches that are moving a little bit more, and that's kind of what the adjustment is for Anderson.

[SPEAKER_02]: The good thing for us as evaluators is we do have,

[SPEAKER_02]: some historical data in terms of how the adjustments are there and certain thresholds you need need to meet.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think what it's done for me is it's gotten me to dig in a little bit more into who are those pictures that are above those thresholds that have fastball shapes that are probably not going to be impacted that are quality pitches to begin with.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because of course, if it's a 40 of a minors, I don't really care how it's adjusting.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the guys that are playing

[SPEAKER_02]: when they get to the, you know, AAA or majors wherever their first opportunities are with the major league ball.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we're starting to get some opportunities to reverse engineer that a little bit in the public space, not at, you know, the level that teams are where they just literally plug the shape in and they already have an adjustment to get spit out.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, different than that, but I think we're getting closer to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have a general idea that if you're like a, you know, sub 2400 to RPM, forcing fastball with 17 inches or ride, um, unless you find a way to get, you know, that spin rate threshold higher or, you know, around there with a major league ball, you're probably going to lose an

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think there's there's some elements with that with a Cate Anderson where we're still trying to feel it out and figure it out and this is a weird critique of the mariners, but if they've done really well with certain types of pictures in terms of adding velocity and adding power.

[SPEAKER_02]: that would certainly help Anderson, if he's able to add power, I don't know that they've had any pictures where they've had to sort of hack the spin capacity element of it and get them to a point where their pitches are playing the way that they did.

[SPEAKER_02]: and college and the miners, et cetera.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, I'm sure there'll be a lot of work for him with a major league ball this off season.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, there are some guys like Emmitchee and who have regained that spin over a couple of years and gotten that ride back on their foreseen.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, it's not, you know, it's a winding road, a little crooked, but I think it still could, he could still get to the where we thought he was going to get to.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now,

[SPEAKER_02]: Do I think that he's an ace based on the numbers?

[SPEAKER_02]: Is he the best picture in the history of the earth, which is what his mind on the numbers would tell you he is?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't think he's that, but I think I'm still pretty confident that this is a number three number four.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's kind of where I was coming into the season.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I wasn't head over heels at any point in time that Anderson was going to be a superstar or a front of the rotation arm.

[SPEAKER_02]: a little close to where my, my pre-drafts of the situation was on him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, Ian, this is another struck that I have.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think you and I've talked about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: It also feels like a year where we always talk about the important evaluating defense, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a key part of what we're doing here.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say, in general,

[SPEAKER_01]: As there's a lot more information out there than there used to be, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I would say if you are a fan following this, you can absolutely do so in a way that is much more informed way than you could 25 years ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: I say this as someone who 25 years ago was a fan following this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, I might know about players.

[SPEAKER_01]: I might see what their stats were.

[SPEAKER_01]: I promise you you could not put your eyes on them to see them list you in the games and solve them in person at the minor league level.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, okay, but I do think that this is, you know, but we also seem like with fantasy, like, what's your offense production, all that?

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that this is a year where that's gonna be even more challenging because you have a number of players who have very little defensive value and it's gonna be all about evaluating the bat and getting the bat evaluation right and whether it's gonna be strong enough for them to perform to stick and perform at the big league level.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is that kind of one of the compensatory parts here?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it really more about getting the bat, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the defense is the one thing that's sort of a little bit more consistent this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Compared to more of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think that the defense of part, I think it's gonna matter a lot with the guys that this is kind of come out of nowhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think someone that comes in mind like this is East and Shelter with the Dodgers.

[SPEAKER_00]: I saw him earlier in the season and I'll be on a side.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I wrote about him, I, you know, I thought he had a huge power.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think he could hit really at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm still not convinced he can, but he also hit 30 home runs, 38 home runs this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he was the, I think he was MVP of the California League.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I want to, if I remember correctly also, I'm trying to create a high school player, which is also something.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should correct myself, 37 home runs, but he had 297, like really impressive season.

[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, you know, it's a sub 60% contact rate.

[SPEAKER_00]: 30% in zone, misrate, it's also a 1 10 90th.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like there's some good and there's some bad there.

[SPEAKER_00]: But with someone like him, if he could play a position, I'd be more interested in the long term and you kind of be more willing to overlook some of the flaws and maybe that this was an outlier season.

[SPEAKER_00]: But unfortunately, I think he's pretty limited defensively, he's limited defensively after seeing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the flip side of that is someone like a Murph Gray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Murph Gray had a great season.

[SPEAKER_00]: He played third base, I saw him play third base.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got a very big arm there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if he can stick a third base, there's not going to be as much pressure on his bat for him to succeed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so even if there is a drop off next season, and he was somewhat of a product of the run environment his breakout season, then that could be OK if he's an actual third baseman.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're having to push him towards more towards a corner, that's when you're going to run into some issues where there's going to be more pressure on the bat.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's a given take where you can get so much, you can get some more runway because of your defense.

[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, you're going to have to perform offensively to a certain level.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a sliding scale depending on where you're going to play.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think catchers is the best example of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is something I know you're not talking about yesterday.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because in this run environment, I think we've seen some catchers have some incredible seasons.

[SPEAKER_00]: If any of that is real and you are, you know, even a fringy defender, you're an MLB guy for sure, because the bar it captures just so low.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, you give back a little bit more, and then there's more pressure on the defense and I think like Ethan Anderson with the Orios is a good example of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's someone who had a very sought offensive ear made a triple A.

[SPEAKER_00]: The defense is still not great.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, you talk to scouts.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's not a lot of optimism that he can stick their long term.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, even if the bat is real,

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be hard to establish a full-time MLB role because if you're not a starting catcher, you probably have to be a defensive first guy to be a backup.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just he's a weird fit on a roster because that where's the flip side of that is someone like Carlos Virihondo with the Diamondbacks.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a great defender, you know, this plus pretty much plus defensive tools across the board.

[SPEAKER_00]: Already and he's super young and he's at a very good offensive season.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure how his offensive production is this year, you know,

[SPEAKER_00]: He hit, I think around 20 home runs, but if you look at like the underlying data, the EVs aren't great, you know, the chase is pretty high.

[SPEAKER_00]: But even if he gives back some offensively in the future, because of that defensive baseline that he brings, he still has the chance to be in every regular catcher.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's the given take that you have to where you're going to have to weigh defense, but I think it's going to be it's a more of a case case basis, and it very much depends on the position they're playing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff kind of along those lines.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you said, like, the thing that I'll say that the preface this is, every time I study this, because I tried to study this for a piece that is up at the East Baltimore, America, that went up September 2nd, I believe it was.

[SPEAKER_01]: And everything I thought was true, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I thought like, okay, I'm gonna find the Florida State League.

[SPEAKER_01]: Florida State League, we have every ball put in play,

[SPEAKER_01]: the EV, the launch angle, the spring angle.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can tell you it was pulled at this angle, at this launch angle, at this EV.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then we can even compare that to other balls hit in that exact same ballpark that way and see how they perform differently.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, okay, what I'm gonna find is the guys who hit the wall scrapers, those are the ones who've got the massive benefit from this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the guys who,

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, give up fly balls are going to have such a massive, the pictures, those pictures can punish so much more.

[SPEAKER_01]: And did we kind of get there and it's like, oh, um, not as much as I thought.

[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of seemed like it was more of like, hey, the water level for everyone, offensively has gone up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't matter if you hit the ball, you know, if you have, uh, the 90th EV of 105 or a

[SPEAKER_01]: The thing I would say that's kind of to wrap this up to kind of purposes is I think that the other part that I'm afraid of is we're going to have well meaning viewpoints on this like wall scrapers or like things like that I like you and I've talked about guys who have homers but not doubles like where it's like okay so what happened is is

[SPEAKER_01]: You can almost kind of add up all your extra base hits and say that that's your number and now they just were a portion much more onto the far end of the spectrum on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those things may be right, but I'll also say like we just don't, we won't know for five years if those were right or wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are like the wall scrappers, that's something that you're really looking for or what is that other things that your guys were fooled and the ball is still getting out or how are you gonna try to see this?

[SPEAKER_02]: see I'm still impressed when the ball goes out and guys are full a little bit like that that shows me the guys are crazy power or might have the ability to adjust a little bit right like I don't want to throw that totally out

[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be some of those, I'll say some of those opo-college home runs.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I'm talking about?

[SPEAKER_02]: We're like, the guy inside out's the ball, comes off the end of the bat and then just like, it's like these weird liners that kind of knuckle over the fence.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, those are the kind of ones, but like you don't want to read too much into it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Once again, I think that I'm probably going to put a little bit more onus and turn it on the value of hit tools.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, how does he hit other pitches in the zone, you know, we don't have like VBA like variable bad angle numbers or bad speed numbers available.

[SPEAKER_02]: We can kind of get them at Hawk from certain players, but I think kind of digging into that and watching some of that stuff because of, you know, the wonder of modern video.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can slow stuff down isolate frames and kind of see how guys, you know, hands and how they're positioned and and how balanced they are.

[SPEAKER_02]: when they do make contact at some of these balls are flying and it's like all right like I trust this guy's maybe a little bit of a bats backspin merchant like maybe the EVs aren't crazy maybe the home runs don't go crazy distance but he has some of these elements that other successful big leegers have had.

[SPEAKER_02]: right Alex Brightman, we'll keep that somebody like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I think you just kind of got to look across the board, you got to look at different players.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to totally just eliminate guys because they're not hitting super deep home runs, but I think it's an adjustment on the grade if you're going to put a 50 on the power, you might go 45, you know, or the 50 production, you watch it and you go 45 because it's been a win for you.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that sort of

[SPEAKER_02]: In some areas, it's just going to take a little bit more work.

[SPEAKER_01]: We love work.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's not a problem.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like we love watching again.

[SPEAKER_01]: We love watching video of players.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like we are and we get done tonight.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I promise we will be slacking about the double I play off tonight because we'll be watching it because we love watching this so like the great thing about it is is, again, I can promise you this is a baseball America.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't promise you we'll get it all right because I promise you MLB teams will get some of this one.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is a we have we have thrown and a great unknown into your cooking a recipe and all the sudden someone added a secret ingredient and you don't even know what it is and it's like hey I want this still to taste good.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to evaluate this as best we can but we don't know if we can get everything

[SPEAKER_01]: it will not be that we failed at it because we just didn't put in the work we will if we fail at it it'll be because we put in the work and you know what in hindsight this ended up being more true than this because again I would say that all of these things you could think of it almost

[SPEAKER_01]: If you go to baseball some on, you see the red and the blue and the lead.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are all different things like, it's almost like play around MVP, baseball, wherever you're building, moving the sliders.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can move them all a little bit, or you can move some a lot, but that gives you all that you can move.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't move the other things at all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to bump up this power by this, but we can't move up anything else.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to get more hitting ability, power, speed, defense, all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: we don't know how much this moved the sliders.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna try to figure that out.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna work as hard as we can.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, if you're listening to this, you also are interested in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: come along for the ride with us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do subscribe over at Baseball America.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for the download.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for watching this on YouTube.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please do hit that up arrow thumbs up on YouTube that helps other people see it as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll be back next week with another Baseball America Prospect podcast for Jeff, for Ian.

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