[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, everybody!

[SPEAKER_01]: JJ Cooper, Carlos Colossus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Baseball America, draft podcast, and we're talking about a draft that's worth mulling over again.

[SPEAKER_01]: The 2019 draft.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're doing this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look back series.

[SPEAKER_01]: We start at 17.

[SPEAKER_01]: We went to 18.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those were on the site, you know, on the podcast feed and on the YouTube channel.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can check those out.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I can say very comfortably, very confidently before we even

[SPEAKER_01]: This dress better than 2017.

[SPEAKER_01]: This dress better than 2018.

[SPEAKER_01]: This draft, you could call it the Adley Rushman, Bobby would junior draft, but I think that's really selling it short of just how talented it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Carlos, more than anything, we talked about last year, last the 2018 draft and how, that was your first draft is the lead draft writer.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was first draft for us like, we didn't have John manual at us either and it was like, so that was very nerve-wracking draft for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: this one had to remember when we were going through this and I just remember this one being a whole lot of fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this one was fun and this one probably has the single biggest difference of any of the drafts that I feel like we're going to talk about between perception at the time and perception in hindsight because I think people really do look back at this 2019 draft and think about how great it is now because so many players have been

[SPEAKER_00]: star players, franchise players from this class, especially in the first few rounds, they're just a ton of hits.

[SPEAKER_00]: But at the time, this class was heavily criticized by Scouts in the community.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we viewed it as a very strong top six.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was kind of a consensus top group that included,

[SPEAKER_00]: Adley Ruchman, Bobby Wachunior, Andrew Vaughn, JJ Bladay, Riley Green, and then CJ Abrams.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then after that, I remember having a lot of conversations with Scouts who said this is really top-heavy, the depth is impressive.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was conversation about whether or not this was the worst college pitching class Scouts had ever seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, we had just one college pitcher, and one pitcher overall, going the first 10 picks, Nicola Dollo.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can talk about,

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe how some of those arms have panned out, but for me, this class is a great reminder, and you said it a lot at the time, so I think you deserve some credit for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is better to have a top heavy draft, a draft that's led by a few can't miss no doubt prospects, and maybe you have a lot more questions about the depth than the inverse.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because ultimately, if you're hitting on those sort of generational types, like an Adley Ruchman, and a Bobby Machiner, you got a couple other players that are in the mix up there,

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so hard to tell like the quality of the depth ahead of time.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're always going to be players that pan out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think those two things are my big learning points and lessons from this draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: One, very hard to say with confidence, the caliber of an actual draft.

[SPEAKER_00]: You just kind of need to wait and see.

[SPEAKER_00]: And two, if you're choosing depth or top-heavy, you would always choose top-heavy.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to say I have a theory with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't have a way to support this, more of just a hypothetical theory, which is when you don't like the depth of a draft with not one, like, okay, there are drafts for us, like if you have one guy at the top, and you're saying, oh, this draft's not very good, that's one thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you have a draft for you, like, we don't know, there's multiple guys who have a case to be the number one in a very good top of the draft, and then you say, well, how's the

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a certain level of as much as anyone can try to control for it, it's hard not to compare like to like.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're always, I mean, again, scouts, front-offs, officials, and I'll always trying to compare it to past years on your standably.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we have a special guest here joining us on the show if you're on the YouTube channel.

[SPEAKER_01]: be able to fully remove the fact that, yes, if you compare these guys a little bit further down to Bobby Witt Jr, they don't seem as good.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you compare these other guys a little bit further down to Ali Rushman, they don't seem as good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there are years you just don't have that, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: There are years where you're like, these guys all seem pretty, I don't know which one of these lines up better.

[SPEAKER_01]: Often that's because they're all a little bit further down the spectrum as far as talent.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's, again, that's a theory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, is that crazy or is that make some sense?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think that makes some sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you have very clear standouts at the top, the tier separation between those players, wherever that tier is cut off, is going to look more stark than a typical class, that doesn't necessarily mean those players.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the second tier, or any worse than a typical second tier, it's just the gap between them is maybe a little bit more obvious and wide.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that could definitely be a reason why you get a little bit more critical

[SPEAKER_00]: no doubters, like by Lieutenant and Adley Ruchman.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so take us back Carlos because you were very much doing this, you know, all spring, all offseason even leading into the spring that year.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had Adley Ruchman to set the stage and I'll just kind of let you talk through like the challenge of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had Adley Ruchman who, I would say,

[SPEAKER_01]: Checked every single box you would expect to see a college position player check to be a top of the draft guy, which is, does he have performance?

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, does he have success?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like he was a key player, he was a leader on one of the best teams in college baseball, he played a premium position because he was a catcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: He had athleticism, he had thrown in, like he played football at, you know, a college football, you know,

[SPEAKER_01]: Not just like, oh, he played in high school.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, you could have, you know, he played.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you put all that together.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like you have this clear like kind of no glaring flaw.

[SPEAKER_01]: One, one candidate on the college side.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then on the high school side, you had Bobby Witt Jr, who had been kind of this known name on the horizon back to his freshman year, I would say in high school, where it's like, hey, Bobby Witt's kid is going to be really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by this point, you had the tools were as loud as you're going to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: He had kind of the build, the speed, the power, the arm.

[SPEAKER_01]: everything that you kind of would say would at least line up as this guy could be a high school one one pick as a short stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: With CJ Abrams was Riley Green in that conversation too, but how do you kind of trace like with that battle of number one?

[SPEAKER_01]: We kind of felt like the Adley was always going to be the one who went one one.

[SPEAKER_01]: But how much of a real debate was they're going on at the time?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel like

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, you had internal debates about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we personally preferred different players.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think for the entirety of the draft cycle, it was sort of like you said.

[SPEAKER_00]: Adley Rushman was the clear consensus top player entering the summer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think Bobby would junior bin in another draft class.

[SPEAKER_00]: He would have been the clear one-one candidate on his own as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there were two things going against Bobby would junior.

[SPEAKER_00]: in this draft cycle at the time that made it easy to defer to the also premium position super tools the college player.

[SPEAKER_00]: One, a lot of people points the fact that Bobby Wichunier was 19.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was old for a high school player at this stage.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember there were a lot of conversations about this like he's older than his competition.

[SPEAKER_00]: How is that going to impact projecting him moving forward?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you expect him to dominate because he's older?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that one probably got over narrativeized, if that's even a word.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the bigger one is there were real hit tool questions with Bobby with Jr.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's swung in mist more frequently than Scouts wanted to see him swing and miss throughout the summer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so you could easily point them up tool for or line them up tool for tool by Virginia and Adley Rushman and say, Hey, we've got a college player who has this impeccable three-year track record.

[SPEAKER_00]: His draft performance was also strong like it was every year prior.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was just a lot more conviction that Adley, Adley Rushman was not going to have the sort of miss issues that could maybe cripple the profile where Bobby would junior.

[SPEAKER_00]: even if he didn't pan out to be a plus pure hit or even if it was below average the tools were loud enough that he was going to be an impactful player.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think there were just some more questions about risk in the ECA with Bobby with junior.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's absolutely that ultimately

[SPEAKER_00]: led us to having them in the order Adley Bobby with junior that felt fairly consensus throughout the industry and we weren't super surprised leading up to draft day like always Adley Rushman going to be one one it felt pretty much cemented at that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember at the time actually the Kansas City Royal Scouts

[SPEAKER_00]: were kind of joking about other teams who showed up to Bobby with Junior Games because it was so obvious that Adley was going in front and it was so obvious that Bobby with Junior was clear to pick it too.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very easy draft to kind of figure out at the top because there were such no-brainer players and the teams didn't really hide the fact that they had they had their priorities and they knew who they were getting and they weren't going to pass on them.

[SPEAKER_01]: The thing I'll say with Bobby with Junior what you said there like,

[SPEAKER_01]: trying to remember because yeah, there were, but that was, I was, I was the Adelaide guy, you were the Whit guy at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think there's any question about us when we were talking about it and how we line it up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't like, oh, I hate Whit.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't like you're like, yeah, Adelaide's a bomb or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like risk reward.

[SPEAKER_01]: And every, you kind of could see that that Bobby Whit junior, if it all came together,

[SPEAKER_01]: he could be even more valuable.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Adley had kind of the risk of he's a catcher, you know, how well can he hold up?

[SPEAKER_01]: How much can he play because he's a catcher?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there was a lot of the talk at that time.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was kind of the arrow where we'd started to see the 125, 130 game catcher, not 160 games.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like, okay, would you rather have, like, if you're gonna have to play in that way to keep him healthy, would you rather have 125 good games of Adley or 160 games of a short stop?

[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say like to kind of summarize what you were saying there, the hit tool questions, which, yeah, I'll say, I think Bobby would junior kind of put to bed age at the top of the draft as far as being an overwhelming concern.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you can always say like, Eli Willitz was more valuable, more interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to say that his age and what he was at that age makes him a little bit better, great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, thumbs up.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it didn't make it like, oh, that's like where you take Eli Willis because of that the same way Bobby were junior was old for the class, okay, but he has better tools in the class and by the way, probably can go out and catch up for that by the fact that he's probably ready and then he had COVID hit, but he'd have probably been ready for high A.

[SPEAKER_01]: by midway through his first year or double a by the end of that year and it's like oh so now he's ahead of schedule compared to these young guys because he's just a talented but right the hit to a questions I would say like if you're trying to put it into a modern perspective if the hit tool had never developed like when you say like you have this very high like floor of what he was going to be imagine a better Colson Montgomery

[SPEAKER_01]: Like imagine like if you had that level of hit to a question, I don't think it was any thought he had that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like if you said, okay, imagine if Colson Montgomery had more power with an 80 runner and was a better defender at short, would you be happy with that as your short stop?

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe like, yes, 100% I would.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of like the worst case scenario that was kind of envisioned for Bobby with Jr. and feel like at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I agree.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were so many, and that was one of the things that stood out.

[SPEAKER_00]: for him on the circuit when he wasn't just dominating with the pure hit tool like he was always impacting the game at a high level.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a great bass runner.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was showing his hands at short stop.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was an impactful tremendously gifted.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think early on in Bobby with Junior's Major League career actually, there were some skeptics about him defensively.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, no, no, no, this guy is like the real deal defensively.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has been for years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gave him time.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to adjust.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think actually today because I didn't see Adley Rushman as much in person As I saw about Goetheon at the same time.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's still probably the best draft prospect that I've covered I don't think there's someone who's who's been better than him at the same stage Throw out a name if you think there's someone that you'd compare to but I think I mean I like on

[SPEAKER_01]: If you did a, where starts with 17 true 19, if you said who's the one one pick of all those, it's Bobby with Junior, I don't think it's close.

[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing we always say with this, like I do want to emphasize, Carlos does redress for us, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And a redraft allows you to say knowing what we don't now, right and redo it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's different from where you're saying like, if you are, I see sometimes people and I get it, but they're saying like, oh look at this fourth rounder, like that guy should have been the one one pick.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like,

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no one going in the fourth round who is gonna go one one because there's a clear reason why yeah, keep passing for a hundred picks.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you wanted to do the realistic redraw from this class, it really is just one or two.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you wanted to stretch reality a little bit, you're basically picking from the top six here, because those were the only players who were considered in that tier.

[SPEAKER_00]: So anyone beyond that, it would just be kind of a silly exercise.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it really was.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, like you said, that's a perfect segue to get into this, which is you had this tier 2, which I would say, you know, is, again, Andrew Vaughn-Win third, JJ Blade went fourth, Riley Green fifth, CJ Abram sixth, and then I would say Nicola Dolo went seventh, and he's kind of this weird outlayer that kind of set out here to aside, because he literally was the only pitcher who,

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say was in him and you could say to some level Alxmano though or most him and Manoa were really the only two were in I would say in any way in consideration as a top 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well Zack Thompson I would say Zack Thompson, Alxmanoa and Jackson Rutledge were all kind of in the same range.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had Nicoladolo as the top ranked pitcher in the class.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had him ranked number eight overall.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we even had Hunter Bishop, the outfit out of Arizona State ranked right in front of him.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know that Ladoolo was really in the conversation for this top six grouping.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a pretty clear top six throughout the spring.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that felt to me in hindsight.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I could look through our

[SPEAKER_00]: our draft board and see when these guys all kind of got into this exact ranking.

[SPEAKER_00]: I guess Bladay would have been the player that kind of started off that mark and then joined it down the stretch.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Andrew Vaughn, CJ Abrams, Riley Green.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Riley Green at the time was maybe the best pure hitter in this high school class.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had just a tremendous track record with the swing, with the vision.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot of confidence that he was going to get to power.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a center fielder at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: to a corner outfit spot, and then CJ Abrams, he maybe was the most wide-ranging sort of player in this bucket because the athleticism in the speed was so loud, but there were really wide-ranging opinions on whether or not he would even be able to stick at shortstop.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember that at the time, he was just less polished and refined as a defender at the same stage, and because he was an 80-grade runner,

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot of thought that, hey, you could just move him to center field, let him play there.

[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be easier, more natural, let the hit tool, just develop a little bit easier when he's not focused on on sure stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he has been better than I expected him to be, although there were certainly people who would have looked at his career outcome today, and been like, yeah, that's the sort of player that we thought and hoped CJ Abrams could be.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure if you have any extra thoughts on this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do, whatever is, or we have what your thoughts are here.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have our history of like, so when we had the top 100 for this, which is the first ranking we really kind of put out at the, at the front end, at the very start of the process.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was Adley won, went to Abram's three, Andrew Vaughan four, Riley Green five, Shay Langallar's six, and Corbin Carroll's seven.

[SPEAKER_01]: So let me just say, like, some of those moved around a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: In hindsight though, looking at it, that's about as good a top seven, you're gonna have for a pre, like a year away from the draft top seven, it's gonna be hard to beat that pretty much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are,

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all of those players you just mentioned are top seven in war from this class in the entirety of the class.

[SPEAKER_00]: So not for the first round, yeah, sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did you say, Vaughn?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Vaughn was four on that, except for Vaughn.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so Vaughn's, Vaughn players who were in the top seven, Bobby would junior Corbin Carroll, Adley Ruchman, CJ Abrams, Riley Green, the two, and we can get into this later in the podcast, but the two who are in that group.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, who we didn't have ranked in that range, donor Henderson, which is a reason why this Orioles draft is a mega draft, and then Michael Harris, third runner from the Braves.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the other things with this, um, before I, I want, well, I don't want to get there to kind of put a bow on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We talk about Abrams.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wanna talk about the two best, second tier best hitters in this, where Riley Green, like you said, who I would say at the time was viewed as, yes, he's gonna start and center, he's gonna move to a corner pretty quick.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're drafting the bat, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're drafting the sky who should bit hit in the middle of your line up, hopefully, for a long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, Vaughan,

[SPEAKER_01]: was, hey, yeah, he doesn't give you any defensive value.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is not a profile that teams like to take at the top of the draft.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you're talking about a really long track record here of hitting, I would say that basically, he was the mini Spencer Torkelson before Spencer Torkelson arrived.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like that's kind of what he was.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I will say, like, I'm raising my hand, like,

[SPEAKER_01]: I was absolutely thought, and again, he's ended up being a useful player, although not for the team that originally drafted him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I thought like looking at it, that when you looked at the first basin who were drafted high, the hit rate on those was pretty high, Von, Von did not help that torqualson if not really help that going forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I did want to ask you like just how

[SPEAKER_01]: rare it was that we had this everyone believed first base then sitting there as in who is expected to go in the top five.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, I think that the if you look at the track record of just corner infielders who go inside the top 10 the track record of those profiles is actually pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: that might not intuitively be what you would think, but I think just a threshold to even go in that range is so high on your hit and power combination that you kind of have to be one of the elite players in the class and even in a class with that Lerit Adly Ruchman and Bobby would junior in Rally Green on the high school side.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were people who thought that Andrew Vaughn had the best hit power combination.

[SPEAKER_00]: in the class.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were scholars who thought he was going to be a plus hitter with 80 grade raw power.

[SPEAKER_00]: His track record with California was tremendous.

[SPEAKER_00]: His wood bat track record was also really impressive.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he had the best summer with Team USA specifically.

[SPEAKER_00]: The summer heading into his draft spring, but he had a really impressive stint in the cape.

[SPEAKER_00]: And while every basically, every player around him had more

[SPEAKER_00]: or very likely first baseman down the line.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a ton of confidence in this, in this bat, this onpad to profile overall.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's hard to,

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe remember, just how good he was offensively.

[SPEAKER_00]: His college line, he was a 374, 495, 688 here with 50 home runs, 35 doubles in three seasons.

[SPEAKER_00]: He hit 12 on runs, 23 home runs, 15 home runs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that was kind of a four we got into the 2020s whenever one started hitting.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what that was a season.

[SPEAKER_00]: No problem.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not as powerful.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the balls don't fly as far and he had hit 402531-1819 Wingleton spikes as a sophomore like the year before that like you you had this just again at a time where there wasn't as much power it was a really standout profile.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean again this is what I think it was a really good top of the board

[SPEAKER_01]: But there were a couple of guys kind of who moved in, there were a couple of guys who moved out, where we get into that right after this quick break.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Carlos, the thing that also does stand out here though is we did have some guys who kind of move their way into this second tier.

[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned, 100 Bishop was not on our initial top hundred that year coming into the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was 119 when we went to 200.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then when we went to 300, he had gone from 119 to 13, when we expanded to 400, he went to eight.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when we went to 500, he went to seven, which is where he was at the time of the draft.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where we had him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in hindsight, this is going to be a cautionary tale.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the lone player taken in the top 10.

[SPEAKER_01]: The giants took him 10th overall.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he is the lone player in the top 10, who has not made the majors.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would go beyond that and say, and that's a top 10 where you have one, two, three, four.

[SPEAKER_01]: Five guys who are 10 plus were already.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've got laying alirs, you've got Abrams, you've got green, you've got Rush when you've got wit.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, in Lidolo's, almost at 10, like, you've got a whole lot of guys who've ended up being really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hunter Bishop, not made the major is probably never will.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think we say confidently at this point, we'll never.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was the ultimate pop-up prospect in this class, but with very loud tools.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do you remember about then and kind of what lessons can we learn now from this?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel like Hunter Bishop at the time was almost viewed as like a high school sort of profile rather than a college profile.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's easy to strap like, oh, there are some safety with college players.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's more risk with high school players, maybe more upset with high school players.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hunter Bishop was the collegiate equivalent of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in some ways, thinking about his profile now, there are some similarities to a Vantani cut.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reason why Hunter Bishop was moving so high up on the board is because his toolset was maybe

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the best in the class, probably the best physical tool set in the college class.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he had tremendous raw power, he could run, he had a big arm, he was 6 foot 5, 210 pounds.

[SPEAKER_00]: but he was also kind of a constant tinker with his swing and he had a real hit tool questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: He struggled during his sophomore season with a 30% strikeout rate.

[SPEAKER_00]: He hit just 250.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so for me, this is just, he gets bucketed into, if you look at, we've done studies on this as we try to explain the risk of certain college players who failed to hit certain thresholds, whether it's batting average, which is actually a really useful proxy.

[SPEAKER_00]: or strikeout rate, which I think is I was always been a useful proxy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gets bucketed into these high upside toolsy players that just don't have the sort of hit tool.

[SPEAKER_00]: That really when you're looking at this group collectively, it shouldn't weren't going as high as they do.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think even at the time we acknowledge pretty significant amount of risk.

[SPEAKER_00]: But every team is going to judge that risk reward calculation differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to take a big swing,

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's pretty easy to say that like Hunter Bishop had a more pure upside at the time than any player in this class.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't fault the giants for taking on a player like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe the lesson learned is just be very, very skeptical of these profiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think if you're going to take them in this range in a first round sort of range, you should feel very confident in

[SPEAKER_00]: in your hitting development, or you should feel very confident in pointing to a reason why the player struggled offensively with a clear path to how you're going to try and address it at the next level.

[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, it does feel a little bit like it's kind of a waste of the value of the pick here, if you don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: And not to say, maybe the giants had a plan and just sometimes it doesn't pin out.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that's that's kind of how I would think through a player like this today.

[SPEAKER_01]: So not only did he strike out 30% of the time in his sophomore season, right, which is a rate that is just, especially again, gotta go back.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is 2018, the strikeout rate in college baseball in 2018 was not what it is now, in addition to the power, not being what it is now.

[SPEAKER_01]: That summer in the cape, he also struck out 30% of the time with the wood bat.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's in 39 games, 149 plate appearances.

[SPEAKER_01]: So not like, oh, he was there for a week.

[SPEAKER_01]: 100 Bishop had not hit 300 as a freshman at Arizona State, not in the Cape where he hit 212 that year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then his sophomore year is 250, it's 233 in the Cape.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then he has this junior year where he hits 342, 479, 748 cuts the strike out rates like 22%.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you had,

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say that basically he is an example of when you have tools to slowed.

[SPEAKER_01]: I get it, like there are two possibilities here.

[SPEAKER_01]: One is he has found it, it's clicked, the hit tools much better than what we saw before.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if that's the case, these tools are as loud as anyone in this class, not name Bobby Witt Jr. for the top of the class.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, great.

[SPEAKER_01]: The other possibility is,

[SPEAKER_01]: maybe we're over emphasizing this 57 games from this year as opposed to the 200 plus games of previous information we have, that seems to indicate that this other thing is true.

[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously now with the benefit of hindsight, I mean, that 342 batting average is not just the highest

[SPEAKER_01]: of Hunter Bishop's career, college, or pro, it's by, it's only time he ever hit 300, anywhere at any level.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so in hindsight, it was small sample size, didn't indicate that this was some dry right through.

[SPEAKER_01]: I get it, so it's always tricky to know that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think there's another piece of this that I want to mention because I was just looking back through our notes at the time to see what Scouts are saying to us when we're reporting on Hunter Bishop.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there were, and maybe this is relevant to Andrew Vaughan as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were some Scouts at the time, and this maybe gets into the kind of a lackless or college pitching demographic, who were specifically talking about the pack 12 pitching

[SPEAKER_00]: this year being particularly bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think teams do a really good job now of correcting for conference play and level of competition and college baseball and it's probably just worth reinforcing and emphasizing that even though it's college baseball, there is still a pretty significant

[SPEAKER_00]: variants in the level of pitching competition that you're going to see on a new given week on a new given weekend series from Friday to Saturday.

[SPEAKER_00]: The drop-off in certain conferences could be massively different than the SEC or the ACC for example.

[SPEAKER_00]: And while the pack 12 is pretty solid regularly, at the time, scouts were talking about how the pitching was down in the conference this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there were

[SPEAKER_00]: There were evaluators who were skeptical of the numbers that Hunter Bishop was putting up, even then, while acknowledging that he had made some impressive adjustments to his approach.

[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe that's something that we can look back and learn from, like we should be even more.

[SPEAKER_00]: As critical as we can be of the competition that hitters are putting up, these offensive numbers, especially when it's a player like Hunter Bishop who just doesn't have the track record,

[SPEAKER_00]: I could maybe see a case where with Andrew Vaughn that still wouldn't have helped you because even if the competition was down, he has so many other years and examples of performing against the similarly better years of competition.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that is probably worth mentioning here.

[SPEAKER_01]: To give an example of that, looking at Pact 12 pitching leaders that year, I would say that the best big league pitcher, future big league pitcher of that group was Ryan Nelson.

[SPEAKER_01]: there isn't there is not a starting pitcher from that league that year that you would say, oh, that guy went on to be really good down the road.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's a big as a, you know, it's a pro.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was an extremely down year for pitching.

[SPEAKER_01]: in the pack 12, I think that is absolutely a useful thing to note like again, because the tricky part of it is is that you don't know that at the time, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You can say I think it's down and but you don't know it's going to be that down.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know it's going to be that down's what I could.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were not expected to be that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great.

[SPEAKER_01]: To give an example, the flip side of that, when you talk about this, you say, okay, well, what about you guys you're seeing in the SEC that year?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, in the SEC, Kuma Rocker was there.

[SPEAKER_01]: JT again, Emerson Hancock.

[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about Zack Thompson, Garrett Crochet, you know, Bryce Miller.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure I'm not Bryce Miller.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, I priced me out.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's Texas A&M.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know,

[SPEAKER_01]: There were a number of guys, not just guys who were having good years in the SEC, but future big leaders who were seeing on a normal weekend.

[SPEAKER_01]: That makes a big difference when you're comparing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they were hitting against lesser competition that you're in the, in the pack 12th.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about the college pitching now, JJ.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a good piece of takeaway into that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this was viewed as a utterly barren year for pitching.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, like that's like, what do you remember from the time?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I remember just having many conversations with Scouts who really just despise this college pitching group that it was severely lacking compared to a typical year, multiple conversations about whether or not this was the worst college pitching draft we'd ever had.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think at the time, if I'm remembering correctly, this class set a record for the furthest number of picks into the draft without a pitcher, or maybe a specifically a college pitcher selected.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's interesting to talk through now because I do think there are a number of pictures obviously who have exceeded expectations and gone on to be quite good.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm also interested in how we should be viewing the

[SPEAKER_00]: the career of Alec Manila and whether or not we think of that as a success as a failure would you take that in hindsight?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's just a very odd career in general and he was one of the top college pitchers in this class who was selected 11th overall so he was the second pitcher selected he was the third college pitcher on our board.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then whether or not there any lessons from George Kirby, who I think is also one of the bigger success stories of this class, he also went in a range where we had him ranked.

[SPEAKER_00]: We ranked him 20th, he went 20th, he's been tremendous.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it didn't make him better than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, and I don't always think that like the success is like, do they go exactly?

[SPEAKER_00]: There's always the signing bonuses, but yeah, feel pretty good about where we had all these guys ranked at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: But

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't remember, this is one of the most critical college pitching drafts, I think, even to this day that I've covered.

[SPEAKER_00]: What are your thoughts on whether or not it's succeeded expectations and how we can view some of these guys careers?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the scouts at the time are right.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at this, this is probably, if you just look at it and line it up, the most successful pitcher from this class so far by baseball reference war is Hunter Brown.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Hunter Brown's been really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: He does not fit into this discussion, though, when you say the quality of the pitching class, that was he was at Wayne State in Michigan and great job by the Astros, but,

[SPEAKER_01]: That was not a guy who was going to go.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was no scenario where he was going to go first round.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the third straight podcast where we're giving the Astros credit for a really solid, lighter round pick getting Hunter Brown in the fifth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty tremendous.

[SPEAKER_00]: All this is a you kind of have to give credit to the industry at large because the next three pictures in terms of

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why the Alicmino conversation is so interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next three pitches in terms of cumulative baseball reference war, Nicola Delo, George Kirby, Alicminoa, pretty good hit rate.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, unless you are, unless you're the nationals and you drafted Jackson, Rutledge, or the cardinals and you drafted Zack Thompson, you're pretty happy just looking back at how the industry evaluated these arms at the top.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like those, those top three guys were the top three guys or have been so far.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, we've got like, there are a couple of guys later on who, you know, obviously, these careers are not over by any search adaptation, but we're talking that there are three pictures at seven and a half more than seven and a half war right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I say that because Alex Benos has seven point two and if Alex Benos gets to seven point five down the road, that would be a nice career turnaround.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like this this was the case at the time JJ and it remains the case now.

[SPEAKER_01]: You you'd love to call Alic Manoa Alex Manoa Alex Manoa Alex Manoa But but what I would say is the comparison like we talked about 2018 class that 2018 class had Has one two three four six guys work ten war now and another two at seven and a half or more and it's like I feel pretty good that turk school the Drew Rasmussen that shame the Klanahan are going to keep really like those guys are

[SPEAKER_01]: Really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Still right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you go even to the class after it you've got like Garrett crochet you've got You know spent Jared Jones spent for strider Kate Cavali who are probably going to be doing this for years to come The thing that stands out about this class is okay hundred brown Nicoladolo George Kirby thumbs up After that you start running like when you say like would you do it again without vanilla right yeah in this class.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah because if you want it

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's go into the estimate of a story because 2021, it's his rookie year.

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes 20 stars, 3.22, ERA, 2.9, baseball reference war.

[SPEAKER_00]: He finishes eighth in the rookie of the year voting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then 22, just a tremendous season.

[SPEAKER_00]: 31 starts 2.24, ERA.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's third in a sigh young voting.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's in all star.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gets down ballot MVP votes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then,

[SPEAKER_00]: that's kind of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, in 2023, he made 19 starts, but he was a well below average pitcher.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that season in 2024, he made just five starts.

[SPEAKER_00]: This 2025 and 2026, he made handful of outings and hasn't been effective.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you could say at the time,

[SPEAKER_00]: would you take this career if you're picking the player at 11th overall?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think almost everyone would say no.

[SPEAKER_00]: They wouldn't take that career, but I think you probably want to take it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: What would you, what would you, if you could guarantee you're going to get it?

[SPEAKER_00]: an abbreviated rookie of the year campaign and one sigh young caliber season for a pitcher that you're taking 11th overall, but beyond that nothing are you are you taking that player or no?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so here's the question, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: This is where this gets fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, if you have perfect hindsight, no, you're taking Corbin Carroll.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's still on the board.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

[SPEAKER_01]: Your chances of getting better than that are actually quite low because as much as I just talked about how good this class is, and it really is, it is a very top heavy class when it comes to the first round.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are sitting there, and if you are picking top nine,

[SPEAKER_01]: you're getting someone generally really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in some cases, you're getting a franchise player, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're getting someone that you are trying to extend to stay with you for years and years and years.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once you get outside the top 10, you've got Bryson Stott, who's been good?

[SPEAKER_01]: Very good for the Phillies.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've got Corbin Carroll who always says been great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've got at the end of the first round, you've got Anthony Volpi,

[SPEAKER_01]: who has had up and down, but it's been a starting short stop in a productive one at times in the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you got at Pick 31, you got Michael Bush, who's been a solid first base been after getting kind of stuck trying to play other positions for the Dodger because they had it for a base.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's it, like there's no one else I would say in that,

[SPEAKER_01]: 11 through 30, 35 range where you'd be like, oh, I would rather have that guy George Kirby, just like George Kirby should say.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the other one.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you said, would you rather have Alpanoa or Jackson Rutledge?

[SPEAKER_01]: Alpanoa is that Thompson, rated Schumek, Greg Jones, Michael Toglia, probably Daniel Spino.

[SPEAKER_01]: All these guys you would say, no, you'll take the Alpanoa what he did.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think it's actually

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that hard of a question if you actually look at it like you say like having any kind of reasonable odds for this right I still think if if you tomorrow let's say Let's say we we pick out whoever's picking 11th and in the 2027 draft and we say hey we're going to guarantee you this outcome you're going to get a rookie of the year season you're going to get one

[SPEAKER_00]: up three Saigon caliber season.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's all you're getting.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think almost everyone would pass and they would take a shot on something more last.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's my assumption.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'm wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: But my assumption is that they would they would pass and hope that they could get some more length of career there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I get it.

[SPEAKER_01]: The team do you want length of career.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the other thing I'll say about this is, is if you're given a choice between

[SPEAKER_01]: Like the other thing about that, I look for Noah's season that I will point out.

[SPEAKER_01]: They went 90 to 70 that year.

[SPEAKER_01]: They made it to the playoffs.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now again, they didn't make it deep in the playoffs, but they made it to the playoffs.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll tell you right now, they probably don't without out knowing what that year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing I'll say about it is is if you're saying you're gonna get a six-war sion caliber season out of a player, that's going to help you

[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you get to the postseason, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't do it by itself.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this is what I was talking about with a pirate last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, Connor Griffin got hurt this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Paul schemes put the step back.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, if you can have a, if you can line up a pirate season where Paul schemes and Connor Griffin are both five plus war players, you have to really screw up around them to not make the playoffs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now it's possible to read this year like Ellie Dale Cruz and chase her and say hi.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Albanoa did for you at his peak, and it's just, and no one could've imagined that the time is like, it's done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it is, and it wasn't often usually when it's done like this, it would be something like, but in that last game and the post season, he felt something and he had a clot, and then they discovered it was thoracic outlet syndrome.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he had a rib removed, and he never got back to that, no, it was just like, it wasn't some major injury, it was just the stuff backed up,

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're coming up to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to have to wrap soon, but I do want to go through a few last-minute notes and some other thoughts on this class.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to bring up one more first rounder.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to bring up one more first rounder, which is the one that I did not understand at the time that I'm not trying to dunk on them in hindsight, but I cannot explain for the life of me why the Rockies took

[SPEAKER_01]: and it's not trying to pick on Michael Toglia, but we had a rate of much lower than that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what I would say though, beyond everything else is like, and I'm not saying that like, look, Cody Hozy went right after him, like Wallston Ryan Jensen, who was a weird pick up the time again, a guy who's much rated lower rated than that, has never made the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_01]: But,

[SPEAKER_01]: I just would say like this is where I think the Rockies have to get away from this, which is, hey, we've got this well-rounded first baseman who's not probably very good at anything like as a no carry tool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't take that in the first round, take a swing at a short stop, a high school short stop or something, take a picture and cut some upside.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you want to go on the college route, I feel like the A's have been a team who for several years now have Whether by luck or happenstance have just been able to take the best player available on the B.A.

[SPEAKER_00]: Draftboard and it's worked out pretty well for them, so sometimes that can pan out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I think what separates this class from some other classes are obviously the first round hits.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are also a lot of hits in the first few rounds after that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the war in this class is concentrated in the first few rounds.

[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously that's going to be the case most of the time, but they're just so many good players.

[SPEAKER_00]: hit on here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gunner Henderson in the second round.

[SPEAKER_00]: The fact that the Orioles have two of the top six players in the class in terms of total production so far, you could make a really compelling case that Gunner Henderson is going to overall if you're redrapping this with perfect hindsight.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I think that's just where he goes.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Michael Harris season is having this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: I still say that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Michael Harris pick in the third round, tremendous work by the Braves.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny that baseball reference even lists him as a picture at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was selected as an alphilder, but we liked him better as a picture at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of just a continuation of the Braves taking these really exciting two way players, athletic players, maybe taking them at a surprising position at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as a handout, we mentioned 100 Brown in the fifth round, a couple other

[SPEAKER_00]: The Royals, again, you get by with Junior, it's a victory, even if you do nothing at the rest of the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you pass, it's a great draft for the Royals, but Vinnie Pasquaintino in the 11th round.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was a really good pick.

[SPEAKER_00]: A few other names I'll just mention here kind of quickly, Josh Smith with the Yankees in the second round.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jared Triollo with the Pirates in the second round, Ryan Pepio with the Dodgers in the third round.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joey Ortiz, yet another Orioles pick in the fourth round, and then if you're looking at

[SPEAKER_00]: in total be war, it's so far, orials, royals, debacks, braves, and tigers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are your top five teams.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to bring up one of their guy from the first round, because this was like a great reporting by you at the time, which was Keone Kavako,

[SPEAKER_01]: came into the year like off of all radars.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would say like not people didn't know that he existed, but he was not viewed as a top prospect.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then he just set the world on fire in a very competitive so-called district.

[SPEAKER_01]: And rocketed from not ranked, when we went to 200, he was not ranked, when we went to... Where was he on 300th out of an hour in March?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then we never went higher than 32, which I would say that our hesitation and love that was,

[SPEAKER_01]: And what I would say with this though is that this is the danger.

[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about 100 bishop in some ways, but this is the danger.

[SPEAKER_01]: Keanu-Kovico didn't went out and really never hit in Pro Bowl.

[SPEAKER_01]: The tools were always loud, but not as loud as they did not translate as loud.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it was a thorough basement pretty quickly.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, okay, he's a good defensive.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell you the dynamic of what happened with Keanu-Kovico, with pretty strong confidence.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, area scouts were aware of Keanu-Kovico heading into.

[SPEAKER_00]: the spring.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't some unknown player from their perspective, but they had seen him really struggle to hit a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came out during the spring and he had a few, I think there are a few workouts he did and then he also just performed better in the spring and so teams were bringing him in, directors were bringing him in, national cross, cross-checkers were bringing him into team workouts and he had the exact toolset.

[SPEAKER_00]: that just lit those workouts up.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was 70 grade rock power.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had a big arm.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was in above average runner.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a chance for above average defense at their base.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I really don't realize.

[SPEAKER_00]: Young for the class.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the age thing coming into play.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe what it was the twins drafted.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure the age really factored heavily in their model at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I do remember there was a pretty big disconnect between wear areas, scouts like Kionic

[SPEAKER_00]: we had him ranked where we did.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looks it's one of those that has aged pretty well for us in hindsight, but he is also one of the kind of go-to players for you and for me when we talk about just hesitance of these pop-up high school hitters.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're really our skeptical of the guys that just don't have a lot of track record in the summer and he's one that this isn't really pinned out.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the Austin Beck story that we talked about in 2017 all over again, which is guys who arrive.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think this was again, slight difference here, which is the key thing that you just mentioned here.

[SPEAKER_01]: The feedback we were getting at the time, mainly you, we're getting at the time, was from these areas, Kout Singh.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why all the national guys love this guy so much, and it was kind of

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a point where we're kind of getting into the point where the shift is happening as far as how these decisions are made, especially in the first round.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say that not just Kavika, but there are guys who are like the area scouts were not big fans of who would just rock it up because if you said you could see everything you wanted to see, but they didn't have the track record doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were more skepticism there for that reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: a very fun draft, best I would say for ranking the draft so far that we've talked to this is number one, this like by far.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of the three we've done so far, I'd go 2019, 2018, 2017.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, next week when we do this, we're going to talk about the wildest draft that you and I hopefully will ever be involved in covering because

[SPEAKER_01]: I have these moments for each of these dress before where they things stick in my head from these vignettes of like being at this event or seeing this guy or whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are none of those for 2020.

[SPEAKER_01]: I remember being on the phone in my backyard a lot, walking around the neighborhood, no, because

[SPEAKER_01]: there wasn't a season.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll get into that next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you have not checked out the other ones, do check out, you know, these are every week on the draft podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking at so 2020 next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've already done 2017, 2018, and obviously today, 2019, also check out Facebook American.com, a whole lot more stuff over there for Carlos.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm JJ.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's all here, buddy.