00:00:05
Speaker 1: Hello, everybody. Welcome to Hot Sheet Live. And if you're live watching us, thank you for making us a second screen experience. We know the postseason's going on. We're going to take your questions, your comments about the postseason. Feel free to get them in now. We're going to talk about the postseason. But we always are talking baseball here at Baseball America. But if you do wonder if every now and then my eyes go like that, I've got a screen over here. I'm keeping an eye on what's going on like you all are, you know, even if we are on screen. But thank you for joining us at the Hot Sheet Show. Do subscribe to the Baseball America YouTube channel and do obviously check out all the content over at BaseballAmerica.com. We're going to have James Anderson joining us, fantasy expert James Anderson joins us in a few. But first, let's get to the first move. The 2026 minor league season is fully complete, wrapped up with the Oklahoma City Comets. Yep, Comets. They're newly named Comets. The Dodgers AAA team winning the AAA National Championship game. That also means it's award time at Baseball America. And we announced two of our biggest awards of the year. Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year is Andrew Fisher. And Baseball America's Minor League Pitcher of the Year is Kate Anderson. So, Jeff, I feel like that this was when it came to player of the year, this was one of the toughest. And I do mean like most impassioned, like interesting debates, discussions that we've had in quite a while. There's been some years where it's like, OK, yeah, we know who the player of the year is this year. I felt like that it was– there was a number of ways we could go. I'll lay out like, okay, so Andrew Fisher, Brewers, third baseman, moved to first baseman of the year. 48 homers in the regular season. 50 homers if you count the two he hit in the postseason. Led all of minor league baseball, not just in home runs this year, but most home runs we have seen since 19– Ron Kittle in the early 80s. Most home runs we've seen in a non-PCL league, the Pacific Coast League league, has always been a little bit more homer-happy since 1968. But at the same time, and this is where I'll kind of bring Jeff in a little bit on this, we had a really impassioned discussion about this because we have some concerns. Andrew Fisher is exceptional at lifting the ball in the air, hitting homers. But we had some other candidates who are much higher-ranked prospects for us. Who are some of the other candidates that you think are we all considered for this.

00:02:51
Speaker 2: For this?

00:02:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:02:52
Speaker 3: I think this was one of the more interesting minor league player of the year discussions that I've been involved in. This I think would be my fourth.

00:03:00
Speaker 4: Award that I've been involved in.

00:03:01
Speaker 2: I've been here now.

00:03:02
Speaker 3: For five years, but just missed it in terms of the vote on the Bobby Witt junior.

00:03:07
Speaker 2: Year, I think. But, you know, I think when we look at.

00:03:11
Speaker 3: The field and, there were very reasonable cases for four, possibly five players. My personal favorite, the player that got my vote in the final when we narrowed it down to two candidates between Fisher and Raniel Rodriguez at the Cardinals.

00:03:29
Speaker 2: I just think when you factor in age, the defensive.

00:03:36
Speaker 3: Value of a catcher, Now, will he be a starting catcher for his entire career? Will he start a majority of the games for the Cardinals when he's up probably next year?

00:03:47
Speaker 2: Probably not.

00:03:48
Speaker 3: But I do think the rigors of playing that position day in and day out, the age, what he produced, and just sort of the hit tool stuff and all that, I think was the reason that I leaned with Raniel Rodriguez. For me, number two was Josue DiPaola. I think in terms of just underlying data, performance just from a hitting perspective in the upper minors. We saw a little bit of it in the majors as well. I thought that the most spectacular stat lines sort of came out of host way to Paula. And I would sort of put, you know, the number on him or the tag on him of being the best hitter in the minor leagues this year. I think Theo Gillen had a case. I think Kate Anderson had a real case. He was third for me on my ballot behind to Paula and rainy old Rodriguez. And I think ultimately going with Fisher is really just, you know, rewarding this, you know, outlier season that we haven't seen for, you know, the better part of a century, frankly, like you don't see guys hit 50 home runs, 48 home runs. He was so far even ahead of the field in a year where a lot of guys hit 30. I think you should reward that and don't have an issue with it. If you ask me, do I think he's the best player of the group that we, that we just mentioned?

00:05:05
Speaker 2: No, I think there's a.

00:05:06
Speaker 3: Few guys that would be ahead of them, but certainly rewarding what Fisher did, I think is very reasonable.

00:05:12
Speaker 1: This is the balance we try to make with minor league player of the year. We want it to be, it's gotta be a prospect, right? There are guys who've had great years, but it's like, if you're Ryan Ward hit 35 homers every year, but Ryan Ward is older, you know, that's not a prospect. It's a prospect. But at the same time, we do also want to reward players. the season. You can't be the number one prospect often rarely wins this award because you have to have the season. And that's what Andrew Fisher, at the end of the day, we ended up honoring the guy who had, I would say that the, the, the standout season, the season it is. Yes. 2026 in the minor leagues was the year of the home run, but Andrew Fisher had a whole lot more home runs than anyone else. And he did it all year. And I do want to know much of this in the, in the story. To get to 48 homers, yeah, you hear that. This is the first time that a minor league slugger has hit more homers than the major league leader in homers since Chris Bryant did it 2014. Andrew Fisher did this. His team that he was on only played 133 games. You can't have a slump. You can't miss time and get to those home run numbers that he did. I would say this was the most difficult decision we've had in a while because Jeff, when it came to Pitcher of the Year, that was the easiest decision we've had in a very long while. Yes, Mariners lefty Kate Anderson, when he was at Arkansas, he made 18 starts, 1.06 ERA. To put that in perspective, across the Texas League, which is where he pitched his entire minor league season, 5.60 runs per game per team. And by the way, his 1.06 ERA, it's also 1.06 runs against ERA. didn't allow an under-run all year, the consistency, the dominance he had from day one of the season until the day he was promoted to Seattle, it was just remarkable, Jeff. But what stood out to you about Kate Anderson's season?

00:07:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just think, you know, when you put into perspective the run environment in the minor leagues that we've spent numerous hours, it feels like this point on this show, kind of discussing that stuff.

00:07:18
Speaker 2: And....

00:07:21
Speaker 3: When you put into perspective just how historic his performance was overall, and then you factor that in, I think this is in the time that we have been rewarding minor league pitcher of the year. I think this is the best season of those five years or whatever that we've done now, or four years that we've done now. I think this is the best performance that we've seen that it stands alone. And, some of that is the numbers and just how he did it, uh, doing it in a hitters league, like the Texas league, but doing it with the minor league ball and, you know, all that comes with that. There was some benefit, I guess, with the seams to the movement and that sort of thing. Um, but it's still really, really impressive when you consider the rates at which players were scoring, players were hitting for power, hitting for home runs, hitting for damage. And the fact that he really minimalized that throughout the season and, He's not Jacob Mizurowski. He's not somebody where it's just all strikeouts all the time. There is some contact, and he did a really good job of kind of working the zone, not giving up a lot of walks, not inducing a lot of hard contacts.

00:08:27
Speaker 1: The best ERA we've seen by a qualifier across the minor leagues in the last 40 years or so is Justin Verlander, 1.29 ERA. Again, Kate Anderson was at 1.06 ERA. I was talking for the story to both the mayor's farm director, Justin Toole, and Arkansas manager, Rich Thompson, and they both kind of said they felt bad about it sometimes. They knew that they wanted Kate Anderson to pitch in the major leagues this year, so they were limiting his innings 75, 80 pitches max for pretty much every start out in the minors, and then they also deloaded him around the futures game, took him away from from pitching for about three weeks really and they kind of know they said like yeah there were times where we you know rich thompson said there were times he'd go out to get the ball from from kate anderson and kate anderson you know he knew that kate anderson probably could have thrown three you know he was pulling in the fifth or sixth and he's like he could have gone eight he could have gone nine he was cruising but you know looking at the long term but you do have to wonder man if we just could have gotten another uh 18 innings out of him it would have been A truly historic year. Obviously came up to the majors, had a little bit of trouble at the start, I would say, of his major league time. But the last two starts, he was pretty dominant. And I do think that we got those little inclinations, those little hints there. of what he could be in the long-term as well. Yeah, that was the easy call. I would say Joseph Zerwa, a couple other guys who were in the discussion of if Kate Anderson didn't exist, who could have been minor league pitcher of the year, uh you know anthony ianson some guys like that but uh kate anderson was clearly there was not really if we may if we talked for an hour about who was going to be minor league player of the year we talked for a minute about who was going to be minor league pitcher of the year and said okay everyone agrees moving on so that's our look at our two of our big awards from the year We're going to get into our fantasy first-year player draft rankings that James Anderson just rolled out. There's more hot sheet to come, but first, a word about SeatGeek. The MLB postseason is here, and whether your team is in it or not, you need to experience October baseball by getting yourself some tickets for the friends at SeatGeek and watch some baseball. Or, hey, check out a concert, anything else you want to see. With over 35 million downloads, SeatGeek is the number one rated ticketing app. You can get tickets to baseball games, concerts, festivals, and more. And SeatGeek has your back because each ticket is rated on a scale of 1 to 10. So you know you're getting.

00:10:53
Speaker 4: A good deal.

00:10:54
Speaker 1: Look for the green dots. The green dots tell you you're getting a good deal. Green means good. Red means bad. And every ticket is backed by their buyer guarantee. And of course, we have a code for you all. So you can use TERRITORY10. That's TERRITORY10 for 10% off of your next set of tickets at SeatGeek. That's 10% off of all tickets with promo code TERRITORY10. Make sure you click the link in the description to download the app and have the code automatically added to your account so you can use it later. Thank you to SeatGeek. We are back with the Helium Spot and most excited, first time on the Hot Sheet Show, Baseball America's fantasy expert, James Anderson. You all know James. You've known James. You've been reading his fantasy content for years, but he just dropped with the help of Jeff, Jeff was on this too, our new Fantasy FYPD Top 100, the first-year player draft Top 100. Okay, for those of you who aren't as into fantasy as we are, especially as James and Jeff are, James, if you would just kind of explain, like, okay, you're going to look at these rankings, you're going to say, this doesn't match up with the Top 100 prospect rankings have for these guys, which obviously this is more updated than it's our Top 100 for one. But when you're doing an FYPD draft, Explain to people a little bit the differences of why guys are going to rank a little differently than they do on a pure looking at their baseball career rankings.

00:12:16
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, great to be with you guys. I think two skills that really get valued in the MLB draft that don't matter as much in Dynasty are shortstop defense and catcher defense. And obviously we care about these guys playing. That's the most important thing is that they're good enough defenders to be in the lineup somewhere. But if a player is an above-average shortstop defender or an 80-grade shortstop defender, that's not really going to matter with their dynasty ranking, but it's going to matter a lot in real life. And same thing with catcher defense. The most important thing is that someone's a good enough catcher or a good enough combination of catcher and hitter to.

00:12:54
Speaker 1: Play a lot.

00:12:55
Speaker 5: But Ryder Helfrich of the Diamondbacks is a guy that's lower on my FAPD rankings than he would be on a real-life rankings. Rock Cholowski, obviously kind of the name that stands out him being sixth in that big first tier there after going first overall in the real draft. The defensive stuff that those guys bring to the table, it's valuable in the sense that it gets them in the lineup. Their teams are invested in them. They care about developing them, et cetera. But we just care about them being in the lineup. And from there, like the extra defensive value added just doesn't really matter.

00:13:28
Speaker 1: So as you saw there, that's Grady Emerson, not Grady Anderson. But Grady Emerson, number one on this. James, the first thing I wanted to kind of throw in there is, okay, Grady Emerson won. Okay. I think the average fan could see that. Rock Cholowski, six. Layout kind of like Rock Cholowski obviously went 1-1 to the White Sox. You just talked about a little bit of it. But when you were putting together kind of the top of this, you know, as far as offensive impact, what was it that stood out about Grady and what was it about Rock that maybe is a little bit, if not concerning, kind of slots a little bit lower?

00:14:05
Speaker 5: Sure yeah so it's it's good timing because i'm actually working on the redraft rankings that'll be on baseball america next week and the short stops that i'm ranking for 2027 there's not a single shortstop top 10th position for fantasy that is not going to steal.

00:14:22
Speaker 4: You know 15 plus bases um mookie.

00:14:25
Speaker 5: Bets i'm going to have ranked you know roughly 13th at shortstop um guys like Corey Seager a little bit lower just because of the durability. Bo Bichette's kind of in a different stage of his career, but it's just very rare to be a shortstop and a top 20 fantasy shortstop if you're not impacting the game on the bases. And as I mentioned in the article, Rock Cholowski did run more in his very brief pro debut than he did his entire time at UCLA in the spring. So it's not a done deal that Rock's not going to contribute on the bases, but in the event that he doesn't, in the event that he's more of like a five to seven stolen base guy, it just puts so much pressure on his hitting ability, his power potential. He really has to kind of come through near the high end of his outcomes there to be a top 10 shortstop or even a top 12 fantasy shortstop if he's not chipping in double-digit stolen bases. And Grady Emerson, obviously much less of a clear picture of what he's going to produce at the big league level, but you look at the players that go in the first round of fantasy drafts every single year. And it's basically two different kinds of players. It's outfielders and shortstops that were drafted from the prep ranks and outfielders and shortstops that were signed internationally. Pretty much all the superstars come from the prep ranks or the international market. So it's just rare for a player like Rock Cholowski. I keep coming back to Adley Rutschman from, from a while ago. Like it's just kind of a clear one, one in real life, but, in fantasy, you just kind of look at the profile, you look at a comparable profile and where those guys get drafted in fantasy. And it's just not that exciting. So, um, I know it like rock is in that first tier. So I'm not saying don't take rock if you got the first pick, but you know, I look at a guy like Von Lackey and if I don't have my catcher of the future in dynasty, I can really dream on Von Lackey's fantasy ceiling.

00:16:18
Speaker 4: Like he could lead catchers and stolen bases and be.

00:16:21
Speaker 5: Top five in like power batting average. So I just think there's a lot of upside to be had in this FYPD class, and Rock Cholowski just doesn't really scream upside to me.

00:16:33
Speaker 1: Okay, Jeff, I want to loop you in because you're involved in this as well. Who is someone a little further down that top 100 that's a favorite of yours?

00:16:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Elliott LaSalle, I know I've talked about him, I think, on numerous shows. We did an FYPV show last week, and I dug into it a little bit.

00:16:50
Speaker 2: Had a really good performance following the drafts.

00:16:54
Speaker 3: Probably one of the better performances of any of the high school draftees that debuted at a full season level. But I like the player coming into the draft and then following. Really, really good athlete. Excellent bat-to-ball skills. You know, there are some EVs there. It's just a matter of, you know, how much projection is there in the swing.

00:17:17
Speaker 2: Fairly young.

00:17:18
Speaker 3: And I just think there's, you know, a big engine here to kind of build upon. But has that speed and hit tool element that I think gives you kind of a nice floor as a prep player that, you know, and a very solid shortstop. I know Josh had put up some video of him turning some double plays in the backfield the other day.

00:17:35
Speaker 2: Really, really into him.

00:17:36
Speaker 3: I think he's really exciting. He's in tier three for James. I like how he broke down some of the tiers. Then on the college hitter side, I like Carter Beck a lot. Another guy, great athlete, big engine. It's a smaller school, so he got a little bit less money.

00:17:51
Speaker 2: You know, another Canadian guy.

00:17:53
Speaker 3: I guess I'm sticking with Canadian FYPD picks, but went to college route.

00:17:58
Speaker 2: There's some power here. you know, it was up and down in the debut, but I think there's a lot to like.

00:18:03
Speaker 3: And I just, I look for that sort of power speed or, and, and blend a hit tool and on base ability with, with both of these guys that I think gives them some projection to, you know, potentially be more valuable.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: I also feel like.

00:18:15
Speaker 3: This is a draft where, you know, trading back out of the top 10 and getting multiple picks, you may end up with more value.

00:18:23
Speaker 1: That's one of the things I was going to ask you, James, you've been doing this for a long time. How does this FYI PD list compare to you to other years?

00:18:33
Speaker 5: It's not as exciting to me at the very top, but I just love like players, you know, like seven, eight through 40, basically on my, my FYPD rankings. Like, I just think it's so loaded with talent in that range. So loaded with upside and sleepers who aren't really going to stay sleepers that much longer. But like that to me is, is the great spot of this class is kind of that second round, third round of your FYPDs.

00:18:59
Speaker 4: I think we've seen better classes at the top.

00:19:03
Speaker 1: So do we have one question that was directly asked to James that we're going to tee up before we get to more questions in the third block? But this question is James asking, if 2026 international signees, excluding the Japanese signees, were included in the FYPD, how high would, that's Luis Hernandez, Anhebel Gomez, and Ricky Moniz go if mixed in with the July strategy?

00:19:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love this question.

00:19:26
Speaker 5: Anibal Gomez would be number one for me, potentially in his own tier. I think he's got the most obvious superstar upside of any of the players we're talking about. And then Luis Hernandez, I think, would be kind of at the top of that second tier. Really high floor player, some similarities to Rock a little bit, but I think I'd have Hernandez at the top. of tier two and then ricky monies i think fits really nicely in tier three a bunch of other upside short stops with with power and speed and you know we'll see how much they hit i think monies fits great in that that tier three range.

00:20:04
Speaker 1: Well that is our look at the New at Baseball America, top 100 FYPD rankings. James Anderson done. Going to be a ton more fantasy content all through the offseason. We're excited about rolling through it all and exciting the conversation we're already having with James about this. Now we're going to head to On Deck presented by Fox One. As you know, the baseball playoffs have begun and Fox 1, as you covered, all postseason long. More on Fox 1 in a minute. But we've got a postseason, a playoff question. So C Carrera 951 asks, if a player becomes injured on a postseason roster, can a ball club claw down and bring up a prospect midway through the postseason to replace? Absolutely, they can. And I'll explain this. I'll go back and say like the example of this that first stood out to me, you have to go all the way back to 2002 because Francisco Rodriguez, K-Rod was at that time, basically a young promising pitcher. Angels had an injury. Boom. They get, I should explain. You apply. If it's not on the 40 man roster, if you have an injury, you have to appeal to major league baseball to replace them with someone who was also, who was already in your organization and, as of September 1st, you know, and all that. It's hard to ever remember Major League Baseball ever saying no on that. The other one I'd say is probably the most prominent one. Do you remember there was a time where Adalbert Mondesi was a top prospect for the Royals, had a lot of injuries, never really put it all together, although he did have some big league success. But he made his debut, his debut. MLB debut in the World Series because of exactly something like this, where there was a roster opening. I can't remember if it was an injury or it may have been a paternity leave, but there was an opening for the Royals during the World Series. They brought up Mondesi, added him to the roster in the World Series. So absolutely, while we have some prospects already on postseason rosters, if there's an injury, there's always a chance that we could see someone else added down the road. And who knows? You know, what is that player? I'll tell you right now, didn't make this roster right now, but Kane Kepley with the Cubs had the best stolen base success rate in the minors we've seen for a guy with 70 or more steals, basically, that we can find. So if the Cubs needed a pinch runner at some point, a defensive replacement, obviously got PCA right now. That'd be a name to remember, even though it'd be a little bit fast to move him up onto the roster. But that is our look at the playoffs presented by Fox 1. MLB on Fox is streaming on Fox One, the postseason tier, and you can have your front row seat to the wildest walk-offs, lights out pitching, and collect plays all playoffs long. Stream each NLDS and LCS game, then the 2026 World Series live on Fox One. At home or on the go, live or on demand, never miss a moment. Stream now. Start your Fox One three-day free trial today at foxone.com. Thank you for that. And let's keep going with some more questions. We've got a couple more questions here, I think, off the top, which is, yeah. So I like this one also. Jeff, I will tee you up first on this. A prospect most deserving of a call-up that never materialized in 2026.

00:23:20
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's probably, like just from a deserving standpoint, Franklin Arias had a phenomenal year. I think you can argue that You know, he's better than Andrew Monasterio, who's on the playoff roster for the Red Sox. Yeah, I would put it behind Franklin Arias because I think he can play three different positions in the infield and add value and maybe.

00:23:43
Speaker 2: An upgrade defensively over some of the other guys.

00:23:46
Speaker 3: And I think offensively, you know, obviously, I think passes the smell test with power on base ability, great bats of ball skills, doesn't strike out a lot. Like he's not going to embarrass you in a big moment in a playoff game.

00:24:00
Speaker 1: James, anyone come to mind for you?

00:24:02
Speaker 4: Yeah. Uh, how about Ralphie Velasquez with the guardians?

00:24:05
Speaker 5: Uh, definitely not someone I expected them to call up because they don't have to make the 40 man call on him anytime soon. But I mean, he spent almost the whole year at triple a, uh, obviously went back to double a for a few weeks to master that level first and didn't get off to the greatest start at triple a, but I think just the fact that he really rounded into form and finished the year really strong. I think he mastered triple a and, uh, understandable like i said that the guardians aren't going to add him to the 40 man at this point but i do think he he would have deserved to be added.

00:24:37
Speaker 1: I'll add one more um again i understand it charlie condon didn't get called up because he doesn't need to be added to the 40 man roster 40 man roster positions spots are valuable i feel very comfortable saying though that if charlie condon needed to be added to the 40 man roster he probably would have been brought up for the rockies had a solid very solid year i would say in triple a in the pcl Stayed healthy, very importantly. Had a nice little finish to the season as far as power. You know, obviously there's a lot of other guys that we just talked about, Ronnie Rodriguez and Andrew Fischer and the great years they had. I will say in both of those cases, like, again, don't have to be out of the 40, man, but also you kind of need that roster spot, you know, explanation. Like in Ronnie Rodriguez's case, as good as he is, they just were kind of handing Leo Bernal the job to kind of see if he could do it at catcher. They have Yvonne Herrera, who's kind of catching DHing. They had Pedro Pajes as well. They'd had Jimmy Crooks up. It takes time. Wait a little while on that. Andrew Fisher, he's just not going to play for a team that has really one of the better first base platoons out there between Jake Bowers and Andrew Vaughn. So you put that all together, I would say those are three guys who are good ones to watch, kind of useful ones to kind of keep an eye on. For 2027, all three of those guys should be up before long. That was the Baseball America Hot Sheet Show. James, thanks for joining us. First time won't be the last time. For James, for Jeff, I'm JJ. Remember, like, share this video, subscribe, and we'll be back next week, another Hot Sheet Live show here at Baseball America. We'll be right back.