00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, everybody. J.J. Cooper, Jacob Rudner, Carlos Collazo, Baseball America Draft Podcast. And we've got a fun one this week because we've got something really fun coming next week. You don't want to hear about this from me. Carlos is the one who's doing the bulk of the work for this. Not that we're all not trying to contribute. But, Carlos, what do we have coming next week and why does that influence what we're doing on the podcast this week?

00:00:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, so next week we have our first significant update of the draft board for the 2027 class. And this marks our first real update for the class while we're in the draft cycle. We obviously had a pretty up-to-date board coming into the summer, but a lot has changed. And we've spent the last few weeks and months watching players, talking to scouts about players, trying to pick apart how the board is lining up, trying to keep track of the players moving up and down the board. And I'll say through the course of that reporting, what really stands out is There's no clear top overall prospect in this year's class like we had a year ago with UCLA shortstop Rock Cholowski. It feels like there is a group of four players who most people have at the top. And then among those four players, you can sort of make a case for whoever you're most interested in. And those four players in no particular order right now are top four players on the board. Dylan Seward, the high school shortstop out of California. Thomas Valencus, the left-handed pitcher out of Mississippi State. Brennan Lawson, shortstop. at Florida, and then Dax Whitney, the right-handed pitcher out of Oregon State. I think all four of those players are kind of the top tier. And so I thought it would be really interesting today to try and make the case for one of those players and see which is the most compelling for us. I feel like this is a conversation a lot of teams, especially teams who might have a chance to pick at the top of the board, are going to be having. So that's kind of the state of the top of the class as we see it right now, J.J.

00:01:51
Speaker 1: So before we get to kind of making the cases, let's talk a little bit about what we've got coming next week. When you say like a significant update. So we had a, we rolled it out like we've had rankings before, but we rolled out an update kind of coming into the summer. A lot has happened since then. So what is kind of feeding into kind of this rankings update for next week?

00:02:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we talk every year about how important the summer circuit is for high school players, for college players. And really it's just, Scouts are, this update comes after scouts have had their first chance to really sink their teeth and focus on this class. Our previous updates on the 2027 class are largely driven by the work Ben is doing on the underclass side. So he's focusing on those underclass players. He's talking to a lot of scouts who've seen these players and have evaluated them. But to that point, their main focus was on the 2026 class. Everyone's lens has shifted. Their focus has shifted to 2027. So we're getting a lot more feedback from the scouting industry on the class. We're also seeing players pop up on the circuit who maybe didn't enter the year as favorites to be in the top 30, top 50. Players who we expected to be in that range have struggled. So we're seeing just the natural evolution and cadence of a draft class here. For the high school side, it's tournaments and showcases like the area code games that Jacob was at, the East Coast Pro that I was at. All-America games like baseball factories, All-America game that me and JJ both saw. Jacob just came back from Jupiter, which is one of the biggest travel ball tournaments on the high school side. On the college end, we have the Cape Cod League. We have Team USA. We've got a bunch of other college summer leagues. We're getting information from college baseball's fall schedule already. So all of that information, everything we're seeing from players on the field, what we're hearing off the field, how they're developing, that's all kind of the information that's driving this update. So it's our first really significant update. We're trying to capture a lot of that movement and really get ourselves set up for our top 200 list that always drops right before the spring season starts next year. And I'm really excited because there's a lot of movement. The earlier we are in the process, I feel like the more movement we get on any given list because we're all kind of discovering these classes. And so far, it's been a very fun class to cover. I think there's a lot of depth. There's a lot of players that are really difficult to separate, which is fun from a coverage perspective. And I'm sure it'll make for a lot of interesting conversations on who values what player and how you line them up.

00:04:16
Speaker 1: Jacob, I did want to also rope in, we talked about like, I would say, and either I'll feel free to disagree with me, but the high school side, it's even more important this summer than it is on the college side. Obviously on the college side, we do have Cape, we have USA Baseball, we have other summer leagues, but there's also a lot of guys on the college side who it's like, so what did they do this summer? They trained, you know, and it's like, okay, Probably not moving a lot of rankings around because so-and-so was really getting after it in the weight room. We'll see in fall ball. We'll see during the season. On the college side, though, Jacob, since you focus a lot on that, although, like I said, you were at some key high school events this summer as well. But on the college side, how much does get done? How much of significance happens during the summer? Or is it more of kind of a prep for what we're hearing now in fall and then obviously going into the season?

00:05:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of funny, actually. I was talking with a scout when I was in Jupiter just about the nature of how we evaluate the summer between the two levels and wood bat performance and some of the things that we put weight in. And I think that on the high school side, like Carlos just talked about, there is a lot put on how players perform over the summer, what they do with wood. That will kind of set the tone for the rest of the year. Whereas with the college side, especially with the bats, I think that you can kind of go out there and have a pretty mediocre looking summer and everybody will be willing to overlook it. If you're going to go out there in the spring and show off that you are, you know, a ready, let's say, first round talent, like somebody is not going to fall out of the first round based on poor summer league performance. And conversely, I think that, you know, the gains that we hear about over the summer are equally kind of nothing to us. Like, it's good to know we bank that information. And obviously, we're compiling these things. to be able to create the best and most accurate rankings that we can. But at the end of the day, I don't know that you're going to see somebody fly up the board because we hear that they've had gains in the weight room or somebody's going to fly up the board because they're 10 or 15 pounds heavier. Like, for example, Matt Einick, who is the shortstop at West Virginia, is an early round hopeful, somebody who's going to be, I think, prominent in our next rankings update. According to his head coach, he's gained 10 to 15 pounds and is hitting the ball a lot harder. You're going to see some of that throughout the fall. I think that that will kind of be clear based on his performance in exhibitions and scrimmages. But at the end of the day, he has to go and do it in the spring. So you can't put too much stock on the summer on the college side. It is kind of all just more throw it into the information bank and see what happens.

00:06:45
Speaker 1: Okay, that's laid the stage for this. What we're going to do, the way that Carlos put this together, which I think is a great idea, Each of us is going to serve as essentially the advocate for a case for one of these players to go 1-1. And so that person's job is not to lay out the pluses and minuses. The person presenting is going to lay out the case at 1. And then the other two will bring up, will have a discussion, kind of not poking holes in the player, but bringing up some of the concerns. Why someone else could go 1-1. Think of this as like what kind of an org would do as they're trying to line this up. We're going to lay out the pluses and then we're going to lay out the minuses. And the key part of this, and Carlos, before we dive into this, I will go back to you one more time. You emphasized, this is not a year. If we were doing this last year, it would be like we talk about Rock and then we talk about Grady Emerson and then we could talk about some others, but it'd be like, but realistically, they're probably not going to go one-one. This is a year where I would say that The players we are talking about, if it's very early, all have a slam dunk legitimate case. We're not forcing anyone here, are we?

00:08:04
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. And this is why I think the conversation is fun because I try and get an idea. Ideally, every year, I'd love to have a very clear understanding. Okay, this player is number one. This player is definitely number two. This player is definitely number three. Sometimes we have that clear cut 1-1. Sometimes there's a clear top tier like Rock and Grady seem to be a clear top tier. Last year, other years, we get just more of a muddled class or the mixed group that'll have three to six, sometimes seven players who are in the mix. I think at this stage in the calendar, on this stage in the draft board, we do have a muddled group of four players, all have convincing cases, all have the tools and the sort of profiles that you could see being the first overall pick. And so that might come down to what these players do next spring. Some players are surely going to take a step forward. Maybe some players take a step backward. But as we're looking at the class now, evaluating the profile, seeing all the information we have, I just think it's a muddled group at this stage. And so I'm hopeful that this exercise will, I don't know if it'll shed any clarity because I think everyone's having these conversations, but it will at least give you an idea of what you might be thinking about for these players. Which case are you most compelled by? Maybe we all are leaning in one direction entering this conversation and we'll shift our opinions after the conversation, depending on how convincingly we can each make the case for these players. But I do think these are the sort of conversations that teams are going to be having and have had for the last few weeks and months.

00:09:27
Speaker 3: Okay.

00:09:28
Speaker 1: The preamble is over. When we come back from the break, I'll be making the case for why Dylan Seward, the prep shortstop, should be the number one pick.

00:09:38
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00:10:41
Speaker 3: And we're back.

00:10:43
Speaker 2: Okay.

00:10:44
Speaker 1: I've got the fortunate opportunity to present the case for Dylan Seward as the number one pick, the case that him, the number one prospect for the 2027 draft. And I sign me up for this because when you talk about Seward, you are talking about the toolsiest player among this group. Now, when we talk about tools here, the thing we have to start with is it's AD speed. It's top of the, it is top tier speed. It is top of the scale and it plays. It's not something where you go, this guy is a burner. When you put them in a, you know, run a 60, but when you get into the game, it doesn't really play. He is a switch hitter who could just play a small ball game and could be effective doing that because he puts real pressure on infields with his ability. He could just drop bunts and beat them out from the left-hand batter's box because he can do that. When he's on the base pass, he is an excellent base dealer. Now, I'm not going to tell you that every high school pitcher holding him is the best guy at getting home in 1-2. I'm not going to tell you that they got the best pickoff moves. But I am going to tell you this. This last summer in major events, he tried 29 steals. He stole bases 28 of those 29 times.

00:12:06
Speaker 3: He got thrown out once.

00:12:07
Speaker 1: I want to give Broder Katke a lot of credit. A 1-7-6 pop. where he basically, not just a 176 pop, but the throw kind of tailed a little bit to the first base side of the bag that basically led the shortstop into the tag, and he just got him. That's the one time he's been thrown out this past summer. And by the way, if you go back for the past three summers on the showcase circuit, he is, I have it here, 41 of 43. It is base stealing that really does play. But obviously, you're not going to take a guy 1-1, just because he's a top-of-the-scale runner. There are top-of-the-scale runners who will go in the 15th round. But in Seward's case, you were talking about that, that's from a true shortstop. It's from someone who's a legitimate shortstop, who has the actions, who has the athleticism, who has that twitchiness that you want to see in a shortstop.

00:13:00
Speaker 4: And then.

00:13:01
Speaker 1: On top of that, you add to it that he's a switch hitter who's a legitimate switch hitter. This is not someone who's trying to figure out how to bat lefty so that he can add a little bit of versatility. It's a true switch hitter. And I think the thing that kind of gets almost maybe underappreciated with him is he's not big. He's not huge. He's not small. He's six foot 175 right now. There'll be more coming there weight-wise, I would say, down the road. But there's real power here too. He does hit the ball legitimately hard. This is not something where you say he's a 30-power guy now who down the road you hope can get to a 45 or a 50. This is someone who you see the EVs right now. They're actually better EVs in a lot of cases than Grady Emerson's were at this time last year. So even though Grady Emerson may have kind of the more traditional what you expect to see, But you're seeing from him, from Dylan Seward, that kind of power as well. And I do want to talk about the athleticism. The case for him to me really at the top of this class is the athleticism and how it plays in multiple ways. Because when we talk about that kind of profile, that is a profile for some of the best shortstops and some of the best players in the game. If you say, describe for me an 80-grade runner who's a premium athlete who plays shortstop and can stick there, and your biggest question on him, because I know that when they start talking about it, everyone's going to say, well, how good's the hit tool? How good's the hit tool? I'm going to preempt that and make the point. That's the question we always have with these guys. A couple of years ago, Connor Griffin was an 80-grade runner, premium athlete, who was thought to be a shortstop, gold glove shortstop candidate, or a gold glove center field candidate. When he was going into the draft, it was like, well, how good is the hit tool? The hit tool's developed into a really good hit tool. Bobby Witt Jr., who's now basically one of the five best players in the game, when he was coming up through high school, the tools were very loud. The tools were exceptional. I will say Dylan Stewart does not have Bobby Witt Jr. 's body, and he doesn't have his arm. 80-grade runner, premium athlete. And the questions were, how good is the hit tool? How good is the hit tool? The hit tools ended up being that he battles for batting titles, not something that's just even like it got to adequate. And on top of that, you will also hear a lot of times with these guys, how good is he at shortstop? How good is he going to be at shortstop? We heard that with Griffin. Is he going to be a center fielder? We heard that with Witt. Witt in his first year in the big leagues was a below-average defender. When you have tools like this, it gives you exceptional ability to develop range, to have kind of a tool set, to have a higher ceiling as a defender than most players. I want to bring another guy in here, Elie de la Cruz, 80 runner, who, by the way, when he was coming up through the minors as a teenager, the question was, how good's the hit tool? How good's the hit tool? The hit tools ended up being fine. There's real power there. And by the way, Elie de la Cruz has turned into a plus defender at shortstop as well. If we're going, you know, like drawing it a little bit wider, Trey Turner, 80-grade runner, premium athlete. Is he going to be able to stick at shortstop coming up? He's so small. Is he going to be that guy or is he going to have to play second? He's going to have to play short. I mean, he's going to be able to play short. He's going to have to play center. Trey Turner ended up being a very productive shortstop. Yes, he's nearing the tail end of his career. But the athleticism, the speed is played for a very long time. and shown why you want to get premium athletes at premium positions at the top of the draft. That's the case I have. For Dylan Seward, 1-1 pick in 2027.

00:16:33
Speaker 2: Well done. Well done, JJ. I like that case. But I don't know if you have questions, Jacob. I have some questions. Okay.

00:16:41
Speaker 3: So kick us off.

00:16:43
Speaker 2: I guess my first question is, how confident are we really in someone's hit tool when he swung and missed as much as Dylan Seward did this summer. You mentioned guys like Connor Griffin, Bobby Witt Jr. You brought in Grady Emerson. I think even you would admit that Grady Emerson's hit tool is a little bit more advanced. But when you look at, and specifically the number I'm curious about, Grady Emerson missed fastballs 19% of the time during his summer, basically his entire year prior season. to his draft year. Connor Griffin, who you also mentioned, who I think had far bigger hit questions than Grady Emerson, maybe far bigger hit questions than Dylan Seward has right now. He missed fastballs just 14% of the time. So I think for both those players, there's a significantly greater quality of just pure bat to ball skills that I'm not sure how much you can improve or train at the next level. Whereas Dylan Seward this summer, He missed 30% of the time against fastballs. I'll just bring in another player who's super toolsy, super athletic, who has real hit tool questions, Jacob Lombard. He had a miss rate north of 30% against fastballs during his year as well. And I do think I agree with you on basically all the athleticism and the tool set. But there is just a level of bat to ball concern that I would have with Dylan Seward. that I maybe wasn't expecting to have entering the year. Jacob, I'll throw it to you if you have any other questions or want to drill down on this.

00:18:16
Speaker 3: You kind of stole the words out of my mouth. I saw Dylan Seward at Area Code Games, and I thought that one of the biggest and most apparent takeaways was that guys that were able to ride the top rail with good fastballs were able to beat him consistently. We saw it multiple times. There were a number of bat-at-bats in Long Beach from Dylan Seward in which he purely got bested by velocity. And I think that the concern for me was also that it didn't really become sequence dependent. What do I mean by that? He wasn't getting put away by fastballs at the end of at bats where somebody was able to crank one up and throw their best heater by him. We saw it early in counts. We saw hitters attack him with fastballs in disadvantage counts, in advantage counts. And as Carlos pointed out, there was a very high rate of success. That 30% number is probably the most glaring thing for me negatively within the profile. Otherwise, I, like Carlos said, completely agree with you.

00:19:08
Speaker 2: The other question I would have, if you want to respond to this.

00:19:11
Speaker 1: No, no, I would say y'all get all of them out, and then we'll do it where the defender gets to make one rebuttal, and then we'll.

00:19:17
Speaker 2: Move on to the next one. For sure. The other thing that stands out to me about Dylan Seward, especially compared to some of the players that you brought up for him, even I would include Grady Emerson, but especially Connor Griffin and Bobby Witt Jr., I do not know that I've seen a top-of-the-class hitter As small and lean as Dylan Seward in recent years. So that would be a question for me as well. He does not have the sort of physical engine that a Bobby Witt Jr. or a Connor Griffin had at the same stage. To me, there are a lot of similarities with him with Bryce Terang in terms of his size and in terms of the summer performance. And we all saw what happened with Bryce Terang. He slipped down the boards. He didn't go 1-1 in part because of those summer struggles. So I think there are some questions with the miss and And with just the frame, those would be my two big questions for Dylan Stewart. Otherwise, I don't know that I can pick too many holes in an impressive profile. Jacob, I'll throw it to you in case you have any other questions or concerns, and then we'll let JJ get his rebuttal.

00:20:22
Speaker 3: No, JJ, why don't you go for it?

00:20:24
Speaker 1: Okay. Bryce Terang, you bring up a perfect example here because Bryce Terang is to me an example of how don't fall into this trap. This is a trap. Bryce Terang, everyone, I went back and read all the notes that we had from Bryce Terang's year and from Bobby Witt Jr.

00:20:40
Speaker 2: 's year.

00:20:40
Speaker 1: And Bryce Terang is like, he's just not hitting. I don't know how much he hit, their physicality. Is this guy ever going to really hit for power? If we were doing that over, Bryce Terang, what happens with these guys who are the premium guy at the top of the class is understandably, and it's the process as it should be, they get picked apart, right? They get picked apart in a way that someone who was not nearly on the radar never gets the chance to. Bryce Terang was picked apart Bryce Terang in that year was like, I don't know if it's Matt McClain or Bryce Terang, who's the best high school middle infielder in California. And if we look back on it, it's like Bryce Terang should have gone 1-1 or 1-2 or 1-3 at worst. That's a guy who has had basically now is a consistent five plus war player. Yes, he does play second base, but if you're going to be gold glove second baseman, and by the way, he is a very good physical match. Terang's now 6'1, 90. And I think one of the things I will never forget is seeing him at the Midwest League All-Star game a couple of years after seeing him for multiple years on the high school circuit. And you could just see it's like, oh, he has shoulders now that he did not have. He didn't get any taller, but he got wider. I do think that Dylan Seward kind of fits into that body type. And that body type we know can be a five-war-plus player. The advantage he has is obviously, I would say that hurts him and gets picked apart a little bit now that could help him in the longterm is the switch hitting. I don't disagree with you all. He is, has some problems right now with elevated fastballs. It is pretty apparent when you see that, especially I would say, I would just point out though, that he is getting the best of everyone. Like everyone knows, even in a stacked lineup, the guy, no pitcher wants to get beat by, especially because you know, also if he reaches first base, He's going to probably steal second and steal your soul like when he stole home against one of his teammates, high school teammates in USA Baseball. He's going to dominate the game. When we talk about picked apart, the one other thing about this profile, we saw this with Witt, we saw this with Terang, we've seen this multiple occasions. Dylan Seward was a 268, 419, 4A, 408 hitter on the summer circuit this year as the major events that we have on Synergy. The year before, he was 346, 527, 712. Now, again, that's fewer events the year before. I'm not going to say that that is the equivalent of a one-to-one comparison, but we are talking about small samples here still, even on the summer circuit, where if you want to ding him a little bit for that, okay, and I don't disagree with it, what that means is if the hit tool concerns are the question, I think that that kind of lowers his ceiling, but then you're still going to be talking about, and we had notes about Terang back in 2018, making the same point. Hey, maybe there are hit tool concerns. Maybe he isn't a shortstop long-term, but there's enough here that he's going to be a three-war player, even if we kind of are a little bit overheated on some of these things. I think that fits very well with Seward where your fallback position, even kind of in I wouldn't say worst case scenarios, but in, oh, we're overheating everything other than the speed because it's hard to miss a grade on speed unless he slows down. If everything, if we take everything, we bring it back a notch, even let's say he's not as good as shortstop, because there is a little bit of accuracy problems with his throwing at times too. Even if that's the case, it's going to be a premium up the middle defender who's a weapon on the base pass, who's going to draw walks, who's a switch hitter, who means that he's not really going to have platoon issues at all. And then you say, okay, so maybe he's a two to four war player a year rather than a four to six war player a year or beyond that. Still a guy that if you end up that at 1-1, you feel pretty good about it. And I would just wrap up by saying, we don't see many players with this profile in drafts. Like there are years we just don't have any of these on the high school side. I would say that the years we do, they go very well. And usually the teams that take them don't end up regretting it. So, That is our case for Dylan Seward at 1-1. We're going to take another break, but when we come back, Carlos will make the case for Mississippi State left-hander Thomas Valenches. I've just pronounced that wrong. Thomas Valenches at 1-1. We'll do that right after this break.

00:25:08
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00:26:53
Speaker 1: So, Carlos, you now have the floor to make the case for the most prominent, successful... Healthy, keep note there, college pitcher in this year's class.

00:27:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is going to be a pretty easy case to make, you guys, because while I love high school shortstops, I think what Thomas Valencus offers is maybe even more rare and maybe even more impactful than a potential franchise shortstop, and that is a top-of-the-rotation impact left-handed pitcher. And that's what Thomas Valenka is. It is exceedingly rare to have a profile like his at the top of the class in this cycle. And I think I'm going to make the case that he is the best college left-handed pitcher at this stage we've seen since David Price all the way back in 2007, who I will note did go first overall and is a Cy Young winner. Nobody's regretting that choice at the top of the board. But Thomas Valenka has this exceptionally impressive combination of impact stuff coming out of his hand, a proven track record in college against high-quality competition, a proven durability with few injury question marks dating back to his high school years, tremendous command, and a deep arsenal to the point where there are really few holes that I can even think of to pick apart. If we're just looking at him compared to all of our three top pitchers from a year ago, Jackson Flora, Liam Peterson, Cameron Fluky, I think he's well ahead of that trio. If we're going to compare him to Cade Anderson, who is the most recent top-of-the-class left-handed pitcher who's gone in this range, I think there are a number of reasons why you would prefer him at this stage to Cade throughout his college career. Already at this point, heading into his draft year, Valenka has more innings, he has more starts, he has a better walk rate, he has a better strikeout-to-walk ratio, he has better fastball velocity. Cade Anderson is who was just our minor league pitcher of the year, had one of the best minor league pitching seasons we've ever had, was lauded for his ability to spin the baseball. Thomas Valenka has a slider that had a 48% miss rate last year compared to Kate Anderson's 31%. I think you could make a case that it's the best college left-handed breaking ball since Carlos Rodon in 2014. And compared to Rodon, Thomas Valenka has a better fastball at the same stage, a deeper arsenal. far more command I pulled up a list of all of the top 10 college pitchers left-handed who've gone inside yeah inside the top 10 picks dating back to David Price who I think is the one player that you could point to and say is equivalent or better Cade Anderson in 2025. I think Valenka has more power, more durability, better strikes, and a better track record at the same stage. Hagen Smith. Far more strikes and a more complete arsenal in 2024 than Hagen Smith. Ace Alassie in 2020. Same deal. More strikes, deeper arsenal, more power than Nicola Dolo in 2019. AJ Puck, Carlos Rodon, I think those are two of the other players you could maybe bring up and say they compare nicely. Valenka right now has a deeper arsenal, a more consistent slider, fewer health and makeup questions than Puck did. And like I mentioned previously, he's got a better fastball with a deeper arsenal and better command than Carlos Rodon. I'll just right now set the stage for the actual stuff that Valenka has because I don't know that I've really mentioned it. But he's sitting 94, 95 miles per hour with his fastball. This is a pitch he throws regularly. for tremendous strikes. The strike rate is better than what we saw from Kate Anderson. He can align that pitch to both sides of the plate. His slider is at least a 70-grade breaking ball. I wouldn't be surprised if people put 80s on it with how effective it is, with the power that it has, its effectiveness against left-handed pitchers and right-handed pitchers. And I think the real separator for Valenka is the changeup. Often we see left-handed pitchers at this level don't use the changeup as often. These power arms, I should say, Thomas Valenka might have a plus changeup. He's confident. He lands it for strikes. He had more swing and miss with that pitch than Kate Anderson a year ago. I'm bringing up Kate Anderson because he's the most recent comp. The other thing that I really love about Thomas Valenka is his natural velocity development. He wasn't the biggest hard-throwing pitcher in high school. He touched 94. I think it's a very traditional sort of velocity trajectory. He's now sitting over that range, getting into the upper 90s with ease. There are no health issues to speak of. There are no makeup concerns to speak of. He's excelled at every level, high school, at Virginia, at Mississippi State, where he's the best pitcher on an absolutely loaded pitching staff. Team USA, where he's the best player overall on a team of the best players in the country. He starts the gold medal game against Japan, where he threw four shutout innings, six strikeouts, and one walk. I think his resume, his track record is unimpeachable to me. He does everything you want for a starting pitcher to do. The only thing he has to do next year is just keep being the same guy he's already been. Um, I think the one obvious area where people will go to maybe pick apart Thomas Valenka is his fastball shape. And I'll preempt that because I think his fastball has been entirely effective. And I will remind everyone, Paul Skeen's fastball shape at the same time in college got criticized by all sorts of analysts. But I think the separator is when you have power and you have command, which is what Thomas Valenka has and, You can get away with sub-ideal fastball shape, especially when you have present pluses with a slider, with a changeup like he has. And I'll also say, if you look at Thomas Valencus throwing his fastball middle-middle last season, the effectiveness of that pitch, located where you probably don't want to throw it, I just have the numbers up here now. This is my final point, and then I'll let you guys get in here. His fastball middle-middle opposing batters hit 470, an OPS of 470 last year. So if that's the fastball shape we're going to get concerned about, I have no issues with it at all. I'll rest my case for Thomas Velinkas. I think you want an ace. You want a left-handed pitcher. You got a chance to get that here with Thomas Velinkas.

00:33:08
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll make a quick and then I'll kick it over to Jacob to really kind of tear this apart. But a very good case. And look, No one's going to argue that he should not go near the very top of this draft class, right? I think the track record for lefties with this kind of stuff and track record performance is quite good at the top of the class. He is a pitcher. I know he hasn't had injury problems yet, but with the pitcher, you always have to worry, is that going to be like what the case very well, I don't want this to happen for him, but the case very well could be derailed by If he just goes out there this spring, we see it with the guy that we're not going to talk as much. We'll cover him at the end. But if we were talking about Dax Whitney at this time last year, we would be talking about that's the clear 1-1 candidate. And all it takes is one injury and all of a sudden it all derails. Again, when you talk about, I would say that the stuff, the track record, it's all really good. But if I can have, if I'm going to get seven years of a guy, if I can have the position player who I feel really good about for seven years, I'm probably going to edge up taking that over the position or the picture just because of the injury risk. But again, great case, great candidate, but Jacob, what are your concerns?

00:34:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, let me, I think it's very important to start this by saying that I, I don't think that this is a terribly impeachable case. Like I really do believe that Tomas Valenka has a strong case to go one, one. And I think that some of the things that Carlos said about, to like nullify potential concerns, erase a lot of the questions that I could drum up. The one thing as I was digging in and preparing for the show that I think stands out to me is that if you go back, summer circuit, summer ball as a college player, college player during the regular season, even with a fastball shape that has not been hit hard, it has been hit onto the ground a lot. It induces a ton of bad contact, but the reality is it does not miss bats. It has never missed. missed bats. Last season, his fastball ran a miss rate of, hold on, I just had it up, a miss rate of 14%. It's low. And so I would wonder if a guy who's going to go into pro ball with a fastball that has zero track record of beating bats is going to be able to be successful in a fastball-dominated industry. He is going to have to find a way, in my opinion, to miss some bats with his heater. Now, I also will recognize that his off-speed pitches do plenty good in making up for that. I think that you lose some of the percentage on the fastball, and you more than gain it on his slider and changeup. But again, and I'll throw it back to Carlos here, I think it's fair to wonder if a fastball that finds wood, as much as his seemingly will, is something that should slow you down? Is that a drag on the profile a little bit? Because some other players who pitchers who find themselves at the top of the board, very simply will get by bats more than Tomas Valenka does.

00:36:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the fastball shape is really the one, the one clear area that people can point to an attack. So what I would say to go against it is I think the fastball for Valenka is the foundational piece that really sets everything up in his arsenal. And I would be concerned if Valenka has had trouble generating whiffs overall. He doesn't have to use the fastball as a put away pitch. And as you mentioned, Jacob, um, the fastball that he does have drives a ton of ground balls. And I would say, if you don't have a fastball, that's a heavy swing and miss pitch. Ideally, I would like that pitch to put a lot of weak contact on the ground. And he does have a 60% ground ball. with his fastball. I also think the other element is if you're not getting a ton of miss with your fastball, you really want to throw a lot of strikes with it and have impressive command with that pitch. He does. He has better command of his fastball and just better control overall than most of the college left-handed pitchers we're talking about at the top of the board here. I think his command is probably going to stack up with every player in this class, period. And I'll also say too, we have seen fastballs as a percentage of pitch arsenals decrease at the major league level. I think it is more important to have once, once we've got the, we've established the velocity here to kind of set things up. We're seeing pitchers throw more sliders than ever before. That might be his best offering. He has a quality secondary he can go to. I also think just fastball shape is something that teams have shown a great ability to kind of figure out mix and match and fine tune at the next level. So if there was an area where I had a pitcher that, limited, fastball shape might be the element that I would pick just because if he didn't have a breaking ball, a lot harder for a pitcher to just develop feel for spin maybe than a fastball shape. So I think it's a worthwhile critique, one of the only ones you can find, but ultimately because of everything else he does well, I'm not too concerned with it.

00:37:56
Speaker 1: That was a pretty good case. We have one more here, which is after the break, Jacob will make the case for Florida shortstop Brendan Lawson. We'll be right back. Jacob, you have the floor. Brendan Lawson, why should he go 1-1?

00:38:14
Speaker 3: Well, I think that this comes down to whether or not you want to invest in the best hit power combo in this class. Brendan Lawson, throughout his collegiate career, we have seen that he has a tremendous ability to not only launch the baseball, but to make contact at a much higher rate than some of these other major power profiles. Over the course of the last several years when we have had these conversations, we've On BA Podcast's Ad Nauseam, there are a lot of guys that come out of the college demographic with tremendous power or that will show tremendous power with a metal bat and you can fairly wonder whether or not that player is going to have a strong enough hit tool. to be able to withstand the rigors of pro ball while still being able to show that top end power. I think that Brendan Lawson is the prospect in this class where you can feel pretty bulletproof about whether or not he's going to be able to do that. Last year, he ran an 81% overall contact rate, an 88% zone contact rate, all while posting a 96 mile per hour average exit velocity and a 111 mile per hour 90th. This is somebody who tears the cover off of the baseball and not just hits it hard. So I think that that's kind of the foundation of Brendan Lawson's profile, is that there's a hit tool, there's tremendous power.

00:39:28
Speaker 1: I think.

00:39:30
Speaker 3: like Carlos just did, I will get ahead of the one concern, and that is the defense. Right now, as Carlos and you have said, he's listed as Florida's shortstop. I don't know that there is anybody in the amateur space that will look you in the eyes and tell you that they believe that he will stick there. The footwork is not there. The arm is not necessarily there. The overall internal clock is not necessarily there. However, if you have conversations with people throughout the space, I think one thing that they'll tell you has become more prevalent in the last couple of years. is there are just prospects that are built to go play batter's box. And I think that in Brendan Lawson, you are effectively getting the best player in this class in that category. One other thing I'll add, last year was a tremendous year for Lawson. I would say that it was kind of the coming out party, despite his freshman year being very successful. All of the numbers that I just read were impressive. And that was all while he was dealing with a health issue that had nothing to do with his baseball career. Not injury related. He was battling some sort of health problem that he's had dating back to high school. In his draft season coming out of the state of Florida, he was dealing with, I believe it was a sinus problem that required surgery. And I know, I was just in Gainesville prior to Juper and actually had a conversation with Lawson about it, that he is now on a regimented program that has gotten him to a point where he feels as good as he's ever felt. So it begs the question, will we see another level to Brendan Lawson who doesn't have to combat some things going on off the field? And again, I think you're buying the best hit power combo in the class, and that's a tough one to poke a hole in. So if you want to nitpick on defense, fine and go for it. But I don't think that that's the center point of this profile or why he would go 1-1 if that's the decision that a team makes.

00:41:07
Speaker 1: Can I start?

00:41:08
Speaker 2: A great case, Jacob. Yeah, you can go ahead, JJ. I'll happily go after you.

00:41:14
Speaker 1: We had a situation like this a couple of years ago. Travis Bazzana and JJ Weatherholt were the two top guys at the top of the class, I would say, on the college mid-infielder side. And everyone agreed that Weatherholt was a better defender. and that Bazana might have a little bit more power, a little bit more, I wouldn't say better bat, more power. I would say if we could do it over again, both of them are very good players. I don't think either team is like, oh, how dare we have done what we did. But I think you see that the defensive value of Weatherholt, the ability to play a gold glove caliber level defense at second and be a legitimate backup at shortstop when Mason Wynn has been injured, gives him more upside, more value. Lawson is a very good prospect. But if we're talking about he's a hitter and we're going to like Chris Akopian, a better version of Chris Akopian last year, we were saying he's a hitter and now we're going to figure out where he's going to play. Like Ace Reese last year. He's a hitter. Do we think he's going to third base? Probably not, but we'll see where he's going to play. Those are going to end up being very good picks. But at the top, top of this class, when you are trying to find the one, one guy, that defensive value may be the differentiator between the guy and who ends up being a very solid pick and the one who ends up being an even better pick. I'll kick it to you, Carlos.

00:42:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to follow up on a similar track here. And I'll just look at the last few drafts from 2026 to 2020. These are all the players I think from the college demographic had a case as the best hit power combination in the class. And tell me if you're excited about this track record or player. 2026, Chris Akopian. We'll see. 2025, Iva Arquette. 2024, Charlie Condon. 2023 to my never ending lament, Dylan Cruz, 2022, Jacob Berry, 2021, Henry Davis, 2020, Spencer Torkelson, all those players at the time, a large, some of them up the middle players like Dylan Cruz, I've Arquette, I think maybe is the best comp comparison to Brennan Lawson because he was drafted as a shortstop. And there were questions about whether or not he would play the position, but all those players had a significant amount of their draft stock on the basis of being elite hit power combos, you don't even have to miss on them being impressive hit power combinations. You just have to not be good enough for those picks to not pan out in hindsight because an up the middle player who offers more value defensively, who offers more value in the speed department just winds up being a more valuable player. You have to be precise with the hit power combination being exactly what you think it is. And then I'll also add, I think this is maybe another critique you could have for Brendan Lawson's that I'm curious to hear what Jacob has to say. Why is he so passive? Why is he not attacking more pitches in the heart of the zone? He has great contact skills. He clearly can separate balls from strikes. He's got some of the best raw power in the class. Why is he so passive within the heart of the zone? And is that a question that you think is going to continue to linger for him against pro pitchers who maybe can take better advantage of that fact?

00:44:18
Speaker 3: Let's address the defense first because I think that that will be the biggest thing that looms over Lawson's head when it comes time to have the conversation about 1-1 in July. I think that if you are drafting him first overall, the hope is that he's going to be able to go out there and provide Nick Kurtzian level value offensively. And I'm not saying that they're exactly the same, but I do think that if Brendan Lawson is going to move over to first base, you're looking at a player that has the potential at least to be a massive home run contributor and somebody that is going to very rapidly rise through the minor league ranks and become a five-war player very early in his career. Nick Hurts was a five-B-war player as a rookie. I think that that is attainable, not necessarily projecting that it's going to happen, but I think that it's attainable given the profile and what Lawson brings to the table offensively. I also would say, in having some conversations with some evaluators... There is belief that he may not be a shortstop, but he could move over to a position like second base. And I know that's not a premium position, but it does provide more value than first base. And it's not a matter of athleticism that's going to prevent him from playing shortstop. He is a surprisingly good mover for the power profile that I think he kind of carries. I think that there are some times where you'll look at him run up the first baseline and he'll turn in a plus time. I think that it's pretty fair to say that he's at least a 50 runner. This is somebody who moves reasonably well. The arm has never been a problem for him either. It's a plus arm. It's got real strength. So there are people who think that he could be a very offense forward second baseman. There are some people who believe that third base is the move that could allow him to really flourish because it brings out the qualities of his arms and has less demand from a footwork standpoint, which has always been his issue. And then the other thing that's interesting is I've heard a number of times that there are teams that view him as a potential corner outfielder. Somebody who can go out there and bang, move well enough to cover ground and get to the alleys if necessary and has the arm to be able to be effective. Is he going to be a gold glover at any of these positions? Probably never. But I do think that there are outcomes defensively for him that are not first base that allow you to have a little bit more confidence in the profile than somebody who would become a DH or first base only player. So the other thing that I would address, and I actually think that Honestly, the defense is a concern and we've addressed it. But I think Carlos' point about the passivity may be the quiet killer, the quiet concern that is far more relevant than whether or not he's going to end up at first, second, third, or in the outfield. He is passive. There is no doubt about that. Last year, he had a 32% swing rate. His heart swing rate was 60%. It was actually 59.8. And his zone swing rate was way down, 52.4%. He doesn't chase much, so the passivity does kind of narrow the scope of the pitches that he's willing to swing at, but he is, at the end of the day, passive. The conversations that I've had with evaluators have given me a little bit of confidence that there's reason to feel good about a team bringing more out of him. There are a lot of people who believe that. that it is easier to coax more out from a swing willingness standpoint than it is to rein somebody in. He doesn't have a pitch recognition issue. This is not somebody who's going to swing and miss a whole bunch. Like I said, he does not chase a lot. And granted, some of that is just the fact that he doesn't swing at all. But he is not going to expand very often. And I think that the pitch recognition is good enough that you can feel as though pro development will allow him to bring it out a little bit more. There are guys... in pro ball today and I think that it's becoming more and more relevant that may get away with a little bit of this passivity just because when they do unleash the bat it's damage every single time and Lawson so far at least as a college player has shown that he may be in that category when he swings you know it's going to go there are very rarely bad outcomes for this player and again I just think that if you are going to invest in a bat at the top of the board there are hardly any That you can feel as great about as Brendan Lawson. And the other thing that I'll say is I think that there are people who will look at Gavin Kelly at West Virginia and they'll say, why wouldn't you just take that guy? Because metrically, you know, power wise, there are a lot of things to like there. And he also may be a catcher. I'm not so sure about the future at catcher. I think Gavin Kelly may be a second baseman. And I think that that will be reflected in his junior season at West Virginia, where he probably catches about 60% of his games. So it's not like there's another college bat that really is at the top of the board in this conversation that challenges Lawson offensively and brings a premium position to the table that may allow you to look beyond some of the deficits between Lawson and the next best offensive contributor.

00:48:57
Speaker 2: My final brief counterpoint swing looks weird.

00:49:02
Speaker 3: Well, so that's it. I would encourage, I would encourage. It's a silly comment.

00:49:06
Speaker 2: It's a silly, not serious comment. Well, but, but I, but I get to a great launch position.

00:49:11
Speaker 3: That's it. And I think it's worth discussing for a second because there will be people who look at his swing and they'll go, the guy sets up at the plate. Like he's Craig council with his hands up at his forehead and he gots get into a good position to hit. If you go to my Twitter, not Jacob Rudner, there's a video from last week. When I was right before Jupiter, I went to see Brendan Lawson in Gainesville and he homered in the little scrimmage that I went and saw him. You go and slow down that home run swing and you basically go like piece by piece. You drag the time at the bottom. You will see that when he gets into his load, he is in a very normal position. This is really just somebody who sets up weird before the action starts to happen and But the second he kind of has to get into that dance with the pitcher and he gets into rhythm, everything really gets into a very normal spot. So I would say that's actually not a concern despite maybe being a little bit visually weird.

00:50:00
Speaker 1: And I would say with that, whatever you do, you could stand on your head if you wanted to when the pitcher is still kind of going into his liver. It's like if you get to a good hitting position at the point where you are starting your swing, that is kind of the key at the end of the day. But that is our case for three of our top four. Carlos, before we wrap this up, there is a fourth. We're not making the case for Dax Whitney in part because how do you make the case for someone who's currently completely sidelined and recovering from a significant surgery, but lay out kind of why we're not, but also is he still in that discussion?

00:50:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're going to have to explore this Dax Whitney conversation more in the future. We certainly will. But Dax Whitney definitely does have a case here. It's just one, I don't know, when was the last time we saw a pitcher, high school or college, who didn't throw a single pitch this spring? We're not expecting Dax Whitney to throw a game. Maybe the rehab goes great and he throws games late. I think there is some hope that he'll at least be able to throw bullpens before the draft so people can kind of see that the arm looks good, all the stuff looks the same. But I think Dax Whitney is such a unique talent that he still has some gravity here at the top of the board despite his arm surgery. I think there, there's both a, an increasing confidence in players coming off surgeries. Kate Anderson just went third overall. That pick looks pretty good despite the fact that he already had surgery. So I don't know that the surgery in and of itself is a deal breaker. And Dax Whitney, if he were healthy, you guys can both push back if you want. But I think if Dax Whitney were healthy, he's probably sitting in the number one spot on the board. He's probably the best pitching prospect at this stage in the calendar since, I mean, maybe, Steven Strasburg, there are probably a couple other college pitchers you can point to, but Paul Skeens was not Paul Skeens at this stage during his draft year. I'm not going to say that Dax Whitney now is a better prospect than Paul Skeens was on draft day, but I think in terms of elite athlete, power to the fastball, elite ability to send the ball, elite track record of getting swing and miss and posting in college, he stacks up with all of the very best pitchers in the game. If he was fully healthy, I would take him over Thomas Valenka's and I just tried to make a really compelling case for Thomas Valenka's. So I think the fact that he is such an exceptional pitching prospect is going to, to make him an interesting conversation, especially if we're still dealing with a draft where it's soft slotting, if someone's willing to take a deal, all of these, I mean, you can get creative here. I do. I wonder how high Dax is going to go. I wonder like just how historic it'll be if, and when he does go, up at this spot, but I certainly don't think you can count him out just because he's hurt.

00:52:45
Speaker 1: To answer your question, I believe, off the top of my head, so maybe I'm missing someone, Cal Quantrill will be the one that comes to mind. Overall, 2016, had an elbow injury, if I remember right, and basically did not pitch the entirety. It was kind of left very vague whether he was going to pitch in the game, and he never did. And then I think the Padres and a couple other teams did have him in for workouts before the draft. But he went eighth overall. I would say, though, to be completely clear, Cal Quantrill was a very good prospect at the time. There was no scenario where Cal Quantrill at that moment was considered the prospect that Dax Whitney is at this moment. So I'm curious.

00:53:28
Speaker 2: I mean, we're about to wrap, but I'm curious if you guys came into this favoring a player, even if it wasn't the player you made a case for, if you felt like this conversation steered you more towards one or another. Because I'll say... I come into this conversation really wanting to flip a coin between Seward or Valencus personally, and my gut kind of puts me a little bit towards Valencus. So I was happy I was assigned his case, but I don't know that I feel any stronger in one direction. And I'm curious if you guys do, or if you lean in another direction than I do.

00:54:00
Speaker 1: I think I'm probably a little stronger for Valencus at this point, just from the standpoint of if you look at the track record of how well he is kind of considered at this point, you know, like as far as track record and stuff, and then you add in the left-handed component, like, like Nicola Dolo was a top 10 pick in a, what was viewed as a terrible pitching draft and was nowhere near, I would say a prospect, the level that, you know, that we're talking here and he's ended up being a fine pick Carlos Rodon is, I would say after, if you could have him draft eligible after his freshman year, if you could have had him draft eligible the day after he threw against Cuba that summer after his freshman year, I would say his profile may have even been higher. But by the time we got to the draft, I would say there were a lot more concerns with him as far as the fastball had really kind of backed up a lot of time. He didn't always see the slider. I do think you have to go back to David Price. I thought it was a very good point. And I got to go back to David Price for a guy. And that means he's probably pretty special because David Price had a very good career and he's retired. So like, we're not talking about, you know, I'm, I'm pulling out.

00:55:15
Speaker 2: I think five all-star games. So he, he lived up to the expectation for that pick. Jacob, where are you at?

00:55:22
Speaker 3: I think that my opinion is pretty much where it was before. I was, I was reasonably tied between the guy I made a case for Brendan Lawson and the guy you made a case for Tomas Valenka. I think having seen Seward, Maybe it's an overexposure issue, but having seen Seward a number of times this summer, the swing and miss that we talked about would be a real concern for me. And I just think that you have, you know, in Brendan Lawson, a bat that is going to provide massive value quickly. And in Valencus, you have the best healthy pitcher in the draft. And I also just want to say, because I didn't say it yet, but if Whitney were healthy, no doubt 1-1 for me. The best college pitcher that we've seen since Strasburg, it's, it's sixties across the board, if not better, both in terms of just individual pitches, the control, the makeup I've heard is outstanding. Uh, that would be the guy. And I think that it will be very interesting to see just how high teams push them up because pitchers get hurt. It happens. Uh, and maybe you, the logic is that he's gotten it out of the way and you're going to get somebody who's a true superstar. I mean, he is really special. So, uh, no, didn't change my opinion much. Um, but I do think that, you know, this illustrates exactly how we all feel, which is that there's a lot of debate, uh, and it's pretty open ended at this point.

00:56:33
Speaker 1: I would just push back. I would agree with you that at this point coming into the year, I would say he's the best pitching prospect in Strasburg. I would say that Skeens had that year at LSU. that to me put him at that level because it was an absolutely unimpeachable season.

00:56:47
Speaker 3: I'm just talking about to this point in the process, in the cycle, I think that he's the best prospect since Strasburg.

00:56:53
Speaker 2: I will be curious, though, if you're listening, if you guys feel strongly in one direction or another, if you were swayed by a case, let us know in the comments. I know JJ is always, especially on YouTube, happy to go back and forth. But I'm curious what our listeners think based on this convo or prior to it.

00:57:06
Speaker 4: Yes, a medium.

00:57:08
Speaker 1: And if you want to make the case for someone else, like we talked about, Gavin Kelly or anyone else, feel free to make that case in the comments as well. That is today's Baseball America Draft Podcast, a very fun one. We hope you enjoyed this one as much as we did. For Carlos, for Jacob, I'm JJ. So long, everybody.