Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball XX
[0] Hey, it's Noah Chestnut from The Athletic.
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[15] Welcome to Rates and Barrels.
[16] It's Friday, February 21st.
[17] Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, and a special guest joining us today.
[18] Eric Langenhagen of Fangraphs is here.
[19] Eric, thank you so much for joining us during Prospect Week.
[20] Oh, thank you so much for having me. This is what my face looks like, Internet.
[21] Have you been hiding your face from the Internet for this long?
[22] That's amazing.
[23] It is.
[24] I have an appreciation for how accidentally famous people can get, like the poor Hawk to a girl.
[25] You just do not know what you're dealing with.
[26] It's not really in your control.
[27] I think one of my more proud moments is I was speaking at Saber.
[28] And they had such trouble finding a photo of my face that from like one of my friends weddings, there was a picture of me in the background and they like cut the person.
[29] They accidentally had the person who was in the foreground, like as the headshot of me in the program.
[30] And I was just like, okay, like I am, I'm doing a good guy behind that guy.
[31] So screen grabs from this show may be used as a future Eric Lungenhagen headshot.
[32] Yeah, let me give you a terrible one.
[33] Just keep awful announcing all the terrible ones that they could possibly use.
[34] Yeah, the one where your eyes are at half -mast.
[35] We get at least three of those every single episode where we're both blinking, sneezing, coughing, something all at the same time.
[36] It works out.
[37] I have to say that you made the right decision about social media generally.
[38] Yep, yeah.
[39] Yeah, I was early on that one, which I guess is like the prospect writer's credo is to like do.
[40] But yeah, that was more about me and how it was making me feel than like me reading the tea leaves about how it was going to trend.
[41] But I haven't like done the blue ski jump because I just think like kind of the same, right?
[42] Like, so no thanks.
[43] It doesn't make me feel as bad about my life and the world, but.
[44] Yeah, it's an addiction, you know, and it causes me not to be as present for my children and stuff.
[45] So it's like, generally, I'd like to do less of it.
[46] I could definitely feel my, when I got off there, it wasn't like my brain was like, okay, we're going to just read now.
[47] That's all you're going to want to do is be.
[48] Yeah, what did you do?
[49] It was just like, you're going to be really good at fantasy football this year, Eric.
[50] But yeah, like, my brain is messed up too from it in a way that is, I don't know if it's.
[51] Totally irreversible, but it's definitely an upstream swim for my attention being directed with my control.
[52] Yeah, I've experienced the same thing.
[53] I don't have ADHD or anything like that, but I think I've developed some symptoms of it from.
[54] a decade plus on social media.
[55] But our own struggles aside, let's talk prospects for a bit since it is prospect week.
[56] Tons of great content rolling out over at Fangraphs.
[57] If you're listening and don't have a membership yet, you should get one.
[58] Support Fangraphs.
[59] Eric and the team there do phenomenal work.
[60] I want to ask you just a broad question first because Keith Law hinted at this a couple of weeks ago on the show.
[61] He felt like it was harder this year than almost any year he's put together a top 100 to come up with a full top 100.
[62] Do you think the state of the minor leagues is generally down and that we're looking at more top -heavy lists going around the industry right now?
[63] I think there are a couple of things at play with that.
[64] One is the way the rookie roster rules changed around the pandemic made it so that players just graduate.
[65] more readily.
[66] All those September days you spend on the roster, they count against your rookie eligibility now.
[67] And so there are definitely players who have graduated from our lists who have lost rookie status the last four or five years who would not have before that just because September roster days count.
[68] So that's one thing.
[69] Oh, wait, that's just like a really boring reason.
[70] That's funny.
[71] Those didn't used to count.
[72] I'm just saying the September day was the first year September roster days counted against your eligibility and it has persisted since then.
[73] So that's one reason.
[74] God, I missed that.
[75] But then the other one is the proliferation of data and now four or five years of that having occurred within my peer group.
[76] And I think over time you start to see the trends.
[77] of who you get wrong and why and what the warning signs in the data were that they wouldn't succeed earlier and it just makes you more skeptical of those players at a time when there used to be unbridled enthusiasm for them in the lower minors uh like it's it's now when you have like a guy's chase rate instead of just his walk rates or you have an end zone contact rate that is like a full standard deviation below the big league average and that's what's happening at low a it's much easier to know what the potential problems are and then bake that into the way you're evaluating or valuing the player.
[78] Those are the two big ones, I think.
[79] But I also think that this year's group at the very top, like there's not an Acuna or Tatis or like I like, you know, these guys, Roman Anthony's and Dylan Cruz's of the world, but there's not like that guy or a couple of them.
[80] At least I don't think so.
[81] There are a couple of guys in the minors right now who...
[82] within a year or two are going to be that guy.
[83] They'll have performed through the mid upper minors to the point where you have that degree of confidence that you can say Sebastian Walcott is going to be that player.
[84] But as of right now, I don't think you can do that.
[85] When you were talking about the advanced stats, I was thinking about a little bit about Emmanuel Rodriguez in Minnesota, because when you look at the sort of fan graphs, stats on him you're like oh the swinging strike is really low you know he's really great sense of the zone it looks like is he just uber passive and then i think i heard something about his in zone contact being really bad specifically with emmanuel rodriguez it is like in that trent grisham area where not only is the in zone the in zone contact is like not the worst 74 the overall contact is at 66 You know, there's a clear hole in that guy's swing.
[86] Yeah, and there are ways, like splits with two strikes.
[87] You chase straight with two strikes.
[88] I mean, obviously, it should go up strategically.
[89] You want to spoil borderline pitches with two strikes.
[90] You'd rather put a ball in play.
[91] Some of the deltas with the two -strike chase and the overall chase kind of are meaningful, in my view, at identifying who is actually patient.
[92] has strikes on field and who is passive.
[93] I do think with Emmanuel Rodriguez, I think he's going to be good.
[94] There's just too much power on contact.
[95] He's such a good defensive player, but there are probably, and again, Trent Grisham is a great comp here because he's patient too.
[96] There's power on contact, not as much as Emmanuel Rodriguez has, but he's definitely in that mix, that player type where if you're looking at the spider web graph, the sliders are sort of in the same places for those guys, except Manny Rodriguez's are kind of turned up on 10.
[97] yeah 56 hard hit rate for a guy who's a plus defensive center fielder i'll take that guy even knowing that even if there's some flaws yeah i think that that's the other thing i feel like i've learned is when the stuff the guy does well is stuff you care about and it's like high high end when it is like seven power you just go sort the the fangraphs leaderboard inverse order of contact rate like the bottom 15 guys are aaron judge is in there and shohay is in there and julio rodriguez is in there but when the other stuff you're doing is like seven or eight on the scale especially if it's the power component makes me feel okay about guys like manny rodriguez samuel basayo we're just like this guy's a freak he's performed at every level as a young for the the level guy he plays a position of value With Juan Brito, I made some comps based on just results stats, and the comps weren't exciting.
[98] It was a lot of guys who don't hit the ball hard, and I was like, oh yeah, I don't think Juan Brito hits the ball hard, and the Guardians don't seem to value that the same way I do in terms of hitting the crap out of the ball.
[99] What are some of these stats that you've come to appreciate over the years?
[100] And it morphs a little bit every year because...
[101] the sources that i'm drawing the data from can change like you don't want to for the purposes of like protecting your sources some of these stats are so specific to the team that it can sort of be like a skeleton key for their stuff plus or their bat path grade or whatever right so some of it is a little bit different year to year i will say that like uh you know in zone contact overall contact overall chase two strike chase a thing that i had access to this year that i hadn't in the past was chase contact which i think is an interesting like bat control proxy it's an interesting thing i think to fold in although there are some like anecdotal trends in my mind like the guys with low ball swings i feel like tend to have a better chase contact just because pitches that miss you know chase pitches tend to live down and so i think there's like a little bit of a selection bias there and then you know max exit and you know ev90 hard hit rates um and like barrel rates or a team's version of barrel rates do you have these in a like comprehensive way do you have like i do high a hard hit rates i don't have them like broken down by level if the way kylie and i pool this data and then chop it up we will do like averages by age for some of this stuff but not necessarily adjusted for level sometimes although this wasn't the case this year the spreadsheet that we source might have the level the player finished at and you can then like filter by the minor league level and then collect the average for that level.
[102] But sometimes you get the, you know, the Rays do this, the Padres do this.
[103] There are definitely teams, Bryce Eldridge, you know, with the Giants is an example of this where Bryce Eldridge went to AA for a week and then to AAA for a week.
[104] And so when you look at Bryce Eldridge's numbers, it says he's in AAA, but he amassed most of those stats in A ball all year.
[105] And you have to know not to.
[106] believe that you know like you have to know that the stats came from a ball manually adjust that this team is like trying to game like models made by people who aren't paying attention i guess but yeah like average launch and and contact depth like some of the expected stats this year like expected iso sometimes expected slug but and yeah like across the big leagues and the minors we have dating back to 2017 now kylie and i There were like 2018, 2020, there were a couple of years in that early window when we didn't have anything for one reason or another.
[107] And Kylie was with the team or there was a pandemic or whatever it was.
[108] But yeah, working through now the last more than a half decade of TrackMan era with prospect analysis, at least at Fangraphs, you start to see like...
[109] some some of this stuff i if some of the metadata i wish i had was like the chase contact but split by like what part of the zone like i'd like an above zone chase contact i'd like a below zone like an east and west you'd be almost like figuring out bat path from that a little bit yeah and i think some of this is the other like monkey touching the monolith moment was during the pandemic when kevin goldstein was you know we were you know batman and robin of prospect stuff at fan graphs for a couple months you know kevin was just like hey we're not going to travel this year so let's pump budget into video software program that can help us with this stuff and the bat path piece of it really for me is a more visual visually identifiable thing when you start to see like in a strike zone scatter plot where guys swing and miss locations and pitch types are versus like where the contact is you can see like okay matt vierling i see you what you can do really well and you start to see the scoopy guys versus the flat guys right yeah so like okay alan roden i see what you can do up here at the top of the strike zone and then where your power kind of just goes away at the bottom of the zone unless it's a breaking ball it doesn't finish or whatever it is and you can start to identify trends that way and especially guys who have that hole up and away against fastballs you left -handed hitters who can't cover that pitch there are a lot of those pitches in the big leagues just like hard fastballs that's brandon moss he said that's why his career ended basically very interesting guy obviously like high end of the the launch angle spectrum what's sustainable Guys like Brayden Taylor remind me a lot of Brandon Moss, the Ryan Shimps of the world.
[110] Yeah, the Super Launch Boys, for sure.
[111] There are a lot of those guys.
[112] They're fun.
[113] My dumb way of doing it is that I have kind of settled on like sort of 50 % grounders, 50 % flies as like if you're worse on either end, then I get worried about you.
[114] And I think that's actually sort of a Bat -Pathy thing.
[115] And it's dumb and you can do much better than that.
[116] But like if somebody is looking at...
[117] like lesser data set you know there's you can get something like Bruce Schimpf was a 50 fly ball guy and like Jose Bautista made it work and Moss made it work for a while but you know there's usually a hole somewhere if you're doing that no doubt yeah and that's the other thing for me it's more like if I can't find precedent for what it is you're doing that is when I take a step back at least and we'll reevaluate so like um a guy this year was justin crawford with the phillies who in a bunch of the statistical categories that we have talked about he's excellent in you know these contact and the power on contact but he's like a 60 ground ball guy right there's just not anyone in the big leagues who is putting the ball on the ground that much and like is actually good and so uh like I still want to value him as a prospect.
[118] He's still a good prospect.
[119] Where'd you land with him?
[120] I have a 40 -plus on him.
[121] The warning signs with him are similar to the ones with Zach Veen a couple years ago.
[122] And with Crawford, you put on the table him playing center field, and that needs work, and the chase rates are higher than you want them to be, and so that's scary.
[123] But the upside is still there.
[124] I still want to have a grade of value on him that indicates that there's that sort of upside while also acknowledging that.
[125] His present skill is more like an extra outfielder.
[126] So I have a 40 plus on him, which is that's what that's trying to communicate, basically.
[127] One thing that fascinates me, sorry, just really quickly, you were talking about Crawford is one thing that fascinates me is like what things are innate and what things are improvable.
[128] And what have you found like that is more in the bucket of improvable and more in the bucket of innate and not improvable?
[129] Well, you're sort of reverse engineering this.
[130] Just through pattern recognition of the teams who are able to coax unexpected stuff out of some of their guys.
[131] And so on the hitting side, I would have told you up until I wrote Alex Freeland's scouting report this year that like the contact piece of it is mostly innate.
[132] The hand -eye coordination stuff.
[133] And I still think that's mostly true.
[134] Hand -eye, pitch tracking, you know, ball strike recognition.
[135] And I think there's some teams that are doing a better job at like gamifying their...
[136] their hitters approach in the box like making it sort of like a meta game where they want you to attack the pitches that you can damage and they're improving guys you know approach that way i think with some of what like boston has done where they're taking the chase madroths of the world and the christian campbells of the world adding bat speed right they're finding a way yeah to just even if it's just like hey swing really hard i don't know what it is there they're heavy on unweighted bats Yeah, I think you can see some of the counterweighted knob stuff and the way the distribution of the bat is impacting how it traverses the zone.
[137] But yeah, I think that there are some teams.
[138] And then like with the Dodgers, the Dodgers will take fast players and then try to layer strength onto them.
[139] So not all these guys have worked out, but Jake Vogel is a high school outfielder who they drafted who was just fast.
[140] And Gavin Lux was a glove -oriented.
[141] high school prospect which is hilarious now and um kendall george is another speedy high school outfielder when they traded for zahir hope he was a speed first over slot like 11th round high school outfielder he had bigger hams than i thought he would i was looking at his quads man those those were prodigious right and that's the thing it's like when you if you think about the stuff that a pro organization can really do that high school weight room or a junior college weight room or whatever like sports science and medicine and strength and conditioning are the things that should be core competencies of any of these organizations right and so if that's the missing ingredient for whoever the player is then theoretically it should be like what you can help them them do but like alex freeland who wouldn't surprise me if is just the dodgers everyday shortstop at some point this year because like he can actually play that position You know, he had a 63 % contact rate in 2023.
[142] This is a college prospect who was, you know, a name in high school.
[143] But 63 % contact rate in 2023 was like 78 % in 2024.
[144] And you can see there have been changes to his swing.
[145] They're pretty subtle.
[146] It's just like there's not a leg kick there anymore.
[147] It's just a smaller toe tap.
[148] Nothing about his hands.
[149] has seemingly changed like very subtle change to his footwork that's a huge improvement though yeah like an over i could not believe it and now we don't really know what maybe was at play before that was causing him to be bad enough that i had like an extra infielder grade on him and now i think he's an everyday shortstop but uh but yeah there's definitely some of the teams are for sure better at making hitters good in a way that is sustainable and then there are some that are good at making them perform in a way that looks great in the minors and can inflate their prospect value, but isn't necessarily sustainable.
[150] And I think there are definitely teams who are just like, yeah, just pull everything that you can.
[151] The Guardians are like, everyone's a shortstop and everyone makes contact.
[152] Don't you want our players?
[153] You can see it.
[154] The way it's manifesting more now is in the air pull percentages.
[155] Oh, our guys pull it in the air.
[156] You want that.
[157] yes you do that is that is a thing that i've noticed especially among some of my sources who are more you know quantitative in in their style and they seem to have that ethos yeah they've been running that for a while yeah the twins i would say the twins the rays the blue jays for sure david schneider's of the world like he's a great example of how over time you get found out and this is how things trend When I watch David Schneider, I feel like I can see that all you want to do is hit it right there.
[158] I can see where you want to hit it.
[159] I see where you want the ball, and I see where you want to hit it.
[160] Yeah, and this is one of the other things where it's like it is so hard to be good and then to stay good once the league has had a look at you.
[161] It's very difficult.
[162] So you end up with the James Outman type guys who have their one big year, and then they get found out.
[163] What's a stat that you think speaks to that adjustability?
[164] Is that sort of contact?
[165] Man, I don't know.
[166] I think that so much of it has to do with what changes.
[167] It's like an aptitude thing more than it is in the data.
[168] I would bet on the guys who make contact to do it more just because of the players who we see having a long tail to their career, like the Howie Kendrick as Drew Ball Cabrera type guys tend to be the ones who have that skill.
[169] I think even just putting the ball in play a lot gives Adam Frazier a chance to have a good BABIP -driven year in his early to mid -30s, whereas the Fran Milreis -type guys kind of don't.
[170] You go to Japan.
[171] Yeah, you see that.
[172] The end point is getting non -tendered before you reach for agency, sometimes going to play overseas, and then the contact -oriented guys play into their mid -30s.
[173] You're like, how's this guy still getting opportunities?
[174] Well, defensive value and then just putting the ball in play.
[175] You mentioned Zaire Hope a little earlier, and I know you're not on Blue Sky, but I think there was some feedback about your ranking of Zaire Hope when the top 100 dropped this week.
[176] What did you see this year?
[177] What gives you some reservations about some of the more aggressive rankings that are out there on Hope this year?
[178] It can be frustrating.
[179] For sure, I had a prospect chat after the 100 dropped and heard a lot of the same thoughts that I'm sure were out there.
[180] I don't know why the internet allows expectations for prospects to be like, it feels like the feedback I get from readers is like, why aren't you beholden to these expectations?
[181] Whereas like the conceited part of me is like, why am I not the one setting the expectations?
[182] Why is everybody else not wrong?
[183] Right.
[184] Especially when it comes to like, saying hey like your horses on this 17 year old it's like wow does he like 18 19 he's like a teenager in a ball like isn't this the thing that we always hit ourselves like Hedbert Perez and and like I mean there's a million guys who like Hedbert's a great example yeah Hedbert's a great example where I was just like hey this is like a bad defensive left fielder who I'm not buying can actually hit this is like if there's a thing that readers should key into on my stuff, it's when I say, hey, pump the brakes on this dude.
[185] And I'm not always right about that.
[186] I had Colton Couser outside the top 100 last year after he was in.
[187] I was high on him before the draft relative to everybody else.
[188] And then I was just like, hey, this guy's striking out a lot and doesn't have enough power to be a left fielder.
[189] And then he came to camp last year clearly much stronger and with enough power to support having a 30 % strikeout rate.
[190] But with Hope specifically, I just think it's too small a sample to care about the data in a big way.
[191] And his data is impressive, and I have it here, and I'll read some of it off to you.
[192] So the big league average at some of these statistics in corner outfield are an 81 % zone contact, a 73 % contact rate, with like a 104 .5 EV90, and a 41 % hard hit rate.
[193] And Zaire Hope is clearing the bar across the board there.
[194] He's got an 86 % zone contact, a 76 % contact, a 109 EV90, and a 45 % hard hit rate.
[195] And yeah, this is a physically mature left fielder who at age 20, you mentioned, you know, you know.
[196] how big this guy is folks can search here on youtube like zyrehope fangraphs i've got video from the fall league up he's maxed out for me i don't know what's going to happen with him physically as he ages into his mid to late 20s yeah you're not dreaming on the body you know getting anywhere it's it is i think it is that's what i was surprised when i saw him i was like oh this guy's It's either going to happen or it's not.
[197] We're not saying, oh, when he fills out, he's filled out.
[198] Right.
[199] And then, you know, it's a 24 % strikeout rate guy at low A, which already should be a, hey, let's step, take a step back from this before we go all in type of data point.
[200] And then watching Hope for six weeks in the fall league, he just is some of the tenants of a guy who's hit tool I'm skeptical of.
[201] His head's flying around.
[202] He has that vulnerable.
[203] The fastball is riding up and away from him, which like every big league righty has.
[204] And I just want to see it across a bigger sample, number one, and against better pitching, number two.
[205] If I were to read you guys, here's another prospect.
[206] He'll go name us.
[207] Let's see if you can identify who this is.
[208] This was a guy's 2023 season.
[209] This is a guy's 2023 season, okay?
[210] He's 21 years old.
[211] And the numbers that he posted again, it was a pretty small sample because of injury, same as Hope, but it was even more, it was a bigger sample.
[212] I want to say it was like a close to a 300 plate appearance sample that occurred mostly at AA.
[213] Let me look and confirm.
[214] Yes.
[215] Okay.
[216] 300 plate appearances, most of which were accrued at AA.
[217] He's 21 years old.
[218] He has an 85 % in -zone contact rate, a 76 % overall contact rate.
[219] A 105 EV90.
[220] He had maxed out at 113.
[221] A 19 % barrel rate.
[222] His ex -slug from this year was 480.
[223] And he's a maybe shortstop who did this at AA.
[224] Can you guess who this game is?
[225] He's a maybe shortstop who did this at AA.
[226] Who's your guess?
[227] Is that Blaze Jordan?
[228] No, it is Colson Montgomery.
[229] I knew he missed a little time.
[230] It's Colson Montgomery who's...
[231] You know, strikeout rate exploded this year who, you know, this data is amazing from 2023.
[232] We all got tricked, myself included.
[233] Kylie had Colson number one overall in baseball midseason 2023 in part because of buying into this data, okay?
[234] And it just was faulty.
[235] It's just not a big enough sample to really care about, especially when the guys you're facing, when your problem is fastball.
[236] and you're at low A and guys sit 90, you haven't been exposed yet.
[237] And so I'm just not ready to say about Zaire Hope, who I have a 45 plus on, that's the tier right behind the 100.
[238] I just think this is a platoon corner guy with upside above that, that I'm not ready to buy enough to stuff him in there.
[239] And there have been too many times during my career, I guess is the word to use at this point, doing this, where...
[240] Either I've been peer pressured or internet pressured.
[241] This happens on my rankings.
[242] It's like, oh, but the ADP or the general consensus.
[243] Do I just have to keep them high -ish just to appease the masses?
[244] Or just tank them all the way and just put them where I...
[245] Take a stand.
[246] Don't give in.
[247] Don't give in.
[248] The phrase that I have used is...
[249] to try to be directionally correct at least so that I'm not the guy ending up with Miguel Vargas because the physical tools when you watch him, it's just like, this guy's not that good when the world that we're living in is there's Aaron Judge, there's Eli De La Cruz, there's Shohei Otani, there's, you know what I mean?
[250] Like there are just clearly players who don't check that visual box.
[251] And sometimes that's identifying that there's an issue.
[252] with what's happening with their swing that's going to be exposed that just hasn't yet.
[253] And even if that just means pumping the brakes, like the grade I have on Zaire Hope is like a top 10 draft picks grade.
[254] It's not a bad grade, but I do think that it's more red flaggy to have watched him for six weeks in fall leagues, you know, swing and miss as much as he did there.
[255] I was not ready to do whatever.
[256] You know, I don't know what the range of the other pubs is.
[257] I'm sure it's already on B ref, but let's find out.
[258] BP had him pretty high.
[259] Right.
[260] And there have been times when, wow, okay, yeah, that is really high.
[261] Pipelines and BAs, that's okay.
[262] If you want to bet that it's real, then okay.
[263] For him to be top 10, you're saying this guy's also a center fielder and blah, blah, blah.
[264] But yeah, it'll be fascinating to see who's right about this one.
[265] But I just got tired of having...
[266] an opinion that wasn't like being wrong because I didn't stick to my guns felt way worse than being wrong when I did.
[267] And so now I'm just sort of like, I'm like my Jordan Montgomery ranking last year.
[268] I was like, well, everyone thinks he's a good pitcher and he did just get real money from a real team.
[269] So I was directly correct.
[270] I had him like 59th or something.
[271] You would never end up with him in drafts.
[272] I would never end up with the drafts.
[273] I was like, okay, so I did tell you guys not to draft him, but I could have just not put him 80 or 100.
[274] It didn't matter to me where I put him.
[275] I was just like, I need to put him somewhere, so here, I guess.
[276] I think the conversation about Zaire Hope is fascinating because A, I love that you're sticking to your guns, and B, there are reasons to point out red flags when they exist.
[277] Jesus Made is getting attention.
[278] I think it's kind of unlike anything I've really seen from someone who's only played in the Dominican Summer League.
[279] This is pretty massive hype.
[280] So what's different?
[281] What gives you more faith in someone like Made who hasn't played stateside yet, given that we're talking about a guy that won't even turn 18 until May?
[282] Yeah, some of it is just the position value part of it, where Made has a chance to play shortstop or be a very good second baseman.
[283] I have him stacked in the 100 along with some of those other middle infielders who in a bad draft year go 1 -1 -ish or are in the mix for that type of thing.
[284] And I do think especially with the teenage hitters in pro ball, using the draft as a filter for your thoughts is very useful to think like, okay, well.
[285] If he was in the draft this year, where would he go?
[286] Right.
[287] Absolutely.
[288] Like we're seeing all these high schoolers.
[289] You spent all last summer seeing the best high schoolers in the country again.
[290] You've got like, you know, a 10 or 15 year Rolodex is seeing these guys.
[291] Does this fit physically first before you even look at the data?
[292] Does this guy's physical tools fit in that group where you could see him going in the top five of a draft?
[293] And with Mate, I think, yeah, like, I think the body and swing comp that feels appropriate for him is like, like Cano.
[294] That's where, like, if he told me he was too boxy, at physical maturity to play shortstop, I believe you, but it's just such a beautiful looking swing.
[295] And video on the DSL guys, you know, it's out there.
[296] It's on YouTube.
[297] There are teams who stream their DSL games.
[298] Some of the streams are better than others.
[299] They have the little track man, you know, readout sitting right there.
[300] So you can see the pitch below and exit below.
[301] It's pretty cool.
[302] And then with my day, you know, that's one where when you're going to put a 17 year old DSL guy, on your top 100 for someone like me, like I'm texting my sources and I'm just like, Hey, whatever video you have of this guy from the DSL, can you just like send me 10 swings?
[303] And so you end up with like watching 30 or 40 swings of this guy from different camera angles from having done that.
[304] And you could go, okay, like I buy that.
[305] This is a really talented guy.
[306] I had a previous, you know, amateur report on him.
[307] So he was someone people cared about before he was in pro ball at all.
[308] And then you dive into the data and his data is crazy like really crazy and obviously it's dsl data and the quality of the pitching down there is god awful and so you have to you know take it with a pillar of salt but it is nuts so i can recite some of that stuff off to you guys as well because it is just like a good thing i sorted these alphabetically so yeah 17 and a half get a 90 in zone contact rate and 89 contact rate overall the fact that the gap between those two is not bigger should Tells you more about DSL pitching than anything else.
[309] But he can also go get it wherever it is, I guess.
[310] Right.
[311] 15 % chase.
[312] Again, that's amazing.
[313] But is he also a 104 EV90 on a 17 and a half year old and a 47 % hard hit rate when I do believe like hard in, hard out is a thing.
[314] And when you're facing kids who are thrown 87, you'd have a 47 % hard hit rate.
[315] That's amazing.
[316] Yeah, the science on that is really kind of interesting.
[317] Exit velocity is four fifths batter and one fifth pitcher is something that Rob Arthur found.
[318] And so you can read that and be like, oh, it's all batter.
[319] It's not.
[320] It's still one fifth pitcher.
[321] So it's like that's actually going to be meaningful when you're comparing guys.
[322] Right.
[323] So deciding when to stick your neck out for somebody like this.
[324] I like will tend to pick my spots because I had a, you know, I thought Kevin Miton was going to be great.
[325] You know, we weren't using data like this to help reinforce opinions like that at the time, but I'd rather not, you know, so I have like a 50 on Jesus Made.
[326] I think you could reasonably rank him anywhere between like 40 and 100 and make a coherent argument for why he belongs there because like the grades.
[327] are more important than the ordinal rankings and the way the tiers of talent sort of split you know after a certain point like it's a big fat hunk and tear of guys there's lots of right so this guy and alfredo duno the reds catcher are the two guys where i was just like yeah here you go guillotine me i don't care i'm all in on both of these guys for somewhat different reasons like alfredo duno is just a freak tool shed catcher who has unbelievable power and speed he's been hurt he hasn't really played his power data is amazing the contact data is not but like he hasn't really played like it's a smaller sample so they pushed him over complex ball to low a uh he was 18 in full season ball last year and then got hurt and blah blah blah but like these two guys are the two teenage hitters on the list where it's just like the ceiling on these two guys over the next two or three years is have a chance to be the best, you know, couple of prospects in baseball.
[328] Whereas some of the more stable Luke Keeschel's of the world and, you know, the, yeah, the Juan Brito's of the world, it's more about floor and proximity than it is about their season.
[329] Yeah.
[330] One of Brito's comps was G1 Bay.
[331] And I was like, okay, you know, the guy who can.
[332] Play, maybe, some.
[333] Be okay.
[334] A lot of what our listeners like are the next wave guys, the guys that haven't popped on the list yet.
[335] You write a lot about them.
[336] It's the picks to click.
[337] You write that every year.
[338] So it's the search for the next wave of top 100 prospects.
[339] So broad question here.
[340] Who are some of your favorites from this year's picks to click collection, the guys that could take massive leaps here in 2025?
[341] There's a hummingbird nesting right here, and I wish I could show you guys.
[342] I'll pick a guy from each category.
[343] So it is helpful to like bucket these guys because they do sort of pop from these buckets.
[344] And one of them is like in the past, I've referred to it as like black box pitching where they're the Walker Bueller types where you had TJ and you've kind of been gone for a year and whatever has been going on there come out the other side and it's very good.
[345] And so with Bueller, he had had a massive velocity spike and, you know, Brady Smith is my Dodgers guy like that this year where I like Brady Smith a lot at the 2023 combine as medium -sized high school pitcher whose fastball had the traits you like and who had good secondary stuff but just wasn't throwing all that hard.
[346] And now coming out of TJ, it wouldn't surprise me if just because of the physical maturation and what you're doing with weightlifting and sort of nothing else.
[347] during your rehab process that it wouldn't surprise me if Brady Smith pops.
[348] So he's one of the young pitchers who I think has a chance.
[349] Then there's like the overt physical tool.
[350] This is what they look like group where it's like, of course, this guy's good.
[351] He's built like Larry Fitzgerald and, you know, has made progress in a baseball skills way.
[352] Connor Griffin with the Pirates, you know, he's a hit tool risk high school prospect from last year's draft.
[353] He's tooled up.
[354] It is unbelievable how physical, how fast, how much power.
[355] It's just, can he hit or not?
[356] And if he comes out this year and looks fine in that regard, then he's going to move on to the top 100.
[357] The tools are too big.
[358] The upside is too big.
[359] If he reinforces it with any kind of pro -performance data at all by July, he'll need to move in just on the basis of what his upside is.
[360] Connor Griffin, there are other guys like this.
[361] But then there's the sneaky pitchers group.
[362] Matt Wilkinson is my favorite of this group.
[363] The more I do this, the more I value proximity, durability.
[364] How many innings have you thrown?
[365] You're on the 40 man for my pitchers.
[366] And Matt Wilkinson with the Guardians is, I think, by the end of next year, we'll have approached that.
[367] He's a super fat guy.
[368] You have to really look past how husky he is and see that this is a really athletic guy.
[369] His delivery is beautiful and fluid, and he's powering so far down the mound.
[370] His shin is like scraping the mound almost because of how low to the ground he is.
[371] I just love what that does for his fastball playing.
[372] He commands it, and for a guy who sits 91 to have a fastball that plays like his does, I've learned enough about the Joe Ryans of the world now to be like, be on these guys, Eric.
[373] They command it.
[374] And so Matt Wilkinson from the Guardians is my...
[375] pitcher of that sort for next year.
[376] And then developmental tweak guys where all the physical tools are there.
[377] And it's just about like, does this swing work?
[378] We don't know.
[379] Can there be a change made to this guy's swing or approach?
[380] And I mentioned one of these guys on a different podcast this week.
[381] And so I'll spread it out.
[382] Justin Crawford is in this group on the list.
[383] Denzel Clark with the A's.
[384] Denzel Clark, you know, his parents were Olympians and he's one of the best defensive.
[385] outfielders in minor league baseball.
[386] His swing is so long.
[387] He's just one of those like super long six, four, six, five guys that if you told me he shortened up in his mid to late twenties, and I would tell you, okay, well, he's going to be one of the best defensive outfielders and have like a 25 or 30 home run season or two in there.
[388] And when that will occur for him, you know, we just don't know, but I bet you it will take him.
[389] having to make adjustments against big league pitching for a little while before because he'll just mash in the minors or something well i mean he's one where it has been mixed but uh you know it's he's had k rates in the 30 area and still been like a 120 130 wrc plus guy because of how much power there is but you know i have a 30 on his hit tool because i do think he'll be a 30 strikeout rate guy during the arc of his pre -free agency years but it's just he's just a swing adjustment away from doing basically everything and he already kind of does everything else but hit those are most of the guys now there are a couple other you know categories here where it's like yeah the low level dimitro casantes with the diamondbacks performed on the complex and in the cali again it was out your hope performed in the cali again i just want to see those guys keep hitting against better pitching than they have and then for the first time this year i've got like um two year two year dart throws there's david matoma from the pirates who baseball in africa is becoming a thing and david matoma is a 19 year old from uganda who throws 100 and so what's gonna happen with him like i don't know but i bet you two years from now we're gonna think it's good um and then my other like absolutely you know crazy pick from this group is a guy named johan for santana with the marlins who had tommy john last year he you know made three starts and then blew out he's 19 he's 6 7 and was like already in the mid to upper 90s and he's just one of those where oh are you yuri perez how do i know he's in that vein where it's just like this guy is freaky and so i just want to be on him because I've only seen a handful of guys like this in my whole life and he might not ever throw strikes, but it's still true that like, I've just not seen like statuesque perfectly put together, like just scale Sandy Alcantara up to six, seven.
[390] And like, that's what this guy's put together like.
[391] And I absolutely want to bet, you know, on a guy like that succeeding over time.
[392] And like, those are my two year dart throws who are just like, yeah, for two years from now, Here are the names who are fun and interesting to follow.
[393] The deep, deep dynasty folks out there.
[394] We're in a league called Devil's Rejects, and it's a completely open player pool.
[395] You've got to be two -plus years ahead to seemingly get a massive edge on players like that.
[396] I wanted to ask you about the White Sox.
[397] We were doing team previews earlier in the week, and I think we gave the White Sox about four minutes, and most teams get like 15.
[398] And the big question is really, is this rebuilding effort on track?
[399] Do the trades they're making, are they amassing the talent they should be?
[400] Are they actually putting enough together?
[401] And do they have a coaching staff, a player development machine built for that group to actually maximize the talent in a way where they will make good?
[402] on this long -term rebuild, because I think there's this belief that rebuilds always work, but you also have to have the right pieces to turn A -ball and AA guys into actual high -quality big leaguers.
[403] Yeah, I would say it's mixed positive and trending more positive across the more recent trades.
[404] The cease trade, I did not love, and it seemed like his markets...
[405] That go -round and again now is just a little less robust than I would have guessed.
[406] I think whenever, like all these rebuilds, they kind of have different component parts.
[407] There's the trading your big leaguers for prospects.
[408] Is pro scouting helping you in that way?
[409] There's the drafting part of it.
[410] There's the development part of it.
[411] And then there's the international scouting part of it.
[412] And with the White Sox, When you trade a guy like Dylan Cesar, anybody who's an established big league star, I feel like you have to get everyday hitter at least one back in that deal.
[413] And that deal was so built on pitching, which is a thing that you should be mostly developing.
[414] Like the teams who sustain success are the ones who have pitching depth that they have developed.
[415] You don't get boxed into a corner from injuries that way.
[416] You're not costing yourself assets to acquire guys who are like, fringe pitching staff types because you just need depth because you've developed it.
[417] And that has been a problem in Chicago.
[418] I don't mind using a high draft pick on Hagan Smith because I think Hagan Smith is really good.
[419] I don't mind using a high draft pick on Noah Schultz because I think Noah Schultz is...
[420] You know, he's got issues, but he's freaky in a way that if he does hit, the White Sox really don't have an opportunity to acquire players like this.
[421] And some of that is because of the franchise.
[422] Some of that is like Jerry Reinsdorf's fault.
[423] But yeah, like a very pitching centric approach to the rebuild initially that I think has been more corrected with the crochet trade.
[424] Are there like super duper all -star types?
[425] here right now probably not like the guys who they've mostly acquired i think are good solid average everyday player types like a kyle teal like an edgar cuero i think brayden montgomery who they got in the crochet deal The Red Sox first round pick from Texas A &M has that sort of upside to be a star player.
[426] It's just about how does he look coming off of a severe injury that he suffered at the end of last college season?
[427] Is the hit tool improvement that he showed as a junior at A &M real?
[428] There were a lot of strikeouts there at Stanford before he transferred.
[429] But Chase Madroth, they got as a secondary or tertiary piece in that deal.
[430] I have more of a role player grade on him, but there are definitely people in baseball who really like Chase Madroth and think that he could be an everyday piece.
[431] And so they've started to accumulate a depth of these types of pieces via the pro scouting part of it.
[432] The star players have got to come from the draft.
[433] They've got to come from international scouting.
[434] And the international scouting part of this has been a real problem for the White Sox.
[435] The White Sox have tended to do the aftermarket thing where all these teams are like, here you go, Dominican player, $3 million agreement.
[436] Here you go, Venezuelan player, $2 million agreement.
[437] And the White Sox sit that stuff out for the most part.
[438] And they say, okay, Cuban guys who enter the market late, we're on you.
[439] And that...
[440] Sometimes it works, and that's how you end up with Luis Roberts.
[441] That's how you end up with Oscar Colas.
[442] Correct him with nobody.
[443] That's exactly it.
[444] There are so many of these.
[445] Norje Vera is another one where when this is the market you're playing in, you're just sort of subject to whatever.
[446] the quality of the players are coming out of that market in a given year.
[447] And it's highly variable.
[448] It's highly variable.
[449] And you don't have Jose Abreu around anymore to help you recruit these guys.
[450] And so their approach internationally has to change.
[451] But the problem with that is that that takes forever, not just because the players you're signing from that market take forever.
[452] But because the market for those players, it's already settled two, three years in advance.
[453] And it's so friendship based.
[454] You actually have to hire people that have those friendships in place.
[455] Like you have to kind of buy your way in.
[456] And you can't just be like, can't just show up and they can be like, hi guys, I'm here to get all the good players.
[457] Yeah.
[458] And like when relationships are part of how you succeed.
[459] in those spaces and the padres have established relationships with all these players and their trainers and the rangers have established you know relationships the yankees have the pinstripes on and the dodgers have like you are at a disadvantage when you have not been swimming in those waters for most of the last decade the orioles caught up on that because the orioles were like out and are they are they caught up a little bit have they managed to do the work yes i think you're at the point where they have interesting guys coming through and then like you're approaching that market teams might love to play in that market but their approaches are widely different like cleveland is a spread out six -figure bonuses to a lot of guys team whereas the braves are like give one guy four million dollars and then the rest of our class is like go look at the braves complex you know complex level hitters stats from last year like there's one guy who slugged 400 because they give one guy in the international market four million and then The rest are, you know, 10, 20 grand.
[460] And so you end up with one good player.
[461] If he's good, you're putting all your eggs in one 17 -year -old basket.
[462] So it's just like, you know, this is the area where the White Sox, it's just going to take so long, even if they could be motivated.
[463] And I've asked Chris Getz about this at the GM meetings two meetings ago.
[464] Is your approach going to change in this market?
[465] And he said, yes.
[466] But the truth is that even if that's true, if your motivation is...
[467] instantaneous you still aren't we're not going to see any results from that in who you sign until three years from now and then any results from who of those players are actually good until probably three four years after that and so it's a real problem and it's some of the same stuff on the data infrastructure side yeah they have real problems with data like they're so weird about like it's not good I just think that's stuff Jerry Reinsdorf cares to invest in.
[468] I have nice things to say about Jerry Reinsdorf too.
[469] He's an amazingly loyal person.
[470] I think that some of the people who he's kept in that org for a long time, they're amazing at their jobs.
[471] Joe Butler is an amazing scout.
[472] And there are stories about Jerry Reinsdorf.
[473] I know a homeless guy who Jerry Reinsdorf has helped multiple times.
[474] The guy who signed Mike Cameron, his area scout is a homeless guy now.
[475] And Jerry's made sure that guy's had a place to live.
[476] gene watson you know same thing like amazing person but yeah like they've just it's so hard to catch up when teams in your division like cleveland have had you know they've understood kinematic sequencing because of cameras they've put in their big league park and they have a decade and a half head start on you like good luck you have to have all the data infrastructure installed before you can even yeah I hear like massive player development problems.
[477] And the stuff that I heard that was two, three years ago was just so bad that even if they've cleaned up what I heard two or three years ago, they're still behind.
[478] You can be good still.
[479] Like the Padres aren't great at developing players, but they're sure good at picking them.
[480] Yeah, like A for scouting, even if it's C or C - for actual development, right?
[481] And then maybe there's good enough to trade them.
[482] So that works.
[483] Yeah, like DVR, you know, in the rundown, before the episode you mentioned the pirates and developing hitters and how henry davis has been underwhelming and yeah like some of that is just the draft class quality you go look at that draft class and you're scrolling and you're just like okay who would you take first if not mickey moniac like who are you really going to take first in this draft aj puck like no nick senzel like no so even if you re -racked it henry davis wouldn't be that far from first like there still wasn't a good draft well that's the thing it's like that's jackson merrill draft like jackson merrill went at the back of the first round could you realistically say hey pirates why didn't you take jackson there was no consensus that he would be a one -one guy right but the padres had him about that high like the padres had him two or three they had him ahead of marcello meyer on their draft board that year that's what you need because you gotta stick with what you believe But the reason we wanted to bring out the Pirates in particular is we were surprised to find that they are number one in bat speed.
[484] They're number one in bat speed at the major league level last year.
[485] Now, they're number one in bat speed.
[486] That did lead to good blasts.
[487] And in fact, they were underrated in barrels.
[488] I think they might have been top 10 in barrels.
[489] So they do hit the ball hard.
[490] The park, I think, obscures some of that.
[491] And then they were bottom five in square up percentage, which I have yet to sort of figure out how much I believe in it.
[492] It feels a little bit too much like line drive percentage, which can be...
[493] be really kind of wonky year to year but there is maybe uh like strengths and weaknesses kind of coming out which may be that they swing the bat hard they hit the ball hard but maybe they're not lining it up well and then the prospects you brought up sort of sounded like you're talking about you know connor griffin here and it's like okay, this guy sounds like a guy who swings the bat hard, hits the ball hard, and maybe doesn't line it up every time.
[494] So I wonder if that's a commonality you saw in the Pirates organization.
[495] And also just sort of in a larger sense, like how much you worry about player development and I guess how right you'll look if you pick a guy who's in a good player development org versus a guy who's not.
[496] Yeah, the predicting versus scouting, right?
[497] Where the second a guy gets traded, you know, the second Nick Nostrini gets traded from the Dodgers to the White Sox.
[498] Am I supposed to, like, downgrade what I think of him now, right?
[499] Like, yeah, that is a challenging thing.
[500] As far as the Pirates are concerned, yeah, I think that clearly that they have a type.
[501] You can see some of it internationally.
[502] They have a kid named Jordani De Los Santos in the low minors, too, where...
[503] He's got unbelievable bat speed.
[504] Tony Blanco is another one.
[505] Six, seven corner outfielder, ridiculous power.
[506] If we sorted the leaderboards across all of pro baseball by hard hit rate, he's going to be right at the very top with Judge and Otani, Tony Blanco.
[507] Some of the hitter development stuff especially is so obscured.
[508] The knowledge has not permeated.
[509] I don't think the industry as a whole, how to do some of whatever, whether it's working with VR.
[510] or some of the high -tech pitching machines so that you can just take unlimited reps against Jake DeGrom or whatever it is.
[511] And then I look at Bob Nutting, and I don't know whether Bob Nutting can be convinced to invest in that sort of tech.
[512] But I don't know.
[513] Some of my biases are here I am in Tempe, Arizona.
[514] I can ride my bike to the Angels complex.
[515] I can ride my bike to the A's and Giants complexes.
[516] So I see their stuff.
[517] You know, I see the cameras being put in at the A's complex and the boxes from the Hawkeye, like, you know, just empty cardboard boxes.
[518] I'm just like taking pictures and sending them to my friends.
[519] Like, hey, look at this.
[520] Please leave.
[521] Let me go.
[522] With the teams in Florida, it's more difficult because I'm not there.
[523] a couple hundred times every year.
[524] So with the Pirates specifically, yeah, like maybe an overemphasis on bat speed and less about like how that can maybe be developed.
[525] There are certain guys where what they're doing with their body as they swing seems so athletic innate in a way that it seems unteachable.
[526] Like peak Javi bias, can you really teach anybody to swing?
[527] Like Juan Soto, when you see Juan Soto's bat finishing the dirt behind him like that, and it's just like his whole swing is over in the blink of an eye, and he's rotated like the head of an owl completely around in the blink of an eye.
[528] Can you really teach anybody to do that?
[529] Probably not.
[530] And so there's a certain point where that's the sort of stuff I would be interested in targeting is like, yeah, let's trade for O 'Neal Cruz because, oh my God.
[531] And then at a certain point, yeah.
[532] I was all over Cabrian Hayes thinking that the power would arrive, like actual in -game power would arrive, and it just didn't.
[533] I was just like, oh, this guy will be Matt Chapman, but it didn't.
[534] Do you like Termar?
[535] Did you like the trade for Nick York?
[536] What do you think of their minor league system just generally?
[537] So Termar, I liked Termar in high school, and he just sort of hasn't done anything.
[538] That sort of speaks to what you're talking about.
[539] I mean, this hasn't.
[540] Yeah, he still has power.
[541] I saw Tamar last fall a lot.
[542] And there are times when his hands are still in the right spot to put a charge into the baseball.
[543] But overall, he just seems imbalanced in the box.
[544] And he hasn't gotten any better on defense.
[545] And yeah, he was a tough exclude from the 100 because I just really love Tamar as a person.
[546] He's just such an amazing seeming young guy.
[547] So Nick York's going to be a weird one.
[548] Go look at Nick York's splits.
[549] Nick York has crazy weird reverse splits.
[550] He's one where you, when you look visually, like let's just watch this guy face lefties, just swing against lefties over and over and over again.
[551] And you just cannot believe how angle of his bat just does not, just cannot deal with lefty fastballs kind of coming in at him this way.
[552] So his reverse splits are totally bizarre.
[553] That was a very interesting challenge trade.
[554] Quinn Priester for Nick York.
[555] It was almost certainly need -based, but you'll see whatever Boston does with Quinn Priester, they're amazing at developing guys.
[556] And so it wouldn't surprise me if Quinn Priester levels up, whereas Nick York just seems like an okay guy who the Pirates need, a player like that.
[557] to just be an okay hitter, but he's so strange.
[558] We're saying that he has a really strange bat path, and there's nothing from the sort of ground ball fly ball mix that makes it obvious.
[559] I mean, the reverse platoon switch would, but 40 % grounders, 30 % fly balls.
[560] Yeah, there's a lot of guys like that.
[561] Sometimes the bat path stuff, especially when it's a bizarre outlier guy, can be hard to describe visually.
[562] I know so much of our readership doesn't sit and watch these guys, even if you've got MLB TV.
[563] If it's a Wednesday night and it's like Frambois Valdez is facing Corbin Burns, are you going to watch that or are you going to watch Indianapolis and Toledo?
[564] And I'm sympathetic to that, but that's why we have the two teams set up at the house.
[565] Meg's got one, you got the other.
[566] So I'm trying to describe visually what's going on with as much of these guys as you possibly can.
[567] And Nick York is one of those where it's just so strange.
[568] that is difficult to do but but yeah like nick york is inside outing pitches from righties that are like down and in okay he's pulling the occasional hanging breaking ball that is like up around his hands and he's struggling with like elevated fastballs against righties.
[569] He is like a pretty classic inside out hitter.
[570] It's just so strange who it's happening against.
[571] And then against lefties, you know, he's a 75 % contact rate guy where he's, yeah, I don't know.
[572] It's just weird.
[573] He was also a really weird draft pick when he happened, right?
[574] Like, no, it was out of left field.
[575] He was, and some of that was pandemic related, but.
[576] I saw York in high school and thought that he was like a fine second or third round type of like second base contacts, not big tools.
[577] But like in retrospect, for the Red Sox to take a guy like that makes total sense considering all the other guys who they've targeted and had success with like the Christian Campbells of the world.
[578] Coach up the bat speed.
[579] You got the contact.
[580] You just have Mikey Romero.
[581] Yeah.
[582] These are like the Red Sox draft picks where it's like, oh, you like the Paul shit tool guys.
[583] Okay.
[584] Me too.
[585] Simpatico with them and Cleveland and Milwaukee and the Rays and on a lot of that stuff.
[586] But yeah, Nick York's a really weird one.
[587] Pittsburgh, it's going to be fascinating to see.
[588] Obviously, there's some connective tissue with Charrington and some other orgs who we would describe as being successful at some of this stuff.
[589] But yeah, my hope is that Pittsburgh...
[590] is good soon, if only for some of my family members who went to college out there.
[591] Yeah, it's a great fan base, great ballpark.
[592] They deserve better.
[593] They deserve some runs.
[594] They just need some hitters.
[595] They got the pitchers.
[596] They need some hitters.
[597] Some of these hitters need to work out.
[598] I got a little excited a couple minutes ago.
[599] You were going to explain why the Padres had Jackson Merrill ahead of Marcella Meyer a few drafts ago.
[600] What was the reason for that?
[601] They just liked him more.
[602] They just thought he was more talented.
[603] It's the Padres.
[604] They just believed in him more.
[605] as a hitter and you know Marcelo had who's in their backyard San Diego area high schooler Marcelo had a lot of profile very early because Keone Cavaco was an upperclassman when Marcelo was sophomore he wasn't seeing him for a while I saw you know there's Keone Cavaco who's one of those like classically overvalued by the models because he was 17 and a half on draft day yeah like the Padres just pick it's you know the opposite of trust the process and it's just like trust AJ Preller and Chris Kemp and Logan White and David Post like trust that those guys know what a good baseball player looks like and they do pretty well like as some of the other teams as more of the teams gravitate toward a specific couple and types of approaches and are competing for the same types of players while you don't like there is a game theory element i think that helps explain their success and washington's success uh with some of you know what looks like their re rebuild you know with some of the the guys that they've gotten in some of their trades um not that these teams are totally ignoring Yeah, I didn't think they did that amazing on the Soto trade at first.
[606] I'm happy to be wrong.
[607] I just thought, I look at James Wood and was like, I don't know, too many strikeouts.
[608] Already at that level, he's striking out that much in the minors.
[609] And then I looked at Abrams and I was like, I don't know if he's a great shortstop.
[610] And I just saw all the flaws.
[611] And now you look up and you're like, well, they have a starting shortstop.
[612] James Wood is probably one of the most exciting young players that's about to enter into the lexicon this year.
[613] He's like...
[614] has some similarities to Ellie, right?
[615] He's, like, tall and runs like a gazelle and hits piss missiles, you know?
[616] So it's like, oh, and, you know, you guys did pretty good.
[617] Oh, and you got Gore, too.
[618] Like, it's like, oh, okay.
[619] Yeah, actually, that was a pretty good deal.
[620] Yeah, and you can see some of it in, you know, Rizzo's, the free agents that he is on.
[621] And even, like, Kiebert Ruiz, like, Kiebert's been disappointing, but you can see why...
[622] A catcher with, like, an 11 % strikeout rate, like, that's freaky.
[623] That's why the Diamondbacks wanted Moreno.
[624] It's like, yeah, he's...
[625] If this is Reese's the worst that it...
[626] If Reese's this is the worst that works out, he's still a major league catcher, and they got better up the middle.
[627] And, yeah, sure, maybe Hassel didn't work out, but they did pretty well in those trades.
[628] And Scherzer is one of the best free agent deals of all time.
[629] Yeah, like, I think Rizzo's ability to pick his spots and know, like, Jordan Zimmerman, bye.
[630] And who to retain and who to like piece together to be the role players around your stars.
[631] I, you know, as analytically inclined as I am and like my baseball fandom and sports obsession was seasoned by that when I was a teenager because Moneyball came out when I was like a sophomore in high school.
[632] By my junior year, I read it.
[633] I'm not a trust the process guy.
[634] I think Sam Hinckley has more in common with Sam Bankman -Fried than he does with Ozzie Newsom or Pat Gillick or Jerry West.
[635] To me, there are definitely people in sports, sports executives, who have come to an understanding with ownership about job security, and the game they're playing is one about job security and not necessarily about winning as a means to job security.
[636] And I think that's part of how we end up with like, hey, at this number, this payroll number, we're going to win like 86 games.
[637] Yeah, I was thinking that.
[638] I was thinking Seattle.
[639] Gets everybody comfortable.
[640] Trust us.
[641] Right.
[642] That's a good example.
[643] Like, trust me to make us have our process at this budgetary number will put us in the 84 win area.
[644] And our people will help make it be 86, 88 wins.
[645] And then once you're in the playoffs, it's just a crapshoot anyway.
[646] But when the Padres are like, hey, let's get freaks.
[647] And then it's your team, your 84 -win team, you know, Juan Brito's.
[648] And over there is Manny Machado.
[649] And over there is Xander Bogart.
[650] It's so funny they actually share a complex.
[651] It's like, good luck.
[652] They couldn't be more different in a lot of ways.
[653] Good luck with that.
[654] But, but yeah, then you get, for sure you get overzealous where, you know, the Padres, I, do you think that they feel the soda trade was worth it?
[655] Like they were literally cracking champagne on the complex and were confident enough in it to like tell the media that that's what they were doing.
[656] And I just think that, I mean, it's hindsight 2020, but like, you'd rather have CJ Abrams if you weren't.
[657] at the casino all night and james wood and all these guys like and the bogarts trade was uh yeah like jason hayward and tier so that's gonna really hurt them yeah so it is tough like you paint yourself into this corner when but also like your owner's dying and so there are all kinds of other stuff but sometimes it's just like some of this is because i live through jaleel okafor and you know what i mean like i just don't think that it's good enough to be like what if we're bad enough long enough that i can goof three times it's like no you can't take markel fultz and i know that hanky didn't take but you can't yeah philly doesn't have anything to show for the trust the process really i mean they haven't beat but you know they haven't won with them but yeah like you know the grizzlies are clearly analytically inclined because they're just like let's take you know desmond bayne isn't long at all he's like a short little you know He's built like Doug Martin.
[658] They're actually amazing.
[659] And I think they're a player development team, too.
[660] They take these guys, and you don't know who they are, and then they play to the top of their ability.
[661] Santi Aldama, Gigi Jackson.
[662] I'm surprised they don't do more packaging and trading, but they don't want to get too expensive, I think.
[663] So they're just like, we're okay.
[664] We're going to have 12 good guys.
[665] They all play amazing defense and can hit threes.
[666] Yeah, they basically salary -dumped Marcus Smart.
[667] and had the enough like ammo to to be able to do that without the team getting also didn't work like you know like the guardians they're like the guardians of the end right i know i was kind of bummed i wondered if if they had known about if they had known about luca if they would have been like how about for luca i hate luca so i would not have wanted that to happen but like he's great but i just don't want to root for that guy you know just not my my favorite of of athlete to like be like yeah go luca the whining Yeah.
[668] Yeah.
[669] He just seems like a patchwork guy.
[670] Just not my style.
[671] I like the stoic, like Steph Curry.
[672] I'm a little bit more, you know, but yeah, like I do.
[673] I'm trying to think of who some of my, who are my like NBA dudes who I like really ride for.
[674] I mean, I love the Thompson twins.
[675] That's what's been onto the house a lot is, is the Rockets, the Grizzlies, OKC.
[676] Like I love the vibe of the OKC.
[677] They all seem to really love each other.
[678] They're just a really good team.
[679] Drew Holiday.
[680] That's my guy.
[681] That's too much basketball for a baseball podcast.
[682] I don't think I knew this about it.
[683] I'm going to talk basketball with you next time.
[684] Basketball is my second favorite sport.
[685] You got a Doug Martin comp in there, too.
[686] We got some football going across there.
[687] It was incredible.
[688] Of all the nicknames I've ever heard that became public nicknames for a player, that was the worst one, and I'm glad he hated it.
[689] He was very clear that he never liked that nickname.
[690] Yeah, Muscle Hamster is rough.
[691] That's a rough one.
[692] I don't know.
[693] I'm trying to think of, like, some of the unflattering nicknames I've had.
[694] When I was, like, a husky child, I was Chipmunk.
[695] So I had Chipmunk.
[696] And then once, like, the body hair started to come, then, like, we were all over the map with, like, hey, Sasquatch.
[697] From Chipmunk to Sasquatch.
[698] But when you're in eighth grade and you just have, like, a full -on, like...
[699] So you had a Teen Wolf situation going on.
[700] Yeah.
[701] There you go.
[702] There's a good reference for you too.
[703] No, Eric, before we let you go, anything that you want to promote over at fan graphs from prospect week or otherwise that our listeners should go check out.
[704] Yeah.
[705] Just go to, go to our website.
[706] You know, we're a small but mighty websites with, you know, a handful of full -time people.
[707] Our stat leaderboards are amazing.
[708] I just saw that.
[709] I was looking at the Stanford on there, dude.
[710] That's crazy.
[711] Yeah, that's been soft launch this week without a lot of fanfare because we're still getting some of the dates of birth and the team abbreviations and some of that stuff settled.
[712] But we'll have college stats and college leaderboards will be coming pretty soon.
[713] So that's exciting.
[714] Yeah, an ad -free subscription at Fangraphs is like a dollar a week for the course of the year.
[715] Really, since the pandemic, when ad rates tanked, we've tried to shift to a subscription base, and it's going pretty well.
[716] But it's a wonderful gift for yourself or for someone you know who loves baseball, especially before opening day.
[717] And then Kylie McDaniel and I wrote a book four years ago, five years ago, yeah, about scouting called Future Value.
[718] And if you want in -depth thoughts about some of the stuff that we got into a little bit today.
[719] Definitely still relevant.
[720] It's not four years.
[721] It doesn't matter.
[722] It's still relevant.
[723] That's a very good book.
[724] Some of the stuff came true way faster than we would have thought.
[725] And we could probably write another update now if we had the time or energy or if Kylie thought that the better for your buck for sitting and writing another 40 ,000 words.
[726] That's the toughest sell of all probably at that point.
[727] Yeah, that's a mountain to climb.
[728] Well, Eric, we appreciate your time, all the hard work you do.
[729] And yeah, looking forward to catching me again soon.
[730] Thank you guys so much for having me. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.
[731] Support Fangraphs.
[732] Get a subscription over there.
[733] It is like a dollar a week.
[734] I use it all day, every day.
[735] So definitely sub over there.
[736] Join our Discord.
[737] You can do it with the link in the show description.
[738] You can find all of us except for Eric on Blue Sky.
[739] Eno is enoceros .beastguidedsocial.
[740] I'm dbr .beastguidedsocial.
[741] That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.
[742] We're back with you on Monday.
[743] Thanks for listening.
[744] He had bigger hams than I thought he would.
[745] I was looking at his quads, man. Those were prodigious.