Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 40 : Hot Minor League Starts

Transcript

Ep. 40 : Hot Minor League Starts · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode forty one of Cards and Categories. I
• 0:20
  am Mike Coolard from Rasball here, joined with my very good friend, as
• 0:25
  always, Jeremy Brewer, also from Rasball. How you doing tonight, Bud.
• 0:29
  I am doing fantastic. I am really excited to talk about baseball night.
• 0:33
  It is fantastic baseball weather outside, which makes me just excited to get
• 0:36
  in and actually talk about baseball. And I feel like we're just far enough
• 0:40
  in the season that like things are happening you you can actually assess and analyze
• 0:44
  guys like that first week He's like, well, it's one week, but
• 0:47
  now we're just far enough in there you can start to see some trends.
• 0:50
  That's exciting. And there's a lot happening in the baseball world, so I'm
• 0:54
  excited to get into it. Yeah. Absolutely, I think people will figure
• 0:57
  that out. As we are recording here on April seventeenth, Wednesday night,
• 1:02
  it's our first rundown that goes four pages. So we've got tons of news
• 1:07
  to cover, lots of good news, lots of bad news as well in
• 1:11
  terms of injuries hitting us across the fantasy player pool. So let's start with
• 1:18
  some of the prospect call ups, because this past week we really started seeing
• 1:22
  teams get into the spot where they're either because of injury or because the player
• 1:29
  is performing well down in Double A, Triple A, they're ready to bring
• 1:33
  some of these players up. So we've got quite the handful here of new
• 1:38
  players in our player pool. The first we'll start kind of, I would
• 1:42
  say, roughly from like biggest Star descending down from there, and also from
• 1:49
  Fantasy impact going from there. I think this will also tie in well because
• 1:53
  what we're going to do for our main portion of the pod is talk about
• 1:57
  hot starts down in the minor leagues. A couple of these guys that we're
• 2:00
  going to talk about that the reason they're off is because the teams who own
• 2:06
  who own them or you know, have them in their in their in their
• 2:09
  minor league system got to seeing their performance quicker than we were able to discuss
• 2:15
  it. So the first one is outfielder Andy Paijes from the Dodgers, So
• 2:21
  he is coming up along with Jason Hayward hitting the IL should currently be starting
• 2:28
  in a corner pretty much every day. But Brew, what do you think
• 2:30
  about pa hes In as he enters the lineup for the Dodgers and what he
• 2:36
  could do for the rest of the season. Well, first of all,
• 2:38
  I'm glad you looked up the annunciations wid didn't mess it up, But you're
• 2:42
  welcome Beyond that, you know, he's He's one that I'm really torn on
• 2:46
  as as he gets call up here because if you look at his profile,
• 2:50
  look at the metrics that he's uh he's been able to put up, it
• 2:54
  looks really pretty attractive, Like he's he's not a high strikeout guy. He's
• 2:59
  actually a decent on bass guy. He walks quite a bit, really some
• 3:02
  good power. He's had the seasons of you know, twenty five thirty home
• 3:07
  runs in the minor leagues over one hundred and twenty hundred and thirty games in
• 3:10
  probably a two point fifty hitter. It's been higher and lower, but he
• 3:15
  kind of settles in there. The thing that I'm struggling with is how long
• 3:21
  is he going to be there and is he going to actually get a spot
• 3:23
  long term in that lineup. I think he's going to get like, if
• 3:27
  he gets hot, he might be able to carve out a role. But
• 3:30
  at the end of the day, you know, the Dodgers are just they
• 3:34
  have him up there because Hayward's hurt and Tayoskar is not going to be giving
• 3:38
  up his spot. I think, outman, they're going to rely on him
• 3:43
  and keep him in there even though he's been cold to to start, because
• 3:46
  he was really really good last year and they seem like they want to use
• 3:51
  you know, Kiki Hernandez and Jason Hayward to keep that veteran presence. So
• 3:54
  I do like a Hayes. I'm not going to pronounce it correctly. That's
• 3:58
  fine, it's I'll take it and be minus. I do like him,
• 4:04
  and I am intrigued to him, but I just don't see him making a
• 4:10
  significant impact for enough of the fantasy season. I think he's plugging a hole
• 4:14
  or seeing what they what they have, and they're gonna send him back down
• 4:16
  when when Hayward's healthy. So lots of talent, but I'm kind of hesitant
• 4:21
  on maybe a redraft league, on how much I'm willing to really invest in
• 4:26
  him. If I have a bench spot, sure, I'll pick him up
• 4:29
  see what happens, but I'm not going out spending a big, you know,
• 4:32
  bad budget on him or anything like that at this point in time.
• 4:36
  Okay, I think I'm a little bit more optimistic than you. Part of
• 4:40
  it is also I've been a pretty big Pajes guy for a long time,
• 4:44
  partly because in twenty twenty one, he even though he was in a ball
• 4:49
  steamer started projecting him for ae hundred WRC plus like in the majors if he
• 4:55
  had just been called up like then in there from single A. So that
• 4:59
  really kind of caught my eye. The strikeouts have been an issue for him
• 5:02
  in the past, but in his triple A time before he got called up,
• 5:06
  he posted a one to eighty WRC plus in seventy three played appearances,
• 5:12
  but that came with a strikeout rate of just seventeen point eight, which is
• 5:15
  really nice to see. I think he will probably carve out a full time
• 5:19
  role here for the Dodgers going forward, just because Chris Taylor has looked busted
• 5:26
  and old to start the season here. I think t k Hernandez and Gavin
• 5:30
  Lux end up in a platoon at second base, and that opens up the
• 5:34
  pathway for Pat Has here. I don't think that the ceiling is like super
• 5:40
  tremendous, but like it is like if you're looking for some power and you
• 5:45
  need an outfielder to be like your fourth or fifth outfielder and a twelfth teamer.
• 5:47
  I think Patjes could be a good choice that I'm looking for something almost
• 5:54
  like a Willia Damas in the outfield. I think where it's like two forty
• 5:59
  to two fifty hitters on a full like six hundred plate appearances. I think
• 6:02
  he'd be like mid twenties homers and then like he's gonna hit eighth for the
• 6:08
  Dodgers, eighth or ninth for the Dodgers. So you're looking at sixty ish
• 6:12
  runs an RBI, but no stolen bases. I would say maybe three to
• 6:15
  five stolen basis. He's not a big burner, but he does have a
• 6:18
  lot of power in the bat. And if I'm in a dynasty league,
• 6:21
  I don't think you're gonna be able to touch by us in a dynasty league
• 6:25
  right now. But I'm certainly watching him because I do think that this is
• 6:30
  a guy long term could really add to that hit tool and be able to
• 6:34
  add a little bit to the power as he grows into being in the majors.
• 6:40
  Yeah, I think the big thing is here, Like I think our
• 6:43
  assessments are just is he gonna be in the majors or not. I don't
• 6:45
  think there's any question the talent is do we think he has a spot?
• 6:47
  Because if he does in that Dodgers lineup again, he's probably batting eight or
• 6:53
  nine in that lineup, but by eight or nine and then getting on base
• 6:56
  in front of Mookie and Freddie and Shohy like, that's okay, you're gonna
• 7:01
  get some runs, You're gonna get a chance for some production, and you
• 7:05
  run into one every once in a while. So I think it comes down
• 7:08
  to, really how much does the rest of the Dodgers' lineup kind of pick
• 7:11
  things up so that outfield start to hit. If they do, he's back
• 7:14
  in the minors. If they continue to struggle and Hayward and Geeky are you
• 7:17
  know, are just finally uh call them the day from a hitting perspective,
• 7:24
  then yeah, then then maybe he does stick. So, uh, time
• 7:27
  will tell. Time will tell on this one for sure. Okay. Yeah,
• 7:30
  And we've got another hot starter up in Seattle who has been called up
• 7:34
  with Dominic Canzone hitting the i L and another situation where Jonathan class A he
• 7:43
  should have the full time gig in Seattle until can Zone comes back. But
• 7:48
  I think this is another situation where can Zone is not anything special. I
• 7:53
  think at the end of the day, he's kind of a fourth outfielderish type
• 7:56
  that the Mariners were giving to me played appearances too, in my mind.
• 8:01
  So I think Class A, if he can come up and perform well,
• 8:05
  he can take this job up in Seattle. But overall he is known for
• 8:11
  his speed, which, especially if you were looking for I think I mean
• 8:15
  Victor Scott's kind of fallen Flatina's face that this is another guy in Victor Scott's
• 8:20
  mold where Class A last year is still seventy nine bases across I A and
• 8:24
  Double A, and got off to a blazing start down in Triple A over
• 8:28
  his first fifty three played appearances there, put up a one forty six WRC
• 8:31
  plus with a three or eleven batting average and two homers and three are in
• 8:35
  three stolen bases. So a pretty exciting prospect arriving in Seattle as well.
• 8:41
  So what do you think here is the future for Class A. Yeah,
• 8:46
  these first two guys we're talking about, I'm much more interested in Class A
• 8:50
  Thanky the Hey, I'm not, I'm not gonna get it. It's just
• 8:54
  by haze. I'm just not going to do it like it's we probably should
• 8:58
  probably should record now I'm getting Illinois White Boys have a podcast. Yes,
• 9:03
  that's that's unfortunate. Even if we if I knew how to pronounce, I
• 9:07
  just couldn't say it. But what really intrigues me is he is one of
• 9:13
  those Phil the sat Cheat types of guys. The speed is absolutely there,
• 9:18
  and you know, as I look at speed for you guys in the miners,
• 9:20
  you're looking for for kind of two things like does he have it?
• 9:22
  But also how efficient is he? And he has been incredibly efficient in the
• 9:28
  miners. You know, in twenty twenty three at Double A he stole sixty
• 9:33
  two bases and only got caught eleven times, and Hi A he stole seventeen
• 9:39
  of twenty one in that same season. So you know, we're we're talking
• 9:41
  about a guy here that sold about eighty bases in about one hundred and thirty
• 9:46
  games. And so you're talking about Victor Scott, You're not too far off
• 9:50
  that that speed. Now, I don't expect it to be the same level
• 9:54
  and in the majors by any means, but he also brings some pretty intriguing
• 9:58
  pop, Like you're not surprised see him put fifteen balls in the big in
• 10:01
  the seats across a full season. The average is probably going to suffer.
• 10:07
  The speed will help that, but it's it's I mean, I don't know,
• 10:11
  maybe a two forty guy, uh, two fifty hopefully, but he's
• 10:15
  gonna be one of those that fills the stat sheet and you know, he
• 10:18
  have to like that. He actually does walk makes me think a little bit
• 10:22
  of like cav On Bigio when he was coming up, like he's he's striking
• 10:26
  out and he's walking almost to too much degree. But the guy he actually
• 10:31
  really makes me think about as actually Tyler O'Neill because he is ultra aggressive at
• 10:35
  the plate and he's going to go after the pitches and then he's got some
• 10:39
  pop, he's got some speed. It's not a perfect comp but it's it's
• 10:41
  that aggressive profile that he had. Will be interesting to see how well that
• 10:46
  plays and if it gets exploited at the major league level. I just think
• 10:50
  that there's a decent floor here because of the speed that he has. And
• 10:54
  we've talked all off season, all preseason how important speeds is, and he's
• 11:01
  the kind of guy that I don't. I was not expecting Class A to
• 11:03
  get called up yet. I was I was like, think midyear, late
• 11:07
  year or something like that, and I have zero shares and I am disappointed
• 11:11
  to myself for that, because I think he can really make a difference as
• 11:15
  you're trying to, you know, work through the early season here with injuries,
• 11:18
  and you throw a guy like this in and you just get an extra
• 11:20
  ten steals over the next month, just as you're trying to figure out what
• 11:24
  your team looks like. Man that can actually pay really big dividends down the
• 11:28
  road, road and road a league. So I'm actually much more interesting Class
• 11:33
  A, just because I think that he's going to hit the ground running and
• 11:35
  I think that he's a little more long term viability for this year to have
• 11:41
  that spot in the lineup. Yeah, I think for long term Dynasty I
• 11:48
  like Class A a lot better. I do think for this year, though,
• 11:50
  I like Paes better, just because I think pa Haes is more ready
• 11:56
  for MLB that you know, he's got a little more seasoning. I think
• 11:58
  class is maybe a year early here, but if anything, in dynasty leagues,
• 12:05
  you might be able to use that to your advantage of this guy comes
• 12:07
  up and struggles, he strikes out a little bit too much. Just honestly,
• 12:11
  look exactly what Victor Scott's doing. He's Victor Scott with a little bit
• 12:16
  extra power. So maybe that owner sees Class A struggling, doesn't think he
• 12:20
  can hack it. I think he can hack it long term. It's just
• 12:24
  he probably needed another year of seasoning down a Triple A. So I think,
• 12:28
  yeah, but if you do need the stolen bases, you can,
• 12:31
  I think go a little aggressively for Class A because they're obviously the upper tier.
• 12:37
  Outcome here is very extreme in terms of what you might get from like
• 12:41
  a stolen base and home run perspective. Yeah, exactly. He's almost a
• 12:46
  story Ruiz with not as big of a penalty. Like He's what everybody was
• 12:50
  drafting a story Ruiz for, and here you go a freebie. So okay.
• 12:56
  The other one that we have called up another prospect, big time prospect
• 13:01
  for the Texas Rangers, Jack Lighter. They're number one over the first round
• 13:07
  pick in twenty twenty one, number two overall and son of Al Lighter is
• 13:11
  making his debut tomorrow as we speak on Thursday. And another guy who looked
• 13:18
  electric down in the miners, and he was drafted as a big time arm
• 13:24
  and things finally materialized for him in his first three games down in Triple A
• 13:28
  when he put up fifteen point seven K nine over fourteen point one innings,
• 13:33
  and by all reports it sounded like the fastball was really hard to touch and
• 13:41
  everything was able to work off of that. So the past few years he's
• 13:43
  really had a lot of command issues coming through the miners, especially with his
• 13:48
  fastball, and the touch for the slider has been very iffy on the reports
• 13:52
  too for Jacklider. So it looks like whatever tweaks they've made in the spring
• 13:58
  and off season down in two Axis are working for Lighter and should be honestly
• 14:03
  in the rotation until he proves that he shouldn't be there, I think.
• 14:07
  So, what do you think for the long term viability of Jack Lighter down
• 14:11
  in Texas? Grow? Yeah, So, you know, I look at
• 14:13
  him and it all comes down to control, Like it all comes down to
• 14:18
  control. His stuff is nasty. He can strike guys out there, There's
• 14:22
  no question about that. And you know the thing I'm going to slightly correct
• 14:26
  you on is it wasn't just this offseason. If you go back to late
• 14:28
  last year August onward, we're not talking about a lot of innings here,
• 14:33
  look very early similar to what he's done beginning this year. He was just
• 14:39
  about twenty innings, twenty nine strikeouts, six walks from August onward. And
• 14:46
  yeah, he gave up nine rounds during that, So probably an issue when
• 14:48
  you let five leave the yard. But we're looking at the control because that's
• 14:54
  that's what you're looking for for Jack Lighter here, I almost call him al
• 14:58
  Lighters and so for you know, to your point, all reports seem to
• 15:05
  show that he's like figured something out with that fastball to get the control and
• 15:09
  the command. And if that's true, he's like we're looking at like a
• 15:13
  number three, number two this year with the with the upside that in outer
• 15:20
  years he can he can do more. So I'm really interested in Jack Lyder
• 15:24
  because he does have a ton to like about him. The red flags or
• 15:28
  the control also, pitching in Texas fly ball pitcher that's had some home run
• 15:33
  issues is something that we're going to have to watch out for. But you
• 15:35
  know, of all the guys kind of coming up and and you know,
• 15:39
  being taken taken flyers from a pitching perspective, He's really a good flyer to
• 15:45
  take and see if this if the stuff that we've seen in the last year
• 15:48
  spring training into the miners this year is holding up. The The interesting part
• 15:54
  though, is where is he fitness rotation? Like this rotation is the most
• 15:58
  interesting rotation if you ask me about baseball, because you're looking at a rotation
• 16:06
  right right now of Nathan Givaldi, Michael Lorenzen, John Gray, Dane Dunning,
• 16:11
  and Andrew Heaney and Jack Lighter's breaking into that without probably too much difficulty.
• 16:15
  But they have nearly an entire rotation of guys that are probably at the
• 16:22
  top of that rotation on the IL with Cody Bradford, who's looked great this
• 16:26
  year, but before getting hurt. You got Jacob de Gram, You've got
• 16:30
  Tyler Molly and Max Schurzer, all at some point trying to make it back
• 16:36
  this season. I know some of them later in the year because some of
• 16:38
  the recovery is there, But like, where does he fit long term is
• 16:44
  the question? But I don't think it really matters because enough that's going to
• 16:48
  be It's not like all those guys are coming back next week. So I
• 16:51
  think, you know, if a lighter, if the control issues are fixed
• 16:55
  and he can find a spot in this rotation, he's not going to get
• 16:57
  sent back down. So again, I really I'm really interested in him.
• 17:03
  I'm not sure he's gonna go really deep in games or anything like that,
• 17:06
  and I think he's gonna be a little volatile. But if you're looking for
• 17:07
  K's Jack Lider's your guy, just be ready. There's the ride might be
• 17:12
  a little bit bumpy as he as he makes an adjustment here. Yeah,
• 17:17
  I think he's in the rotation as long as he pitches well that I think
• 17:22
  they'll probably go six man rotation or have some sort of piggyback situation. Especially
• 17:27
  I mean you're also counting on Aovaldi and Andrew Heeney and all these other guys
• 17:33
  to remain healthy. So I think they're just gonna write it as long as
• 17:37
  they can and then figure it out in the playoffs. You know, hey,
• 17:41
  it worked from last year. Let's try to okay with another picture that
• 17:47
  we have coming up to make his debut this upcoming week is Land and knack
• 17:52
  Down in Los Angeles for the Dodgers, and he also looked really fantastic out
• 17:59
  of the gate. He is a little bit older, little more seasoned.
• 18:02
  He's twenty six, but he was knocking on the door of debuting late last
• 18:07
  year and never quite got the call. But I think he proved right away
• 18:11
  in TRIPLEA that he was ready to graduate to the majors. As in his
• 18:17
  first three starts he had a four h two RA with a nine point one
• 18:22
  K nine. So things looked really good down there. And Bobby Miller going
• 18:26
  down with his shoulder injury we'll get to in a little bit when we get
• 18:29
  into all of our injury news. That's the sad news that I alluded to.
• 18:33
  Will open up a rotation spot for Landon Nak here going forward. So
• 18:37
  Brew, what are you thinking about Landon nac pitching in the Dodgers rotation?
• 18:41
  Yeah, I think Lnmax he's a watch guy for me at this point.
• 18:45
  I think that to your point, there's definitely a skill set there on the
• 18:48
  older side. Definitely seems like he's improved from a physical perspective. There's a
• 18:55
  little more on that fastball, but you know, he is very much a
• 19:00
  fly ball pitcher. You know, home runs have been kind of an issue
• 19:03
  every other season. It kind of seems like for him and you know,
• 19:07
  I think he's gonna be one that that struggles a little bit to kind of
• 19:11
  adjust at the major league level. I just don't think the stuff's overpowering enough.
• 19:15
  That said, pitching for the Dodgers and having that lineup, like,
• 19:19
  I'm a little bit more willing to take a flyer or take him on my
• 19:23
  bench to just see what happens, because he he has that potential to be
• 19:29
  kind of a little bit of an innings eater if they can rely on him
• 19:33
  and just get some volume, sneak into some wins. But I just I
• 19:37
  don't I don't forecast that. I just I'm not seeing it. I think
• 19:41
  he's a back end starter. He probably ends up in the bullpen long term,
• 19:47
  but because of some injuries, he's getting the chance. So we'll see,
• 19:51
  we'll see if he if he sticks. But I see him more as
• 19:52
  one that's kind of kind of come up and up and down throughout the season.
• 19:56
  Be that guy that's uh trying to to fill fill the role of Tony
• 20:00
  Gosling when he first came up. Things like that. So again, next
• 20:06
  next interesting maxt not for me. Yeah, I mean, I think he's
• 20:11
  a good fallback option if you're not able to pick up Jack lighter in any
• 20:15
  of your leagues. That Nac reminds me a little bit of like am At
• 20:18
  Sheehan, but with just a tick down on the velocity, so just a
• 20:25
  little bit fewer strikeouts, but also fewer walks, so he's got a little
• 20:27
  bit better control. And so yeah, I'm willing to take that flyer.
• 20:33
  And especially when you get starts like in San Diego, in San Francisco against
• 20:38
  the Rockies, some of the easier schedule spots, especially pitching for the Dodgers.
• 20:45
  You said it yourself, Nack should be able to go pretty deep into
• 20:48
  games, So you're looking for some decent wins that I think he'll be more
• 20:52
  of like a streamer to me, kind of like back end of my rotation,
• 20:56
  looking at what starts. I like what Colorado? Actually, I feel
• 21:02
  like Colorado you're actually streaming this year because Colorado's just so bad. It's close
• 21:07
  like it you make you think about it a lot more than I think he
• 21:11
  used to, because I did when Tampa went there the other week and you're
• 21:15
  just like, Ooh, do you like, what's the worst that could happen?
• 21:18
  Right? Like, yeah, I think it had a few solos,
• 21:19
  like, but it's not not gonna be that big of a deal. Yeah,
• 21:23
  okay, and we got another pitcher, so we still got two more.
• 21:27
  The next one is for the White Sox. Nick Nestrini, I think
• 21:32
  is how you see it say it. But he actually came from the Dodgers
• 21:36
  in the off season, so we're looking at another Dodgers prospect here finding his
• 21:44
  way to Chicago. And he already debuted this week when he opened up and
• 21:52
  threw against the Royals on Monday. He did pick up the loss, but
• 21:56
  he went five strong, getnings and looked pretty decent. Struck out five.
• 22:00
  I've gave up two runs, so nothing too absurd. As Era sits at
• 22:03
  three sixty right now, but that FIP is at five oh five. I
• 22:08
  think, honestly, we're going kind of an order of the way. I
• 22:12
  prefer these pictures that Nastrini, I think, more so than NAC is going
• 22:18
  to probably stick with the White Sox rotation just because it's pretty awful, because
• 22:23
  why not. Yeah, and exactly like they traded for Nastrini and got him
• 22:30
  back for actually it was Lynn at the deadline last year, and so the
• 22:36
  I just don't see like, why you wouldn't throw this guy all the rest
• 22:38
  of the year. He's twenty four, might as well use those bullets in
• 22:41
  the majors if you're the White Sox. But what do you think, what
• 22:45
  types of leaves you're picking up? Nastrini and having any interest in him?
• 22:48
  Yeah, I think Nastrini is He's one of those that's kind of a deep
• 22:52
  league flyer at this point. I think he has really interesting stuff from what
• 22:56
  I've been able to ascertain. And the questions with him is like with having
• 23:04
  so many good things in your arsenal, which means you strike guys out,
• 23:10
  which means you can stay of the zone, and the miners like how much
• 23:12
  of his walk troubles and the miners like, we're talking a guy that's four
• 23:15
  to five walks per nine in the miners. How much of that is because
• 23:19
  he doesn't have to be in the zone because his stuff is nasty and they
• 23:22
  can chase it. But then when he has to pitch in the zone,
• 23:26
  is the stuff good enough to be avoided? And I don't know the answer
• 23:30
  from the streni, and so I think like he that's why I like that
• 23:32
  that's more of a prototypical reliever role because he got this good stuff, which
• 23:37
  you maybe a Jordan Hicks type thing going on. Right, You got really
• 23:41
  good stuff, and so are you able to start? I think that's what
• 23:44
  we're going to try to find out with Masterini. So to your point,
• 23:48
  the fip's been pretty pretty rough across his career. You know, he does
• 23:52
  attend get some homer issues, which I feel like a number of guys we
• 23:56
  talked about they've had Homer pro type issues. But yeah, I'm looking more
• 24:02
  deeply flyer, maybe Dynasty League if I can. If I'm picking him up
• 24:07
  for the very back just to see what happens, but I'm cutting bait pretty
• 24:12
  quickly if I see that the walks are still there and he hasn't he's not
• 24:15
  adjusting, because I think Major league kiders are just gonna circle of bases walking
• 24:19
  on him. If he's tiptoeing around the zone, if he puts it in
• 24:23
  the zone, he keeps in the zone and it's hard to hit in the
• 24:26
  zone, then I think there's something here that might be the numbers might be
• 24:30
  covering up a little bit. So okay, yeah, all right, And
• 24:33
  then the last picture that we've he already made his debut pitched. Let me
• 24:40
  see, I lost track of the date. It was on the thirteenth against
• 24:42
  the Rockies. Had a great debut, and that is Yio Rodriguez from the
• 24:47
  Blue Jays. I think, honestly, in terms of stuff, he's probably
• 24:51
  got some of the nastiest stuff of who we've talked about. He is a
• 24:55
  Cuban that came over from the NPB in the off season, and I think
• 25:00
  if it wasn't for the questions about whether or not he stretched out enough to
• 25:06
  start, he would probably be amongst my favorite of these guys. Because the
• 25:11
  strikeouts are there. I think you're gonna be looking at maybe the only person
• 25:17
  that we've talked about of these pictures that could go double digit canine and strikeouts
• 25:22
  to maintain it. It's just a matter of how many innings you're gonna get
• 25:25
  out of him. Because the Blue Jays were kind of up in the air
• 25:27
  whether or not they wanted to use Rodriguez in the bullpen or in the rotation.
• 25:32
  But he enters the rotation now as Boden Francis has just been not good,
• 25:37
  and so I think until Ricky Tiedeman is ready to go, they're gonna
• 25:41
  rely on Yariel Rodriguez to make starts or maybe even be a follower up in
• 25:47
  Toronto. So Brew would you think about Yarriol Rodriguez and what you might people
• 25:52
  get out of him in his role with Toronto. Yeah, I think Yariel
• 25:56
  is one of the guys, you know, I put them right there almost
• 25:57
  with Jack Lighter as far as the guys that I'm willing to pick up.
• 26:02
  But to your point, I think it's he's he's got a pretty big ceiling.
• 26:04
  We just he hasn't pitched a lot in the last few years as he's
• 26:07
  bounced around trying to find a spot, trying to make his ways really over
• 26:11
  to the major leagues, And so I think there's a kind of question out
• 26:15
  there of you know, how much he's going to stick and how much,
• 26:22
  how how well that's going to translate after all all that time off. He
• 26:26
  really is, you know, kind of a more of a less a two
• 26:30
  two pitch pitcher, but he's his sliders nasty. So it's I'm interested enough
• 26:37
  that he has a ton of potential that I'm like, let me take a
• 26:41
  flyer here, let me see what happens. But don't like, don't get
• 26:45
  over invested. I think he's a guy that I absolutely take a fly around,
• 26:48
  but I don't I'm not starting unless it's that, unless it's like against
• 26:52
  Oakland or the White Sox, Like there's probably a few spots where like how
• 26:56
  bad can it be that I'm gonna kind of stay steer away fer, But
• 27:00
  I he's easily one of those that you would it wouldn't be hard to look
• 27:03
  back in a month or two and see him breaking out and be shocked.
• 27:07
  So you don't want to wait too long to try to invest in that.
• 27:12
  But if he's if he starts to kind of get run into a few folks,
• 27:17
  uh from a command perspective, and he's getting hit hard, then you're
• 27:22
  cutting bait. But I already picked him up in one of our leagues,
• 27:26
  and I is literally a dart throw But I think that the dart my land,
• 27:30
  and I'm gonna be really really happy with him. And if it doesn't
• 27:33
  land, I'm cutting bait in like two three weeks and I didn't hurt me.
• 27:37
  So I like Yael the potential of him. To your point, we
• 27:42
  we just don't know, We just don't do not know how well his stuff's
• 27:47
  gonna end up playing and is he gonna go deep enough in games to get
• 27:49
  wins to ramp up the strikeouts Unless you're in a daily league, that's gonna
• 27:56
  gonna hamper you across the across the category. Is trying to you know,
• 28:00
  deal with four or five and he starts. Yeah, so he's slated just
• 28:06
  start against the Padres on Friday. You you taking that one in sand I
• 28:11
  think I'm watching that one. I think I'm watching that one Friday night in
• 28:15
  San Diego with the Marine Layer. Could he face the bottom of the San
• 28:17
  Diego lineup every time? If so, I'm all in. Uh. We
• 28:22
  talked talked about the San Diego lineup. I'll say one of the top heavy,
• 28:23
  like the biggest differences between the top of the line up and the bottom
• 28:26
  of the lineup. I'll take that all day. But yeah, I think
• 28:30
  I'm I'm watching him in that one. But that's the kind of team like
• 28:33
  if he if he shows well against San Diego, then I'm much more interested.
• 28:37
  I just think he's scooped up by everybody before that just to doing the
• 28:41
  same kind of thing. Yeah, okay, all right, And we've got
• 28:45
  one signing to go for from our new section, and that is Tommy fam
• 28:48
  signing a minor league deal with the White Sox reporting to Charlotte, I think
• 28:52
  he should be up once he finds his groove, and honestly, fantastic landing
• 28:57
  spot for Tommy Fan because nothing's going to stop him from playing every day in
• 29:03
  Chicago, and I think it also motivates him to play as hard as he
• 29:08
  can every day and try to play his way out of Chicago at the deadline.
• 29:12
  So I think this is if you've been holding Tommy Fan, what a
• 29:17
  fantastic landing spot for him overall. And I think if he's still available in
• 29:22
  your league, I'm certainly putting him on a roster if I can to put
• 29:26
  him on the bench and wait for him to come up for the White Sox.
• 29:29
  What about you, Yeah, I don't know him in multiple leagues.
• 29:33
  I've been waiting for this moment, and I'm absolutely tickled to death with the
• 29:37
  Landen spot because he is I think he should have been playing wherever he signed.
• 29:42
  There's a lot of teams I thought should should go after him, but
• 29:45
  you're right, he is locked in. This is I mean, if this
• 29:49
  isn't a play to get draft capital or you know, prospect capital, at
• 29:55
  the trade endline. I don't know what is, but they absolutely gotta let
• 29:59
  him play. And again, he's this guy he was, he was good
• 30:02
  last year. I think people uh kind of wrote him off because of age
• 30:06
  and uh, you know he's he's just thirty six. I mean that that
• 30:10
  old. Maybe I'm speaking a little projection here, but I mean I can
• 30:18
  steal twenty bases of the majors now, but you know, you're talking about
• 30:21
  a guy that, like, he is a twenty twenty type talent that can
• 30:25
  hit two fifty, two sixty and Chicago County stats might be not as much
• 30:30
  there, but I mean, if you're if you're if you're looking for a
• 30:33
  fourth, fifth outfielder, like you're really happy with Tommy Fam in that role.
• 30:37
  And he's kind of got that, like I said, old player atage
• 30:42
  going on where nobody really wants to invest in him and so he's just dirt
• 30:45
  cheap. So I absolutely love Tommy Fam here. I'm excited about it.
• 30:51
  And if you if he's out there to your point, like and you need,
• 30:53
  especially in a five outfielder league, if you need that help, I'm
• 30:56
  picking up Tommy Fam all day and I'm plugging him in that fifth out spot,
• 31:00
  and I am not looking back. Yep. I think that's a great
• 31:03
  call. Okay, well, we've got all the sad news to get through
• 31:07
  now I counted it out. We've got a dozen bits of injury news,
• 31:11
  and this is just the fantasy relevant injuries. So it's been another brutal week
• 31:15
  of injuries. As again, players as they ramp up getting out of spring
• 31:19
  training, they just the first kind of pieces of action that they're getting playing
• 31:26
  against each other causes all those hammies to be pulled and elbows to be tweaked
• 31:30
  just the right way. So we're gonna start with the biggest one. We
• 31:34
  knew this was coming based on the writing of the Wall. That is Spencer
• 31:37
  Strider from the Braves undergoing brace surgery on his ecl So that keeps him out
• 31:44
  for all of this year. A little bit quicker recovery process than full Tommy
• 31:48
  John though, but Strider has had a Tommy John, so it's a second
• 31:52
  ucl, you know, ligament repair overall. So I don't know exactly how
• 31:59
  that gonna work out for him overall, but obviously if you're in a just
• 32:05
  a standalone one season league, you're dropping Strider. But long term dynasty franchise
• 32:13
  keeper situations that you're looking at, brew, what are you doing with Spencer
• 32:16
  Striider? This? This is such a tough one because I again I own
• 32:21
  him in a multiple leagues, and it is such a hard h dynamic because
• 32:28
  depending on your keeper rules, if you're if you're talking just you know there's
• 32:31
  no penalty or things like that, most likely you have him dirt cheap because
• 32:37
  it's it's only been a year or two that Strider has been like the guy,
• 32:42
  and so even if you can put dollars on him or things like that,
• 32:45
  he's still relative to his absolute potential is just dirt cheap. So I
• 32:50
  think Strider is one of those really tough ones that you're probably gonna have to
• 32:54
  stash and be hopeful because he didn't go through with the full time Johnny to
• 33:00
  the internal brace surgery that he is able to come back at the beginning of
• 33:05
  next year and be back to Spinster Strider. I think that's the way you
• 33:08
  have to approach it. The alternative is if you know, keep him on
• 33:13
  there and you get midway as the trade headline and you need a piece,
• 33:17
  you know there might be another team out there that from a keeper perspective.
• 33:21
  This look at that willn't take it single season leagues, you're cutting Ham,
• 33:24
  He's gone. But I think you unless you really get a big roster crunch
• 33:30
  here, or your keeper prices are, you know, way over inflated,
• 33:36
  you've got to you've got to drop Strider, or you got to keep Strider
• 33:38
  and then really hope to solidify the rest of your keepers around that risk.
• 33:45
  So I don't know how are you approaching it. Give me some advice.
• 33:47
  I got the guy honestly, I think you nailed it just right. Is
• 33:52
  that it's a lot about pricing, and usually you're running into situation where the
• 33:57
  pricing is pretty cheap Strider, and given the upside from the strikeout rate perspective,
• 34:06
  it's just too good to let him go, usually at the prices that
• 34:08
  you have him, So you're usually probably going into next year paying something more
• 34:15
  akin to like a number three starter, I would think, And certainly you've
• 34:21
  got to take that risk. I think. I mean, you had Strider
• 34:23
  to begin with, so like you already add to some pretty good production over
• 34:28
  the past couple of years, it's kind of like you got to be looking
• 34:30
  for not even like your twenty twenty five production, but twenty six and beyond,
• 34:36
  because the Braves are going to continue being a really fantastic team. So
• 34:39
  if you're in a standard five x five proto league, or if wins are
• 34:44
  any sort of consideration, he's still going to be a really significant piece as
• 34:49
  a starting pitcher in our game. Yeah, So to your point, dynasty
• 34:52
  league, you got to try to see if you can eke it out and
• 34:55
  maybe he comes back a little earlier and he's a little bit more value than
• 34:59
  the and you know what we're hoping. So yeah, and we alluded to
• 35:05
  this a little bit with the landed NEC call up. Bobby Miller is hitting
• 35:08
  the IL with shoulder inflammation and along with Strider. There were a lot of
• 35:15
  reports and tweets that I saw this week in terms of, you know,
• 35:20
  who had the highest average fastball velocity and where they are right right now,
• 35:23
  and I think eighty percent of them are on the IL. That Bobby Miller
• 35:28
  was up amongst the leaders in average fastball velocity last year. So I think
• 35:34
  that is kind of the trend, is that we've got a lot of these
• 35:37
  pictures sitting really close to their max effort and it just creates wear and tear
• 35:42
  much more quickly than I think we've ever seen in baseball. But what are
• 35:45
  you doing here with Bobby Miller, Because this is pretty concerning in terms of
• 35:51
  it's a shoulder inflammation is what they're calling it right now. But anything messing
• 35:55
  around with the shoulder is just not great to hear if you have a starting
• 36:00
  pitcher. Yeah, And I think that the big worst part for me is
• 36:04
  that, like, unless I've missed it, which is very very possible,
• 36:07
  it's not like they've diagnosed it either. It's just like his shoulders not right,
• 36:14
  Like there's nothing wrong, trust me, trust us, But it's kind
• 36:17
  of like the Strider scenario. I guess this is gonna look to be a
• 36:22
  if you he had surgery yesterday, you know. So, like I'm concerned.
• 36:28
  Like I love Bobby Miller. I was so high and going to the
• 36:30
  season, I actually got like no shares because I think everybody else was high
• 36:34
  on them too, and I just I couldn't. Like I tried in all
• 36:37
  our dynasty leagues, everywhere I tried to pick him up. I offered like
• 36:42
  seventeen trades to every team in the off season trying to get them. And
• 36:45
  now I'm looking like a genius for failing. But you know you have to
• 36:51
  Again, We've talked about this with a number of pictures early this season.
• 36:53
  When you go down early in the season, you have this like must rest
• 36:58
  type injury, you're talking two months, You're you're talking two months that you're
• 37:04
  gonna be out. And so right now, Bobby Miller, I'm looking at
• 37:07
  like All Star break coming back is the hope. Maybe it's a little too
• 37:13
  far out, but like I just don't get the good feeling here that he's
• 37:19
  he's gonna be back anytime soon. Like the rest diagnosis is so scary.
• 37:22
  I much rather have a clear hamstring strain or heaped his ankle or you know,
• 37:29
  he gotta he's got a blister or something. Give me something definitive and
• 37:32
  then we got a time tam, we can go with it. The the
• 37:36
  lack of information really has me worried. And I'd probably sell Bobby Miller right
• 37:42
  now. I'm gonna say seventy five cents on the dollar if somebody's willing to
• 37:46
  pay it. Otherwise, you kind of got to stick it out and see
• 37:50
  what happens. Yeah, I agree that, like the way that this is
• 37:57
  working out is not looking great. And Bobby Miller really relied a lot on
• 38:01
  the velocity of his fastball to get by. I think that the slider is
• 38:06
  a great slider, but it worked a lot off of the fastball. And
• 38:09
  so along with the Dodgers have a lot of pitching tep that just kind of
• 38:16
  create these dudes out nowhere, and so I think they're gonna let Bobby Miller
• 38:20
  really take his time coming back. So I just don't like the way that
• 38:23
  this could really play out for him, and I don't know if he's ever
• 38:27
  gonna reach an upper tier status for fantasy overall. Yeah, So what I'd
• 38:34
  be interested in both of these guys, Who are you watching right now?
• 38:37
  Is maybe like a pickup, like who are you going out and searching for
• 38:43
  on the waiver wire? Because there's a guy in my mind right now,
• 38:46
  and I guess I'm gonna go straight there is Kyle British or Kryle Bravish,
• 38:51
  Sorry for Baltimore. He had just yesterday his first rehab start coming back.
• 38:58
  So this is a guy that we thought was gone for a large part of
• 39:01
  the season. He was back pumping ninety five ninety six across three innings yesterday
• 39:07
  at Double A one hit, struck out four guys over those three innings,
• 39:12
  Like, he looks like he's back, and so like, I think a
• 39:16
  lot of people wrote him off because of that, and he might still be
• 39:20
  sitting out there in some leagues. And so if you've lost a Strider or
• 39:24
  Miller or something like that, I'm looking real close to him, seeing can
• 39:29
  I hit you know, get lucky with a Kyle Bradish, you know,
• 39:32
  dart throw here, and maybe he's a little maybe he's healthy despite all these
• 39:37
  other injuries. Yeah, I mean I'm worried about his helpos still too.
• 39:44
  I do think that, like, if you did lose one of these guys,
• 39:46
  you've got to bid pretty hard on Jack Leider, who we obviously discussed
• 39:52
  that that's your best shot. I think get finding a fantasy like two or
• 39:58
  three pitcher that could be there the rest of the season without I mean,
• 40:02
  I think there's still more coming through the miners, but if you want kind
• 40:06
  of the first crack at the one that's come through, Jack Lider, I
• 40:08
  think he's got to be one of your main targets, and you got to
• 40:13
  bid a little bit harder than you would, I think for anybody else coming
• 40:17
  through because this is like, this is when it gets I think the worst
• 40:22
  in terms of finding pictures for Fantasy, because we're not quite at the point
• 40:27
  where they're starting to call up some of the breakout pictures from the miners,
• 40:30
  and all of these guys in the in the majors are dropping like flies.
• 40:36
  Yeah. Absolutely, so I just put in a bid for him in one
• 40:39
  of our leagues while we were talking. So we're good, nice, excellent,
• 40:44
  Okay. The other big injury news out of Atlanta concerns Azzi. Albi's
• 40:50
  the second baseman who goes down with a broken toe, and this is now
• 40:53
  the second season of the past three where he's had some sort of just really
• 40:59
  rared a broken toe broken foot situation. In twenty twenty two, he had
• 41:04
  a broken foot that he like played through and eventually after the game like got
• 41:08
  it checked out and like, oh, that's that's busted. You're out for
• 41:12
  a while. I don't know if like Ozzy, Albi's is just grown to
• 41:19
  picking up these nicks and knacks, or if he's got weak bones or something,
• 41:22
  but this is turning into a thing for him, which is a little
• 41:25
  bit unfortunate because I think if anybody in the game had come up young enough
• 41:30
  and hits enough to get to three thousand. Ozzie Albi's was probably one of
• 41:35
  the few in that in that class, so he should be out probably like
• 41:43
  somewhere around like three to fourish weeks. It's a little it's a little bit
• 41:45
  iffy based on how the toe responds to all the treatment and everything like that.
• 41:52
  So obviously if you have Ozzi Alby's, you're holding him. But what
• 41:55
  do you think you're doing kind of considering the calcul of Ozzie Albi's going forward
• 42:00
  and just his ability to find small injuries here and there. Well, I'm
• 42:07
  disappointed that the articles I can't find which toe it is because I feel like
• 42:10
  that, oddly that's important, Like if we're talking big toe here, like
• 42:14
  that's a that's a bigger issue than uh, you know your your your your
• 42:17
  pinky toe. But to that too, I was looking for the same information
• 42:22
  before we started this conversation. Yeah, this this is the depth of analysis
• 42:25
  you get in this podcast. What toe is it? But yeah, I
• 42:29
  think it's the fractured big toe. It was a big toe, Okay,
• 42:31
  I could not find it for like me, so I'm a little more concerned
• 42:35
  with and I think you know, he didn't stay in the game. He
• 42:40
  stayed in the game and then muscled it through and then came out. So
• 42:45
  I think you're three to four weeks is probably about right. But it's just
• 42:50
  it's it's hard you look at it. It's it's kind of a Bryce Harper
• 42:52
  esque to a degree. Like guys that play hard just always find themselves in
• 42:58
  these weird situations that they just tend to get banged up, and there's there's
• 43:04
  nothing like wrong with them. There's not that they're like, hey, people
• 43:08
  with the injury prone lady A lot of maybe from pictures like I think that
• 43:12
  that's maybe more fair, but like sometimes for hitters, like it's just that
• 43:15
  like the effort and the positions you put yourself in, you just are more
• 43:19
  likely to be in that situation. Always hangs over the plate a little bit,
• 43:22
  and he's probably not the first to get out of the way because he's
• 43:25
  trying to get on base and here you go, you're you're you're getting hit.
• 43:30
  Maybe should ask Craig Bigio how to get hit without getting hurt, But
• 43:34
  I I it is hard. You know, he he did look really really
• 43:37
  good to start the season. You know, he was way up on a
• 43:40
  lot of draft board, my mine included, and it's it's tough. It
• 43:45
  kind of feels like Josel Tuba last year. He how he's out for a
• 43:49
  few months, and you're just like, will you get back? When will
• 43:51
  you get back to fill in that that second base gap. So hopefully,
• 43:55
  hopefully the toe you can splinter it together and get a little rest and get
• 44:00
  back quickly here. But I think you're about a month is what I'm what
• 44:06
  I would be projecting with my all my credentials in the medical community. Yeah,
• 44:10
  and he wasn't even the only middlefielder that we lost of our playerpool this
• 44:15
  week, as Trevor Story goes down for the year with a broken shoulder socket
• 44:21
  that he that happened when he was diving for a ball, And we also
• 44:25
  had Carlos Korea go down with an oblique injury that it looks pretty nasty that
• 44:31
  like, I don't like dealing with oblique injuries. Then I think Carl's career
• 44:37
  started hot. But this is exactly you want to talk about somebody who's injury
• 44:42
  prone. It's especially concerning when it starts becoming you know, joints and soft
• 44:47
  tissues the way it has with Story and Korea Korea here over the past week.
• 44:52
  So obviously, Story, I think we're not you know, he's out
• 44:59
  for the year, so here to drop him if it's a single season,
• 45:00
  even long term, I think this is really troublesome. But yeah, I
• 45:07
  maybe again this is I should ever made, you know, predictions at the
• 45:12
  end of the year for New Year's resolutions. But I the story injury was
• 45:15
  such a freak injury. And if you if you watched it, or if
• 45:20
  you haven't, go go take a look, because I mean, you got
• 45:22
  a feel for the guy, like it was a he gave everything he had
• 45:25
  and just kind of a freaking freak injury, and that's that's so unfortunate.
• 45:30
  But there's just so much talent there. There's so much talent there that I
• 45:36
  know I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back at that well, and
• 45:39
  the price is going to be so cheap next year, Dynasty leagues included,
• 45:44
  people are gonna be moved on from him. I think he's gonna be my
• 45:46
  middle infielder next year. All over the place, and so Correa I'm out
• 45:51
  on just in general. I just don't think it's worth it. But Trevor
• 45:53
  Story. I don't think I'm gonna quit. He's my next, next,
• 45:57
  next, Mitch Hanniger, he might be. And then with Korea, I
• 46:02
  mean, what are you doing here? I did. I didn't have any
• 46:05
  shares of Korea because one, I just don't like the lack of stolen bases
• 46:09
  that he provides for you at a premium storm based position in the middle infield.
• 46:15
  And two, it just seems like Carlos Korea runs into an injury like
• 46:22
  this every year. So if you have Korea, what do you do with
• 46:27
  him the rest of the year. Yeah, I mean it's I might I
• 46:32
  might be, you know, shunned for saying this, but I'm not too
• 46:35
  far off from just cutting Korea like oblique injury, like that's that sticks with
• 46:40
  you and the guy we're already concerned with the power, already concerned with,
• 46:44
  you know, the rum production. I I'm I'm willing to move on from
• 46:49
  Carlos Korea at this point and use that roster spot for other other things.
• 46:53
  You know, You're you're picking up a Brandon Drewery or maybe Jeff McNeil or
• 47:00
  somebody that's kind of, you know, not well favored but has some production
• 47:04
  there. You know, I'm I'm intriguing those those guys and trying something like
• 47:08
  that out rather than sticking around with Korea. Uh sure, if you have
• 47:13
  the the iye l spots, I don't know how you do. Like nobody
• 47:15
  has eyel spots these days. Uh, my bench is my iel. It's
• 47:21
  just the guys that are coming back sooner versus the guys that are come back
• 47:23
  later. But I'm I'm really cutting Carlos Korea, and it feels wrong to
• 47:29
  say it based on the contract. The guy has season really well too,
• 47:34
  he did, but I'm just there was enough signs going in that I wasn't
• 47:37
  too excited about it. Now that'll bleakue and you know, I yeah,
• 47:44
  like maybe he maybe it's just a tweak and he's getting back in like two
• 47:46
  weeks. But I just I got a bad feeling about this. So this
• 47:52
  has got This isn't this isn't deep analysis at this point, But I'm moving
• 47:54
  on. Yeah, who you you mentioned Durry, any one else you're targeting
• 48:00
  to maybe help you in the middle infield with these guys out the Sammi fan
• 48:05
  play the middle endfield. Now, well, you know, I I think
• 48:09
  you're you're probably having to make some moves like uh, you know, maybe
• 48:15
  a Brendan Donovan might be available. Maybe justin Turner if he has got that
• 48:17
  eligibility, might be a guy that you're you're looking for in the middle endfield,
• 48:22
  you know. Otherwise, I think you're getting getting pretty thin as far
• 48:25
  as options that you can you can find. But maybe, uh, in
• 48:34
  Orlando or Sea started off pretty pretty hot. He'd be an interesting one I'm
• 48:42
  looking at, especially if somebody cut luismanhefho because he wasn't getting starts in the
• 48:46
  first week. He's been getting a lot more playing time with the Angels,
• 48:51
  and he's been stealing bases at a much greater clip than he has the past
• 48:55
  couple of years, just because I think when he was trying to show round
• 49:00
  Washington he deserves to be in the starting lineup, which is weird. I
• 49:02
  wouldn't think you'd need to do that, but I think least when Hifa could
• 49:07
  be a nice pickup for you if you're, yeah, he was recently cut,
• 49:10
  Maybe a Tyler Freeman or something like that. Yes, basically Cleveland,
• 49:15
  I think that there's some options there. You're you're you're you're looking for lightning
• 49:19
  in a bottle here. I don't know Austin Martin. I might be take
• 49:24
  well and take that flyer early round pick and maybe he's kind of figured things
• 49:29
  out there and that's probably like the most If you you've got Korea and you
• 49:34
  got the bench spot, that might be the most or the ile spot,
• 49:36
  it was most direct comp to have in there have the guy that's that's kind
• 49:40
  of taking the spot. So yeah, there's there's some options out there.
• 49:45
  Uh, you can go, but hey, I know waiver wire columns I
• 49:47
  would read to to find this in this analysis. Yeah, it will be
• 49:52
  a big one this Saturday. And I mean we've got so many injuries.
• 49:55
  I missed one of the middle endfielders and that is Brandon Lawe. I think,
• 50:00
  oh no, I think he might be the Lao. I think it's
• 50:01
  Brandon Lao from the Tampa Bay Rays yep. Also strained his oblique and he's
• 50:08
  had oblique and back issues now for a while. I think same sort of
• 50:14
  thing with Krea. If you're in a position you're desperate. I think I'm
• 50:15
  cutting Brandon Lao too. I am. I actually love Lao's skills more than
• 50:20
  I like Korea's. Like, this is the guy that has forty homer power
• 50:23
  if he can play a whole season, so that means he has like fifteen
• 50:27
  homer power because he will never play a full season. And like the worst
• 50:30
  part of it is he played the Rays and they know that, so then
• 50:32
  they even back off of him more so, like, yeah, I own
• 50:37
  him in a spot or two, and I'm sitting there looking like, why
• 50:39
  did I Why did I? Why did I go there? Why did I
• 50:43
  go there? So, yeah, exactly, And I think that's somebody to
• 50:45
  discount going forward to because Lao has just had a lot of trunk issues,
• 50:51
  which is not good for baseball. Yeah, and we got another oblique in
• 50:54
  try out of Miami with Jake Berger, their third basement going down with the
• 50:59
  straight into bleak. This would sounded a little less severe, but honestly,
• 51:02
  dull low bleaks are usually about a month. So it's I think this is
• 51:07
  unfortunate because third base was already really thin, and Jake was playing every day
• 51:13
  and hitting pretty well for the Marlins that it looked like he was going to
• 51:16
  have a productive season. But what do you think about Jake Berger going forward,
• 51:22
  especially because by the time he gets back, part of this Marlin seam
• 51:25
  might be dismantled. Well, I mean it's gonna be much different than what
• 51:30
  is right now. So you know, I I maybe it's your influence on
• 51:37
  this podcast, but I've kind of got a soft spot at this point now
• 51:39
  for Jake Berger. You know, maybe it's just because all the jokes you
• 51:44
  can make with the name, but you know, he definitely seemed to be
• 51:49
  the guy that was like, you know, late drafts, relatively available in
• 51:54
  a trade, the guy that's just gonna be a big bopper at the end
• 51:58
  of the lineup, hit two fifty, hit three home runs, drive in
• 52:01
  eighty and be happy like And I felt like he was just gonna do that
• 52:06
  again this year and really kind of cement himself as that kind of corner infield,
• 52:12
  you know, absolute mainstay. And so I'm given a little bit more
• 52:17
  leeway to a Burger than I would a career allow clearly more of a story,
• 52:22
  but I think that I'm giving him a little bit more leeway just because
• 52:28
  I like the skill set. He hasn't had a big injury history, so
• 52:34
  unlike Alloo or a Correa, who just seemed to me they just can't stay
• 52:37
  on the field, I'm I'm giving them Burger the benefit of the doubt here
• 52:42
  and being a little bit less aggressive with the drops. Yeah, I think
• 52:46
  that's where I'm at too. Okay, let's get to the outfield injuries now,
• 52:50
  and I think these are also easier to replace because of who we opened
• 52:54
  the show with in terms of Pais and class A, I think those are
• 52:58
  your main targets as well as one of the call ups for the replacement of
• 53:02
  the to replace the interplayer. I guess I'll just start there because Chris Bryant
• 53:07
  went on the ile today, which I mean, honestly, I think he
• 53:13
  was pretty unownable in all leagues even before that that. I think even in
• 53:17
  fifteen teamers, I was seeing him start to peel off of people's rosters as
• 53:22
  it was just he's just totally busted. And even I wouldn't draft him.
• 53:27
  Yeah, I mean I took a couple flyers here there, like end of
• 53:31
  the draft, you know, fifth outfielder one dollar, mostly because it's like
• 53:36
  you know, in Colorado, I'll give it a shot for a couple of
• 53:38
  weeks and whoof it was really bad for Chris Bryant, But to replace him,
• 53:45
  fantasy darling Sean Bouchard is being called up from Triple A and should play
• 53:52
  pretty regularly up in Colorado. So what do you think. I mean,
• 53:55
  I think we could maybe bury Chris Bryan at this point. But uh,
• 54:00
  Sean Bouchard, do you have interest in him? Yeah, that's a tough
• 54:06
  one. Like, I'm probably gonna stick away from Bouchard, but right I'm
• 54:08
  with you. You're barying Bryant. I'm probably staying with a way with Bouchard.
• 54:12
  But this I think it has less do with Bouchard than it does about
• 54:15
  roster management. You know. I think Bouchard is one of those that you
• 54:19
  look at and you can easily get infatuated with the Colorado hitter and the guy
• 54:24
  that's getting called up to take that spot. And you know, he's he's
• 54:29
  a decent hitter, you know in Colorado's gonna help him. But I just
• 54:35
  don't think that he's gonna be what people hope him to be. Like,
• 54:37
  there's a reason he's twenty eight years old and in the minors, you know,
• 54:42
  for all your Alan Craig is the world and things like that that come
• 54:45
  up late and make an impact. Yeah. I recognize that I could be
• 54:51
  wrong here, but I think he's one of those guys, I'm gonna if
• 54:53
  I pick him up, I'm gonna keep trying to start him, and I'm
• 54:55
  gonna end up playing with my roster, trying to get him in the Colorado
• 55:00
  his games, things like that, And for all the pain and heartache I
• 55:04
  go trying to get that right, I'm probably gonna screw it up, and
• 55:07
  he's going to be just slightly slightly better than just any other guy that you
• 55:13
  pick up in that spot. So this has everything to do with roster management,
• 55:16
  not really about the skill. But I do look at the older the
• 55:21
  older rookie, if you may, I don't. Is he still does he
• 55:23
  count as a rookie at this point? How many games is he actually officially
• 55:27
  played? I think he literally just crossed the plate appearance threshold last year.
• 55:34
  What is it? It's the because he's at one hundred and forty plate appearances.
• 55:38
  It was one hundred and fifty, isn't it. I could be wrong?
• 55:43
  Yeah, you are right, yep, So hey he's still rookie at
• 55:45
  facts. Yeah hey, but maybe maybe he's the next best thing to slice
• 55:50
  spread. But I'm I'm just not I don't I'm not feeling it for for
• 55:53
  re charge here. So tell me I'm wrong, Tell me why I should
• 55:57
  be investing. Besides, I just don't trust myself. And it's one hundred
• 56:01
  and thirty on the MLB, so he is on these rookies, so he's
• 56:06
  not a rookie anymore. Yeah, I am infatuated with the Colorados of this
• 56:10
  all, mostly because he should come up. And I mean currently roster resources
• 56:17
  him on the bench. But Michael Tolia is so bad at baseball. I
• 56:22
  don't know why the Rockies keep playing him. But this is the opportunity that
• 56:28
  Bouchard fans were looking for because the Rockies have two series here in Colorado this
• 56:37
  weekend against the Mariners, then next week to open the week against the Padres,
• 56:43
  and then they go to Mexico City for the weekend against the Astros.
• 56:45
  That it's a great time to pick up Rockies players because this is the stretch
• 56:51
  to see what they can do. And like, yeah, if Bouchard launches
• 56:54
  a couple homers, I think he carves out a role in front of Tolia
• 57:00
  and just you can start counting on him for Colorado games. If he falls
• 57:04
  on his face, then you can drop him after the Mexico City series.
• 57:07
  So I think there are places where I'm going to be taking a flyer on
• 57:10
  Bouchard and seeing what he can give me over this little stretch, just because
• 57:15
  it's so much altitude that he's going to be hitting in for the next week.
• 57:20
  You know. Yeah, I think that that's fair. He's one of
• 57:22
  those that at least he has if you're going to pick him up, he's
• 57:25
  got a good, good runway, like you make the best of it.
• 57:29
  And if he does, I guess if he's bad, then you definitely get
• 57:31
  rid of him. If he's good, maybe you can flip him. I
• 57:34
  don't know. Yeah, all right. The other outfielder injury, and this
• 57:38
  one really hurt because I had a couple of shares of him and he looked
• 57:43
  to really be thriving again this year. That's Christian Yelich from the Milwaukee Brewers,
• 57:46
  who had a two h five worc plus with five bombs and two so
• 57:52
  on basis before he went down with another strained back issues. So this has
• 57:59
  been plaguing Yelich now for years, and it's really unfortunate because it looked like
• 58:04
  the power was back and we were getting to something I wasn't even asking for
• 58:09
  MVP Yelich. Maybe just like twenty twenty Yelich would have been fantastic. But
• 58:15
  this really hurts because he was really leading your team if you had Yelich in
• 58:20
  your outfield. From a fancy perspective, yeah, I fully agree with you.
• 58:24
  He looks he's looked so good and it's not been like baby pluck good
• 58:30
  or anything like that, like better approach to the plate, he's running like
• 58:34
  all the things that you helped. He kind of showed that he was back
• 58:37
  last year doing those, and he had two years in a row. Now
• 58:40
  he had one hundred and forty plus games, and so like you thought like,
• 58:45
  yeah, this is the time, and it seems like the fancy world
• 58:46
  had kind of just written him off, and so you probably got great value
• 58:51
  on him, and we're hoping to lean into that. The silver lining for
• 58:53
  me, though, as I look at this one, is I I'm not
• 58:59
  certain how much she's actually hurt versus there being ultra cautious with him. I
• 59:06
  think that there's a good chance that you know, he you know, backswort
• 59:09
  Us annoying, getting a few more days off. He's you know, he's
• 59:15
  he's still got a long contract there for Milwaukee, so he's going to be
• 59:20
  around I think they're trying to make just make sure this early in the season
• 59:22
  he's healthy and make sure when he comes back, he is going to be
• 59:27
  back. So I'm a little less concerned with this. I think the yellowich
• 59:30
  is out for another week and then he's back in the lineup, he's playing.
• 59:32
  I could be completely wrong about it, but I don't see it as
• 59:38
  a substantial injury. It seems like it's one of those that he just needs
• 59:43
  a little bit of time off, and especially the fact that he you know,
• 59:46
  was like three days before they even put him on the al seems like
• 59:51
  they're like, well, at this point, let's go ahead and make sure
• 59:53
  you're healthy, versus forcing you back when we could just sit out a week
• 59:58
  and bring somebody else up. So, uh, again, I'm reading into
• 1:00:00
  it a little bit, but I'm I'm hopeful it's a really short stay here,
• 1:00:05
  get him healthy, and then he can pick it right back where it
• 1:00:07
  left off. Yeah, let's hope. So. And the other outfield injury
• 1:00:12
  we've got is says Zuki from the Cubs goes down with an oblique injury for
• 1:00:15
  the second straight year. So what's what the oblique injuries? I mean,
• 1:00:19
  it's just like all the the Twurking and yeah, it's I think especially Lurking
• 1:00:25
  or Torque, but we've gone downhill as he strained his right oblique this year
• 1:00:35
  is the left oblique last year that kept him out for six weeks. He
• 1:00:39
  is currently scheduled to be out for a month, and it might be longer
• 1:00:44
  because it obviously took six weeks to get back last year for him, and
• 1:00:47
  another blow because he was hot out of the gate hitting for a one WRC
• 1:00:52
  plus. But this is a guy I'm definitely tagging with an injury prone tag
• 1:00:58
  I think now going forward, given that he's blown out both the bleaks and
• 1:01:00
  back to back years he's had hamstring issues too that I think he's just I
• 1:01:07
  don't know, like I don't know if he's just like too muscular or what's
• 1:01:12
  going on. But I think when it comes to projection season time for next
• 1:01:16
  year's draft, this is definitely somebody who I'm going to make sure that is
• 1:01:21
  slated somewhere for like one hundred and thirty games, is they have one hundred
• 1:01:23
  and fifty because it just has become a pretty consistent thing for all of his
• 1:01:29
  years now for Susuki and Chicago. Yeah, and to your point, they're
• 1:01:32
  not They're not the freak injury or or the hit by pitch or something like
• 1:01:37
  that. They are these soft tissue injuries that to your point, it seems
• 1:01:43
  probably muscular skeletor you know, as far as something with the way he's designed
• 1:01:50
  that he just is gonna be a little bit more prone to these things.
• 1:01:52
  And that's that's concerning. If you're going to be missing a little time here
• 1:01:55
  and there across every season, that just puts a strain in your fantasy team.
• 1:02:00
  The thing is, he did look really good. He looked, you
• 1:02:01
  know, good last year, and you know you invested in him, you
• 1:02:07
  probably a good mid round pick, and here you are. He looked really
• 1:02:10
  a great start season and we're hurt again. So yeah, Suzuki, I
• 1:02:15
  don't think you can do anything. Just like we're talking with with with Yelich,
• 1:02:20
  and you know, maybe Burger here is just like, well, put
• 1:02:22
  him on the eyel you gotta wait, you gotta grin, and Barrett,
• 1:02:24
  don't don't try to trade him, don't go trying to drop him or anything.
• 1:02:28
  Just wait till he's healthy. But if he's healthy and he's back and
• 1:02:30
  hitting, keep that in mind. He might be one of those ones that
• 1:02:34
  you want to capitalize when he is healthy and move him for something else that
• 1:02:38
  that'll help you if you're able to plug that outfield hole while he's out.
• 1:02:43
  Yeah, and a couple more picture injuries just to round out this twelve pack.
• 1:02:47
  You know, we had these break late in the day. We've got
• 1:02:51
  you Darvish hitting the il with a neck issue. And so they haven't said
• 1:02:57
  yet who they're going to put into Darbish's spot, although they did just trade
• 1:03:02
  for pedro Villa from the Guardians, so maybe the Padres will utilize him.
• 1:03:07
  But I really wanted to bring this up because they've got Randy Vasquez hanging out
• 1:03:13
  down in the miners, and on top of it that, I've been really
• 1:03:19
  loving Matt Waldron from the San Diego Padres, the knuckleballer Robbie Robbie Snelling,
• 1:03:23
  Robbie Snelling that, Yeah, there's a lot of interesting arms, and obviously
• 1:03:27
  they're gonna get to pitch for a couple of weeks down in San Diego while
• 1:03:30
  Darvish is out. But yeah, are are you really trying to scoop up,
• 1:03:36
  maybe spec on somebody like Snelling or Vasquez here? Well, if I
• 1:03:40
  didn't already own snelling all over the place. I absolutely would. I think
• 1:03:44
  I think you're all a higher Vesquez. I'm a little high of snelling,
• 1:03:45
  but I definitely I would be. I'd be, you know, if I
• 1:03:50
  need pitching. I'm again we talked a few other guys earlier that I'm a
• 1:03:53
  little bit more a little intrigued. You know, you're going through your lighters,
• 1:03:58
  you're Bradishes, those kind of guys. But if you're taking a little
• 1:04:00
  bit longer shot here, yeah, I think, you know, going after
• 1:04:04
  a guy like you know, smelling would would be very very interesting. You
• 1:04:12
  know. It's it's the question is how long is he actually out? And
• 1:04:17
  since they've been kind of coila and they did call up Loading Gillispie, but
• 1:04:23
  he's a reliever and so like he's not the replacement for for Darvish, So
• 1:04:28
  there's another move coming or they're just trying to wait and see how if he's
• 1:04:32
  going to be back, but they can't run with form inforation, So there's
• 1:04:38
  another move coming here. And I think, if you're really trying to be
• 1:04:42
  sly, watch the minor league rotations. Let's try to figure out who's lined
• 1:04:46
  up for the next spot for Darvish because I think he was when when he
• 1:04:50
  was supposed to pitch again on Saturday. Uh so he kind of start to
• 1:04:56
  look back and see who last pitched on what would that be on Monday,
• 1:05:00
  and see who's lining up from that miners perspective, or who isn't getting their
• 1:05:03
  next starts that should and I think that might tell us a little bit of
• 1:05:08
  who's coming through here. I have a dug through Stelling and Basquez or to
• 1:05:12
  see what's going on at this point. Yeah, another option might be they
• 1:05:16
  stretched Johnny Brido back out. He's been in a long relief role and started
• 1:05:20
  during the spring, So I mean, I think I would be intrigued by
• 1:05:25
  Johnny Brido if he does into the rotation because he did look different in the
• 1:05:29
  spring. It was against a lower tier of competition, but it was certainly
• 1:05:34
  a little bit of like a tweak from what he had been showing us in
• 1:05:39
  New York. That Johnny Brido could be I think a sneaky source of wins
• 1:05:44
  because the Padres are pretty good. Yep, they are a decent team.
• 1:05:48
  And another injury here to the to the picture pool that just breaking before we
• 1:05:56
  got into our pod, and that is Garrett Whitlock going down with a strange
• 1:06:00
  oblique in Boston. So I again assume he's kind of out like four to
• 1:06:03
  six weeks, but this one especially hurt because if you had Whitlock, it
• 1:06:08
  was found gold. Any of those Red Sex pictures have been found gold as
• 1:06:13
  the development there from Andrew Bailey has really taken the rotation to a different level.
• 1:06:17
  So did you see that Tanner House throw a complete game shutout today?
• 1:06:21
  Oh? Really? Wow? That is could do that? Fair point,
• 1:06:28
  very fair point. But he just closed out a complete game shutout there,
• 1:06:32
  which is from what from my assessment, it's pretty good. That's kind of
• 1:06:38
  what you're looking for for for your starters. So you know, he was
• 1:06:43
  facing the guardians, so we'll give him that. But there's there's a lot
• 1:06:46
  to like there in Boston, and you're like, Whitlock was it was?
• 1:06:51
  It was hard to see him, you know, go on the IL.
• 1:06:56
  What was it interesting with Whitlock though? Is I saw a report that he
• 1:07:00
  was arguing with the Red Sox leadership or trainers out who you argue with on
• 1:07:08
  this? I don't know that they did not put him on the I l
• 1:07:11
  like he did not feel that he was hurt enough to be on the il.
• 1:07:15
  So I again with I don't with this early season, kind of similar
• 1:07:18
  concept with with Yelich, Like how much of this is it's early in the
• 1:07:23
  season. We don't want to make something that's iffy worse, So we're gonna
• 1:07:27
  put you on the shelf for two or three weeks and then come back.
• 1:07:30
  Versus you really mess up your oblique like literally the rest of the league we
• 1:07:33
  just talked about. So I've got a little silver lining on Whitlock. I'm
• 1:07:38
  kind of watching, so if somebody does drop him, I'm picking Whitlock up.
• 1:07:42
  I'm definitely gonna try to grab a share of him where possible. Now,
• 1:07:46
  granted, I already owned a lot of shares of Garrett Whitlock and Tanner
• 1:07:51
  Howck at this point because I just love both of them to start with.
• 1:07:55
  But yeah, that one hurts because he was looking really, really good to
• 1:07:58
  start the season. Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't actually know that about
• 1:08:01
  the little like tidbit of him arguing to not go on the aisle, because
• 1:08:08
  that does I was actually like leaning towards like, you know, if he
• 1:08:11
  is actually out four to six weeks, you could consider cutting Garrett Wailock just
• 1:08:15
  to be able to find some sort of reprieve from all these injuries. But
• 1:08:19
  if it is a true minimum, say on the fifteen day aisle, then
• 1:08:25
  certainly I think Whitlock could be holding on to It is just a little bit
• 1:08:29
  concerning that he was already out performing as periphial, so it's not like he
• 1:08:32
  had quite found like an entirely new level. It's just that the bab ip
• 1:08:36
  luck was really helping him out in the and so it could swing back that.
• 1:08:41
  It's not like with Tanner Houck, where the Red Sox really did unlock
• 1:08:46
  something special. It's just that Garrett Warlock had a nice start to the season,
• 1:08:50
  you know, yeah exactly, But hey, if you trust Alex Koroff,
• 1:08:55
  maybe there's a chance. Yeah exactly. Okay, Well that was a
• 1:09:00
  lot of injury news, so hopefully you've absorbed it all. But if you're
• 1:09:04
  looking pretty long term in terms of who can I pick up, especially on
• 1:09:09
  the hitting side of options, We've got a few coming up after the break
• 1:09:14
  with hitters that have started off in triple A and Double A on pretty hot
• 1:09:18
  streaks. So guys that we're watching from a fancy perspective, you should stick
• 1:09:23
  around and find out who they're going to be right after this small little break,
• 1:09:45
  All right, welcome back, everybody. We are going to ream through
• 1:09:48
  some minor league stat lines and get into hitters that have really I think popped
• 1:09:54
  for us in terms of either guys that we're looking to watch list or been
• 1:10:00
  put into bench spots for single season fantasy leagues, or especially if you're looking
• 1:10:04
  from a dynasty keepers perspective, I think these guys are showing skills and really
• 1:10:12
  increasing their values for our game going forward that you're looking at just guys who
• 1:10:17
  have found another gear, another tier, and so even just after you know,
• 1:10:23
  the few weeks of minor league action that we've had so far, I
• 1:10:26
  think a lot of these guys are showing the skills that we really want them
• 1:10:30
  to be able to take it to the major league level. So I think
• 1:10:34
  we're just going to get right into it that. We've got a list of
• 1:10:38
  about a dozen names here again, so we are going to pick some of
• 1:10:42
  our favorites with between all sorts of league kind of sizes and rages, from
• 1:10:48
  some blue chip prospects to some very deep cuts. So let's start off with
• 1:10:53
  the blue chip guys, and there is nobody hotter in Triple A right now
• 1:10:57
  than your boy Joey Loperfido, as he leads Triple A with ten homers,
• 1:11:01
  including hitting five over the weekend. I think is what it was, that
• 1:11:05
  he had a heck of a weekend just smashing homers, and it has come
• 1:11:12
  to amount to a three seventeen four nineteen eight point fifty line right now down
• 1:11:16
  Triple A with a one eighty eight WRC plus. I would say the one
• 1:11:20
  drawback is he's striking out a lot. It's a thirty three point eight percent
• 1:11:26
  strikeout rate right now. But I think he's just hitting the start out of
• 1:11:30
  the Paul to show the astros he's ready for the majors. I know,
• 1:11:32
  Brew you were thinking that he was ready for the majors even before the season
• 1:11:35
  broke. I'm guessing this isn't wavering your opinion that that of all. No,
• 1:11:42
  it's not waivering my opinion at all. I love me some Joey Lo
• 1:11:45
  Braffido. He looked great last year. I think I almost put him in
• 1:11:49
  this is an over cell, but I almost put him in the Kyle Tucker
• 1:11:53
  kind of mold. Like you know, he's definitely got say some swagger about
• 1:11:59
  him. You know this six three two twenty. He's kind of a tall,
• 1:12:03
  lankyish uh kind of kind of guy, and he can run, he
• 1:12:08
  can hit, and there there's really there's not much holding him back. I'm
• 1:12:13
  almost surprised at this point that he is not up. We've got Jake Myers
• 1:12:16
  in the outfield. We've got you know, Chas McCormick in the outfield,
• 1:12:20
  who I know you love. But it's been tough. You know, you
• 1:12:24
  got jo that just looks dreadful. Like I saw something earlier today, say
• 1:12:30
  is you know, Jose bra was doing his best Chris Davis impression and so
• 1:12:34
  like, you know, there there's you have to think that there's an opportunity
• 1:12:40
  for him. And you know he's been playing first base as some and he's
• 1:12:45
  been playing you know, center field, like the two spots where they got
• 1:12:49
  guys clearly that could be replaced. And so I think it is a it
• 1:12:54
  is just a matter of time before low Braffito's called up, and like I
• 1:12:58
  am buying him now, I put plugging him in because that's a good lineup
• 1:13:02
  and competitive team. And this is a guy that throughout his career he has
• 1:13:09
  been you know, I would says his average has been a little all over
• 1:13:13
  the place because he does have a little strikeout tendency. But outside of twenty
• 1:13:18
  twenty three when he was a little bit banged up, you know at TRIPLEA,
• 1:13:26
  he was just kind of cutting his teeth there. In thirty two games,
• 1:13:29
  every other stop around the way, he's hit two ninety six, three
• 1:13:32
  h four, three fifty four. He's sent in three seventeen. This year
• 1:13:35
  in spring training he hit three eighty two. Like the guy can hit,
• 1:13:39
  he can run, he can hit for a little power. That's why it
• 1:13:42
  makes me think of Kyle Tucker because none of those are just like off the
• 1:13:45
  charts. There's not one skill that's just amazing. They're all just really good,
• 1:13:49
  and that tends to make a guy fly under the radar because there's not
• 1:13:53
  one skill that jumps out. So again, I really like him, clearly,
• 1:13:56
  I'm infatuated. But I am by lower Feto all day long. And
• 1:14:02
  if you're in my league, sorry, I already got him. Yeah,
• 1:14:05
  I mean, I think it's just a matter of time that the Astros sit
• 1:14:10
  in the cellar of the Al West. They've got to make a change somewhere
• 1:14:15
  to shake this lineup. Up and get some sort of life into it.
• 1:14:19
  It's almost too obvious to bring up Lowberfeedo at this time. On top of
• 1:14:25
  it all that, like he's starting to get old, you know that.
• 1:14:28
  Like it's not like he's some nineteen year old whip er snapper or they're trying
• 1:14:31
  to mess with his arbitration years and keep him up super true status. It's
• 1:14:38
  kind of there's no risk. No, he turned twenty five like just under
• 1:14:44
  a month, so like it's it's there's literally by the time this pod comes
• 1:14:47
  out, he should be called up. Yeah, so, and that would
• 1:14:49
  be nice if he was. So. Yeah, I think even in like
• 1:14:53
  twelve teamers, you think he's worth stashing. Even in twelve seamers, I'm
• 1:14:57
  stashing him now. You like a three van bench. I get you can't
• 1:15:01
  really stash a minor leaguer, But like I I've been known to play the
• 1:15:06
  fab game where I pick up a guy, drop him for the line of
• 1:15:09
  the week, pick him up next week, and I can just buy my
• 1:15:12
  own froster spots type of thing. Yeah, I'm in twelve team where I'm
• 1:15:15
  picking up Loperfeto already. Yeah, I totally agree. And this next guy
• 1:15:19
  that we're going to talk about. I think is probably the only other guy
• 1:15:23
  that I'm doing that with right now, except for maybe Junior Camonarow, but
• 1:15:27
  he's been hurt with a bad hammy for the Tampa Bay Rays, so I'm
• 1:15:30
  gonna kind of set him aside that it's more of a talent thing. But
• 1:15:33
  James Wood from the Washington Nationals outfielder has both the talent and has just been
• 1:15:42
  absolutely scorching hot out of the gate. That not only did he crush all
• 1:15:46
  of spring training, where he showed that the strikeouts weren't going to be much
• 1:15:51
  of a problem. He you know, in spring training is a spring training
• 1:15:56
  WRC plus, but it was still a two nineteen w RC plus and spring
• 1:15:59
  training with a twenty two point eight strikeout rate four bombs in spring training.
• 1:16:03
  A couple of those were just absolute monsters. James Wood has just kept it
• 1:16:09
  rolling. In his first sixty three played appearances at Triple A, the walk
• 1:16:13
  rate and the k rate are the same, at twenty point six percent.
• 1:16:16
  He slashed in three forty four to seventy six five eighty. That's good for
• 1:16:20
  a one to seventy five WRC plus. I think this is a little bit
• 1:16:26
  more dicey in terms of when the Nationals call up James Wood because they are
• 1:16:30
  no good and it's gonna be a lost couple of years I think, still
• 1:16:34
  in Washington. But I think when he comes up, we're looking at a
• 1:16:40
  pretty big monster for our player. Poo overall, here Brew, what do
• 1:16:45
  you think about James Wood? And do you love him as much as I've
• 1:16:47
  been kind of expounding on his virtues right now? Yeah, I do like
• 1:16:53
  him a lot as well. You kind of look at what he did in
• 1:16:55
  spring training and then it was literally just carried straight over into too that triple
• 1:16:59
  A season. Like, you know, he got a lot of bats for
• 1:17:02
  a guy that you weren't expecting to in spring training, and he was just
• 1:17:08
  phenomenal. And he is showing that he is absolutely ready for the majors.
• 1:17:13
  You know, I have to think that, you know, because they didn't
• 1:17:15
  start him right at the beginning of the season, so he's not eligible for
• 1:17:19
  the kind of draft pick compensation if he if he has a really good season.
• 1:17:23
  I think because they're the Nationals and they're just not great, they're waiting
• 1:17:28
  until the Super two passes. I think that they're waiting for that to take
• 1:17:31
  place, and then they're gonna be able to play the card of like,
• 1:17:34
  Okay, well we've got a little bit of struggle in the outfield and you
• 1:17:39
  know, Eddie Rosario just can't quite handle it anymore at this point, or
• 1:17:44
  something like that, Like he's easily got a spot. He will probably be
• 1:17:47
  the second best, third best player on that team when he arrives. You
• 1:17:51
  know, I think you can argue c j Abrams, Lane Thomas are probably
• 1:17:56
  one two there. But once once you get there, he's going to be
• 1:18:00
  an absolute monster in the middle of that lineup. It's just a matter of
• 1:18:04
  can they build something around him to make it make it interesting. So between
• 1:18:09
  those two guys, I'm actually probably more excited about low Perfido, just because
• 1:18:12
  the lineup and the like and the proximity that he is. Would I'm not
• 1:18:17
  going to be surprised if it's not until almost June that we see James Wood
• 1:18:21
  unless he just absolutely makes it untenable for them to keep him in the minors.
• 1:18:27
  Yeah, I agree that, Like, yeah, low Perfido probably comes
• 1:18:30
  up first, but I think in terms of talent ceiling, Wood's probably a
• 1:18:33
  little bit above him, and would will give you a little bit more on
• 1:18:36
  the stolee base side, I think too. Yeah, I agree, I
• 1:18:41
  think long term dnasty ways dynasty wise, James Wood is head and shoulders above
• 1:18:46
  low perffido as much as it hurts me, Yeah, okay, we're going
• 1:18:51
  to go with a little bit of I would say he's become a forgotten man,
• 1:18:57
  I think in our fantasy game compared to where he was being drafted in
• 1:19:01
  twenty twenty three drafts just last year, and that is second base with Miguel
• 1:19:05
  Vargas from the Los Angeles Dodgers. He has started off on a tear down
• 1:19:11
  a triple A as he has slashed two eighty six four twenty five five p
• 1:19:16
  thirty six. That's good for a one forty one WRC plus in seventy three
• 1:19:20
  plate appearances. And Vargas really struggled last year when he was given the second
• 1:19:27
  base job for the Dodgers, but that also came on the heels of breaking
• 1:19:30
  his pinky and spring training and then being hit on the thumb on again.
• 1:19:36
  Like things aren't very clear. I don't remember which hand or or you know,
• 1:19:43
  the thumb and the pinky happened with. It's kind of like the AUSSI
• 1:19:45
  Albi situation, but I think that nagged him all year last year and he
• 1:19:49
  never really got right. He just didn't look comfortable playing for the Dodgers.
• 1:19:55
  I think this is just great for the Dodgers overall, because they've got Gavin
• 1:20:00
  Lux really really struggling right now with a one fifty seven to eighteen one seventy
• 1:20:04
  six slash line in the Majors and if if they're ready, I think Miguel
• 1:20:11
  Vargas is probably ready for the Majors now finally, and what's really I think
• 1:20:15
  turned for Vargas. I wasn't as huge on him last year that like,
• 1:20:20
  I like the situation being on the Dodgers and everything, but he just was
• 1:20:25
  also carried a lot by great plate discipline during the miners. He's shown way
• 1:20:30
  more power now just in this opening part of Triple A. That five point
• 1:20:34
  thirty six slug is really a step up from him compared to where he was
• 1:20:41
  in Triple A last year and with the Majors. So Brew, what do
• 1:20:45
  you think in here about migl Vargas. Do you think that there is some
• 1:20:48
  viability for him being a m I or a second base for fantasy teams throughout
• 1:20:55
  the summer yeah, I think it really comes down to role for Vargus,
• 1:20:59
  like does he get a chance and they commit to him, Because to your
• 1:21:03
  point, I think last year was injury riddled and he struggled because of that,
• 1:21:10
  but he's still he still put together a decent season. And yeah,
• 1:21:15
  remember he was baby to death last year he had a two twenty four BABI
• 1:21:19
  where in the minor his baby has very consistently been like three thirty three forty,
• 1:21:24
  like one hundred points less, and so that that drove that average down
• 1:21:29
  below the Mendoza line. But in eighty games he had seven homers, stole
• 1:21:32
  three bases like amidst that in the spotlight now play, so I think that
• 1:21:39
  they're still there. But you hit the nail on the head with the plate
• 1:21:42
  discipline. This is a disciplined hitter. He he knows how to wait for
• 1:21:46
  his pitch and then capitalize on it. So I really do like Fargas.
• 1:21:51
  I think there's a lot to like there. I hope that he doesn't kind
• 1:21:57
  of get the well you get one shot and toss the side time thing because
• 1:22:00
  he doesn't have as big of a pedigree as like Lux did when he came
• 1:22:02
  up. But if if Lux gets hurt or something like that, which Lux
• 1:22:09
  feels like he gets hurt decent on too. Injuries has been the story of
• 1:22:12
  this podcast. But I think Vargas comes up and if he had, if
• 1:22:16
  he's got a really good path of that job, I'm very interested in him
• 1:22:19
  as a middle infielder and he might do a little bit more. Yeah,
• 1:22:24
  I think that's that's a great call. And yeah, just being plugged into
• 1:22:27
  the Dodgers lineup, if you can get any shares of that, it's such
• 1:22:30
  a boon. All right. With our next guy, this is gonna be
• 1:22:34
  our last of kind of these blue chippers. We're gonna dip down into Double
• 1:22:39
  A, where Carson Williams, shortstop for the Tampa Bay Rays, has just
• 1:22:45
  like James Wood, taking a really hot spring and kept it rolling into the
• 1:22:48
  minor leagues as he put up a one sixty six WRC plus. I've that
• 1:22:53
  was only eighteen plate appearances, so it's a little small sample sized theater there
• 1:22:58
  for him in spring training. But Williams and his first thirty six played appearances
• 1:23:01
  for Double A is slashing four h six, four seventy two, six fifty
• 1:23:06
  six. He is only twenty years old, doesn't turn twenty one till June.
• 1:23:13
  When I'm looking at where the trajectory of kind of his career is going.
• 1:23:17
  The strikeouts have been there, but he does have good plate discipline in
• 1:23:21
  terms of taking walks. It looks a lot like Anthony Volpi, but two
• 1:23:26
  years younger. And I think, honestly we might be looking at somebody here
• 1:23:30
  with Carson Williams going forward that getting into August September time might be in the
• 1:23:38
  talk for top ten, top five prospect for Fantasy, just if he keeps
• 1:23:43
  producing at this clip. He hit triple A last year for the Rays.
• 1:23:47
  I just don't see how the Rays find a way to keep him stashed in
• 1:23:54
  the miners if he's just going to be producing. You know, they are
• 1:23:58
  the Rays, So there is a way. Just be clear, there's somebody
• 1:24:02
  who can find that way. It's the Rockies of the race. But you
• 1:24:08
  know, I do agree with the talents there. The Vulpay cop is actually
• 1:24:13
  really really interesting because I think the other part about that is how much Vulpe
• 1:24:17
  did struggle last year getting called up. But like the growth you see in
• 1:24:20
  Vulpay from last year to this year is really something, and I think the
• 1:24:26
  same can be said for Williams, like, I think he has the talent
• 1:24:29
  to show up with the majors today and make it by, but you just
• 1:24:32
  worry about his confidence and what that would do for him. And so I
• 1:24:35
  think that there is a lot to like here. I do think he's called
• 1:24:40
  a player in the year. I think he struggles a little bit when he
• 1:24:42
  does make it up. So that's why I think that the races are going
• 1:24:45
  to keep him down in the minors for a lot longer than the other guys
• 1:24:48
  that we just talked about. But I you know, the strikeouts are a
• 1:24:53
  little concerning, but you know where he's at, and that thirty percent strikeout
• 1:24:59
  rate, that's that's manageable, right if you've got the speed, the power,
• 1:25:02
  those kind of things gonna have a little lower average. But you know,
• 1:25:05
  a twenty five twenty five guy is not the question here. Twenty five
• 1:25:11
  thirty five, Like, there's a ton of potential here. He's only you
• 1:25:15
  know, was twenty years old right now. Yeah, turns twenty one in
• 1:25:17
  June, and so you know, there is a lot to like about Carson
• 1:25:21
  Williams. He's the kind of guy that I think people might not know about
• 1:25:25
  as much right now, and especially in dynasty leagues. If there's any chance
• 1:25:30
  that he's out there or available, he's a guy to definitely pick up.
• 1:25:34
  He's probably not at this point, but maybe there's a chance. Yeah,
• 1:25:39
  But I mean, I think even in keeper leagues, you might want to
• 1:25:42
  start either like stash game in a minor league spot or keeping him on the
• 1:25:46
  watch list very closely, because I think it could turn pretty quickly that this
• 1:25:53
  was exactly the type of start that Carson Williams really need to get on all
• 1:25:57
  sorts of Raiders because now as the rest the season goes, he's already got
• 1:26:01
  this layer of good work that he's building on top of that, the numbers
• 1:26:05
  are going to look I think pretty good for quite a few months here for
• 1:26:08
  Carson Williams. Yep. Okay, Now we're going to go into some prospects
• 1:26:13
  that I mean, we got into it a little bit with the Sewn Bouchard,
• 1:26:16
  and it is my stick in the waiver Wire column that there is nothing
• 1:26:23
  better than just trying to find fantasy darlings in Colorado. And there's two outfielders
• 1:26:29
  that they've got down in the miners right now, one in double A one
• 1:26:31
  and triple A that could be coming for that, Sean Bouchard, Chris Bryant,
• 1:26:36
  spot or I mean, honestly, you're not looking at anything terribly special.
• 1:26:44
  Like from like I said Michael Tolia, You've got Nolan Jones who's really
• 1:26:48
  been struggling and you know, could play himself back to Triple A. Eluharis
• 1:26:55
  Montero's been just okay at first base. So you've got a lot of corner
• 1:27:00
  dh bat roles in Colorado that are open, and I'm really interested in this
• 1:27:04
  first one here. That is Jordan Beck, outfielder from the Colorado Rockies,
• 1:27:11
  one of their top ten prospects in the system. He was a pick back
• 1:27:16
  in twenty twenty two and is just been absolutely crushing the ball in Triple A.
• 1:27:23
  So far, He's got a two eighty eight, three ninety one,
• 1:27:26
  six seventy three line, So it's the the ISO is really there. The
• 1:27:30
  plate disciplines also intact. He's cut the strikeouts, which I think was really
• 1:27:35
  his main concern coming through from twenty twenty three was can he keep that k
• 1:27:43
  rate down? After he's struck out almost thirty two percent of the time at
• 1:27:45
  Double A, it's been twenty three percent its first sixty four plate appearances in
• 1:27:50
  Triple A, along with a fifteen point six percent walk rate. On top
• 1:27:56
  of it all, Jordan Beck can steal a few bases. So I think
• 1:27:59
  you're looking at somebody who can be like a twenty five to ten guy in
• 1:28:02
  Colorado. And yeah, I'm really liking when I'm seeing have twenty two year
• 1:28:06
  old Jordan Beck. What about you Brew, Yeah, I think there there's
• 1:28:12
  a lot like he. You know, he is actually one of those kind
• 1:28:14
  of guys that I'm a little bit more excited about in Colorado. He does
• 1:28:16
  have the pedigree. He does hit the ball in the air quite a bit,
• 1:28:21
  so he's a little bit more of a fly ball hitter, which is
• 1:28:25
  what you when if you're gonna be in that Colorado's what you want. So
• 1:28:30
  I think he has he has a lot of rapower. I think he's probably
• 1:28:32
  still growing into it even as we speak. But he's the kind of guy
• 1:28:39
  that can come up there, he's gonna get on base, so he's gonna
• 1:28:41
  be pretty reliable. And I think if I recall, he's also a relatively
• 1:28:46
  decent fielder, so I think just a good athlete overall. So I think
• 1:28:51
  that that's going to play play really well for him because he's been able to
• 1:28:55
  play relatively all across the outfield throughout his minor league career, So I think
• 1:29:00
  they're trying to prep him for that type of role when he gets to the
• 1:29:03
  major So you put him in just a little bit of wherever wherever you want
• 1:29:09
  to. So I like Jordan Beck. I think he does fly again a
• 1:29:14
  little under the radar just because he hasn't been as big of a household name
• 1:29:17
  and he's but he's never never not hit. He's never not hit, and
• 1:29:23
  he's always had that good play discipline. So I like Jordan Beck's. He's
• 1:29:27
  probably on the watch list type of guys, but I think he jumps up
• 1:29:30
  the list pretty quickly this year if he starts to or continues to do what
• 1:29:34
  he's doing. Yeah, I do agree, and I think this next guy
• 1:29:39
  can also go on that watch list. But I think it's really indicative of
• 1:29:44
  kind of where his career can go, because that is Benny Montgomery, also
• 1:29:48
  from the Rockies. He's down in double A right now. He was their
• 1:29:51
  first round pick back in twenty twenty one, eighth overall. Also pretty infamous
• 1:29:58
  in the card collecting world because he loves drawing, goofy stuff on his autograph
• 1:30:03
  cards. So he's a big collectible player from that perspective, but he has
• 1:30:11
  struggled making contact kind of coming through the miners, and it's just a matter
• 1:30:15
  of whether or not he can make enough contact. Because he swings, it's
• 1:30:20
  pretty hard to be able to stick. It's a little bit of like a
• 1:30:25
  Joey Gallow situation where you're just trying to see if it can all hang on
• 1:30:30
  enough in terms of being able to put the package together for the major league
• 1:30:36
  profile. Because also like young Joey Gallo, he's got good speed. He's
• 1:30:42
  got seventy great speed on fangrass, stole eighteen bags last year in High A
• 1:30:47
  and last year down the stretch, he especially kind of start looking better.
• 1:30:53
  You know, he was putting up k rates in the mid to upper twenties
• 1:30:58
  down in Complex ball and A Ball and even in Hi A. But he's
• 1:31:03
  opened with strikeouts in Double A. But it's also come with just like a
• 1:31:08
  good stat line overall is you know, it's only seven games, but he
• 1:31:11
  has put up a one to fifty five WRC plus with a couple of homers.
• 1:31:15
  Because this is a guy I think if he gets a chance to play
• 1:31:18
  in Colorado and can you know, get the opportunity to play half those games
• 1:31:25
  where I think the counting numbers from power and speed, like it could be
• 1:31:32
  almost like a twenty forty or it's all a little bit like if you took
• 1:31:36
  Jose Siri made him left or actually, Bennie mccomery is right hand, if
• 1:31:41
  you took Hose Siri and put him in Colorado, like what would it look
• 1:31:45
  like? And I think it would be a pretty valuable fantasy player. So
• 1:31:48
  Benni Montgomery is somebody that I'm keeping my eye on as we progress here through
• 1:31:55
  the next few months, because, like you said, with Beck, the
• 1:31:58
  pedigree is here. He's a form first rounder. We're just kind of waiting
• 1:32:01
  for some of those skills to gel together as he's only twenty one right now.
• 1:32:06
  In Double A. Yeah, he's been a little bit more volatile and
• 1:32:10
  so like you're still like, even what he's done this season, he's done
• 1:32:14
  it with a crazy high strikeout rate, babe through the roof. Like it's
• 1:32:17
  small sample size at this point, but like he did seem to figure some
• 1:32:20
  things out later last year. It's just with with Montgomery, it's like the
• 1:32:26
  skills are there, like, how reliable does he become? How much does
• 1:32:29
  he figure things out? I like beck a better of the two right now
• 1:32:33
  proximity time in the system figuring things out. But you know, it doesn't
• 1:32:38
  mean that Montgomery can't surpass him. I just think the range of outcomes on
• 1:32:42
  Montgomery right now is larger than it is for bec and he's further back in
• 1:32:45
  the system. He's still trying to figure the things out. But that's but
• 1:32:48
  he's definitely on that watch watch list that if he is does figure things out,
• 1:32:53
  like his skill set can really throw him up prospect rankings very quickly if
• 1:32:58
  it seems like he's got got things ironed out. He almost reminds me of
• 1:33:01
  Brendan Rodgers to a degree, which I'm not sure if that makes me feel
• 1:33:03
  good or bad when we talk about the Rockies. Yeah, that hopefully it
• 1:33:09
  doesn't have the injury history of Brendan Rodgers, because then that would help Benny
• 1:33:12
  Montgomery out a lot. Yes, exactly. Okay, Next we're gonna move
• 1:33:16
  on to our next kind of little pairing, and that is a couple of
• 1:33:19
  double A catchers that have started hot. So I especially like in dynasty and
• 1:33:25
  keeper leagues, keeping an eye on just hit her forward catchers because they can
• 1:33:30
  turn into you know, especially like I think about Yanyar Diez, you know,
• 1:33:34
  down in Houston, what he's been able to become over the past couple
• 1:33:38
  of years. And I think as the league it does look like automated ball
• 1:33:44
  strike system is going to come, probably in some form. I hope it's
• 1:33:46
  the Challenge system, But once that hits Major League Baseball, the ability to
• 1:33:54
  frame behind the plate's gonna be a lot less important. And as long as
• 1:33:58
  you can make the throw down to second for the stolen bases, I think
• 1:34:01
  you're gonna start seeing some more offensive forward facing catchers as well as in dynasty
• 1:34:09
  keeper situations. Honestly, young catchers are someone like the worst to keep,
• 1:34:13
  but they make great fodder for trades, you know, especially if you can
• 1:34:18
  find one that you can stick with maybe a little bit and find like the
• 1:34:23
  next yan your ideas, that'd be great. But you can also I think
• 1:34:27
  cycle through these guys a lot more that you know, people do love trying
• 1:34:30
  to latch onto the new fresh catcher in town because it's a brutal position to
• 1:34:35
  try to fill for fantasy sometimes and they're trying to also find that you on
• 1:34:40
  your ideas, it's just kind of you. I like to cycle through these
• 1:34:44
  types of guys a lot more often because eventually you can kind of find one
• 1:34:47
  that you like. But these are two that I'm really honed in on,
• 1:34:50
  and the first one we'll talk about is Moises by Asteros from the Cubs down
• 1:34:58
  in double A. I should also say the both these guys have opened with
• 1:35:00
  a one pin nine WRC plus, so they are crushing the ball pretty well.
• 1:35:04
  They're also known as bat first catchers in prospect rankings. But I especially
• 1:35:12
  like Byastereos because he's opened with a pretty good slash line of two sixty one,
• 1:35:17
  four fourteen, five sixty five in his first twenty nine plate appearances.
• 1:35:20
  But he's got a great eye at the plate. He's always run double digit
• 1:35:25
  walk rates for the most part when he's been coming through the miners for the
• 1:35:28
  Cubs, and the Cubs catching situations a little volatile right now. Miguel Amaya
• 1:35:32
  and Jan Gomes are holding it down right now, but it is a position
• 1:35:38
  where I don't think Miguel Amaya is necessarily the answered long term for the Cubs
• 1:35:42
  there, because I think they might be starting to move their sites towards by
• 1:35:45
  a Steros and seeing what he can provide, you know, in the minor
• 1:35:48
  league system going forward this year. Yeah, so I it's it's interesting.
• 1:35:54
  He's one of those guys that can absolutely hit. I don't think there's really
• 1:35:57
  any question about that. He hits the ball hard. The question with a
• 1:36:01
  guy like Ballisterios, it's kind of what you're getting that with bat first catchers
• 1:36:05
  is like does he stick as a catcher? Like is he gonna be good
• 1:36:09
  enough? Because if he doesn't, Like I don't know if you've really looked
• 1:36:12
  too much at Ballistero's like and watched him, but like he's he's like the
• 1:36:15
  portly guy, he's five to seven. Yeah, he's seen night Kirk sized,
• 1:36:23
  Yes, exactly, and it could work. But if Alejandra Kirk wasn't
• 1:36:28
  a catcher, was he good enough to be a d H Like That's that's
• 1:36:32
  the questions you can get with Ballisteros. So there's a lot to like there.
• 1:36:35
  He's he is holding his own like he was a nineteen year old all
• 1:36:41
  the way up to double A last year, and so like the fact that
• 1:36:46
  he was able to move that far through the system and hold his own shows
• 1:36:51
  you a lot, and so I think you're right. He liked The Cubs
• 1:36:56
  are hoping he's the future a catcher. I think the big wild card for
• 1:36:59
  him is is he a catcher? Like? Can he do that? Because
• 1:37:01
  he's not, I don't will replace that. That's that's the danger here.
• 1:37:04
  Sole Hey. Lets the bat developed figure the rest of it all later.
• 1:37:10
  Yeah, I think we have a fewer of those concerns with the second guy.
• 1:37:15
  And as Augustine Ramirez from the Yankees, who has just been torching Double
• 1:37:20
  A as a he's repeating it actually as a twenty two year old now this
• 1:37:25
  year. He got there. Last year, got one hundred and thirty nine
• 1:37:28
  played appearances. You know, struggled with that assignment, but that does happen
• 1:37:32
  a lot to lots of players. That going from High A to Double A
• 1:37:35
  is the hardest drump along the progression other than going up to the majors.
• 1:37:42
  But he has opened the season with six homers in his first forty two at
• 1:37:45
  bats down in Double A for the Yankees, and that has generated one nine
• 1:37:51
  nine WRC plus with a two fifty seven three eighty one seven to seventy one
• 1:37:56
  slash sign is a one forty three Babbitt because homers don't call count as balls
• 1:38:01
  and plays, which is pretty funny. But another guy with a great sense
• 1:38:05
  of the strike zone sub twenty k rates And again a little bit of like
• 1:38:11
  an unsolved situation at the catching position up in New York, as Austin Wells
• 1:38:16
  has struggled out of the gate and Joseh Travino is more of a defensive catcher
• 1:38:23
  at this point. Augustine is six feet tall, so there could be a
• 1:38:27
  future for him at first base if the catching thing doesn't work out, But
• 1:38:31
  everything that I've seen suggests that he's a good enough catcher to be able to
• 1:38:35
  make it that. Honestly, I wasn't really had I had beaceeros on my
• 1:38:42
  radar coming into this year because of his prospect status. Ramirez was not there.
• 1:38:45
  But I do think that going forward, Ramirez is going to be rising
• 1:38:49
  up a lot of deeper keeper dynasty catcher league list because the dude can hit.
• 1:38:58
  By all accounts. You know, popped eighteen homers last year in the
• 1:39:00
  minors and is a has a third of that already after just nine games right
• 1:39:05
  now in Double A. Yeah, I mean I'm kind of like you.
• 1:39:10
  I wasn't really tuned into Ramires in the season is as he's done. When
• 1:39:15
  he's done, like you start to look and like like where's the red flag?
• 1:39:19
  Like the red flag is he's still young and he's a catcher, and
• 1:39:24
  so like you're how much of that does he have to develop versus the hitting,
• 1:39:28
  like, but he seems like he can't. He's the guy that should
• 1:39:30
  be able to take a catcher. I don't think with any question, it's
• 1:39:32
  just how much time do you want to give him to develop? There?
• 1:39:35
  The Yankees have shown a willingness to call up the young guys and let them
• 1:39:40
  cut their teeth of the majors, which is kind of like not their thing
• 1:39:43
  in the past, so they're a little bit more willing to do that.
• 1:39:46
  I doubt he's called up anytime soon, but I think that late season cameo
• 1:39:51
  is not out of the question. But I'm thinking much more twenty twenty five
• 1:39:56
  for him, But he might be able to accelerate that if he keeps this
• 1:39:59
  up and he gets up to triple A. There' should be a lot there
• 1:40:01
  shoulda be a lot of eyes on Ramirez out here, and I think he's
• 1:40:05
  gonna jump up prospect rankings very very quickly for for folks and who you know,
• 1:40:14
  didn't really know what they were getting out of him when he signed,
• 1:40:17
  you know, really as I think he signed as a seventeen year old and
• 1:40:21
  he spent like, you know, fifteen years and rookie ball. But once
• 1:40:27
  he got out of there, then you know, he's he's He's showed a
• 1:40:31
  lot, so lots of power there, decent, decent average and to your
• 1:40:38
  point, I love catchers with with late discipline. I love him, and
• 1:40:42
  so there's there's a lot to like here. Yeah, And so I think
• 1:40:45
  the way I'm treating them going forward is especially if you're in like dynasty keeper
• 1:40:48
  situations, Ramirez has a chance today be this year, but I think there's
• 1:40:54
  a really good chance he's the starting Yankees catcher twenty twenty five opening day by
• 1:41:00
  Staros. I think he's probably not gonna sniff the big leagues unless Amaya and
• 1:41:05
  jan Gomez really fall apart this year, but I think could really rise next
• 1:41:12
  year and will probably be the Cubs like catcher the future, arriving second half
• 1:41:16
  of twenty twenty five into twenty twenty six. So if that aligns kind of
• 1:41:20
  with what you're looking for in dynasty keeper situations. I think these are probably
• 1:41:27
  two of the best offensive bat buys that you could be looking for. I
• 1:41:31
  could agree. Okay, well the next one. I mean, you've alreadlready
• 1:41:36
  been allowing me to talk about some of my darlings here, but the next
• 1:41:40
  one is like the darling of all the darlings, and that is my boy.
• 1:41:45
  Nacho Alvarez has opened up Double A on a tear Nacho Alvarez that is
• 1:41:49
  a shortstop for the Braves. I'm not sure if he'll stick at shortstop,
• 1:41:54
  but some sort of middle and field prospects. So he came up in some
• 1:41:59
  of our early season previews as last year he just brushed Hi A and all
• 1:42:04
  the reports back have been absolutely glowing about his hit tool. He's shown it
• 1:42:10
  again here in Double A as he's opened with a three h six three four
• 1:42:14
  thirty two, three thirty three line in his first forty four plate appearances.
• 1:42:17
  That's good for a one forty eight WRC plus and that comes after he holds
• 1:42:24
  his own as a twenty one year old in spring training this year too.
• 1:42:27
  So the plate discipline is there, eighteen point two percent walk rate, and
• 1:42:33
  I think this is like it is going to be an average first bat for
• 1:42:40
  sure, but enough stolen bases. I think that I'm not even trying to
• 1:42:45
  sure like who I would comp him to, but like, also the bat
• 1:42:50
  is good enough that like I wonder if the power comes. It's a little
• 1:42:54
  bit of it reminds me a little bit of like when Francisco Lindor was coming
• 1:42:58
  through, but obviously he was a little bit fielder. There's a sixty future
• 1:43:01
  grade field on Alvarez from Roade Grass right now or from Vanegrass right now,
• 1:43:08
  that it is possible that he's got the glove, but it took Glendor a
• 1:43:13
  lot of time to be able to find his power in the big leagues and
• 1:43:16
  coming through the minor leagues. That I wonder if Alvarez is in that vein
• 1:43:21
  two where he's just got a great feel for the strike zone, great feel
• 1:43:27
  for hitting the sweet spot, and as he grows into his body a little
• 1:43:31
  bit and develops rounds out that you're looking at a guy who will find that
• 1:43:35
  power, find like a twenty homer stroke you would think, and be able
• 1:43:40
  to hit somewhere around three hundred. That I really love what nAChR Alvarez can
• 1:43:45
  give in the future and Like I said in the beginning of the season that
• 1:43:49
  when the Braves traded Von Grissom, I think is because they knew they had
• 1:43:55
  not your Avarez coming through this system pretty quickly. Yeah, I think you're
• 1:43:59
  right there. And what's interesting is I think they're gonna make sure, you
• 1:44:02
  know, give him a little time in the in the miners, just to
• 1:44:05
  kind of see, you know, how season is, because I think I
• 1:44:09
  look at the Braves and I think they regret a little bit what they do
• 1:44:11
  with Vond and Grissom and how they kind of rushed him. Uh. They've
• 1:44:14
  they've been known to rush, I don't say rush, but but be aggressive
• 1:44:18
  with promoting minor leaguers, especially on the pitching side. But they've done that
• 1:44:23
  a little bit more on the on the hitting side as well, And so
• 1:44:26
  I feel like there will may be a little gun side shy after Grissom.
• 1:44:29
  You know, it'd be really would have been interesting if this Ozzie Alby's injury
• 1:44:32
  had happened like two months from now, and if Nacho was doing what he's
• 1:44:38
  doing, because I think fielding wise, he kind of called it like he's
• 1:44:41
  still a little questionable, a little questionable there. But if you move him
• 1:44:45
  over to second can't? Can he can he kind of cover that up a
• 1:44:48
  little bit. It'll be interesting you he's actually diached a little bit in the
• 1:44:54
  miners even just this this, uh just this season, and so you know,
• 1:45:00
  I think it'll be interesting to see, you know, if he gets
• 1:45:02
  any second base time and what what that could look like as he's you know,
• 1:45:09
  as we get more uh information on Albi's and what his injury looks like.
• 1:45:14
  So I I'm right there with you. I'm not as I'm not as
• 1:45:16
  in on Nacho as you are that there's nothing against Nacho. It means everything
• 1:45:20
  against you. But uh but I think there's a lot to like here.
• 1:45:26
  So yeah, again, the guy's name is Nacho. Yeah, Nacho problem,
• 1:45:31
  there's a lot to like. Okay, well I've been waiting all all
• 1:45:36
  podcasts for that, by the line, yeah, like two hours in.
• 1:45:42
  Uh, Okay, we've got two more guys. And I would call these
• 1:45:45
  the guys like for the sickos, because really with this exercise is born off
• 1:45:50
  of is I also go through manually, like the minor league leader boards,
• 1:45:57
  look at the mix of who who's been batting well, what their age to
• 1:46:02
  level is, what their walk rate is what their strikeout rate is. That's
• 1:46:06
  how I've been picking a lot of these guys going through the leaderboards is obviously
• 1:46:11
  sorting by WRC plus, but also trying to keep in mind all everyone that
• 1:46:15
  we've talked about so far has been young to level, and so I think
• 1:46:18
  that's a really huge way to find just future breakouts. And I typically do
• 1:46:26
  that like every month, just to like go through and see who's been hot
• 1:46:29
  for the month and then try to figure out if it has kind of reconfigured
• 1:46:33
  why or how we view some of these prospects and you know, what they
• 1:46:38
  might be able to bring to the major league level. So these last two
• 1:46:42
  that I've got our guys in Triple A who are extremely young to level that
• 1:46:46
  are I think well off of fantasy radars, but just based on the placement
• 1:46:51
  from the organization, there is some belief in the player from the team at
• 1:46:58
  themselves. And like I said, these guys are both young in Triple A
• 1:47:02
  and they've started really hot. That Triple A is now getting up to the
• 1:47:05
  point where you're around fifty ish plate appearances. So it's a super small sample
• 1:47:11
  size, but it's about where we were last week for the major league players
• 1:47:15
  and trying to find some skills that we could analyze. So this first one,
• 1:47:20
  I will gladly admit before we started like going through this exercise for this
• 1:47:25
  pod, I had never heard of him. And when I saw him at
• 1:47:30
  the top of the Triple A leaderboards, being only twenty four, I was
• 1:47:34
  like, Wow, where did this guy come from? And there's Adrian Delcastillo
• 1:47:39
  from the Arizona Diamondbacks that he currently is sporting a three sixty eight four fifteen
• 1:47:45
  eight sixteen line in Triple A as a catcher. He's left handed, so
• 1:47:50
  that's fantastic too because it allows him to make an easier platoon partner and giving
• 1:47:57
  a catcher days off at the major league level. But he's also been playing
• 1:48:01
  DH down in Triple A for Arizona here and there. I would guess he
• 1:48:06
  could probably swing it at first base. He is five to eleven, so
• 1:48:09
  not the tallest, but you would think that he could do it there.
• 1:48:14
  But yeah, if he can play catcher and hit like this, I think
• 1:48:18
  Arizona could find a spot for him in their lineup because he is repeating Triple
• 1:48:25
  A this year after he hit triple as a twenty three year old last year.
• 1:48:28
  He tore up Double A last year for one thirty four WRC plus.
• 1:48:31
  The k rate has been in the mid twenties as he's been coming through all
• 1:48:36
  the minor league stops. But again, great eye. He had a twelve
• 1:48:41
  percent walk rate as a twenty three year old in Triple A last year.
• 1:48:45
  That, like I said, this guy is coming out nowhere for me.
• 1:48:49
  But certainly I don't think I'm advocating going and pick him up, except for
• 1:48:54
  maybe like if you're super desperate in an only league, but if you are
• 1:49:00
  really scraping the bottom of the barrel in a dynasty keeper situation for your next
• 1:49:03
  catcher or just need somebody to keep an eye on. I've certainly added Adrian
• 1:49:09
  del Castillo from the Dbacks to all of my watch lists after today. Yes,
• 1:49:14
  I'll say I actually was aware of a Castillo coming in world because the
• 1:49:17
  card collecting side of things is he he did get a little helium when he
• 1:49:25
  first made his debut, and I think he hit pretty well right right out
• 1:49:30
  the gate, and he had a little bit of pedigree because he was I
• 1:49:33
  think he was a supplemental round draft pick. If I recall no, he
• 1:49:38
  was well, he was playing like the fourth round, So so supplemental is
• 1:49:45
  a loose term, I guess, but he was sixty seventh overall, and
• 1:49:47
  again I'm not sure how that works in the fourth round. So I don't
• 1:49:50
  trust the drafts, but I think that there's a lot to like here.
• 1:49:56
  He does have a little pedigree. There's he has hit well pretty mu much
• 1:50:00
  throughout the miners. The biggest issue here is this guy Gabby Moreno blocking him,
• 1:50:06
  and I think that's that's the issue. And the Dbacks do have enough
• 1:50:10
  like it feels like if you're throwing a lot of guys, a lot of
• 1:50:13
  guys that are trying to solve hitting, they just have a relatively deep hitting
• 1:50:17
  core. And so I don't see him making a debut anytime soon. But
• 1:50:24
  he's also one of those guys that you know, you're not shocked to see
• 1:50:28
  him be the backup catcher next year. And if he gets a gets an
• 1:50:32
  opportunity, he could really run with it. So there's it'll be interesting to
• 1:50:36
  see what what what he continues to do. But yeah, he's he's definitely
• 1:50:42
  intriguing. The more you look at Adrian del Castillo, Yeah, And I
• 1:50:48
  mean, honestly, I don't know if he's that far off because Jack Peterson
• 1:50:54
  is the d H there in Arizona, and I mean he seems to always
• 1:50:59
  go down with the hamstring here and there. Obviously, if Gabby Moreno I
• 1:51:02
  think is injured for any stretch of time for Arizona as well as Tucker Barnhardt
• 1:51:09
  is the backup there, so he is already left handed. Like Tucker Barnhart
• 1:51:14
  is in kind of that DFA ish backup catcher land where you know he's probably
• 1:51:19
  going to cycle through another half dozen teams before his career is over. But
• 1:51:25
  there is a little bit of a pathway here, and I think, especially
• 1:51:28
  if Arizona gets into a dog fight for a playoff spot, they might start
• 1:51:34
  busting out all the stops and trying to bring somebody like Delkesto up to be
• 1:51:40
  able to provide a little bit of an extra boost. But certainly in some
• 1:51:43
  way I'm keeping an eye on and I think enters just the overall fantasy discussion
• 1:51:50
  when I don't think he was probably on any radars except for the super deepest
• 1:51:56
  of Dynasty leagues out there before this year. Yep, I think you're right,
• 1:52:00
  he's uh, he's one to watch. Okay, the other one that
• 1:52:04
  I've got is Jose for mean, infielder from the Cardinals. Are Cardinals.
• 1:52:10
  So he is twenty five at Triple A and has opened his first forty nine
• 1:52:15
  plate appearances slash in three seventy five, four ninety six, seventy five.
• 1:52:18
  That's good for a one ninety seven WRC plus. But I also wanted to
• 1:52:23
  call this out because for me, was one of their better hitters in the
• 1:52:26
  spring that honestly, I was a little shocked that the Cardinals didn't want to
• 1:52:30
  carry for me, and it's at least a backup infielder to open the season.
• 1:52:34
  He kind of f lost that spot to Brandon Crawford, which is yep,
• 1:52:40
  I mean the trim presence, it is what it is. Yeah,
• 1:52:43
  didn't have enough bad in Saint Louis. And so this is also a guy
• 1:52:48
  who the contact rate, the strikeout rate is fantastic. I mean last year
• 1:52:56
  he did get a little taste of the majors in sixty one plate appearances,
• 1:53:00
  especially down the stretch when the Cardinals were not anywhere close to being in it
• 1:53:04
  that he got enough plate appearances to put up a walk rate that was respectful
• 1:53:10
  at thirteen point one percent. It's down to six point one percent right now
• 1:53:15
  in Triple A. But I this is just I think a really really steady
• 1:53:19
  bat and you're looking for kind of like the next Cardinals Devil Magic, Brendan
• 1:53:26
  Donovan guy donnov Or for me is somebody I think in like a you know,
• 1:53:32
  only league, I would be picking up to just throw in my reserves
• 1:53:35
  because the batting average, I think it's going to be way better than the
• 1:53:40
  two fifty that they're showing in the projections right now, because he just seems
• 1:53:45
  more ready than that based on the production that we've seen here to begin twenty
• 1:53:49
  twenty four between the spring and Triple A. Yeah, I'm probably not there
• 1:53:55
  with with you on Uh. For me here, it's you know, he
• 1:53:59
  looks the of those guys that is bat first, but bat only, and
• 1:54:02
  so you know, to your point, maybe that's the n i'll only league.
• 1:54:06
  Uh, You're that's the league where you're scraping to find a guy with
• 1:54:11
  plane time at times. So yeah, there's a little more intrigued there.
• 1:54:14
  But you know, he he's been those guys that he just he's never hit
• 1:54:17
  for much power. He he did way back when you know he was coming
• 1:54:23
  up with Cleveland back in like Brookie Ball, he did have some speed,
• 1:54:26
  but that really is not continued not seem to translate as he's gotten a little
• 1:54:30
  bit older and gotten to the upper levels of the minors. So I think
• 1:54:32
  it was pure athleticism versus uh, you know, really base stealing talent uh
• 1:54:39
  for for him and so you know, he's he's a little guy. He's
• 1:54:42
  not gonna gonna throw you away with power. So I'm I'm not too too
• 1:54:47
  torn up here on for me and h he's a guy that I'll I'll keep
• 1:54:50
  an eye on he gets called up. I just don't see him getting the
• 1:54:53
  playing time consistently in Saint Louis. I think you're gonna have to take a
• 1:54:58
  few injuries and a few guys getting older. But but behind you know,
• 1:55:04
  like a Gorman, you know, you know Edmund coming back. You've got
• 1:55:10
  Mason Wynn, you know Brendan Donovan, Matt Carpenter, Brandan Crawford like and
• 1:55:15
  yes, half of those guys are probably hurt, but there's just a long
• 1:55:19
  list to get through for him to get that playing time. And then he
• 1:55:24
  gets there outside of the Cardinals devil magic, which I will say that there's
• 1:55:27
  more to that that you can't calculate that one. I'm just not I'm not
• 1:55:32
  I'm not buying for me at this point, Okay, all right, I
• 1:55:36
  mean I do think that there's maybe a little bit more of a window in
• 1:55:39
  terms of like I think, especially if this Cardinals team keeps playing around five
• 1:55:44
  hundred, they've got to shake things up. And if for me, continues
• 1:55:48
  showing that he can hit down in Triple A, I think it's a great
• 1:55:53
  opportunity for him to be able to come up and work his way into at
• 1:55:57
  least a platoon situation, if not being to carve out something a little bit
• 1:56:01
  larger, because like, I don't know, I'm just not scared about some
• 1:56:04
  of those bench players there in Saint Louis That, Like, I mean,
• 1:56:08
  I'm not scared about the bench players. I'm scared about the management of the
• 1:56:10
  bench players. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that the the bench players,
• 1:56:14
  the talent levels a little questionable. So like if it, if there does
• 1:56:17
  become a situation where they've got to clear the vets out and bring in the
• 1:56:21
  talent, I think Germans probably amongst the first to get that call up from
• 1:56:27
  Triple A. So yeah, I think certainly somebody that's only in like the
• 1:56:31
  deepest of leagues like rosterble. But otherwise I'm just watching like just so that
• 1:56:36
  you're ready to be the fastest finger to them if you need to. But
• 1:56:42
  Okay, I that summed it up. That is that was I think a
• 1:56:45
  good stretch. I think we'll probably revisit this a little bit more during the
• 1:56:48
  summer as we get more data points, says, you know, we can
• 1:56:54
  look at monthly stretches throughout the miners and find guys who are popping here and
• 1:56:58
  there. Yeah, absolutely, this This is this is the way that you
• 1:57:01
  win leagues, whether it's a dynasty, whether it's a keeper league, even
• 1:57:06
  read draft leagues. If you know the guys that are coming through you,
• 1:57:10
  you're able to jump on a little bit early, like it's just a little
• 1:57:13
  extra that can put you up, or it's it's trade capital, Like I
• 1:57:16
  don't know how often, you know, you see teams and dynasty leagues like
• 1:57:19
  just can't seem to figured it out. And then you look at that one
• 1:57:23
  team that's just like how do they always have the guys that are the next
• 1:57:26
  best thing? And then they get to trade deadline, they flip a few
• 1:57:28
  of them, they make a run at the end of the season and then
• 1:57:31
  you look next season like how they do it again, Like those are the
• 1:57:34
  guys that are making it, making it happen. So there's there's a lot
• 1:57:39
  to be said for keeping an eye on what's happening and where those values are
• 1:57:42
  jumping in the miners. Yeah, and I think will especially it be great
• 1:57:46
  to get into some pictures here over the next couple of weeks too, because
• 1:57:49
  obviously as we got into it on the top of the show, that the
• 1:57:54
  injuries are decimating the player pool, and like we're gonna have to be hunting
• 1:57:58
  down those Bryce Millers and Brian bou and Andrew Rabbits that came through halfway through
• 1:58:02
  last season before other people get a chance at them. But most of the
• 1:58:06
  pictures have only gotten a start or two right now in the minors, So
• 1:58:11
  I'm going to give it a couple more starts before we really start picking apart
• 1:58:15
  some of that. And if you want, just because we made it through
• 1:58:16
  a whole show talking about injuries, Robert Stevens was just declared out for the
• 1:58:20
  entire season while we're making the pod, So Carlos Estevez is your guaranteed closer
• 1:58:26
  now for the angels. I'm not sure if that makes anybody feel better about
• 1:58:29
  Carlos Steves as a closer, but at least we have clarity. And for
• 1:58:34
  those people like me who love Robert Stevenson, that's why I made that news
• 1:58:39
  resolution, That's why I got stuck to it. I mean, how can
• 1:58:44
  I contract boom there for Robert Stevenson signed a three year, thirty three million
• 1:58:48
  dollars deal and then going down immediately with Tommy John. Yeah, we have
• 1:58:55
  seen that coming. Yeah, Okay, well, we're going to wrap it
• 1:58:58
  up now for this week brew Let everybody know where they can find you if
• 1:59:01
  they want to reach you. Yep, find me over on Twitter slash exit
• 1:59:05
  Jaybrewer one seven. Also find me over rasball on the weekend's up doing your
• 1:59:12
  top one hundred hitters for the rest of the season or your hitter profiles.
• 1:59:15
  We will be back out this weekend with our first rendition of the top one
• 1:59:19
  hundred hitters for the rest of the season, where we actually go through the
• 1:59:23
  full list and do a big refresh and shake it up. After we I'd
• 1:59:28
  like to say, after all the learnings of the first few weeks and who's
• 1:59:30
  hot and who's not, I think it's more of just moving. Everybody got
• 1:59:32
  injured down this time, so don't look back at the preseason because that's all
• 1:59:38
  wrong order to reset, recycle and go forward. So anyway, Mike,
• 1:59:42
  where can we find you? Yeah, you can find me on Twitter slash
• 1:59:46
  x at en Cool seven and on Blue Sky, and I am doing waiver
• 1:59:53
  wire pieces on Saturday on ras Ball, where I'm going through and helping you
• 1:59:58
  find guys to pick up week in week out. So, I mean,
• 2:00:00
  I had lots of people go down with injuries obviously this past couple weeks,
• 2:00:06
  so I can help you out in terms of finding players to replace those injured
• 2:00:12
  dudes for near term, long term, no term, and trying to maybe
• 2:00:17
  steer you away from some guys here and there, but usually I'm focusing on
• 2:00:20
  guys to pick up. You can also enter that chat every week as I
• 2:00:26
  can help you make specific recommendations because obviously we play in a bunch of different
• 2:00:30
  fantasy leagues, it's kind of tough to find players that fit every single situation
• 2:00:35
  in my column, but I can help hone in on individual pickups that you
• 2:00:42
  might have for your league. And you can find the pod on Twitter slash
• 2:00:46
  x at cards categories, and you can email the pod at Cardscategories at gmail
• 2:00:50
  dot com. If you especially think that those couple of prospect cuts at the
• 2:00:56
  end were not deep enough and not sicko enough for you, let us know
• 2:01:00
  some of the players that you might be looking at and we can dive into
• 2:01:03
  them and analyze them for you. You can find cards and categories gear in
• 2:01:09
  our show not show notes that there's a link to the store there. Check
• 2:01:14
  out some nice hats Phillip for your summer wardrobe. Yeah, it's coming right
• 2:01:19
  around the corner end of April here, so yeah. Thanks again. If
• 2:01:25
  you've checked out the pod for the first time, we would appreciate any reviews,
• 2:01:30
  likes, ratings. Wherever you're listening to this pod and we are playing
• 2:01:33
  to be back, same time, same place next week. We'll see you then.