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AFL Preview Episode 2 - Mesa Solar Sox · The Scout and The Speculator

• Jaba: Hello everybody, welcome back to the Scout and the Speculator Podcast. This is Will Jarvis, also known as Jabba Cards, on Instagram, eBay, all those fun places. Joined has always by my co-host Jeremy Brown of Perfect Game Baseball, but more importantly, JGB underscore cards underscore. ⁓ as always, this episode is brought to you by Prospect Pulse. That is prospectpulse v1.com. Absolute best place for all of your Bowman researching, collecting, and organizing needs. ⁓ just a great tool. We used it to help, you know, make our notes for this episode. ⁓ what is this episode? Today's episode is number two in our Arizona Fall League preview series. There's six teams, so this is number two of six. underscore_underscore_: Hmm. Jaba: And Jeremy, this is gonna be a bit of a tough one 'cause we just sat down and recorded the Glendale Desert Dogs, who are far and away the most stacked team in this product here. And ⁓ underscore_underscore_: Yeah. Jaba: Now we are doing the Mesa solar socks. ⁓ underscore_underscore_: Yep, I messed with the thing. We're both looking at the same chart. I messed with it for two seconds. I'll put it back in a second. So the Solar Sox, you have the Angels, the Athletics, the Blue Jays, the Cubs, and the Red Sox, right? So like decent. Did they send their best get best of the best? No, they didn't. But that's okay. The Angels did. Athletics did. Sent a good one. One emphasis on one with Bowman Auto. But yeah, I mean, we can still dive right in. Jaba: You're good. ⁓ The angels. underscore_underscore_: And kind of see what we have here. If there are some buying opportunities, if there's some that are just kind of older. ⁓ because as I look down, I see there's two guys from 22 Bowman draft in here. So that'll be a nice shock to the system. ⁓ let's just start right at the top with arguably I guess he's the best player here, pretty much by far. He's the only guy with a base auto north of fifteen dollars and fifteen fifty cents. ⁓ and that is Arjun Damala. Jaba: Yeah. underscore_underscore_: Who the Angels traded for at the deadline for Jose Soriano and Arjun has just gone on an absolute heater. Like, I don't even know the exact stats. He put up the last, I don't know, four games, but it's been like a diabolical run where he he's provided a lot of souvenirs since he in this last week. ⁓ Jaba: So yeah. underscore_underscore_: Obviously his prices were hot at release, right? First player of Indian descent to potentially make the big leagues. He's still twenty years old. He in even in high school he was young even right, you feel like br prospect fatigue here almost with him. But now he's like turning the corner big time. ⁓ even in high school there was swing and miss. And he was a string bean in high school. He's still listed only at six foot one ninety. Okay, that's not an only one ninety. He's gotten stronger. Jaba: Which is nuts. underscore_underscore_: But he was putting balls in premier events where other kids that were that are just as recognizable in the Bowman world weren't able to put baseballs. And he did this at like 155, 160 pounds. ⁓ it's a really long, fluid, like I wanna say economical, but that's not the correct word. But like efficient. No, I like economical more. In terms of his swing, it is like it's it's very fluid. Jaba: Efficient. Okay. underscore_underscore_: And now that kind of the I mean let's check his strikeouts this year. It's not horrendous. It's 89 to 54. So he has cut down on him actually. He's punched out 116 times last year, which is promising. ⁓ hasn't been able to unpack his suitcase, is suited up for five different teams. So he went from rookie, ⁓ clearly he was hurt three games to Dunedin and A ball for three games, up to Vancouver, got promoted to double A in New Hampshire where he actually Jaba: Yeah. underscore_underscore_: didn't do poorly. ⁓ and then s got went over to the rash ⁓ what is it, Rocket City trash pandas. The the old trash pandas. So I mean he's doing kind of what people would hope he would do when 24 draft came out. Yes, he's with the angels, but I feel like the angels are gonna get rid of that, ⁓ he's an angel prospect stigma, right? Where like they don't sell. I feel like now that old Uncle Stan is in charge of the team. Jaba: Grash. Yeah. underscore_underscore_: Like you might start seeing some things. They have some exciting pitching prospects coming up. I read a stat where they fired Mike Maddox as their pitching coach and they're just all of a sudden like the best pitching staff in all of the big leagues in every counting statistic. So when you have that and you have guys like Slavinski and Johnny ⁓ Talon Haley coming up and what Ryan Johnson's doing at the big league level, I think there's some Tyler Bremner, what he's doing. I think there's some juice in that system now. Even Sammy Natera shouts out to ⁓ twenty six Bowman Chrome. Jaba: Yeah. Yeah. Tyler Bremner. underscore_underscore_: Like he's been dominant in the bullpen. I think that's not good. Especially I think he's what twenty-six. Like there are like things to like with the system where it's going, where it's trending. ⁓ they drafted well again this year. You got a couple of West Coast kids and Jared Grinlinger and Gavin Grahovic is on an absolute nuclear tear. So ⁓ I think that's gonna be like kind of a fun team. Jaba: Yeah. He just got hurt again, which sucks. Yeah. underscore_underscore_: ⁓ with what they're doing moving forward and obviously what Arjun's able to do is gonna be at the forefront of it. Being in double A, there's a chance he debuts next year, I would say. Realistically, so and we we know they're not afraid to be aggressive. Maybe they'll change their philosophy now. ⁓ I mean second most expensive is another angel and he's your love child, so I'll let you talk about Jake Monroe. Jaba: Yeah. Yeah. Nothing else not. I I'm licking my lips for this one. Jake Monroe turned twenty-three four days ago, so you're gonna see twenty-three and be like, ⁓ he's too old. He played this whole year as a twenty-two year old. this guy just went completely nuts between high A and double A, played a half dozen more games in ⁓ double A than high A. Across both levels, nine hundred OPS, nineteen homers, sixty-three walks to ninety Ks. ⁓ you know, that's just a really good profile. ⁓ the OPS was actually a touch better. In double A, I mean it's marginal, but he he went from an 896 to a 903. You know, the power carried over, he hit 30 doubles between the two levels. ⁓ strikeouts went up a tiny bit at double A, but more of like a rounding error type thing than ⁓ you know, spike. downside, he's six two, two thirty. That's a lot of human being over at third base. ⁓ not sure how he is with the glove. ⁓ sounds like he's been okay. ⁓ that corner infield profile isn't. something you love, but I mean that slash line, you know, going into next year as a twenty-three-year-old, I don't think that should be a fifteen dollar slash line. I'm not saying it should be fifty bucks, but he should probably be twenty-five to thirty dollars because that's just a really impressive season he had. ⁓ underscore_underscore_: Uh-huh. Jaba: You know, I like the guy a lot. Again, I'm not saying, you know, he's a huge steal at the moment. I understand why, you know, there's not reason for concern, but why it's a bit hushed just because, you know, like you said, nobody really took the angels seriously until, you know, they basically had their equivalent of a Steve Cohen level owner transition going from like worst to best. ⁓ Monroe's also twenty on pipeline, which, you know, is dated and I think people will see that and just kind of be like, ugh. but you know, I think he's firmly in the top ten or twelve ⁓ of that crew. And, you know, I like him. ⁓ I think he should be twenty five thirty bucks. ⁓ I could see him, you know underscore_underscore_: Yeah. Jaba: Really launching some baseballs. and yeah, he's kinda like the perfect AFL guy where like, you know, we said last episode, this is more to get a sell window for guys that you're hanging on to, more than like a ⁓ wow, like this guy did this. I should go buy it while it's up. ⁓ but like if you have Jake Monroe, this is a good time to kinda check his box scores, check his prices. ⁓ and then yeah, we got kind of one more guy in that tier of I would say good Good players. ⁓ I'll let you take Brayson Guidez for the athletics because he he put together an awesome year as well. underscore_underscore_: Yeah. So he's arguably ⁓ let's look fully before I say anything. ⁓ yeah. I'd say he's probably the highest upside player here, I think. ⁓ but also a lot of risk there as well. ⁓ you look at him. He ⁓ what, eighteen all of this year. He turns nineteen in a week. Ten days from now he turns nineteen. ⁓ that's pretty impressive. He struck out a lot. Like just Jaba: Yeah. Yeah. underscore_underscore_: won't even try to sugarcoat that. Like a lot. ⁓ hit three hundred, hundred and thirty two strikeouts, twenty eight walks. He doesn't like to he doesn't like to watch pitches. Eight home runs, ⁓ twenty nine dubs. Like was lauded for his hitting when he came out in last year's international crap, but like all of eighteen and making it to high A, it's almost like the Luis Hernandez, like, ⁓ he struggled in A ball as a seventeen year old. Like put it in comparison and like Jaba: Yeah. Right. underscore_underscore_: I know a true blue sale just popped at 250, which like the one prior to that was 120 and 150. So like take that with a grain of salt. I don't think his market's moving that much for not a lot of reason, even though the title did say 18 and high A fire emoji. ⁓ But I don't think I I could see that being being him be him being one of the guys who gets some pump from like the writers. Jaba: Yeah. underscore_underscore_: around the league when they realize like his age level, what he's able to do, like probably able to w the type of swing you watch a couple in B P and it's like, ⁓ let's follow that one, you know? ⁓ Jaba: Yeah. Like you said, you know, the writers pumping him. This is kind of a, you know, don your tinfoil hats with me for a moment here. But he's one of the more I mean, Leo's out until next June, right? Devin Taylor's awesome, ⁓ but he just doesn't get that much love. You know, Gedez and Colome are kind of the two guys that are, you know, way far away that are really exciting. I guess Drew Burris, but he's a first round top ten. I'm thinking, you know, I feel like, you know, they're moving to Vegas. I feel like the MLB is gonna do a lot to kind of push the athletics to kind of get people going. Not saying that in like a ⁓ like they're like planting stuff, but like you would naturally think that they would be trying to promote underscore_underscore_: Yeah. He'll be a quick riser. Yeah. Jaba: The new team, right? And like drum up excitement. Guidez is the only guy at the AFL. I don't think that the AFL is the first place they're going to drum up excitement for a major league baseball team. But like, I don't know. It just feels to me like, and this goes for all the athletics. I feel like there's going to be a pop when they move to Vegas. Because I mean, that's a market with a lot of money, a lot of entertainment, right? Like, what do we know Vegas for? Throwing money around, you know, luxury, lavish. You know, you look at Raiders cards. Like, I saw some Carlos Mendoza. underscore_underscore_: Mm. Jaba: the cards and like I'm not gonna pretend to know the football market or anything about it, but like his cards are off the charts. ⁓ obviously he's not starting. This is gonna I was wondering why you started laughing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well underscore_underscore_: I mean if Carlos Mendoza cards are off the chart, imagine Fernando Mendoza's too. Imagine that. Not a football guy. Proof is in the pudding there. Jaba: I've I I've been hurt by the Mets so badly that all I can think of is Carlos Mendoza. Anyhow, Guidez, like you said, ⁓ you know, I'm not gonna go through the stats again, but he's he's funny, he's exciting, the strikeouts are really bad, but there's a lot there to like, and last thing on him I know at one point I think this probably changed has the year wrapped up, but at one point there were only four guys, eighteen years old and high A, and it was Willitz, ⁓ Caceres, Elian Pena, and Guidez. So So I mean that that is serious company here. ⁓ you know you don't get that if you're you know, if the organization doesn't like you. ⁓ going down a little bit, Duo of Cubs, you got anything on Juan Kabbada? underscore_underscore_: Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's little. He doesn't strike out. you you said there's gonna be some like ten minute episodes and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. We got nine kids nah nine kids. Nine guys with ⁓ sub ten dollar autos, all the way down to a buck sixty five average for Jake Bloss, who's already made the big leagues. ⁓ Kabata's probably the one of the more exciting names left here, like kind of a bat to ball profile. Twenty Jaba: Just by default, kind of. underscore_underscore_: Twenty eight punches in thirty one games, twelve walks, like didn't strike out at all last year either in the DSL. ⁓ kind of struggled on an A ball promotion looking at him. there's some guys as we go down the list that I'm a little more familiar with from their like high school days of everything as well, but Jaba: Yeah. Yeah, I mean underscore_underscore_: Is there anybody here? I mean we'll I'm gonna rapid fire through the names and then we'll go through them just so if you're listening to this, well you can only listen to this, not watch it, because we don't make it a visual. ⁓ you got Cade Snell at eight dollars and sixty-nine cents, Cubs, twenty-six Bowman, Brandon Barriera, twenty-two draft, six dollars and ninety cents. Azan Zanatello, twenty twenty-three draft, Red Sox, five twenty-eight, Antonio Anderson, twenty-four Bowman, ⁓ four fifty-four. Red Sox, Jake Cook, Blue Jays, twenty five draft, three dollars and twelve cents. Aaron Parker, twenty four draft, two dollars and thirty cents. Kenya Huggins, two dollars and twelve cents. He's not with the athletics. I believe his first was with the Reds in twenty two draft. And Jake Bloss now of the Blue Jays was a Houston Astro on his first in twenty four chrome at a dollar sixty five average. Though he is number twelve on the pipeline. Top ⁓ Jaba: Yeah. underscore_underscore_: Top one hundred or top thirty for the Jays, so Jaba: Yep. Higher than Jake Monroe for the Angels. ⁓ Yeah, I mean this is probably a sign of the names we're talking about. First thing that stands out to me. Aaron Parker's a catcher and he's five seven two ten. That's awesome. ⁓ he's also turning twenty four in January. He had nineteen homers and twelve steals in double A as a catcher. ⁓ which is a really good slash line, but he struck out like a third of the time. He's gonna be twenty four and he's a five seven catcher. I'm more saying that for like, ⁓ huh, you know, that's that's fun. ⁓ you know, I'm not touching him. Think Snell, you know, Cade Snell was the lone Cub in twenty twenty six Bowman. ⁓ you know, I never really looked at him 'cause nobody wanted him. I looked at the stats the other day, I was like, ⁓ he actually had a seven seventy six OPS and high A. Well guess what? He's twenty four. you know, that's just a no go, even with the great Cubs market. Rest of the names, you know, I really struggle to, you know, find any juice to talk about. I mean the two Red Sox guys are underscore_underscore_: Yeah. Yeah. Jaba: Okay, right. I mean Xanatello had an 865 OPS this year, only 126 at bats, ⁓ 7 homers, 12 steals, and he did that mostly in high A, which is nice. underscore_underscore_: Yeah. ⁓ and IA. I'm guessing he's been battling some injuries. He was young for the grade coming out of high school. One of those like parts like like tools over performance. Like super athletic, can run, has juice when he gets to it. Antonio Anderson, switch hitting catcher out of Georgia, who they paid pretty switch hitting shortstop, now a third baseman, never caught. Maybe little league. ⁓ another he was young for the age, able to play down. Jaba: Yeah. underscore_underscore_: Throughout his high school prep career, twenty one now. Made it to high A, I think, this year. Yeah, s whole year in high A. Nine pumps, seventeen ⁓ doubles. Strikeouts aren't horrendous by any means. had more hits than strikeouts on the year. We like that. Hit two seventy three with an eight twenty six. Like, he's a red sock. He's a red sock too. His colors like affordable. ⁓ Brandon Barriera was electric in high school. ⁓ he has Jaba: Yeah. They're both better than you would think, but like underscore_underscore_: I believe it's like twenty-six career innings. Or sixty-two maybe? Sixty-six. Like, he he's clearly been hurt. He's making his way back. The stuff's starting to return. Is that a guy I'm going to jump out to and start buying up the floor of true color? No. But kind of to go fully against what we said. If he has a good outing and you can jump on eBay and be the first one to fight some blue jays like true blue for like seven dollars shipped or ten dollars shipped, like yeah, man. Jaba: Sixty six. Yeah. underscore_underscore_: If you if you're able to be quick enough to get to the floor on some stuff and want to take a shot at sub twenty bucks, like have at it. And I think that goes for like the entire league. I'm not gonna say like don't do it. A couple years back I told myself, like, let's not go crazy when they do the first spring breakout game and I watch one inning in that one pitcher dominates. I did. I went it happened to be Braxton Ashcraft, so it worked out for me. But like Jaba: Yeah. underscore_underscore_: I watched one inning, I'm like, this is filthy. This is really good. I like the delivery. The stuff is good and I liked them in high school. Let's buy ⁓ I bought ⁓ It it worked out well. ⁓ but I tried to not do that to myself. Jaba: I think you're just making the case for why we shouldn't have ⁓ financial autonomy now. but underscore_underscore_: Correct. Then Kenya Huggins double A with the athletics. Six six six sixty three ⁓ ERA, ninety one innings, hundred and five punches. Fifty one walks with a three ⁓ eight average against. Big Body has always thrown hard. They say the command's been the issue. It's not been as bad, like as you would have expected just reading that, but like I don't know. Twenty three and double A with an inflated ERA. I'm ⁓ probably all set. Talked about Cook. Loss is a big league already. Has top scrum rookie stuff. yeah. I don't really have much much all take out there. Jaba: Yeah. I mean, if if you're looking for excitement, do yourself a favor, go listen to the ⁓ Glendale Desert Dogs episode. But at the same time, I mean this isn't you know. No. I mean underscore_underscore_: Hmm. This isn't a throwaway either, 'cause there are some that you could make moves on potentially if you track ⁓ And I think Guaidez might be like pretty good. Jaba: Yeah, I think Namala especially is reactive because as you had kind of mentioned briefly, he's like the first Indian I don't think he was Indian born, I think he's Canadian. you'd probably know better than me, so feel free to correct me. But, you know, he's kinda got that extra juice from that and I think more pe more eyeballs on him. underscore_underscore_: Mm-hmm. Jaba: And yeah, with those guys it obviously takes less to do more. ⁓ so you know, Namala's fun, he's obviously a household name. other than that, you know, I like Jake Monroe. ⁓ I love my Jake Munro cards. Unless he puts up some Barry Bonds numbers, I think in two months I'll just be saying I love Jake Monroe and nobody else loves Jake Monroe. ⁓ but yeah, I think Gwadez is probably the best buy here, but that's more just because of where he is. underscore_underscore_: Yeah. Jaba: And how quickly he advanced. ⁓ You know, he shouldn't be a $14 auto. Up the rest, I mean, both Red Sox guys have better numbers than you would think, right around five bucks. It's just neither's exciting. It's like they're a talented enough organization where it's like, you know, who are they jumping in front of? I mean, Jake Cook, he. underscore_underscore_: Yeah. We didn't talk about Jake Cook, I was just reading about him, like speed first guy, older. Jaba: Yeah, he he's a guy I bought a couple of cheap high-end stuff out of draft 'cause he was so cheap. ⁓ I know at the time of draft he was a very toolsy athletic, not the greatest baseball player. underscore_underscore_: Yeah. Like eighty runner, not a lot of juice. Like legit pipeline pipeline gave him a thirty power, but like he had five home runs, ten doubles, four triples, stole twenty two bags, has a two to one strikeout to walk. But like I I'm pretty sure he was hurt. 'Cause like he started in rookie ball, quickly quickly got up to A ball, played seventy two games and like the numbers are good, but then he's twenty three in A ball, so like is that po real power? Like Jaba: Yeah, eighty rounds fine. Yeah, no, he he missed a ton of time early. Yeah. But I will say, I just saw in pipeline, now I remember this. At Southern Mississippi he was a pitcher, as a freshman, and he basically Rick and Keeled. so he hasn't been a full time outfielder that long. They obviously love his underscore_underscore_: Yes. Mm. Jaba: ⁓ athleticism. It's just one of those profiles where if he was 19, I would be, you know, enamored by it. He's 23. He'll be 24 in the middle of next year. That's not great. I'm also saying he had a six percent strikeout rate in his last year of college. The strikeouts were bad this year. ⁓ So yeah, I mean he's not really getting juice or hit, but with an 80 run tool again, it's like, you know, if he can become a really good defensive center fielder, like if he can OPS 700, he's going to the MO be. side note, that's a lot of fun athletes in the ⁓ done it in outfield with Cook and Bullard. ⁓ two guys I lost money on this year. yeah. You got any other thoughts on any of these guys or are we good to wrap? Ken Kentya Huggins. Yeah. Alright. Well thank you as always everybody for listening. underscore_underscore_: Mm I'm think I'm good, yeah. Hey Jabbo, what song do New York Mets fans sing before the bottom of the ninth? Jaba: For the bottom of the ninth. They don't sing anything 'cause there is no bottom of the ninth. underscore_underscore_: There you go. Yeah. Jaba: Was that the answer? Okay. I got that quick. underscore_underscore_: Too quick. That wasn't a good one. I'll find a new one for the next one. Jaba: Did you make that up or did you find that on the Google machine? Alright, well, as always, let's go Mets. Thank you all for listening, and we will talk to you soon. Bye now. underscore_underscore_: I was Googling it.