Latest / The Scout and The Speculator / Angeibel Gomez is the Next Big Superstar - Planting the Flag
Transcript
- Jaba: Hello everybody, welcome back to the Scout and the Speculator Podcast. This is Will Jarvis, also known as Jabba Cards, joined as always by my co-host Jeremy Brown of Perfect Game Baseball, more importantly known as JGB, underscore cards underscore. And today we have jheremy: Sure. Jaba: a bit of a special report, breaking news, major episode, whatever you would like to call it. We're here to talk about what Angel Gomez is doing, how nuts he's going, what his market looks like, and why we think he is a potential future number one guy on all the consensus rankings. I think anyone who buys Bowman, follows Bowman, or the DSL, Anjou Gomez needs zero introduction. just one of the most talented and explosive prospects of twenty twenty six. Hype is growing fast, and let's see what the facts tell us. So Angible was signed with a $2.8 million bonus in 2025, I guess it would have been after 2025. Seventh highest bonus in the class, 6'2, 173 pounds center fielder, bats right, throws right from Venezuela. pretty outstanding 2026 year on the DSL. I think most people going into Bowman Chrome had him as the top chase, at least jheremy: Mm-hmm. Jaba: after Luis Hernandez struggled a little bit in single A. we'll talk a little bit more about Luis Hernandez later on. Some more news with him came out. why are we now two months after release doing a special podcast about a guy from the DSL? Well, if you haven't heard, they stuck him in the AFL at the last minute, which was pretty shocking. youngest guy in the AFL since twenty fourteen and we said at the time, hey, if he goes there and holds his own, it's a massive victory. You know, if he cannot look out of place, it's a great sign. Guess what folks? He's OPSing over nine hundred. jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: the first two games weren't great. And in about ten games since he's just been completely nuclear, really not striking out, and you know, he's hitting for power, he's hitting doubles, he's stealing bases, he's just kind of doing everything. Again, he is still 17 years old. He's not even 18. He can't go down to the store and buy Zins, much less, you know, some of these guys he's playing against are 24, 25 years old. So jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: pretty pretty ridiculous. Through nine games, 33 at bats. He's hitting 333 with a 906 OPS, eleven hits, three doubles, one triple, four walks to eight strikeouts, and three of those strikeouts came in the first game. And he's stolen four bases without being caught. So Jeremy, what stands out to you about Angel Gomez right now? jheremy: just everything. Just looking. I'm I'm scrolling eBay to see if there's anything that I can even buy at this point. 'Cause I don't own any of him. And I'm not sure I'm I I I feel like if I don't get something quick, he's gonna become kind of unattainable shortly. Jaba: Yeah. jheremy: like he was a kid that even throughout the spring you're watching like videos come through and it's like, damn, that swing's like really good. I like that swing a lot. And then it's like, he was a top sign and then You hear Luis, Luis, Luis, and then all of a sudden it's like, hey, Angebel, and then it's more Angebel. And then you see another swing of Angebel, and it's like that's the swing. that's the one that's gonna translate. That's the one that's gonna be good forever. That's the one like that should be. And he did it in the DSL, continue to rack it up there. And then he comes to the AFL, and like you said, there's probably kids in the stands, local Arizona high school kids coming to watch, and he's the same age as them. He's a high school junior by age. I think he turns when does he turn twenty? Do do we have that down quick? No. That's what I Jaba: he turns eighteen soon, I believe. jheremy: meant. 18, not twenty. He turns twenty in two years plus. But yeah. just like ever you ask for you on something specific, but like everything about him is just like advanced. You stack up what he did to like Made and Hos Joswar in their first year and like it's pretty damn impressive with what he was able to do, you know, like Trying to look, I we have a table for all three of them at once. And just like the the OBP, he wins there. The ISO, he wins there. Like Made's first year in the DSL or debut in the DA DSL, had a 220 223 ISO. Josor had a 168 ISO. Gomez almost had a 300 ISO at 292. Like his OPS had a number in front of the decimal, whereas Jos was an 859. So did Madez. He was at ten thirteen. But you look at the home runs. I I'm like reading and trying to find them all. It was six, four, and nine with Angebal having nine. Made's are always Made's number's gonna be the first 'cause we're gonna go in order. And you just continue to look. Like extra base hits twenty one, nineteen, twenty three. Stolen base. Made actually Joswar won that by a margin. It was twenty eight, thirty three, Jaba: Yeah. jheremy: fifteen. But like The biggest difference between those three, I guess, is Made and Josuar are middle infielders. Whereas Angebel's gonna be a center fielder. Jaba: Switchers, right? jheremy: Switch hits, yep. And compared to a center fielder, that shortstop's always gonna get the premium love. But at the end of the day, you still really have to hit as well to bring any value because if you're a glove for a shortstop with an empty stick, I'm trying to think. I I know you sent something about Luis Guillerme, but that's not like the example to use. But Jose Jaba: I go Strolling Caba. jheremy: Jose Iglesias, superb with the glove, had a light stick, and now like I mean Jaba: He's on Broadway. jheremy: Is he, actually? Jaba: Yeah, Candelita. jheremy: Fun facts with Jabba. Like like d are we overreacting, I guess is my question to you, with what he's doing in the AFL, or is it like is it so good that it's just unbelievable? And if you don't overreact or react accordingly, it's like You're not really taking it in for what he's doing at seventeen years old. Jaba: Yeah, I I I think the craziest part here is that the two guys we're comparing him to, I think Jesus Mate, you can comfortably call him the consensus number one right now. I know Willitz jheremy: huh. Jaba: is pushing, but I don't think anyone's gonna argue if we call Made the number one guy. Yoswar is easy top ten, where you wanna put him, who cares? But he's kinda out of the young guys who emerged last year, he's probably leading that crop. and Jabel Really, just looking at this table here, the only thing I can really say where he's at a disadvantage, if you want to call it that, is the fact that he's a righty hitting center fielder and not a switch hitting shortstop. Because Excuse me. Basically every single stat, he's not only beating these guys, but blowing them out of the water. I mean, jheremy: Uh-huh. Jaba: he had one less home run than Made and Yoswar did combined in the DSL. He jheremy: Right. Jaba: had ten more RBIs than Made, fourteen more than Yoswar. Again, I know RBIs aren't the greatest stat here, but they fit our narrative, so we're gonna use them. OPS, he was over a hundred points higher than Made and 250. What is that? Yeah, two hundred and fifty on the nose higher than Yoswar. The ISO's nuts. The on base percentage is nuts. I I mean there's really Andy also struck out the least. Yeah. Because you jheremy: I was gonna say he had the lowest K rate as well between all of and he had the lowest walk rate too, but it's like by one percentage or three perc between one and three, so Jaba: Yeah. jheremy: it's they're both drawing their they're all three are drawing their walks. But the strikeouts were s what? What where'd it go? Like five percent lower from Joswar and three percent lower like Jaba: Yeah, Made was thirteen percent K, Yosware was fifteen point eight, Anjuble's ten point six. And then you're probably thinking, okay, well he sacrificed some, quality of contact to be not striking out at that rate. Forty jheremy: No. Jaba: seven percent fly ball rate, Yosware was at thirty two, Made was at thirty. That's obviously very considerable, almost two and ten more fly balls than the other two guys. The swinging strike rate was also the lowest. Made was fourteen, jheremy: Mm-hmm. Jaba: Yosware nine and a half, Anjou eight point six. Contact rate was the highest, K rate was jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: the lowest. Literally just walk rate is the only one where he wasn't leading the pack and they were all clustered jheremy: In in s stolen bases. That's it. Jaba: within 250 basis points. jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: I mean that that's a matter of one or two walks. So like the surface data basically says he's leading in all these categories, and then you look at the contact discipline batted ball metrics and he's blowing everybody out and everything. jheremy: Mm-hmm. Jaba: And a again, we're not comparing him to, his peers in the DSL or Bowman Chrome this year. We're comparing him to the number one prospect in baseball and a top ten guy in baseball. And like like I said before, I'll say it again. Really the only thing you can nitpick and say, okay, it's less impressive is because he's a right-handed hitting center fielder and not a switch hitting shortstop. But like at the end of the day, center field obviously still a premium position. I know those baseball America guys were talking about how good of a fielder he is. in center field. I mean a premium defensive center fielder. Go look at Pet Crow Armstrong. Look how that impacts war. I'm not saying he's that good defensively, but I've seen, you know, 60, 70 grades thrown around. If he ends up being 60 at the MLB level, you're more than thrilled. I mean that's like J-Rod. jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: But just looking at the data all in, he's he was meaningfully better than Yoswar, he was better than Made, he produced the most, and there's a there's not only a statistical case for putting him alongside those names, there's a case that he's the best DSL performer of all those guys. And I think it's important to say we're not just looking at the DSL now, we're looking at the AFL as well. And obviously it's a small sample, but the jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: fact he's doing what he's doing is just so nuts to me. getting into the next metric we have here, Angevil also had the highest 90th percentile exit VLO just shy of 105 miles an hour. He's got that elite bat speed. If you put him up next to guys like Sebastian Walcott and Chase Harlan, probably the two best raw power tools in the AFL. He's like one and a half miles per hour behind them. which I'll let you talk about more, but I feel like if you're that far behind them at two or three years younger, that's probably a pretty good case jheremy: Mm-hmm. Jaba: to get there. hard hit rates and barrel rates, he's also better than Mate. So yeah, I I don't know. I can just talk about this guy all day, but I'll I'll kick it back to you to talk a little more. jheremy: I I was curious, so I I used Chat GPT to pull it for me and it pulled it from baseball savant. The MLB average bat speed is seventy one to seventy two miles an hour. Aaron Judge in twenty twenty six averaged seventy six point one, twenty twenty five averaged seventy six point nine. that's kind of impressive when you figure I mean, even Chase Harlan and Sebastian Walcott, like Walcott's matching the bat speed of Aaron Judge. And for Angebel to be doing seventy three right now, like seventy-three and a half at seventeen, is pretty damn impressive. we we kinda pulled we pulled off some numbers too, like Twitter. If you guys aren't using Twitter to help pull info, it's not necessarily you have to pull people's opinions unless you respect them and they they have like the I guess kind of like what's the word I'm looking for? Credibility. Jaba: Front ability. Ooh, that was good. jheremy: Credibility is the word for sure. a lot of people have opinions on there, but if you find the right guys, you can definitely learn things. And there's a lot of guys who have access to data that you can use. And like one guy that I'll read all this stuff's Adam Leighton. He put out a tweet that Gomez turned on a three two slider, hundred and eight off the barrel. And like you can go through and see everything in that pitch in double A, opponents hit one twenty against it with a fifty percent K rate. So basically a hellacious slider and a three two count in double A this year was swung and missed at fifty percent of the time, and Yield did a one twenty batting average against and like Gomez roped a double at one eight. Now that could just be an outlier. Does he have like the elite eye rec I eye discipline? Probably based off all of his other numbers, but still, like had a he had a three triple digit exit vilo in game on on a triple. Turn around a ninety seven Xander Muth. Heater for another double. there's just a lot of everything here with him that you like to see. Now, the hard hit rate, like you said, is there, the barrel rate is there comparatively to both Made and Gonzalez. And again, like I don't own any of his autos. And I probably should have bought some before we blew up or talked about I don't know how much of an impact we have on anybody. But like, that is For what he's doing is pretty otherworldly. Where if you see him start like juicing up in people's rankings, like don't be surprised. I don't know how much stock other people are gonna put into an AFL performance, but at the end of the day, and you've heard us say it a dozen times already, he's still seventeen years old doing this. Like, that is a high school junior, that is somebody getting that you're s gonna start learning about for the twenty twenty seven MLB draft next July. that's where we're at if we're placing him there. So nuts to think about when you put it in that context. how many kids stateside could go do what he's doing hitting three thirty three in the AFL right now? And yes, it is a thirty ap bat sample size, but like good lord. Jaba: Yeah, I I think if you wanna get into guys in the news, you look at Jackson Churio and he reached double A during his first stateside season, last guy to do that. I'm not like it's obviously an aggressive comparison. I don't think it's that nuts. I I mean you you look at Yoswar last year. Yoswar went to the complex. Obviously you get a later start when you're in the complex. I'm not calling it like a lost year, but like I do love when guys skip the complex, like Ellian Pena. For me, I don't even think there was ever really a question if Angebal was gonna go to the complex. I would just about bet my life now that he doesn't go to the complex. I I mean, do you see any world where he doesn't start the year in at least single A? I mean jheremy: It's almost like being here is his complex moment, this is his complex time. Jaba: Right. because if you put in the complex, you're putting against basically all those third round high school, you know, prep overslot pitchers. and he's doing all this against real minor league pitchers. Some of them are pretty bad, but like they've seen double A, they've seen triple A, they're real serious pitchers. jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: you know, I I I think assume he starts in single A. I I went and I looked At the Royals promotion history, how aggressive they are. Obviously, I'm not an expert. I'm not in that room. But you look at guys like Jack Caglione, Carter Jensen, both guys where when they were hitting, they were not hesitant to move them up fast. At the kind of first signs of mastering a level, they were moved up a level. Bobby Witt Jr. was a bit more of a project, but I also think when you have a second overall pick, you're kinda gonna handle him as carefully as possible. And he still debuted when he was, what, twenty one? jheremy: Mm-hmm. Jaba: I mean, the Royals don't It's not one of these teams like the Cincinnati Reds where, they put every high school pick in the complex. They repeat most of their DSL guys. I the Royals, from what I was reading, it it seems like if they have a reason to promote a guy and a guy seems like he's mastering a level, they're not gonna let him just kinda sit there and compile stats. They're gonna challenge jheremy: Mm-hmm. Jaba: him again, they're gonna move him. So I really don't think it's nuts to say you could reach double A next year as an eighteen year old. And then we're talking about a guy who just reached double A, he's eighteen, turned 19. He'll be 19 going into the season as a guy who's hit double A. That's a guy where if he catches on fire at spring training, you can see him make a roster. I know I'm getting crazy with the hyperbole here, but I I mean just like the things that Angeble makes me think. Like I was looking at Juan Soto's path through the minors. It it's it it's it jheremy: great. Now we're comparing it to a Hall of Famer. Jaba: it it's easy to get carried away, but jheremy: What did Babe Ruth do in his s age seventeen year? Jaba: Probably But yeah, I I jheremy: no I mean if Jaba: mean I I could just go on about all day. I'll let you talk a bit more 'cause I I'm just I mean get stuff. jheremy: I'm just like looking at prices. we talked about Made's price, and you get that obvious bump being having the number one next to your name on all the publications. Joe Swar last base auto did 125 on best offer prior to that was one fifteen. I know he was up one ten. I know he was up in that one thirty range, one forty range at a certain point. So Angebel's still not there yet. I think it's now probably only a matter of time. I just went and Jaba: Yeah. jheremy: looked. a red shimmer just sold. Today. Angebel. Jaba: Who? For what? jheremy: 33. On best offer. I didn't even see that one up there. That must have just that was literally today. and a gold shimmer did seven fifty and a gold a raw gold ink today did eighty two hundred. Nice. Jaba: Are you serious? jheremy: Swear to god. From a seller with zero feedback, but still. That's that's a spicy meatball right there. his mojo autos are doing a hundred. Base autos are doing I think people are right now are just buying. You go look at all of his best aut somebody that says ninety f I thought it said forty nine, it says ninety-four. I think people right now are going and scooping everything when you look at everything that has sold today on best offer. I don't know about that. I mean, a red shimmer for thirty three when I know his last true red just did eight. Like Probably a really good buy there and Jaba: Yeah, but I I also I saw a couple red sapphires over the weekend, did like nine K. So jheremy: Right. True. I just yeah, so thirty three for a shimmer is a hell of a deal for this guy. Especially when a Jaba: Yeah. A wave yesterday did like forty five hundred too. jheremy: Jesus. Just keep knocking them down. But then that gold ink at eighty two on best offer. Jaba: Is a red sapphire worth more than a red wave and a red shimmer? jheremy: I would say yes. Jaba: You'd hope for Yeah, for sure. Okay. jheremy: I think it would go behind a true red and then the wave and the other one follow. Wave and shimmer. If anyone disagrees or wants to weigh in on that, by all means. Jaba: Yeah, we're not experts on that. Please do give us your opinion if you play in that playground. jheremy: I still don't know why yellows don't do well. I think yellows are sharp looking cards. Orange mojo. But yeah, just looking at his prices, he's he's almost to that triple digit auto base auto price consistently. Jaba: Yeah, and you see the whales clearing out the high end market, I think that's always like the best sign. Like when you just cannot find high end or true color cards of a guy, that's when to me it signals, okay, people are really sitting on this guy. Like even you look at Luis Hernandez or Francisco Renteria, both of those guys have a good amount of color up. Angible, good luck finding anything. There's one gold that's been sitting up that's like maybe jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: the most off-center card I've ever seen. I saw the guy switched it to auction. recently 'cause it just wasn't going, but there's one true gold up that's terribly centered. I don't think there's any oranges, reds, blacks. and I checked the super fracture tracker. It appears that it has been pulled. No idea where that is or jheremy: What? Jaba: who got it, but they're probably feeling pretty good. I g I jheremy: There's a couple of Jaba: g I guess they can give Kern another feature, you know, buying the super the number one guy and saying that he's a you know He can see the future, like with the Churio and his Connor Griffin scouting report, but I'll leave it at that. Yeah. I it it's just nuts. jheremy: And I would throw that caveat out right now too of if you're gonna try to go on, like I'm looking at a ninety five dollar buy it now base auto. look at the photos at least. no check over. If there's a reason they're still there lower than what others have been selling, there might be a pretty clear dimple, might be off center. Don't just go snap by something. Take the extra minute. Jaba: Yeah. Yeah, and v value value tiers are coming back tomorrow at PSA, so it's gonna be forty bucks. So a one hundred dollar base, I'm not really sure what the math is on that, but you're getting back into you know, those cards being grade worthy, I would say at this point. So jheremy: Yeah. For the higher end names for sure. if you could pop a ten on an Angebel, it's probably gonna be a lower pop right now too. Jaba: Yeah, you'd probably get four hundred dollars for that right now. jheremy: Yeah. there's some refractors up for two sixty that I just looked over and there might be dimples on Might be some scuffs. 'cause I do want to buy something of him. Jaba: Yeah, so do I. jheremy: and I think the refractors are probably where I would want to lean right now when they're up for two sixty five OBO and bases are at a hundred. I'd rather I'd want to be like in that two twenty, two thirty range. But Jaba: Yeah. jheremy: they just aren't like I keep looking over and there's just Jaba: Yeah, there were there were a few auctions last week and I tried to get at two twenty five and they flew past. jheremy: Yeah, so I might just have to keep an eye out for Maybe I can find some at a card show that aren't horrendous. is I don't know. There's a couple of base Jaba: Yeah, so jheremy: autos, a blue ray wave ends today, a base sapphire. the Royal the the Royal Blue Sapphire color match. Base autos. there's one up at two twenty with seven hours left. I would like to play on that 'cause I have a Kendrick Churio but those things sell better than the green Sapphi autos because of that color match. So Jaba: Yeah. Well the green Safi autos like really don't sell that much better than the base. Has someone who bought a bunch of green Safi autos and then tried to sell really no difference. which Isn't great word to the wise out there. But yeah, I mean to close out on Angeble, I think I'm comfortable calling him a guy who's gonna be the number one prospect at some point in twenty twenty eight. I don't think it's that crazy. I think it more just depends on like when the guys ahead of him graduate jheremy: Mm-hmm. Jaba: and if he has the talent to do it. Because i i if there's like an incumbent ahead of him, he could get jammed up a little bit. But if we see like, you know, going into next year, if like Willetz is somehow up, Made should be right there. Yoswar, I mean I think he could pass Yoswar. You know, I I just don't think it's nuts to say that he could be the number one guy at some point in the next eighteen months. which jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: I recognize is a very bold claim, but he he he's that good, the data's that impressive. so I'm gonna say that Yeah. jheremy: He's done everything you could possibly do at this year, like this level. Like there I don't think there's a lot of question marks right now. The only question mark is like, how does he follow it up? Does he continue to do what he's doing? I mean, Jaba: Right. jheremy: all signs point to yes. And if he does that again, like I think he'll be on a rocket ship, so Jaba: And like you said to me the other day, there's still like three weeks left of the AFL. If he has like a two home run game or something, th this thing's gonna explode. jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: it's already kinda exploding. But I I can't imagine what things are gonna do if he goes out and has a two home run game or hits a grand slam, or i if really he does anything to keep getting social media hype, i it it's gonna just get even more out of control. And jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: I don't even wanna say out of control because that kind of implies that the prices are stupid. I really don't think they're stupid. If anything, I think he's a good buy. jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: but out of control in terms of that window could really slam shut any day now. jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: of him being remotely, remotely affordable. I know you wanted to mix in some at least jheremy: Yeah, it's not also it's not also fear mongering. It's just what we think could happen. So Jaba: Yeah. you wanted to talk a little bit jheremy: Yeah. Something that popped up yesterday was Luis, take it for what it is, it it doesn't impact cards at all. But Luis Fernandez did switch his agent I saw over to Scott Boris. So when Scott goes after somebody, he usually thinks pretty highly of him. again, not saying like, Scott Boris is his agent, he's worth a lot of money now, go buy everything. Like, no, it's just interesting to see when certain things like that happen. And guys switch from Boris, off Boris to Boris all the time. But just seeing him go after Luis Hernandez now is just like, okay. really nothing more to it, just that he switched and went over to Boris. That's it. Jaba: Yep, notable. Boris is an animal, like him or hate him. you know, there's a reason why everybody knows who he is. Yeah, jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: definitely notable if he's picking a guy off at that age. I know. Agents are starting younger and younger. jheremy: yeah. Jaba: you know, I don't wanna put a spotlight on you there and get into kinda what you see 'cause I don't wanna have you pooping where you eat. But yeah. Notable. Well jheremy: Hm. No, we s I'm friendly with a bunch of We see out at our events all the time, so it's all part of Jaba: Yeah. jheremy: it. No secret there. Jaba: So yeah, Luis Fernandez, again, a guy to know. We also think he's very good. And, you know, I do want to be clear, I think Yoswar is awesome. I think Jesus Mata is an animal. this isn't us saying, you know, dump those guys to buy Angible, it's more jheremy: Yeah. Jaba: saying Angible deserves a seat at that table. jheremy: those three names could very well find themselves in the top ten, if not the top five, by this time next year. And I don't think Jaba: Yeah. jheremy: and I don't think that would really surprise anybody, honestly. Jaba: Yeah, it it's not gonna take a ton. the we're jheremy: Right. Jaba: not gonna have to do a ton of work. angeble maybe. But yeah. Alright, so that wraps up this kind of emergency episode. Thank you everybody for listening. We are hoping to have Dahl on tomorrow. We are having Bob on for a pair of episodes on Friday. And yeah, excited to be pushing through the week here. Hopefully everyone likes this one. As always, feel free to give us any feedback, constructive criticism, negative criticism, send it to JGB. And yeah, hope everyone has an awesome. Awesome rest of their day whenever they're listening to this and let's go Mets. you guys.